 Good afternoon folks and welcome to today's City Council meeting. Madam Deputy City Clerk, can you please call the roll? Thank you mayor Councilmember Schwedhelm here councilmember Sawyer councilmember Natalie Rogers Councilmember McDonald here councilmember Fleming Councilmember or vice mayor Alvarez president and mayor Rogers here Has councilmember Fleming joined Let the record show that all councilmembers are present with the exception of councilmembers Fleming and Sawyer All right We'll start our day in closed session with item 2.1 If you would like to provide public comment on 2.1 going to hit the raise hand feature on your zoom And I'm going to kick it over to our team to handle public comment Mayor I see nobody Present in the chamber and no raised hands and we have no voicemail public comment on closed session All right, we'll go ahead and recess into closed session Hi, Pup. No, can we do a mic check, please? One second here. Let me connect my actual mic that I'll be using. Thank you Yes, I can hear you. Thank you Fantastic. All right. Thank you so much For those just joining the meeting live translation in Spanish is available and members of the public or staff wishing to listen in Spanish Can can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the zoom toolbar? It looks like a globe once you join the Spanish channel. We recommend you shut off the main audio So you only hear the Spanish translation Pablo can you please interpret and then I'll put you in the Spanish channel Thank you Thank you. I'll promote you now. All right, everybody. Let's resume our meeting madam deputy city clerk Can you please call the roll? Thank you, mayor councilmember Schwedhelm here councilmember Sawyer councilmember Natalie Rogers Councilmember McDonald here councilmember Fleming Vice mayor Alvarez President and Mayor Rogers here Let the record show all council members are present with the exception of councilmember Sawyer and Fleming All right, madam city manager, let's move on to item 3.1. Thank you. Good afternoon item 3.1 is the draft 2023 to 2031 housing element review Amy Lau supervising planner will present the report. Thank you Good afternoon apologies. I was just getting promoted Good afternoon mayor Rogers and members of the council this afternoon We will be talking about our draft housing element and thank you for pulling up the presentation Is it Dina or Sandy advancing slides today? It's Sandy doing the slides. Thank you so much Sandy So I'll be running through this presentation, but Sandy. I'll have you go back to a couple points When we get to the end, so I'll let you know what slide numbers those are. So I really appreciate your help tonight Thanks this afternoon. I should say So presenting today With myself will also be Cynthia Walsh with place works who is our consultant who helped us draft our housing element So with that, let's go on to the next slide So this is our draft housing element And this is part of our general plan update or Santa Rosa forward This particular element has different requirements, which we'll talk about But we are taking this on a little bit of a faster schedule than the rest of the general plan itself So today we will be talking about the housing element requirements The outreach that we've done specific to this effort And some of the other components about our regional housing needs allocation and the requirements for site inventory And then also our housing element policies and programs And then finally I'll I'll end with our schedule Next slide, please And I'm going to do my best to talk slowly because I know we've got interpretation for this meeting um, so we have um, a little bit of a heightened schedule Review for this housing element I just wanted to note that our general plan In process is looking at a horizon Europe 2050 Where our housing elements are on an eight year cycle So what's before you today is really looking at just an eight year time period From 2023 to 2031 So it's a little bit different and a little bit of a smaller chunk And this is one of the elements that is actually required to be certified by the state So it is somewhat unique and much of what's in our housing element is Regulated by state law and required by state law This is one of two times you'll be seeing this housing element Because we are going to be submitting this draft to housing community development And they will have 90 days to review it provide us comments And hopefully we will only have one round with review with them And then we will Go through and finalized our housing element and bring it back to you for final adoption As well as planning commission review this winter So we are required to adopt our housing element by january 31st of 2023 And we'll talk a little more about the schedule at the end of the presentation But one of the things we want you to know right now is so far we are on time We are on budget And we are out in front of a lot of the other jurisdictions at this moment Because of the way the cycle has gone and a lot of the new housing legislation It's been very challenging and we were fortunate enough to have already been in A comprehensive general plan update And we have great consultants on board. So we have Good circumstances to really make sure that we get this done on time All right next slide please So the the housing element components This is a very Big element very big document. We do have paper copies. I know a few members of the public have requested them We have those available to all our decision makers as well But it is a very hefty document. So state law requires a variety of different components And one of which is somewhat unique is that it requires us to look at Our our previous housing element and previous programs to see how effective they were and were there any constraints Are there any program needs that go beyond what we previously had? And then it also looks at a housing needs assessment, which is um our a normal requirement But recent state law actually requires us to go further and do a fair housing assessment So we're doing what's called affirmatively furthering fair housing. So we have an additional component that really looks at Our vulnerable populations Racial segregation and all those things that have gone into why our community is The way it is and what constraints and barriers have there been to housing The other component is our site inventory and we'll get into depth on that But really we have to show the state that we have adequate capacity to accommodate the allocation that we've been assigned And then as any other element of the general plan does include policies and programs Next slide, please So we've done quite a bit of public outreach for not just the housing element, but our general plan in total So specific to our housing element. We have done We have done interviews with specific service providers in our community Um, we have been doing workshops with the community. So we did do a joint study session Last fall, as you may remember with the planning commission and your council We've done a community workshop in march of this year We also did an online survey and those results of the survey are in your staff report package tonight And we have also been working with other jurisdictions. So we did receive a grant from the regional government To work collaboratively with Sonoma and Napa county jurisdictions So there has been a working group and we've been Diving into a variety of different things But part of that working group included At a focal point on equity And so we did have an equity working group that was supporting Sonoma and Napa jurisdictions and providing us feedbacks on the barriers of to housing And all, you know, all those things that touch housing Well, it was really great feedback to have from them And then of course we have been engaged in our general plan comprehensive update and we have been engaged with the community And doing outreach over the last Almost two years now And so that also has touched on housing quite a bit as housing is one of the focal points of our community And um one of the needs we have Next slide, please So one of the major components of this heli housing element work is The regional housing needs allocation or assessment. And so we call this just Rina and um, so you've probably heard this term thrown around and it's um It's a little bit of a different concept to understand because it is one of those areas where as local government Um, the state does take a lead role in telling us how much housing we need to plan for So the state determines what the regional need is and they provide that to our regional government Which is a bag association of bay area governments And a bag was charged with creating a methodology to distribute this allocation amongst all of our nine county bay area and all the cities And so that helped happened over the last year and a half Our since santa rosa team was involved with that And so what they've come back with is how much each jurisdiction needs to produce At various affordability levels next slide, please and So the rina As I mentioned, we're only looking at an eight-year period of time And this particular cycle has been challenging because there's been a lot of changes to state law And the amounts of that we need to produce have gotten higher Ours is stay relatively consistent But the amount of lower income units has increased 20% So now we are being asked to create and plan for an additional amount of lower income units Then we have produced previously Hcd also requires that we have a buffer So we're not just planning for this number, but we also have to have a buffer beyond that for all the various income levels and The site inventory Needs to have met state requirements. So there's a lot of requirements around Which properties can be in our inventory and If they were in our previous inventory, we have to tell The state why they weren't developed or why it is still considered feasible And as we go through this next eight years, there are also regulations about not having Any of those sites removed. So we need to have a no net loss situation So there's enough buffer that one of our sites is not developed into housing We have other sites in the wings that will show that we have sufficient capacity Next slide, please So this next slide shows the breakdown for the Sonoma county jurisdictions And where we fall in this So we did receive the largest allocation And then of course the county Petaluma and runner park as having those larger allocations And this is the breakdown that shows how the state is asking us to plan for these units As I said, we have quite a marked increase in what we're being asked to produce for the very low income and low income amounts Next slide, please So the next thing we want to talk about is How we have been doing on our last cycles with rena this last cycle that will end shortly is up here on the screen for you and This shows the The numbers that we've been asked to plan for and then our total production So year by year you can see how we have done this last year. We did very well Um, we've actually produced 211 very low income units and 190 Low income units and a lot of that was due to the tax credits related to disaster recovery But in general, it is very challenging to meet our allocation And we have not been successful in meeting this for a number of reasons First and foremost, we do not control the market We are doing our very best to Remove barriers to development To make sure we have adequate sites zones and streamlined in a way where The development can happen And that's done through a variety of ways through our specific plans On the streamlining opportunity we offer through that And I think the other the other piece of the pie to this Is our the fire recovery that we have gone through in 2017 and 2020 A lot of our Construction industry has been focused on rebuilding and not on building new units So that has been another reason why this cycle has been very challenging Next slide, please So looking back even further on the previous two cycles You'll see we also did not meet those rena goals in previous cycles Although we have met the above moderate income Number of units those very low and low income units have been very challenging because those Units require An additional financing to our development community to be able to create and as I noted this last year We've had a lot of benefits from those Disaster recovery tax credits But of course we hope we don't have to be in a situation to be eligible for those The other part of the story for these last few cycles Is the work that we've done that you've directed us to do on housing policy You may be familiar with our housing action plan That was really looking at not just planning a regulation But all aspects of the development pipeline to make sure that we had Streamlined as much as possible And reviewed our fees Really everything every touch point we have At the city to be able to produce housing. We wanted to make sure to facilitate And so that has been very successful During this time period. We were also Going through a recession for part of that time We've also done quite a bit of work on accessory dwelling units And not just doing the minimum that state law has required But really going the extra step to incentivize and to be out front and When we look at our planning for this next cycle, you'll see that that's actually been very beneficial And we are hoping that more people will will build those units All right next slide, please So moving forward with our our next cycle on what's in this draft housing element today So we start with the sites that we had last round And we really want to look at those sites and determine why weren't they developed? Are they still feasible? Are those property owners still interested? And so we have actually submitted some of those sites to a developer panel through our sonoma nappa collaborative to get Refined comments as to why they don't work or what programs are necessary or funding to be able to facilitate development So that'll be part of our package to hcd for some of those existing sites And we have actually removed quite a few of those sites Knowing there's environmental constraints or other feasibility issues The other thing we do is we look to see how what is our pending development list look like We have a lot of projects that have been entitled but have not developed yet So we do look at that pending list and consider that in our pipeline For this next housing element We also look at vacant sites. So we do Do a deep dive on those sites and we're really focused on properties that are at least a half acre smaller than 10 acres So really looking at that sweet spot of properties that may be ripe for multifamily housing or Low very low income And then we also look at our our adu production Next slide, please So if you put all of this on a map, we're looking at our proposed inventory And this component is really looking at approved and pending project capacity So as you can see, we have quite a few units that are pending Um, and this is really looking at And you can see the the light yellow is our priority development areas So most of those areas have specific plans in place that help to streamline that development This map also has the wild land urban interface in pink for your awareness Next slide, please And as we look at our vacant site capacity We are breaking this out Between what's in the downtown stationary specific plan and what is outside the downtown stationary specific plan So this is the outside And i'll tell you why we're differentiating the two shortly But so all these purple dots are the above moderate And blue dots are moderate And green are our lower income So these sites are what we've identified as potential sites that we have vacant within the capacity now To be able to accomplish the allocation that we have before us next slide, please So this next slide is looking at specifically our downtown And i want to describe why we are differentiating This specific plan from others and that's because we have removed density from our downtown As you remember back in 2020 when we adopted this plan We created ultimate flexibility in The type of Of development that can occur So we do not dictate that it's housing. We do not dictate the number of Units per property per acreage We're using floor area ratio And that's a hard case to make to the state that these sites will develop into housing If we are not requiring them to be housing So we are taking a conservative approach to what's vacant downtown and what can we make the case for? to be able to Show that we have adequate capacity All right next slide please So one of the other points that We want to talk with you today about is the discussion around Identifying potential sites within the wildland urban interface So we do have quite a few sites identified in the wooey and that is because Hcd has provided this direction that we can identify Rebuild sites within this inventory. So Some of these sites are Have not had rebuilds yet So we can identify them We are not proposing to rezone any sites. We're just recognizing existing development opportunity So there's no intensification within these Wooey areas. It's really just recognizing. What is there now? and so We Also will be coming back to this the end of the presentation because this is a discussion point that we want Your feedback on Before we submit our draft housing element to hcd Next slide please now the other piece of this Is our accessory dwelling units As i've mentioned, we've done quite a bit of policy work over the years and state legislation has Occurred as well. So there's been a lot of emphasis on increasing adoos and jurisdictions across california We've been very successful and And this shows just over the years how many adoos we've had in production and so We are taking a conservative approach in projecting how many more we can expect in this next housing cycle So we are projecting about 577 adoos to occur Next slide, please Amy, I'm sorry to interrupt your flow. Can I put this on hold for one minute while I promote our other interpreter? Absolutely. No, thank you Thank you. Um, and you said next slide Yes, please. Thank you so much. Okay, please go ahead so this slide is uh, really looking at what our Request is for rena. What are we planning for in the far left and then what our capacity is For all the things that we've just gone through. So those pending developments The vacant sites the vacant sites within the downtown That projected a number of adoos And so in the light pink, this is what we have in total capacity This looks like a big number, but it actually isn't Because we do need to have a buffer So our inventory work that we've done so far has identified the the dots on the map that you've seen But we need to identify beyond that to be able to tell the case to the hcd That if some of those sites do not result in housing, we have sufficient Buffer beyond that And so that is a state law requirement approach to the downtown stationary specific plan capacity So you'll see that we are projecting 1,362 sites or units within that downtown As you may remember our What we assessed for that specific plan was around 7 000 units But because we do provide that maximum flexibility to the development community and the shift from density to floor area ratio We are Making the case to hcd That we can create at least 1300 units In our downtown area But this is an unknown and we are hoping that hcd will Agree with us that we trust that there will be a good amount going to housing And of that amount you'll see that we have projected about a thousand units of very low and low income within the downtown plan area And that is simply because then the sites themselves Are large enough to be able to accommodate that type of multifamily housing So it's a little bit of a Of a numbers game to make sure we have the capacity, but also to make sure we're adhering to the guidance by the state So we can't promise that there would be a multifamily low income Opportunity on a very small site. We need to have those larger sites to show that capacity Next slide please So another discussion point that we want to talk to you all about today Is a request that we've received from the county of sonoma There are two letters within the staff report package before you this afternoon and So really what their request is is asking us to absorb some of their allocation that they've been assigned and this type of Of swap or rena exchange Is uh, very limited So under state law it can only happen in two different ways First it can happen during this window between getting our allocation from a bag And adoption of our housing element. So we are within that window Where jurisdictions You know within the cycle can entertain such a request The other option is during annexation So at the time of an annexation there can be an agreement between A city and a county as to the number of units that can be exchanged during that time So previous cycles there could have been additional horse trading But state law has really tightened that that process significantly And so the county is also working on their housing elements They have also been engaged in a project to rezone sites to increase densities And that's been a process for a couple years in anticipation of this housing element And they Did see an increase in their allocation And did file an appeal with a bag for their allocation Windsor also appealed. Those were the only two jurisdictions in Sonoma county that made an appeal to the rena allocation Neither one were successful So the county has made a request of us to absorb 1800 units We've extrapolated the breakdown of income on the screen here to show What how that 1800 units would fall as far as the different income categories that we would need to plan for And Of course this cycle there is a greater percentage For very low income and low income. So you'll see those numbers there And then I just wanted to read a little bit from their letter about their reasoning We received a letter on april 18th and then a follow-up letter May 20th and their reasoning for making the request relates to the urban growth boundaries And directing future growth inside the cities and the city's urban growth boundaries Laugh goes prohibition of urban services outside of those urban growth boundaries community separators and And then also they note our Our downtown station area plan with the 7 000 units of housing being planned And then the city and county's recognition Of planning efforts that need to take place in south santa rosa And then also the commitment of the 10 million to the renewal enterprise district from the board of supervisors So along with that request on the second letter, they do have a An attachment with additional information And from a bag as to how that allocation has come forward so We will be coming back to this to really talk about What's What's next and to get your Feedback on how to move forward But I will say for the process if we were to entertain this request the county would have to create an analysis and Ask a bag the regional government to approve the request So we need to show that this exchange meets the methodology and the state law And after a bag Makes their approval then housing and community development would also need to approve So there is a fair amount of process involved in this And so we will come back to this At the end of the presentation Next slide, please And in anticipation of this discussion We've put together kind of a what if Looking at our inventory and our buffer calculations So this slide is a little busy. It's got a lot of color and a lot of numbers, but basically And we can come back to this later as well But if we're going to be asking the question about Are we comfortable with the units being identified within the wooey within the wildland urban interface? and Most of those units identified are Are above moderate units mainly because of the parcel size And so we do Show on this what would happen if we moved sites from the that wooey area into the rest of the city for our inventory And and then what would that do to our buffer? And then on top of that Looking at the county's request and that income breakdown What would that do to our buffer? So you can see on the far right That our buffer for very low and low income would go down to four percent For moderate it would be less than a percent. So This would cause us to go back and do additional inventory work And so we can walk through that and the implications of that When we get to those points in time Next slide, please And then at this point, um if she's been promoted I'd like to turn this over to Cynthia with our place works team Yes, I have been promoted. Good afternoon. Cynthia Walsh with place works Now that you've kind of walked through an overview of the housing element all the different pieces of it The one remaining section is the housing programs And as a part of this process, we first do A review of the sixth cycle housing element and we look at the programs that have been completed What we could carry forward. Um, what should be slightly modified? We also identify new programs to address comments that we've received on the draft Input that we've received during our outreach and then to address any new state law requirements So as a part of this program process We have a total of 25 programs identified for the next eight year timeframe from the 2023 to 2031 timeframe There are seven programs that we've identified to continue without modifications Um, we have 18 programs that have been slightly modified and modified can mean that the programs were combined to strengthen them Or to make them more streamlined Or just to add additional text to that We also have eight new programs and as I mentioned that is mainly to address comments that we've received new state law And things to strengthen our analysis in the housing element Um proposed changes were made. Um, as I mentioned as a result of comments and of new state law Next slide So i'm going to walk through a few of the different programs that have been included to address some of the new state law SB 166. This is ensuring that the city consistently maintains an adequate sites inventory As amy was just mentioning a buffer So you want to identify a decent buffer so that you're not in what's called a no net loss situation SB 166 is tied to the no net loss requirement And this means as projects come in and they develop maybe at a different income category or a different unit count But you still have surplus to maintain The income categories throughout the entire eight year planning period. So we've included program h1 to address that AB 686 This is the brand new section of the housing element regarding affirmatively furthering fair housing And you'll kind of see this sprinkled throughout all of the programs But we do have these specific programs tied to fair housing, which are 23 24 25 and 26 AB 1397 This is looking at your sites inventory specifically looking at sites that have been included in previous housing element cycles So in order to continue to count those sites towards your lower income arena, there are now requirements that must be placed on the site Specifically if a project comes in with a 20 affordable component It must be permitted by right if it's been included in the last two cycles And it was vacant or if it was an underutilized site just included in the last cycle Next slide. Sorry We also have included program h32 and this is looking at different zoning code amendments Mainly to comply with state law. So reviewing the city's Definition of family looking at how residential care facilities are allowed The state no longer wants you to classify these by By size They just want you to look at it as a typical use and how you would treat any other families So that's a really a big fair housing concern there Low barrier navigation centers. This is allowing these in mixed use and non residential zones Employee farm worker housing and this is to just ensure compliance with state law So this is reviewing and amending the zoning code as needed And there is a timeline associated with each of these programs in the housing element Next slide This is a continuing from the previous slide a few additional items for zoning code amendments looking at emergency shelters specifically parking transitional and supportive housing ensuring compliance with state law And reasonable accommodations and this is just reviewing and revising the current findings that the city has to ensure They don't pose any barriers to persons with disabilities Next slide So this is a list of all the different programs that we are continuing So these most likely just had a modified date. Otherwise, they were sufficient just to carry forward Adequate sites opportunities for development areas the housing trust fund opportunities for large households Building community acceptance real property tax transfer tax and to continue participation in the mortgage credit certificate program Next slide These are a few of the programs. Well, these are the list of programs that have been modified So most likely these were combined to make the more streamlined with other programs In the document There is also a large table in the housing element and the far right column of that It's the review of previous and the far right column will tell you which programs were combined Which were modified so you can see. Oh, you know four and seven were combined and now they make the new program seven So you can see how those were revised So this is just the list here um encouraging mixed-use projects because we are relying on the downtown specific plan We are wanting to encourage mixed-use projects there code enforcement activities housing rehab preserving mobile home parks Preserving at-risk units at-risk units are units that are at-risk of converting from affordable to market rate within the next 10 years Inclusionary housing supporting affordable housing development and funding for affordable housing development Next slide This is our modified programs continued. Um, this is looking at special needs groups programs for special needs groups So persons with disabilities farm workers people experiencing homelessness Extremely low-income households senior households Also looking at fair housing services section 8 housing choice voucher program And applications streamlining compliance with sp35 and energy efficiency in residential development Next slide And now we get to our new programs. So as I mentioned the majority of these are Looking at strengthening the analysis that we have so for a lot consolidation looking at if we have smaller Sites included in the inventory. We want to make sure that we are The city is assisting in any way to develop those so lot consolidation Small site development and these are still developer driven. This is not something that the city is going to do just on your own If someone approaches you then you would work with them. That's what program h2 would be about h6 This is looking at different housing options. Um, h10 is mobile home park rent control Also affordable housing tracking I might have it memorized but Okay, um, and then as I mentioned the affirmatively furthering fair housing so program 25 and 26 These are going to be the really big programs for the housing element this round So we have one aimed at anti displacement strategies and one at place-based revitalization strategies We also have a program for community land trust program And then as I mentioned previously the zoning code amendment program, which is h32 I'm going to pass this back over to Amy Great. Thank you so much So as I mentioned, this will not be the last time you see the housing element um, so we are before you today and um, the housing element is out for public review And we will keep that public review period open until July 3rd and um Just also to note that we have a couple different ways to provide comments Um, we do have hard copies. I will say that we printed a bunch Um, but we do have our general plan website santa rosa forward where community members can Email through that website or use our santa rosa forward dot com email address to provide comments Um, we've also launched a santa rosa. Let's connect web page Thanks to our community engagement and communications team And we're using a new tool where you can actually scroll through the document and add comments within the document as you review it So a couple different ways to review And we hope that people take advantage We do have quite a few comments in your package today and I'll talk about that shortly So after today's review and direction We will um also incorporate all the comments that we've heard from the community and then we submit it to hcd And they have 90 days for their initial review And they will provide us comments, and then we will go back and revise accordingly and um submit for a um Second round If necessary, so there have been some jurisdictions that have submitted multiple times There have been some jurisdictions that got comments once and then they don't need to do anything else um, so that that is um kind of up to the process and We are budgeting time to have two reviews with with the state And then we will come back for formal adoption through planning commission and city council in january and then Submit our final housing element as I noted We are required to have a certified housing element by january 31st of next year We do have a little bit of a grace period um, and we may have to go into that grace period, but So far we're optimistic that um, we can remain remain on time Next slide please So our recommendation this afternoon is really to provide us input On the housing element in general, but also a couple different points of discussion, which we'll go back to But I did want to acknowledge the late correspondence that we've received We have received quite a bit of correspondence through those Website options that I noted and they're included in your package and also additionally emailed this morning And a couple different points that the community has been focused on one is drought and Just long-term water supplies and concerns related to that And so I did just want to note that we do work closely with our water department in planning On all levels of policy um, but we do rely on our urban water management plan, which is updated every um Collin may have to correct me, but I think it's five or ten years And that really does look at the long-term supply of water and it does actually assess how Drought years are incorporated and how we have sufficient water Collin corrected me. It's five years. So every five years we update that urban water management plan And we work closely with them to make sure that it does assess the level of growth anticipated through our our long-range documents such as the housing element such as the general plan And uniquely this housing element does not Propose any new growth or any intensification of housing. It's really just recognizing our current capacity And and and moving forward for that for the next eight years We will get into more of a discussion of growth looking out to 2050 when we get into the general plan discussions later this fall And so there is more information on our website related to drought and water If if folks wants to Go there and then we there are there are additional questions We also have Collin close and Jennifer Burke from our water department on the call today as well The other issues that have been brought up have been Some in support of building more housing and some not in support of building housing And I think the takeaway for me is that rena is very confusing it is It's a hard thing to identify why the state is asking us locally to plan for a certain amount of housing So that really just tells tells me that we need to do a better job of educating our community on why we do this exercise every eight years and why state law is asking every jurisdiction to plan and plan for those different income levels And And again, we've got the the correspondence from the county within your package as well So I did want to stop to see if there is our questions about the housing element generally or the correspondence and then We'd like to go back to discuss the housing sites within the wui and then also the county's rena request All right. Thank you so much. Amy We'll go ahead go to questions from council members first and as you mentioned I'll have you reiterate before public comment What additional type of feedback you'll be looking for from the public as well as from council members On the other side of questions. Let's start with council member fleming Thank you mayor rogers and thank you Ms. Lyle for an excellent presentation as well as the place works team in this wash It's another so much that goes into it and it's very difficult to translate this to us lay people on the council My question for you. It has to do with the county request for absorption of some of their arena Allocation, I'm wondering if aside from the correspondence, we're able to obtain any more information or communications with either planning staff or elected officials on the county side around What they may want to bring to the table in terms of supporting a potential acceptance of part of their allocation I do plan on going back to that slide and providing a little more context for that discussion If you want to maybe hold that question until we get to that point Certainly. Thank you. That's all the questions I have for now. Thank you Oh, I actually I do have one small question, which is around all the age programs the new existing and expanded ones. Um, is there a Uh, a quick link that we can Use to publicize those like a on the city website So are you asking of the programs that we've developed in the housing element if there's a way to Highlight for the public to access them or highlight them Because there's so many of them and they're pretty complex and I know they're represented in each of a body of work and We just have kind of had titles Yeah, it's a pretty big section of the housing element and it is at the end So we have talked about providing a summary of the housing element document We may do that for the next round after we get comments back from housing and community development But I think that's a really valuable comment because it is very dense And one thing that we really do want to highlight is what are the programs that we want to put in place? And how will those actually impact people? But yeah, I think that might help us to communicate it with our members in the community. That's all my questions Councilmember mcdonald Thank you, and thank you for this excellent report I really appreciate the work that's gone into this and I did get a hard copy So I was thrilled to be able to do my highlighter and paper So I appreciate that I do have a couple different questions and one is around the equity of low income and very low income housing that I see mostly in District one being proposed and so I wonder if there's any plans to ensure that there's actually More access around the entire city. I didn't see too many green dots Um throughout the city and that would be a concern of mine to make sure that it's being evenly distributed Throughout the city of santa rosa So that the community members that live there can actually have access throughout the entire city So i'm not sure um if you could address that in your comments And and we would be able to get some feedback on that if that's a proposal or if it simply is There's not enough space in some of those areas to include maybe more high density housing And then I do And more than likely you're going to know this already because we've spoken about it is talking about the wui and making sure that as we move forward on planning when it comes to the wild urban interface of Making sure that exit routes and and that's part of the discussion when we're looking at housing And I and I know we talked about this briefly in the past What happens when we do get an updated Eir report and it shows in fact that we need additional exit routes And perhaps that there shouldn't be housing in some of these areas Because of the concern of fire and safety for community members How do we adjust this particular? Proposal and are we able to maybe shift some things around if we do find that As we move forward with the santa rosa forward plan How do we address that and then Maybe you can maybe you can answer that As you and I know you talked about talking about that specific thing in just a few minutes So I would appreciate that and then I think my last question has to do with My appreciation that we're addressing the mobile home park rent control Uh, that's something that we brought up during goal session and and that was addressed today in your presentation And I appreciate that to make sure that this does remain more affordable for those residents that are living in those Specific areas and I may have one more question, but I forgot my glasses in my car. So I'm I'm going a little bit Blind on this so I apologize Thank you so much. Um, so to your first question about the distribution of those low income sites We we can show those sites in a different way. It's very hard to see on that map But I will say that our production of low income units has actually been pretty well dispersed throughout the city And we are working In the background on a grant funded project called house santa rosa to create a dashboard So the public can see where those sites are and what's in the pipeline What's been developed? Where do those existing? low-income units exist to help kind of Provide clarity and transparency on that issue But they are pretty well distributed Within the housing element, but we will make sure to highlight that in a different way with the next round as well And then for your woo-wee comment, if you're okay holding on that, I will address that when we get to that discussion point Okay, thank you, and I found my last question Thank you for your patience. So as far as when we actually are adding housing And I know I asked this question previously is are we actually making sure that we're adding the fire department first responders not just saying that You know what we currently have in the city of santa rosa would maybe be sufficient But looking at future sites to add fire to make sure that there's enough first responders police as well as you know parks and maintenance and facilities to making sure that as we Expand and grow that we're adding all of those other elements as part of the housing plan And i'm not sure if that's necessarily addressed in this plan or if that's something else that we actually look at Um, and and I just want to make sure that we're being mindful of that as we move forward And we expand that there's a lot of other services that go along with that that sometimes can be forgotten as we continue to add housing Absolutely, it's a great question And that is the effort that we do when we update the general plan is we We work with all departments of the city to make sure that the growth and the orientation of the growth has corresponding plans for infrastructure and services parks open space all of those components that really make up A well-rounded healthy community And so this housing element because we're recognizing existing sites Is really recognizing the growth that was studied and projected under our existing general plan So as we move forward with the conversations with santa rosa forward That is what we will be bringing forward We do have a technical advisory committee that's Working on the general plan update And those are the things that we are looking at so as we identify new areas of growth as part of the general plan update We will be looking at all aspects of the community to be able to support that level of growth in those specific areas And I just saw a couple more groups that I think might be helpful for you to consider meeting with and one of them would be The north bay realtors association They may have their finger on the pulse of what kind of housing is being sought after within the city of santa rosa So that might be helpful for planning Just so that we have feedback from our our realtors actually And then also school leaders and I know that we've talked about this briefly about the need for making sure that schools are involved Even in the housing Planning so that schools can ensure that there's space for children that come And and I didn't see them on the list But perhaps you have met with those two different groups and And I know this needs to be submitted to the state But I wanted to make sure that there was maybe an opportunity to get some feedback on them for our final plan Thank you. Yes, there's still opportunity to reach out and we will do that I think with the school conversation it's not just the homes for the students but also the workforce and the Teachers and administrators. So I think that's an important conversation and we will make sure to to reach out. Thank you Thank you Mr. Vice mayor Thank you, mayor My first question and thank you for the report. Uh, my first question is what what efforts have been done, uh, in regards to Outreach in spanish and what response have you been able to obtain this far? So we have done, um bilingual workshops as part of our general plan update and so we have had um quite a few that have been in Um various areas of the city where we have higher percentages of spanish speakers or non english speakers Because we did we did offer the opportunity for languages other than spanish And then we did provide translation options at our zoo meetings But but more than that, um, we have been working closely with latino service providers and other organizations that work directly with, um The spanish-speaking community, but also some of our vulnerable populations such as our farm worker community and so, um beatrice on our general plan team has Really been focused on Building trust and getting input on not just housing, but all areas of our general plan work So all of that has been encompassed into our housing element And in addition our housing collaborative equity working group did include, um translation and spanish speakers and and community members that were connected to some of those vulnerable populations in um Most of whom spoke spanish um during that set of meetings Thank you. And and In line with the with the question asked by my my colleague mcdonald on page 18 I'm seeing that the numbers between the jurisdictions of san rosa and the unincorporated Areas of our county are similar. I'm wondering if if there's a figure of projected growth That is geared towards moorland or what many consider to be south san rosa in a very informal manner So is your question about the The um methodology as to why the distribution of units have been assigned to the county into the city uh one step beyond that if we have an idea of of What percentage of the growth that the county's projected will be in The area of moorland Unfortunately, we don't know that that is a question. We've asked a bay was to determine how many of the unincorporated counties um allocation Were related to properties that were within our sphere of influence so um, we weren't able to ascertain the exact number um, but We we hope to get um Some more information on that um in the future Very well. I would appreciate that greatly. Thank you All right. Thank you. Amy. There's a lot of really great information for folks who want to read through the housing element here including a lot of historical data on san rosa Particularly around inequities in housing and across our city And I appreciate you compiling all of it. I'm going to pull you back to the 50 000 foot view around this discussion Because the two main questions that I get from people The first is How does the state actually determine what the rena allocation number is going to be? Not how does a bag distribute it amongst a jurisdiction? But what is it based on is it based on Job growth. Is it based on available resources such as water? So i'm going to ask you to touch on that a little bit And then the second question that I get all the time is well, so what why don't we just ignore it? And so the question will be if the city chose just to ignore this process In didn't account for enough housing walk us through what would happen from a state perspective Thank you. Great questions. That is definitely um higher elevation question um I'm going to see if anyone else on the team and maybe synthia could help me answer the question as it relates to the state's reasoning behind The rena numbers and why the numbers were higher coming to our region Um, yeah, sure. So that is a really um good question tricky question So hcd really just looks at population projections. And so They determine what they see is needed based off of those projections And that's how the allocations are given throughout the entire state um Most jurisdictions don't agree with what hcd comes up with But those are their numbers and then as far as what happens if you don't accommodate your rena So planning for your rena is what's required, you know, this is a land exercise We're looking at sites that are zone appropriate At varying densities to meet different income categories And so your job as a city is to identify enough sites to accommodate those units Should a developer come in and want to develop them as of right now The penalties for not building them Is really just sp35 sp35 Is going to dictate when a project is considered by right So if you're hitting a specific rena target, then the project has to be this much affordable before it's by right and so on and so forth So currently that's the only um the only thing that might come back to get you um Was there a question beyond that? I apologize. I know that was a No, rena is always a trippy tricky topic. No, I think you're you're hitting it on the head And you know what I hear oftentimes from people is Isn't it a self-fulfilling prophecy that if the only thing that we're basing our numbers on is future growth Kind of a if you build it, they will come mentality Uh, and and I do know they take into account job growth Necessary workforce. I do know that they take into account Local available resources And so just figuring out how to better message that and talk to the public about it Because I can understand from a certain perspective. I don't agree with it But I can understand it how some people might think the numbers are arbitrary and leading towards a self-fulfilling outcome ultimately Um, so I hope I hope as we continue to talk about the needs of Santa Rosa. We can message that a little bit better Um, and then also just for folks with sp35 Kind of in a word if I can paraphrase you we lose local control Is the answer if we don't follow rena if we don't satisfy rena We lose local control over the ability to approve projects within the city And so it's worth maintaining to have that say over the character of the community that we that we serve Is that fair to say Yeah Yes, and if I may may or rogers just expand on your question as well and use the opportunity to note There there's really two things that we are asked to do one Have a certified housing element on time that shows we can adequately plan for the rena and to Actually accomplish building the units The certified housing element and having that done on time Does have implications to a lot of grants and related transportation infrastructure grants planning grants Many times they ask if we have a certified housing element as one of the requirements to submit or to receive money And so we do want to make sure that we are We always have that certified housing element to make sure we continue to have eligibility And we don't jeopardize any existing grant funds that we do have um And then I will say the state has been There has been legislation over the years Recently looking at creating more sticks to if you don't have a certified housing element Or if you aren't proportionally meeting your rena There so we could receive additional Sticks related to Us not proportionally meeting our arena So that that's just something else to keep in mind It's in our best interest to be able to accomplish what we've been asked to do and to plan appropriately for it I appreciate that let's go to a public comment on this and again Comment on the plan as a whole and then also Amy if you want to frame what type of Comments from the public would be helpful as for the conversations around Sharing rena numbers as well as uh, wooey so that we can get some good input And mayor rogers. I'm I'm actually wondering if it might be good to go back to Because I have more to add on the wooey discussion and the county request And then um because I have a feeling that the public will want to comment on those things as well If there's potential to go back to those first Yeah, let's go back to those before we go to public comment and While you find the correct slide Um, I'll jump in a little bit on the county Conversation the sharing of the rena numbers We've talked about this a little bit from the dais, but the conversation started at Sonoma county transportation authority More than a year ago at this point and there was an interest amongst the board of supervisors members and Myself and bringing this conversation Council has previously weighed in on it Suggesting that we are interested in city-centered growth in Sonoma county and so that this might be Something for staff to entertain And so I do want to thank staff for working with the county and then of course the Request has recently come in from the county for a formal agreement to start that process So I just wanted to help set the context a little bit for you. Amy Great. Thank you so much And thank you sandy for pulling up the the right slide So just touching back on the discussion point related to the wildland urban interface or wui Again, this map is identifying the sites that are located within the wui that we are Proposing to identify as part of the housing element Again, these sites are already Have existing capacity They are Already planned for so we're not proposing to increase densities or intensify any housing within the wui We're really just recognizing the existing capacity many of which are Opportunities to rebuild what was previously there So I do want to note that um, this was a question that we've asked through our outreach So we do have some um late correspondence based on this question And then we also met with the planning commission and housing authority A few weeks ago and asked for their input as well. So in their review of this question They were okay with the keeping the draft housing element the way it is Knowing that we are not increasing or intensifying any Additional housing within these areas So we are Well, and let me also address councilmember mcdonald's question as well um, your question was specifically about Exit strategies or evacuations from these areas And outside of our general plan update and outside of our housing element We have done a lot of work on identifying The different evacuation zones and routes and that effort will continue Regardless of this effort But because these sites are already planned for within our existing general plan The housing element is not required to go into depth to address New evacuation routes We we continue to work with the community if there are issues with the existing evacuation routes Or if there's other ways that we can assist and In just the the fire severity zones and during those emergencies So I wanted to make sure that you know where we are addressing that but It is not part of this particular policy document at this time so with that the The staff recommendation is to move forward with our housing element and identify these sites and continue to identify these sites but we do want to hear from you all on if you are If you are okay with that approach or if we need to move in a different direction Just for clarification on the wui and i'm sorry to keep hounding this one But you suggested that any housing that's being proposed could potentially be approved based on the old general plan The old general plan wouldn't have had the last two wildfires So the concern would be potentially that things that you're approving now Maybe haven't been considered of what we might Get quickly and the new general plan. So So my question is really around what do you do When you receive the new general plan and the new eir that may differentiate From the old general plan and the old eir and now you've approved Housing in those areas. How do we Make sure that we're mitigating Perhaps a difference that could come forward. Is that am I saying it in a way that it makes sense to you? Yes, that's a great question. So, uh, I will just say instead of old I would say existing general plan because it is in force now And it is valid now that we have our existing general plan and although it didn't Identify Are the fires that we have gone through It did require us to have a safety plan and to anticipate Not just wildfires, but earthquakes floods and all the other things that we are unfortunately prone to within the city and so these sites that are identified are Mainly single family home above moderate income sites and for those types of homes They are considered ministerial So they will already have been assessed as part of our general plan environmental impact report and Have been Already been part of the planning effort taking place As projects come forward that may be beyond that. So if they're discretionary and they require more review Potentially a use permit or a zone change or something beyond what we've assessed in our existing general plan Those would have to provide additional environmental review And the state has updated Laws related to the california environmental quality act Really increasing the amount of information that needs to be provided Related to safety concerns such as wildfires. So you will see projects proposed in these areas Will have to do some additional environmental work depending on the project depending on the situation So the the general plan is really looking at kind of a macro big picture level Programmatic level, but those individual projects that come forward that go beyond What was assessed in the general plan will have to Have that additional layer of review Does that help? Yes, sometimes it's just not the answer I like So I apologize if I'm and also I want to make sure that I'm clear on it as well as The folks in my area who are quite concerned about, you know, wildfires wildfire interface and so We appreciate the clarification from you. Thanks Council member spuddle Thank you, mr. Mayor Um, Amy, I had a question and I brought it up with one of our ad hoc meetings Just about the density on Dennis Lane because I know it's not in the wooey But obviously having been that part of town been devastated from the Tubbs fire It really seems like a lot more density is going in there and Dennis Lane in many parts is almost like a country lane And we're right on the border with the county of Sonoma, and I understand they're doing some development there so if this Goes through with this type of density there And this might have been what you were also explaining with the general plan How does the infrastructure improvements get fit into this plan or is that the general plan not the housing element? That's a great question. And that that would be the the general plan where we would assess that um, so in as part of the general plan process we will be looking at future growth areas and asking the question about how um, how we assess the The wildland urban interface areas and not just those that are identified by Cal Fire, but potentially broader than that that we know may have local severity or local reason for concern And so we will have to dive into that On that level So what we're recognizing now is existing capacity Um, there may also be additional ability for a dues. So that could be why you're seeing what looks like um, additional density Um, although that it was already in existence prior um, we have seen quite a few new a dues and um, some of our rebuild lots in those areas Okay, not sure that well, it's just kind of a challenge and again, um, I'm maybe like uh, Councilmember mcdonnell, I I wish there was a better answer or a different answer Um, because one of the challenges this is not a heavy resource area In other words, there's no real even quick place where you can walk and if you talk about the evacuation and again I realize we're not in the wooey But really there's only one way if the evacuation is go north That's a single lane road and it just seems adding that density Seems to be a challenge and so I'm just wondering when we might be able to address it And I'm kind of here and maybe in the general plan process versus the housing element process. Would that be accurate? Yes, it's tricky because What we're doing what we're doing right now is we're identifying Sites where there's existing property rights for those folks to be able to develop So, um, it will be a more challenging conversation in the general plan update of, um, if we want to move in a different direction and um, But with existing property rights, it's very challenging to down zone or reduce the ability for someone to do something Or to wait for infrastructure to be developed Um, so it's it's really hard to put that toothpaste back in the tube. So those conversations we will have Um, we would like input today on if we are comfortable identifying these sites Um, I know the area that you've discussed is not specifically within the wooey here, but um, if you want to, um, vocalize your concern, we could potentially consider just Not identifying those sites specifically on on dentis lane or in that area Obviously, I think, you know, you've heard I do have some concerns I don't have a real easy solution where I would move those to because when you look in the wooey In the density that's you're already existing there. I don't have a real good answer But yes, it does it is concerning to me. Thanks Maybe this is a question for the city attorney But and we'll get into it obviously when we get into the general plan, but just to manage some of the expectations If we were to get into those conversations around Downzoning if that's the appropriate term Would that constitute a taking and would we have to have that conversation at that time? Um, thank you, mr. Mayor for the question. It really depends on the circumstances depends on what the downzoning The extent of the downzoning what is still permitted on the property? If the idea is that you're going to remove the possibility of having A single family dwelling on the on the site That would certainly be a conversation that we would have to have Okay depends on the circum the end result depends on the circumstances But it's certainly a conversation we would need to have Okay All right. Amy. Are we ready to go to public comment? I apologize, but we are looking for feedback on Whether we are okay submitting this draft housing element with the sites identified within the wooey And then once we get that direction, we would like to move to the county's arena request All right, and did you have anything to add on the county's arena requests other than The context that I provided and what you said earlier um, yes, so Sandy if you're able to move us to slide 18. I will just um Go ahead and move there and then of course we can get your direction after after public comment um So along with the arena request As I noted we went through what was in the request from the county and went through the income breakdown of the total of the 1800 units And so I also wanted to note that we did review this question with the planning commission and the housing authority and overall They were not in favor of moving forward to absorb the county's request Mainly that was due to the need to keep our housing element on track for certification and That the county's request did not include enough information for them to Make a decision at this time. There was one planning commissioner that was still open to the conversation So with that we just wanted to walk through What the implications are of this request? So there's really two ways to look at the the arena request And one is can we adequately plan for this increased number of units? And can we certify our housing elements? And the other is can we actually Produce these units knowing that a large amount are very low income and low income So first I wanted to note on the question related to can we certify and housing element and find adequate number of sites That is something we will have to look into further and As I noted there will be a bit of process involved because we would have to get approval from a bag and from hcd Based on state law and so if we were to be directed to Explore this in our housing element. We would be looking at Potentially rezoning sites or at least redoing our inventory work Which would require an additional budget and additional time So the implication of that is that we would not Potentially have a certified housing element by the deadline But we would want to do that additional inventory work and then also additional community engagement On that new inventory that we would be providing And then when it comes to the other question about the implications of being able to accomplish the units In this next a year eight year cycle I actually wanted to see if Megan Bassenger our director of housing and community services was able to weigh in on just the challenges that we've had producing the very low income and low income units and and what She can say as far as our ability to accomplish those in the future If she's able to be promoted I'm making you probably just got promoted. So Good afternoon. I'm Megan Bassenger director of housing and community services So as Amy said, we've been evaluating the potential impacts of absorbing the 1800 additional units And what Amy has touched on briefly in our current renaissance cycle And I just want to emphasize is that the progress we've been able to make in this current cycle Is not only the tax credits that have come to us through the disaster recovery But also the 38 and a half million dollars In the community development block grant recovery funds. So that has been a significant infusion Of what has turned out to be local resources available to projects And another factor we look at is the ability for the projects to obtain funding at the state level Which is highly competitive and the state has had to allocate additional resources In order to advance projects that are currently kind of stuck in the funding cycle So In our current affordable housing pipeline We're looking at an average contribution of about 125 thousand dollars per unit So that has a significant amount of funding that needs to go along With those units. So if we were to Look at just absorbing the additional units in The county's 1800 Unit request it would be about another 92 million dollars in estimated local resources So that's a significant amount of funding When on a normal cycle we don't have disasters and additional resources available to us We have about 10 million dollars funding available So i'd be happy to answer any other questions about the finance Councilmember mcdonald Thank you and thank you for that information Certainly, we don't want to hold up any process where we can receive funds and and so i'm i'm comfortable moving it forward with the caveat that if for some reason we were Able to find housing say additional housing in the downtown area to be able to do more infill housing Or if we found that perhaps putting housing in some of the areas that it has not been safe in the past And we could maybe relocate those that we would be able to adjust the housing plan What i what i'm not clear on is how stringent do we have to stick to this plan? Once we submit it to the state. Is it a done deal or can we make adjustments as we go? That's a great question. Um, so because the Question is if we can absorb The county's rena allocation. We are within a window where we can Potentially make a change to our allocation Once our housing element is certified The only other opportunity to do any kind of exchange between a city and county For these allocation units is through annexation So there's really only those two windows right now during the housing element or through annexation after the fact We can change policy within our housing element and we can move Sites around within our housing element as we move forward Which is one reason why we are required to have the buffer beyond our allocation But that is still committing to our allocation That we had and planned for before our housing element was certified Amy or Megan Would this type of a move absorbing some of the Housing element from the county would that qualify us for the governor's pro housing designation? And if so, what sort of resources would that bring to santa rosa? So the designation that you're mentioning is somewhat new And we have been investigating What the opportunities would present if we were to become a pro housing pro housing designated jurisdiction? and The this potential exchange would not provide any additional ratings in that pro housing designation That that I can think of at this moment But we are continuing to investigate that it does require that we have certified housing element as one of the base Pieces Okay, and perhaps we can get a little bit more information on what's required to get that designation and what the possible benefits would be Since I know that the council has been focused on this Talk to me a little bit about the discussions with the county Has the county up to this point other than sending a request for us to absorb the units Engaged in the conversation about an actual partnership Where in which they helped the city with resources that 92 million that you mentioned in local resource that we would need in order to be able to accommodate I'm actually in a sea of clear heart men are planning economic development directors able to be elevated to aid to that conversation While we're waiting on Claire to promote just like to touch on our federal resources that are allocated to the city And those are based on population and general poverty levels So those allocations would not change unless they're with an adjustment in the city's overall population And the federal methodology that we receive for cdbg at home Hi, good afternoon. I'm Claire Harman director of planning and economic development I know just to follow up on that question mayor We have not gone into deep engagement discussions with the county One of the steps before we would Move into that direction is to get council direction on whether or not we want to fold this into our housing element Or as Amy has mentioned the other options of folding it into A comprehensive discussion about with annexation that would be outside the housing So what we have done is we've reached out staff to staff to To have them articulate their request and any support that would come with that And so that was the you know, we've reached out to the county to get the letters in writing so that we could see What their findings were also how much they had how much work they had gone through to Identify how many units they want to transfer and why Um, and how far they were along in their own housing element process and to Amy's earlier summary They were quite a bit ahead of them. So it's they don't have a draft housing element that we can Work with and they're still they have several specific plans that are in process that probably won't happen in the In the end time for their housing element. So the discussions that we've had and I've worked with tennis wick um, again, not in depth, but just conversations around this this request and This is something that I think if we got the direction today to really look at this transfer and We we would be looking to the county. I mean to the city to direct for an ad hoc a city county ad hoc so we can actually dive into uh What the numbers are going to be And how we would be Partnered in terms of support not just the planning support because it's not just the planning exercise But really, you know, what's the expectations about supporting these these housing units? and so those are one of the One of the avenues through that ad hoc discussion and that could be city staff as well as members of the city council um members of our homeless and how the ad hoc for example and Representatives from the board of supervisors. We could work through What that those agreements would be? And then see if that would be we could come back to the city council with those findings and you could have As Amy has suggested there's there's this is not the only time you're going to see our housing element So we could do that work and come back to the council in the study session before we would resubmit for the second time to the state Um consequently one avenue out of that would be to fold it into the housing element which might have some delays or impacts in terms of Timing costs and analysis and engagement on our part Or what could come out of those? discussions is a commitment to To pursue this type of transfer through an annexation conversation not unlike what we did with the roseland The roseland area annexation process, which Is the way they really look at this comprehensively. So not just units, but how they're going to integrate with with our community And claire, how did the county come up with 1800? I we did that was one of my clarifying questions and I don't I did not get that from their second submittal So what happened between their first letter and their second letter was conversation with County staff and with tennis with and I and I asked several clarifying questions and that was one of them And I I I did not see that in their second letter So I think there's just more work to do to really flesh out where where the numbers came from and what what is their expectation for transferring them Yeah, I appreciate that I'd be interested to see as they go through their housing element process where they put Or identify housing Because we do have this Parallel conversation around annexation As it pertains to moreland and some of the other unincorporated urban pockets And it may be that that's how many units they're planning for that area Which would give us an avenue to continue this discussion even after we've approved our Housing element, but it sounds like we just need more information Councilmember mcdonald Can we also find out um what other cities are being asked to take on as far as housing? I'd appreciate that information if it comes back to council Well, I think uh I'll ask staff, but I think we we know that Go ahead Claire No, I'm I'm sorry. I'll let you answer that So as far as we know, um, we are the only city they formally requested um for arena exchange Councilmembers, but um Yeah, thanks, and you've heard this from me before in the ad hoc, um, Amy for now My frustration is that I'm all for city centered growth that sounds great But there's nine cities in Sonoma county And we're the only one given this opportunity to absorb these numbers and I don't even again As we've just heard we don't know how they came up with 1800 And what really concerns me is the additional workload it would add to our staff And I know there's plenty of work and there's probably some more Work to be done after hearing the comments from uh today's council meeting I just don't think the time is right. I think we couch this until we're ready to talk some annexation And that's when we we reintroduce this conversation to the council Let's go ahead go to public comment, uh, and then we'll come back and answer some of these questions or give direction to staff I'll start on zoom We have cliff followed by debora Howdy cliff Hi, I'm a dope. I've got a picture here, but that's okay Um, my first question is on the creation of downtown area specific plan The motivations for switching it to a four area ratio Uh for the purposes of density calculation Which makes it kind of really hard to figure out the calculation first score An acre number that kind of come out in minutes and then um, is it possible to put the Maximum base four area ratio map up there question on it the The newly created roberts district has a zoning of 6.0 far And that's in line with the core downtown But it's not really in line with the railroad square area The railroad square area is a mixture of 3.0 floor area and 4.0 floor So the new cannery project is also a 6.0 Wouldn't it make be sensible to have the new roberts district? Which as I understand is part of a road square, but it's on the south side of 12 and adjacent to roseland at a more buildable floor area ratio of a 3.0 Uh, or at least part of it like the properties east of uh roberts avenue to a more uh a Lower density that affordable housing can be built on The construction cost of structured parking prevents it from becoming affordable housing But if it was at a 3.0 the midpoint would be a 1.5 and we could do four story ground up Uh, affordable housing with surface parking would be adequate and could do reduced parking because it is walking distance to the train station And uh, the other question I have and I don't know which for this meeting Is the consideration for the roberts avenue underpass since the roberts district could now park right over the square And the roberts underpass has been proposed and it's on the city books Can we re-institute that so we can put a uh through fair connection From the roberts district to the railroad square district And then we have the opportunity to perhaps put a grocery store over on the roberts district site That could serve as both railroad square and the downtown area because we have a grocery desert As part of the downtown area there aren't see any plans anywhere for a uh grocery store Maybe the syringe building could become a grocery store and since county's not going to do that But those are my thoughts and concerns Uh, thank you for your time Thank you so much cliff Let's go to deba followed by eric Thank you for this opportunity to give input So i'm going to talk about the wildland urban interface first of all And I know there's a number of vacant lots there that uh where people have decided not to rebuild And I think in some cases that's because of the difficulty in obtaining fire insurance So I would encourage you to take a look at the issue of fire insurance as you're deciding what to do with that area And also consider if there's any possibility of consolidating some of those vacant lots so that maybe it's not all single family dwellings Because it looks like the the plan is heavily weighted towards the moderate to upper income And I know it's really difficult to come up with a big enough A plot of land to do the multifamily housing development Maybe that's an opportunity that has not really been thoroughly considered And it also does not talk about the shenate property, which I believe is located in that same area And so i'm wondering if you're looking at all as possibly changing the zoning on the shenate property so that it could accommodate More low income housing And then in terms of the request from the county for turning over those units to the city The county actually has a better track record on meeting the goals that have been established in the previous plan So it's not real clear to me why you would want to take on Their responsibility when you've struggled to meet your own goals with the exception of 2021 when you've got an additional funding So I think you'd be taking on a problem that you don't really have the resources to address I do support You know putting the housing within the city So I think it makes sense to possibly pursue what other people have mentioned where you'd have a larger discussion About possible annexation possibly incorporating the various pockets within the city that are still unincorporated But it seems like it's not A well developed or well thought out plan to take over those 1800 units right now So I would urge caution extreme caution in doing that and not really setting yourself up for possible failure with the state When there are more dire consequences So I would really encourage you finally when my last few seconds to be tracking inclusionary housing fees to make sure it's really producing housing and look for opportunities to really require actual housing to be built rather than just the fees because in the past It does not seem to have generated enough funds to build the housing that's warranted Or it all winds up in low income Areas and so it's concentrating low income areas rather than really truly producing inclusionary housing. Thank you Thank you. Deborah. We'll go to eric followed by richard And you can reach me a greater cherry at gmail.com Thank you very much for this plan and I've enjoyed the comments So far in public comment In fact, it's usually the case that the public comes forward with information That is so important in the planning process and that's why I'm a little bit A bit out of shape. I guess you could say about the outreach for the housing element Um, I'm not sure if it's the outreach being uh anemic Or if there isn't a basis for people to participate because they don't feel that their voices are respected And I I sort of think it might be the latter because it seems like this has been a process. We're in our, you know, uh addition of this Housing element and with the city unable to meet its goals in previous editions It seems like there would have been some sort of outreach to the people that actually build housing or the people that have lived experience outside of just meeting affordable housing Um, and it's about building trust to answer To to mimic mayor rager's statement Uh, and while I recognize that the housing element review is about not losing local control Or leveraging development funds I think it's also providing us a basis of fact from which to review past decisions regarding housing Uh, including housing policy and as we look backwards over the last eight years We certainly see a number of somewhat questionable processes regarding the regulations around housing in the city of sanarosa And so that fact basis is really important because now as we use this document As a basis of fact where we're given no fair refuge before In bad faith dealing with the city this allows us to come forward in a basis of fact in good faith in a way that can be Broadcast to the state and the federal government, which I think is very important Um, also, you know when we're talking about not doing this research One thing that was not really articulated very well is how much money this plan actually leverages, which is quite substantial I also wanted to express my appreciation for papy paper copies being available because we do have a work group And we expect to add substantial information to the housing element. Thank you very much for your time Thank you, eric. We'll go to richard followed by daryl Uh, thank you all for uh, taking my zoom in, um, is lial and uh, Board of supervisors, uh, by the city council Thank you for all the hard work that you have done on the housing element. Uh, it really is a massive project I wanted to follow up on tom shred helm's comments About denis lane, which is a kind of a a little bit of an anomaly which is inside the city of santa rosa as tom said, uh, it is a little tiny rural road on which, uh Duplex projects have already been approved and are largely in construction already without any regard For safety and egress and what we went through in 2017 I want to clear up any misconceptions that what's going on on denis lane is not rebuilds with ad us But uh, it's new construction and rezoning and taking advantage of the density bonuses Uh, it's just adding many many new cars and many many more residents on to a rural road that really can't handle it And if we ever have another emergency situation like we saw in 2017 It's going to create a whole new disaster Lately, we're looking at a proposed development That wants to convert an existing vacant parcel along denis lane to a new upscale residential development including seven two-story premium duplexes on what was a single family home So denis lane is its own little problem, but much like in the wui safety egress and ingress are a Dynamic issue which needs to be addressed Before the housing element can be introduced So I think uh, we've got the cart a little bit before the horse here And we need to make sure that people can get in and out safely before we start building more units Thank you all for your time and and I hope my comments are accepted in the spirit that they are delivered. Thank you Thank you so much We'll go to daryl followed by mark daryl you with us I'm having technical issues Okay, I apologize for that. Looks like I was muted. It's all good. We can hear you now Thank you. So thank you council members and planning staff First couple comments. I want to make is that I would love to advocate for more transit orientated urban infill housing and I would looking at your Suggested map on possible locations for the housing element. It is concerning that A good majority of those are in single family Zoned areas in the wui. I think that is a lot of concern given What we're probably going to face in current and future summer fires Um to back also to hopefully back up more transit orientated urban infill I have a couple questions. Don't know if these fall within the housing element or the general plan, but I will make them One is What is the city's? current policy on looking at parking requirements And perhaps looking at reducing certain parking requirements for certain again urban infill transit orientated developments Along with that is How will this possibly taken to consideration any future state housing legislation in particular there is a b Uh 2011 which is a housing option to build more housing in commercially zoned areas And lastly a question on single room occupancies Um, what is the unit equivalent for sro's? Determined by the the arena numbers are is is a single room occupancy also just considered one unit or half unit And I'll leave my comments at that. Thank you very much All right. Thank you so much sterile Let's go to mark followed by dylan Hello Hey mark Oh great. Hey, I just wanted to call it and uh in support of uh councilmember schwaathelms concerning comment um, I wanted to point out uh a couple things and one is to look carefully at taking on another agency's obligation and The other is I think the city council santa rosa has done a better job with respect to Looking at some of the vacation rental issues than some other jurisdictions within the county of sonoma and i'm looking at california california department of finance A report e five is population and housing estimates In the unincorporated area there's a vacancy rate of 15.6 percent Um overall we're looking at uh at the county overall vacancy rate of 8.4 percent City of santa rosa is five point one So the city's vacancy rate Is lower than uh than countywide And what's happening is I think a lot of those are the uh Vacation rentals where the owner doesn't live there and it's not permanently rented. So anyway, um, california department of finance e five report City of santa rosa has a lower vacancy rate Than other jurisdictions within the county. I think that's a good thing. So thanks for doing a great job and be careful what you take on Thanks Thanks mark Go to dillon followed by evan Hello We can hear you Hey, um, yeah, so thanks for um putting all this together um In the document I see you actually highlighted nimbyism, uh, and that being a problem to future developments um, you know recently there's the garage on third and d, uh, which You were looking to convert into housing. Uh, there's you know Outspoken group who was against that and the plan didn't happen Even though there are two garages within a one block radius um So nimbyism is a problem. It's been a problem forever Uh, one thing that I find interesting is that The largest or tallest city or building in center of uh, uh is a 15 story building Bethlehem Towers Uh, that's housing for senior citizens and I was built in 1970 here. We are 50 years later and no building has Uh, even gotten close to that size. Uh, I would like to see more density Uh, especially, you know that size Because housing is an issue. Uh, I'm in my late 20s. I have friends, uh from the early 20s to early 30s Uh, and you know, they're not able to afford housing and have to live with their adult parents, um You know the housing supply needs to be increased I think going through density is the way to do that Um, you know the document there's a hc 11 that talks about density on transit corridors Uh, really in favor of that as well as mix of use uh, just making You know communities more bikeable walkable and connected which is something highlighted in the center as a forward uh website And Along with that, um I think we can also make some single family zoned areas more bikeable and walkable as well That I would like to be considered With cul-de-sac design, um, you know, you might live in a house and a grocery store or nearby area Might be close on the map But in reality through a cul-de-sac, you know, that's going to take you 30 40 minutes to walk because you have to snake your way through So taking note of filtered permeability and maybe making more shortcuts where bikes and pedestrians can walk through and shave down time to make those communities more connected In addition, uh, with zoning as well in some of single family neighborhoods, um Some light commercial zoning in older neighborhoods like the jc neighborhood, uh, like fettin street market, for example there's a neighborhood market that people can walk to and That cannot be zoned or built today Thank you so much dylan. Let's go to evan Uh, good afternoon. Uh, thanks for taking my comments. Uh, evan wig. I'm a resident here in Uh, snow in santa rosa and uh, I just wanted to Take a chance to echo some of the comments That have already been made including that the last, uh, caller's comments. Um, just about um The the need for more bicycle infrastructure I think as we expand we're talking about the need for making the more, uh, sustainable and healthy, uh, and and, uh, You know infrastructure that doesn't require many admissions and obviously, um, you know, we're talking about building developments that could be here for 100 years The the whole makeup of you know, the auto Uh industrial complex is probably going to look a lot different in in 100 years, let alone just, you know, 50 So I just wanted to really advocate for making sure that in the plans As we're starting to to allow for more Housing in certain areas that we're really taking into account the infrastructure and I don't simply mean, you know A little bit of paint a couple of white lines on an existing street. Um, I I would I would actually encourage um, you know anybody who's involved in the writing of This element to to take a day and just bike around Um to some of the the areas that that are actually being identified In in the housing element and and just ask yourself, you know, do I feel safe? Is this is this something I would feel comfortable doing on a regular basis? What I allow my children to Bike From this neighborhood to the local grocery store to their local school And then I think I think that's probably the most visceral and impactful way to really understand how a city operates I I know certainly there's places, you know, just I was on college College avenue just a couple days ago and it was it was pretty frightening. Um, and yet there's there's communities that that that's our Corridor that connects some really vital communities. So again get on your bicycle put on your helmet And bring a notepad and hopefully that helps to inform The way that we start to develop and expand the city. Thanks so much for taking my comments Thank you. Evan. Uh, I'll have you know, I blew a tire on my bike earlier coming to city hall staff has given me a hard time With that, we'll come back to public comment here in the chamber Let's go to mr. Weeks Here for generation housing where we champion more and more diverse and more affordable housing Um, I'd like to begin by thanking everyone who has contributed to this draft housing element Whether you attended a public uh workshop or a public meeting to voice your opinion submitted public comment Or actively contributed to development of content living within this document. Uh, we thank you Um, this is an important process once in eight years. So we're really pleased to see the involvement from the community Um, to my actual points, I'd like to first, uh, say I'd like to echo the the last two speakers I think they touched on on really everything that's kind of incorporated into our mission values and what we're seeking with that I'm going to kind of add a little bit more The draft housing and lens residential parking standards requires most new housing developments to provide a minimum number of parking spots We're privately owned vehicles outside the dsa sp Minimum parking requirements as you all well know, I'm sure are uh, you know Substantially increased the cost of new construction while also Further inducing our car demand which taken together actually negatively impacts The elements stated vision of enhancing affordability equity livability and sustainability In order to build more of The walkable affordable neighborhoods that improve life for everyone. We must only build the parking. We truly need Smartly manage the parking we have and convert the parking that we don't need to healthier uses Our aging parking structures being a prime example um Let the developers decide how much parking to provide if they don't think they can rent their units without adequate parking It's highly likely that they will provide off-street parking um And so if you shouldn't you know, uh wish to pursue this then then I guess my other policy proposal Um that I would advance you is is actually really looking at decoupling parking from rent It's so often the case that those that cannot afford a car Are footing the bill for those that can and and if you look at it through the equity lens That's not really equitable And as again, I'm sure many of you are aware especially staff but research by the turner institute as as found time and time again That reducing parking requirements is really the most impactful way That we can increase our our production rates and and take this this zoning this permitting process to actual development um I would also like to ask uh that you consider implementing a zoning overlay in certain parts of the community That would allow by right development of housing for religious institutions schools and hospitals It is often the case that these entities enjoy substantial surplus land that is underutilized and can be really converted for purposes of affordable housing There is one bill that's uh, you know currently kind of set the stage for that ab 1851 And they're currently working on expanding several of those things in legislator as we speak but on the off chance It doesn't pass. I hope you would consider something locally for now. That's all we have to offer Thank you very much again for all your time and work and I really appreciate uh all you guys put into this Thank you cal Do we have any pre-recorded voicemail public comments? We have no recorded voicemail public comment. All right. I'll bring it back to council And Amy if you could just reiterate one more time for council, what type of input would be helpful to wrap up today's study session Great. Um, well, so our staff recommendation is that we submit the draft housing element um as is as far as the The sites identified within the wildland urban interface and our existing housing allocation So we are looking for input on the housing element in general. There's anything that We need to change in this first round submitted to the state and then also We'd like You all to weigh in on the sites within the wildland urban interface being identified and also the county's greener request and direction to move forward Um on on that question All right, let's start to my left council member sweatel Thank you. Um, I'm supportive of staff's recommendation. I already made my comments with the county I think it's premature for us to just absorb those at this point. Thanks Let's go to council member Fleming The way to get some notice there. I'm just gonna thank you mayor um So I I think what we ought to do in regard to the county is use this as an opportunity To ask them to share in our efforts around working with the state to eliminate flood and fire hazards and other natural disaster sites from future Allitations and to further urbanize and areas that provide more equity And an opportunity for for future residents For residents who are here but are not adequately sheltered I would support going back to the county and asking them for a more clear down and specific Amount separate from the annexation process. I allow I support council members who had held the suggestion that we do wrap in Um, this into the annexation conversation But I don't think that we should delay or put all of the request onto annexation that we should um Take this as a a chance to look to the county for both funding and Partnership So if we're going to take on any of the allocations in the county, I would like Then to come to the table with actual resources to make this happen, especially at the very low and low income levels so that Our staff and our finances of the city are not overburdened And I think that we should put a pair down or quest and So that's where I'm at with that as far as the rena allocation not the rena allocations in the wild and urban interface. I recommend avoiding Siting any locations there that have not been previously cited or that are not rebuild sites Since we don't have any actual jurisdiction over rebuild sites I think that we ought to look at the location in toky park that is More rural in character and assess whether or not it's appropriate to densify I think that we've learned our lessons I'd like to see us act like we've learned our lessons with with those locations. So the denis denis lane location gives me great pause And then there was one comment that talked about the benton street market and plan developments inside of residential neighborhoods and I I too I in that actual Development is one that I find frustrating and that it's somewhat limiting in that. I mean, it's a very Procure issue and that's you know, that's my neighborhood market and But it is really important that we have those services, but also that those services are flexible like if somebody wanted to start a Like a a different type of use besides only a couple very specific uses they would have a difficult time with that. So I'd like our residential Neighborhoods to have some flexibility for neighborhood services to be permitted within them and then Can I answer all your questions Amy? Or was there one more? No, that's that that's all of them. Thank you. That's it for all of that work you did I was that's all I had to say. Well, anyway, um, I we could talk about this for a long time But uh, all folks in the comments there Thank you councilmember Let's go to councilmember rogers My frozen. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Um, so I would like to what first think this up for their hard work bonus um Secondly say that I do support the staff's recommendations um and definitely like the continuing Programs and as far as the mobile home Organs, I think that we want to keep the people that are in the preservation We want to keep the people that are currently in the mobile homes. So, um Would definitely want to see us Uh work on not only Getting more people are preserving that but Working on the rent control and really getting that There so that we don't have additional people that we need to house Um by having currently housed people losing their housing um, and then, um I would be in favor of going back to the county getting additional information. I think that that would be Very important. Um, but I also heard one of the public commenters Say, you know In so many words, we don't want to bite off more than we can we can chew so really having a A really good plan with the county of how are we going to implement this and making sure that we have enough resources Um to do it and to me that would include staffing so I mean to focus on low and very low income dosing to be the needs Um, very high needs that we have in our community right now So, thank you Councilmember mcdonald Thank you. I most of my statements. I've already said earlier And I just want to reiterate the concern over, you know, any housing in the wooey It's certainly hard to tell somebody who has lost their home that they can't rebuild it And we don't want to do that in any way because that's their right as a property owner and certainly If they have already submitted paperwork, we don't want to you know prevent that in any way And I think that that's what the report is showing us that this is about rebuild and not Maybe new build and that would be my concern on on the housing is to not extend building in these areas So as long as that's being Clearly laid out in this document. I'm in support of that and I agree going back to the county I don't think I'm willing to take on the 1800 housing units that they'd like us to do until we receive more Information and see the support that they would be able to provide for the city And work with us on that as well And and would like to see the distribution of the need of the housing more evenly More evenly throughout the cities Mr. Vice mayor Thank you, mayor I do support staff's recommendation And I also echo A few of my colleagues statements in regards to the county's position and justification for it I too would like to see more information or at least more studies being conducted by the county to better guide our decision making Working in unison, of course As the representative of district one I see that that we are being asked to to Help lift the shortfallings or and also the the projections of both county and city And I am looking at the wild land Issues, especially with the wildfires and I see the justification for that My concern is the historical Underfunding of our infrastructure, and I hope that that is being Took it into consideration when we do look at district one and even the future moreland Being a part of the city of san rosa and and therefore I do Advocate for the for the conversation of annexation being placed on the table and entertained. Thank you I want to say first and foremost. Thank you to Our entire team place works everyone who has participated in the surveys This is certainly a comprehensive document, and I know that it's still an evolution and still being built upon I think most of my comments were made earlier. I will say that overall i'm Very much in support of the direction that council seems to be going of allowing rebuilds in the wui But not increasing the intensification or citing Big projects in the wui moving forward I think that's going to be a critical component of how this community continues to grow towards 2050 I will echo the the sentiments of councilmember mcdonald about the need to make sure that we have the adequate Evacuation routes and proper planning for anything that does continue to go in that area And for our existing homes that are there. We've we've seen people have to evacuate three or four times Just in recent memory As it pertains to the county i'm not yet ready to give up on the conversation with them It's hard to find any issue that 80 of our community agrees with But 80 of our community agreed with community separators and urban growth boundaries It's one of the things that Despite the high cost of living for sonoma county makes this such a desirable place to live Is the ability to live and work in your community And then just a few minutes later be out in the middle of nature And be able to take that in from a physical and mental health perspective And we saw the importance of that especially during the pandemic I think it's incumbent upon us to continue to work with the county to try to find some form of an agreement To cite our housing city-centered because that's the way that we need to grow as a region I'm also not willing to sell out the future of santa rosa by taking on that burden without some form of a partnership And in particular the resources as as councilmember fleming mentioned That would be adequate for us to do so that means the 92 million dollars Or some form of cost sharing particularly for those very low and low income units that we know are difficult to build That also means talking about future infrastructure needs As the vice mayor discussed if we're going to cite those units here in santa rosa I want us to get there. We've been very open as a council that we want to get there But I also can't ask staff to take on that burden So I think just going back to the county one more time and saying what we need is an actual plan from you What this looks like we need an actual proposal Not just on a number of units that you're going to provide But how you're going to work with us to develop those units once we take on that burden And then also yes the conversation around moreland and other unincorporated urban pockets Which I think can be part of that conversation and can help make that financing work It is in the benefit of the city to have that property tax value and the sales tax is depending on how we do it So there's a way to get there and i'm not ready to completely dismiss it But i'm also not interested in having staff chase their tail for another couple of months. I know how much work is on your plate With that madame city manager. Is there any other input that you need from the council? I'm seeing shaking heads. Amy Anything else? I just want to clarify so the direction on the wooey issue is to keep the housing element as drafted We do hear your other comments and we'll carry those forward in general plan and other efforts And then for the county's request What we're hearing is that We will have conversations with the county to move towards a potential annexation opportunity and that we Are not going to be asked to Create that opportunity within the housing element. Is that correct? I heard the the council fairly split on it, but I think you're right in terms of the overall majority direction Um, I would say that the message being sent back to the the county should be If they would like the council to consider this they need to come up with the plan and a proposal for us Otherwise we can look at it in annexation Okay, thank you so much Any additional comments from council? Okay, with that we'll go ahead and take a 15 minute recess. We'll be back at four o'clock for our regular council meeting All right, let's presume our council meeting for the day madam deputy city clerk if you could please call the roll to reestablish quorum Thank you, mayor councilmember schwedhelm here Councilmember soyer is absent councilmember natalie rogers president councilmember mcdonald Here councilmember flimming Here vice mayor alvarez president and mayor rogers here Let the record show that all councilmembers are present with the exception of councilmember soyer Right, madam city attorney. Did you want to give a brief report out on closed session? Yes, thank you, mr. Mayor council met in closed session on item 2.1 Which is a conference with legal counsel on anticipated litigation The council did give direction to staff and took no final action. Thank you All right Let's move on to our proclamations and presentations for the night councilmember mcdonald. Can you please take 6.1? Thank you so much for the honor Okay, the city of santa rosa has a proclamation Whereas the community helping our indispensable children excel grant choice one of the santa rosa violence prevention partnership grant programs Which is funded by measure o provides nonprofits And schools with more than 10 million dollars to support youth and families in creating safe and healthy community Communities and whereas the boys and girls club of sonoma marin received choice grant funding to implement reach Re-entering our community to achieve academic success Good character and a healthy lifestyle And the club at juvenile hall to provide outreach mediation and intervention services Along with life skills education and cognitive development programs to change the lives of youth And whereas the reach program culminates in an annual recognition event held in may to award one Outstanding youth the youth of the year award and whereas malachi morgan Was awarded reach youth of the year for his dedication and commitment to overcoming Herculean barriers in his life Including graduating high school and attending classes at the santa rosa junior college While serving a two-year sentence at the sonoma county juvenile detention facility And whereas since his release malachi has not only continued his studies at the santa rosa jc But has been able to maintain a full-time job Attain housing in his own on his own and recently received an internship with the sonoma county public defender's office Now therefore be it resolved That the mayor chris rogers mayor of the city of santa rosa on behalf of the entire city council Do hereby congratulate and celebrate celebrate malachi morgan and recognize him as youth of the year I appreciate the opportunity to be here. My name is david escobar And i'm the director of intervention and prevention for the reach program under the auspices of the boys and girls club of sonoma morgan Today is it gives me a great honor to To give and honor malachi with this Member of the year award This is the first time that i've participated In my two-year tenure with the boys and girls club in such an event and It gives me great pleasure and and a true honor to actually Give this award to malachi, you know, this young man as indicated in the In the resolution proclamation That he's overcome so many so many obstacles and he's been able to maintain um his his cheerful demeanor his great attitude And and is is truly one of our success stories I see great things for him in the future And although his both parents are not here with us I know that they are looking at him from above And watching him receive this award It's amazing malachi what you've been able to to do man And um, I would be remiss if I did not also Just quickly introduce the reach team Here is Jim matery, sorry jib Jim matery Iselina Lopez and jasmine ball who's not here because she's out there in the field with one of our other youngsters But you know really it takes a team for us to To achieve what you see before You today, which is malachi. I'd like to sort of give the the the word over to A friend and a colleague Public defender, um, brian morris. Good afternoon council. I'm brian morris public defender for the county of sonoma and i've had the honor of working with malachi over The last couple of months And this young man is A magnetic personality that is for sure everywhere we go Everyone wants to talk to malachi and he is incredibly open and honest And Seems to me going in a great direction He really does want to learn things. He also has been teaching quite a bit To be honest everyone that i've talked to that's spoken to him kind of comes out With that conversation feeling a lot better and learns the thing or two so With that i'll hand it over to malachi and congratulations to you sir Thank you guys. I want to say that first of all you guys are great and Okay, i had i had a couple notes so to start off Back in the spring of 2021 as they said i was i was in juvenile hall serving a sentence and I was serving i was serving my time and they They came up to me and said if i wanted to join the reach program I didn't know what it was But you know when you're you know as everybody knows that's ever been in that situation You want to you want to look good for the judge? So you want to every program that they offer you're going to say okay to basically So so i signed up for it not knowing really what it was But little did i know it was one of the best decision i've ever made so Coming from the reach program i started out doing a whole bunch of Doing a whole bunch of work that i didn't really know what it was But then after coming out all that work came together So i joined the pro i joined the partnership with the boys and girls club and And mr. David right here. He set me up with a whole bunch of things We we went clothes shopping And we got a whole bunch of clothes for interviews and stuff So then he told me where would i like to work and i said i wanted to sell phones So then i wanted to work at t-mobile and then he said okay, it's good So then we went and got some clothes for for to look presentable at t-mobile and then As i sent out all my applications best buy actually accepted me So then i went to work at best buy and i got that So now i'm still at best buy i want to give you thanks again and and In this situation did teach me the importance of keeping a job because beforehand I had never had a steady like income. So now that i do i'm glad that i do and that's a good thing so You know i'm just helping people out at best buy right as of now and Now i'm moving on i want to give a special A special thanks to to best to to david For for what he's been doing because without him i don't know if i would actually be here right now So So thank you first of all And But the things that he's done he's done since i've been out. He's he's obviously as i said, he's taking me shopping. He's he's Um, he's giving me emotional support every time i've been in any situation. I can call him and he's gonna come through like Um, no problem, you know and not to mention i can talk to him about anything. Um, if i've had any situation with say i'm i'm talking to this person and You know and this happened. He's he's been able to direct me in the right steps so Also, i want to give a a shout out to the other reach the other reach um Other people in the reach program you know, um The reach community we're taking community action, you know actually going into the community and trying to Trying to make a good impact I should have wore the shirt too. There was a there's a reach shirt Okay, that it's on the it's it's a cool shirt. I'm gonna bring it next time but uh So he's so everybody in the reach program There they've come to be friends like, you know a positive peer influence I'm glad I have the positive group around me that's pushing and pushing me in a better direction And I want to get into details, you know, I want to shout out to they're not here right now But I want to get a shout out to the youth in the reach program. That would be hamza You know shout out to hamza shout out to jeremiah shout out to thomas shout out to omari Um, those are my close friends But there's a whole bunch of other people shout out to diego In the reach program that are that are doing things right now that That are just they're they're chasing their dreams and and i'm glad that they're doing that So going from going on from now on to the future on to the next frontier Yeah, um, so From now on I'm glad that i'm not getting into any more trouble that i'm actually doing good for myself and and In making a positive impact on my own life and other people's lives around me. That's a blessing, you know um I want to get in better contact with my family because Last time I've seen a lot of my family. I was in a different situation and And i'm glad that i'm doing better now I want to continue working at best buy because I mean honestly, that's the I love working at best buy I'm glad I like I like to like, you know helping people learning about electronics and And in selling things that's it's fun, you know Yes, okay and Okay, and also with the internship i'm going to continue doing that and continue learning about law and And just to see whatever whatever opportunities are there for me and to wrap it up I want to thank everybody for here for coming. I want to give a special shout out again The reach program is great and I recommend it to honestly to every youth Of regardless of whatever situation you might be in it can help you a lot and and it'll accelerate your dreams and thank you for for this blessing to be here and You guys have a nice day. Thank you I did not pay him to say that So malachi david brian Your your family your friends the reach team our community engagement department Anyone who wants to come down will do a brief recess take a couple of photos Give you your your certificate and then we'll resume the council meeting after that Let's go ahead to open it up and see if there's any additional public comment on our proclamations tonight Mayor we have no voicemail public comment And I don't see any in the council chamber. Thank you All right, let's move on to our staff briefings then go ahead take it away. Madam city manager Good evening, mayor rogers and members of council Uh city manager update on covet response. So federal and state regulators have now approved the use of covet 19 vaccines for children ages six months to four years old Sonoma county will begin vaccinating the roughly 21 000 children in this age range Through primary care providers and health centers beginning this week The county has about 1600 shots in stock Parents should contact their primary care provider to schedule a vaccination appointment Our parents of this age group can go to myturn.ca.gov to schedule an appointment We also want to remember to prevent the spread it is recommended that individuals mask indoors and wash hands frequently Keep at home test handy Stay home if i'm well and get vaccinated and boosted when eligible For more information about the status of covet in our community Testing locations and obtaining at home test And vaccination information. Excuse me for all ages go to socoemergency.org. Thank you Thank you for the update council. Any questions? Let's go to public comment and see if we have any Additional input on staff briefings for tonight I see no hands raised nobody in the council chamber rising to the podium and we have no voicemail public comment Okay, let's move on to our city manager and city attorney reports Madam city attorney. Do you want to start us off? Thank you, mr. Mayor. I have nothing to report this afternoon. So thank you. Okay I have no update this evening. Thank you Okay, we'll keep moving then Council, do we have any statements of abstention on tonight's agenda? Mr. Vice mayor Yes, thank you, mayor. I will be abstaining from item 15.1 the public hearing It is an issue related cannabis and I am in the cannabis industry Any other abstentions? All right, we'll note the vice mayor's abstention down at the appropriate time Let's go on to item 10 mayors and council member reports Does anybody have a report that they'd like to provide for tonight? We'll start with councilmember Fleming Thank you, mayor I'd like to report that last week the public safety subcommittee met And received a staff recommendation following the mulling and death of two cats in a grace track earlier this year that would Bring back to the council The full council for your future review The idea that would allow the city attorney's office to seek a vicious animal designation when A domestic animal usually a dog Attacks Another animal currently that designation can only be sought if the animal attacks a human being and so this would Give the city attorney's office wider latitude and discretion in some really serious reasons Additionally, the renewal enterprise district met yesterday And pleased to report that funding is being distributed to Build a low and low income housing as well as affordable housing Some of that funding is already getting out of the door And we'll start to see more and more cranes in the air very shortly Additionally, we gave our executive director Michelle Whitman authority to investigate the central benefits of using joint power and agreement to Bring more housing currently built housing in particular onto the affordable housing List in in both uh, Santa Rosa and beyond in Sonoma County So if anybody has any additional questions, um, they can Email the renewal enterprise district or Ask uh, I can get them contact information from Michelle Whitman. Thank you All right. Thank you councilmember. Uh councilmember Rogers. Did you have anything? Oh, yes, mayor. Thank you. Um, just that on june 18th. I was able to celebrate june 10th at um, in the okay, uh part for the 52nd annual june team Um celebration, which was very beautiful. Um And uh provide them with the proclamation that you Gave them so it was a very beautiful day and there were a lot of families out there Our in-response team was out there Our police department was out there And it was just a great day with a lot of fun and a lot of great activities And a lot of people selling their merchandise And so I just wanted to report on that. Thank you so much Thank you councilmember. Let's go to councilmember mcdonald Thank you, mayor So a few different things the climate action committee met Last week and we talked about the water expo that's coming to courthouse square on june 29th From five to eight thirties. So you can come to that event and that'll be fun in downtown area And then our cpa also did a presentation on the climate crisis facing sonoma county And we were able to provide feedback on the vision of what we want to see for a healthy climate and a resilient sonoma county as well But the last week i've mostly spent my time in washington dc I was there on behalf of the california state pta But some of the things that we were advocating for really do go hand in hand with what we're dealing with In cities and communities and some of it had to do with youth mental health and Support we asked for a billion dollars to be appropriated for that to make sure that we're supporting children right now Because we know there's a crisis on our hands with children that have really been Affected by the pandemic as well as just needing support for more mental health providers in our schools and in our communities We are looking at the child reauthorization for the child nutrition act That's a critical component to make sure that children in our communities are receiving free and reduced hot lunches And as well as breakfasts and some of our children Specifically in our title one schools in our communities Those might be the only two meals a day that they're receiving So i'd like to see support from council on some of these things as well and then we also talked about an massive issue that we're seeing across our country which is community and safety for um gun prevention and And i'm really proud to say that congressman thompson has authored hr8 as well as a package of bills That's being brought forward for consideration of congress to make sure that We are looking at smart legislation with background checks and raising the age to 21 For the purchase of some of these assault rifles Some of the other issues we talked about when we were there was child care And the need for that and i'm excited to say that the our kids our future initiative Today the signatures were put in to see if it will qualify for the ballot coming forward And the other major thing that we uh had Was meeting with congressman huffman's office He's authored hr5984 which is to fully fund idea which is Funding for special education in our schools so that our most vulnerable students have the support that they need And one of the things that we were able to talk about is a child tax credit There was an extension of the child tax credit under the american rescue plan But we want to see that implemented fully its cut child poverty down by 50 percent across this nation And so i would Really encourage us to look at carving that out of the build back better plan to ask all of our legislators in And our representatives in california to support this as it is a critical component to supporting Our most vulnerable kids in our community Thanks Thank you councilmember councilmember spedum Thank you, mr. Mayor a couple items Back on june 9th. We had our ground water sustainability agency and i uh voted as directed by this body for the fee And it was unanimously adopted By the board we also elected susan harvey to be the new chair and pam stafford from rona park to be the new vice chair Did attend the public safety subcommittee that was already reported out on and then on The 17th of june we had our continuum of care strategic planning meeting and we heard Presentation by andrew henning on the progress of petaluma strategic plan I think it really will be complimentary of our efforts with san rosa at next month's meeting We will be getting an update from Our strategic planning efforts So it's really an effort to kind of coordinate all these different plans so that they are complimentary of each other I also participated on the june 10th event Meeting at gillard park and did the walk to Martin Luther king park, which was a very nice event and was very beneficial and helpful having the band with us Walking the entire route, but it was a wonderful event A little bit more details on the red board meeting So the first loan did close on june 10th and it's for the aviara project on west college That was a 2.4 million dollar loan to support the development of 136 units of affordable housing Which is again, it's great when you actually heard of the possibilities of this red board Then when you actually see this money is going to be invested directly the way we want it So it's a great day for the red board. Thanks And mr. Vice mayor Thank you, ma'am On june 5th. I met with some of my constituents in district one at the rosin creek park and They wanted me to thank our parks and recs For being diligent in the weed abatement and assuring that That the park remains safe of the possibility of being burnt by wildfire or something of that nature um, I also attended the the june 10th event at south park also my district where we were uh Complimented by the visit of our council member rogers with a proclamation and a lot of festivities There were a lot of goods absolutely and a lot of food that was being sold at the at the event and Each one was very good Also on the 18th. I was honored to attend paradise ridge winery where they were having a wakamatsu found grove tea garden celebration for one of our original japanese immigrant members who A century ago came to to san rosa from lands far away japan and it was absolutely Humbling to see how We come from very courageous people We have left their home without knowing What awaits them and I think it was in solidarity that that we Rejoiced that each one of us Come from those origins our emigrant community Those that that they had a vision of something greater than what they knew in the comfort of Other native land his name kanaye nagasawa Thank you. Thank you so much. Mr. Vice mayor a couple of quick updates Wanted to report back on our economic development subcommittee meeting from last week We did receive a very robust and substantial conversation With our first five partners as well as our economic development team on the city's arpa That's the american rescue plan act funding As you'll remember san rosa is investing heavily in children as councilmember mcdonald pointed out We've seen the need here in our own community. So particularly our child care programs as well as our basic income and baby bonds or Uh 115 trusts For uh for our kids are starting to be implemented. We have the program parameters are being developed And we should see those programs out and about on the streets soon. I think I'll have a big impact So that was a great one for us to to sit through We had our sonoma clean power meeting Previously we did sign off on two new energy projects including a geothermal project as well as a local solar project Those will help us to continue to provide 24 7 renewable energy for folks who are on the evergreen program As well as meet additional needs. Uh, so that was a great one We had sonoma county transportation authority and regional climate protection agents Climate protection authority Last monday where we received a good presentation from Bay rent that's the bay area regional energy Network on their strategic plan and building out our charging infrastructure network and what sorts of resources We can collaborate on and partner on to try to address climate change Uh, and finally uh last week We had a visit from our regional administrator for the economic development administration Who got a nice tour of our facilities and a couple of ongoing projects that we have across the city Really just meeting with staff to find available funding and wanted to thank her for coming out and spending Most of the day with our team. Now that was a good and productive meeting Last thing before we move on and go to public comment. I want to issue a huge And well deserved good luck in retirement to Naomi fuchs Who has been leading the santa rosa community health network? When Naomi took over that network there was one facility She's grown it to eight including rebuilding one of the facilities that were lost in the tubs fire With a particular emphasis on low income communities of color here in sonoma county in santa rosa Naomi has big shoes to fill But she is very excited for her retirement We were happy to issue a proclamation and be at her retirement party to say a few words On behalf of the council With that, let's go to public comment and see if anyone would like to provide an input on council member reports I see no hands raised. We have no voicemail public comment and nobody rising in the council chamber Okay We'll move on then to item 11 It's approval of minutes. We have minutes from april 12th 2022 council members. Did you have any amendments to those minutes? I'm seeing shaking hands. Let's see if there's any public comment on the minutes Mayor no public comment on minutes. Okay, uh, we'll show those approved as presented without objection I see no objection We are going to pull item 12.12 From tonight's agenda. I will be bringing it back at the next available council meeting. My understanding is that there was Some language in the notice that we needed to correct before we bring it forward for final adoption So we'll be pulling item 12.12 Madam city manager, do you want to introduce the rest of the consent calendar? Thank you, mayor Item 12.1 is a resolution approval of secure family's collaborative grant agreement for fiscal years 2022 and 23 and 2023 and 24 Item 12.3 is a resolution purchase order for firewall upgrade item 12.4 Is a resolution waiver a bid and approval of a purchase order For 21 ford f 150 lightning electric vehicles to handle ford santa rosa california Item 12.5 is a resolution split bid award invitation for a bid 22-28 LED street street lights to asco supply ink and solar max led ink Item 12.6 is a resolution approval of management and operations agreement with luther burbank home and gardens association Item 12.7 is a resolution merger of two parcels comprising city-owned property at 3499 idaho drive and related summary vacation of portions of idaho drive right away and public service easements Item 12.8 is a resolution authorizing submittal of a matching grant application to the sonoma county agriculture agriculture preservation and open space district for the lower colgan creek restoration project phase three and lower colgan creek neighborhood park project Item 12.9 is a resolution seventh amendment to professional services agreement number f 000 1238 with r3 consulting group ink of roseville california 12.10 is a resolution appropriations limit physical year 22 and 23 resolution 12 excuse me item 12.11 is a resolution general municipal election november the 8th 2022 calling the election requesting consolidation with the statewide general election and adopting regulations pertaining to candidate statements item 12.12 is a resolution fourth amendment to agreement number f 000 424 for the campaign and lobbyist disclosure system agreement with netfowl ink item 12.13 resolution professional services agreement with frost drullis kussenberry architect ink for completion of the herne avenue community hub needs assessment and collaboration project and item 1214 the resolution making required monthly findings and authorizing the continued use of teleconferencing for public meetings of the city council and all city boards commissions and committees pursuant to assembly bill 361 thank you he makes some corrections item 12.2 is a resolution the third amendment to agreement f 000 2014 with legal aid of sonoma county and we are striking item 12.12 thank you excellent thank you so much council do we have any questions on the consent calendar i have a question on item 12.4 is it a question or do you need a poll for substantial discussion ask the question yeah go for it does ford give us a discount when we buy a fleet of cars like this or are we given any opportunity to negotiate that with them can you see if zack our brandolin can thank you good afternoon council um regarding the question about discount uh yes ford factory does provide government discount for fleets on the agreement that we will operate vehicles for a certain period of time i believe it's normally about three years which we never have a problem doing um and we often compare those prices to other cooperative uh purchasing agreement discounts thank you so much that's it thank you mr mayor i just have a question related both 12.1 and 12.2 staff report at least on 12.1 indicates that the city must report expenditures and accomplishments due to the use of arpa funds and then it also indicates city staff will be in regular contact to obtain this information um so how and or where will this information be available to the council and or the community again i'm supportive of both of these agreements but where would we find out how they're doing thank you for the question it's actually a very good question i have actually compiled all the project reports um and getting all the information ready to submit to council uh a couple of the team members needed to finalize their project reports before they were finalized so you will get ongoing reports on the arpa funding great thank you any additional questions okay let's go to public comment if you have a comment on tonight's consent calendar go ahead hit the raise hand feature on your zoom we'll go to legal aid hello we can hear you okay great thank you um hello uh thank you uh my name is sonny no and i am the legal services manager for the housing team at uh the league at legal latest sonoma county on behalf of legal aid we'd like to thank the council for approving this amendment and continuing to fund this important work this expanded funding allows us to fully fund a full-time housing staff attorney and to provide legal services to both low-income renters and landlords and allows us to expand our outreach in the city of san aroza focusing on reaching our bi-pop community members over the course of the last few months as many of the state COVID tenant protections have expired we have seen a steady rise in threats of eviction among our most vulnerable community members these funds will support our efforts to ensure all low-income community members have access to important legal advice and services in unlawful detainers and in other housing matters in the coming months we will likely see the end of the remaining state and local COVID protections with that we expect to see an exponential increase in eviction related issues and tenant displacement this funding will be imperative in allowing us to meet that need and serve as many community members as possible thank you i see no other hands do we have the prerecorded voicemails we have no prerecorded voicemails on this okay oh i do see one more hand popped up let's go to andrea hi can you hear me yes we can hi please excuse the delay um so my name is andrea guarino i am the grant writer at ywca sinoma county you may be familiar with our ceo madeline keegan o'connell she regrets that she could not attend as she had a prior commitment uh i would like to talk to you today about um our request of uh 25 000 increased in funding per year for our uh san rosa shelter bed contracts we have a safe house uh shelter for domestic violence victims and their families we welcome everyone to that shelter as you may know there has been an increase in domestic violence related reports both um during and after the pandemic more so after as we're seeing a huge spike in calls to our hotline etc um i have data to share with you if you'd like to see that data but i will just keep it brief in the interest of everyone's time i just want to remind everyone here that ywca holds a singular and vital role in sinoma county as the only domestic violence service provider uh we've been doing this for over 40 years now and we answer our domestic violence crisis hotline if anyone needs that hotline it's 707 546 1234 around the clock 24 7 short on volunteers we are just doing everything that we can and hustling as ever before calls to the domestic violence hotline in 2020 we're on par with 2019 but in 2021 we saw a startling 46 increase in calls for support from local families experiencing violence in their own homes uh lastly i'd like to offer to provide any additional information for your review and i'd like to thank you for your time all right thank you so much mr vice mayor do you want to put a motion on the table please i'd be honored to mayor thank you i'd like to move items 12.1 through 12.14 with the exception of item 12.12 as it was struck down and wait for the reading of the text second second we have a motion from the vice mayor and a second from councilmember mcdonald any additional discussion let's call the vote councilmember schwedhelm aye councilmember natalie rogers aye councilmember mcdonald aye councilmember fliming yes vice mayor alvarez aye mayor rogers aye let the record show that motion passes with six ayes and one absence it's not yet five o'clock so we'll skip a public comment for and on agenda items for the moment we'll go on to item 14.1 item 14.1 is a report parking fee schedule revisions uh chief financial uh allen aughton will present thank you mayor rogers and members of the council um good evening and i'll wait for the presentation to come up so this item is uh proposed some revisions to the parking fee schedule if you go to the next slide please so uh back in 2020 the council approved various temporary parking fee waivers at the outset of the covid-19 pandemic the needs fee waivers were intended to provide business uh or provide relief to downtown businesses and visitors and the waivers are set to expire there's a typo here they're set to expire on june 30th 2022 uh we um we had extended uh the the waivers several times during uh the two years uh or the last two years and um but this was coming up on the final time of doing the extension given the health of the parking fund next slide please the staff reached out to uh the downtown action organization specifically their executive uh director kate and tallison uh to see what we can do uh to help the visitors and the businesses in the downtown after the fee waivers expire so one proposal was to provide uh for first hour pre parking to all five garages uh specifically it was uh a part of concern was was that we have uh inconsistent um fees in the uh for all of our garages and that consistency would be able to provide uh that's forth that we were looking for for the businesses and with and to help uh our the visitors so the seventh street garage which is known as garage one and the first street garage which is known as garage 12 uh they currently offer first hour free parking so we're looking to expand that uh to all five garages and then the other proposal would be to make permanent our our free weekend parking in the garages during the holiday season uh we began this this program i believe it was in 2017 it's very popular uh but every year we would come back uh um prior to the program going into effect and request that of the council uh it makes it difficult for uh the businesses uh and visitors to uh count on on that particular program so we uh what we're proposing to do is just make it permanent uh going forward next slide so we uh after meeting with the with the dao we we said we would take the uh the items back into uh for analysis uh which we did um and while we we do anticipate a lot of revenue by doing these we think that uh overall uh we can support it um and uh this is again it's one of those things where um i i think we need to to give a little to hopefully get a lot back it'll provide uh the necessary um uh continuity in our in our uh charges uh it'll provide that stability it's something that that that both the city and the um uh and the dao and the businesses can promote and uh uh so we we thought that there was good to move forward uh we reached out to cadence and and uh let her know that and um and the dao uh is is in support of of this program uh we did include these fee reductions in our parking fund uh estimate for 2023 and while the parking fund does have an operational deficit for 2023 fiscal year 2023 our hope is is that once we get back to pre-covid uh uh parking that we'll be able to balance that that fund in our forecasting does suggest that um so with that we we are uh hoping to move forward with this program uh next likely one of the things that we also want to do with this is to uh like i said uh provide a lot of outreach uh this was something that the council had brought up in the past and it's something that we are working very hard towards so uh um uh we will make it clear on our parking garages that of uh the first hour free uh uh we will um clearly identify that we will look at any promotional measures that we can including the presence of the women wincing our markets uh developing brochures and flyers meeting with business owners and of course using the city's website and social media uh to help promote um uh these new um parking hours and next slide please so with that it's recommended uh by the finance department that the council by resolution proved changes to the parking fee schedule to include first hour free parking in the five public parking garages effective july 1 2022 and free parking saturdays and sundays uh in the garages uh from november 26 to january 1 of each year and with that i'm available for any questions should you have that right thank you so much alan let's see if there's any questions councilmember mcdonald just a comment i just want to congratulate you alan and chad hedge for reaching out to the downtown um action organization and collaborating on this particular project to really listen to the businesses on the hours of operation to make sure that we're doing what's best to support our downtown um businesses so i just want to congratulate you on that i received a letter saying thank you and so it's not often that we get thanked for the work that we do so i thought i'd pass that along tonight and say thank you so much for your work on this let's go go to public comment see if anybody has comments on this item i see no raised hands nobody going towards the podium and we have no voicemail public comment so i see one popped up we'll go to eric yeah yes thank you this is eric with greater cherry at gmail.com and uh yeah thank you for um bringing this item to the table um i do uh also appreciate councilmember mcdonald's comments to um to honor people working together on policy in the city uh and looking at this though i find that it probably doesn't go far enough to really solve the issues that uh the parking policy uh creates as far as negative impacts for businesses and visitors into the business core um the the thing to remember is that it's not about the price of parking as much as the price of violations for parking uh and so it's really the parking violations that are the cash cow for the city that money goes into the general fund and parking violations have a larger impact on lower social economic citizens of santa rosa than the cost of parking the other thing that's important to realize is that the parking structures really represent a largely unused asset for both regulating parking that's near the structures which for some of the structures means like a lot of residential parking and the impacts between business demands for parking that extend beyond you know meters usually dumps into the residential parking zones and so strategies that don't consider the neighborhoods that are by the parking structures uh is quite defective and while I appreciate again the spirit of working together with the downtown action organization I just want to remind folks that there's more um buy-in that's necessary and there is this belief that the parking district uh already is has a lot of mysterious things about it that are not appropriately represented to the public and so since there's a change in leadership there there's this opportunity to sort of become a little bit more transparent let's really live the belief that mayor radgers brought to the dais a few years ago when he wanted to make santa rosa this really transparent city a well planned city and we look at something like the parking department and it just doesn't appear to be that way and this policy recommendation probably doesn't go far enough and so um so that's sort of regretful but thank you so much and there's nothing wrong with your timer sometimes it's stuck up sometimes it speeds up it's like buying gas at a unscrupulous filling station during these high prices but thank you so much I appreciate thank you thank you Eric I'll go ahead bring it back councilmember Fleming I believe this is your item it's my item and I'm going to bring forward a resolution but first I'm going to tell you all a little bit about why but this does is I want to connect us back to what the council's goals are which is to encourage economic vitality in our downtown to reduce confusion for the people who use our um underutilized garages encourage them to use these garages and also as a result of using these garages thereby reducing or actually eliminating your chance of getting a violation so when we do something like this which costs us a little money and thank you to our CFO Mr Alton for explaining that we will make up the revenue we are investing in our economic drivers and reducing the stress on both our our consumers and residents and our business owners of those really um unpopular violations so with that I gladly move a resolution of the council of the city of Santa Rosa approving at the five city-owned parking garages first hour free parking and free weekend parking on Saturdays and Sundays from the first Saturday after Thanksgiving for New Year's Day annually and they for their reading of the text second we have a motion from council member Fleming in a second from council member Rogers any additional comments it's called the vote council member Schwedhelm hi council member Rogers um hi but can I just say one thing really quickly I too would like to uh compliment staff on getting out there and getting the opinions of our business owners and our community members and really taking it back and seeing how we can go back to the drawing board and how we can all work together um and I know it might be a step but it's a good step in in the right direction and we're not going to answer all the questions um and solve all the problems at first but we are going in the right direction so thank you very much uh Mr Alton and your team for all the work that you do thank you council member mcdonald hi council member Fleming hi vice mayor alvarez hi mayor rogers hi let the record show this resolution passed with six eyes and one absence of council member Sawyer all right thank you it's five o'clock so we'll go on to our public comment for non-agenda matters item uh if you would like to provide comment on something that falls within the city of santa rosa's jurisdiction but is not on tonight's council go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on zoom or approach the podium we'll go to eric thank you very much eric frazier with greater cherry at gmail.com there may be some people in the audience that will be commenting on this very topic so i don't actually want to jump in the front of them that much but that's just fate here so let me go ahead and talk about the residential parking permit renewal the issue is that the program has gone digital and there's a lot of people in the neighborhood that are subjected to the residential parking program that don't like the changes uh in addition to the permit going digital uh thereby eliminating the physical placard that would act as a hang tag off the rearview mirror that provided a level of portability for that identification so it made it easy for friends and caregivers and workers to have access to a pass without jumping through a lot of hoops with the city but there were some additional restrictions on the number of temporary permits you could get the length of time that the temporary permits are active and just a whole number of of additional considerations in the program that again weren't discussed they're just sort of like happened and it's like it's always sort of funny because we want to be very appreciative of us our city working together to solve problems but for so many people in the city they're left just to respond to like stuff that you guys serve up that's sort of half baked and really ends up being really expensive for the city in the end it's like not even best practice it's just somebody gets an idea to do something I think other people that may step forward this may not necessarily be my specific concern but probably should be there definitely are people that are concerned about the erosion of their privacy rights that come forward with this change to a digital reality for the parking permits I'm I haven't researched this there's other people that asked me to participate on behalf of our neighborhood association I certainly provide my leadership to stand and deliver on important issues that other people think and I agree with but this privacy issue is one that has significant impacts for people and again that's not really something that I think all that much about in this modern era but some people really really really do and in talking to them I really do understand that there's some legitimate significant concerns there that again you guys didn't really pay attention to and I just I don't know it just felt like this is a good idea but thank you so much I appreciate time and I appreciate your work thank you thank you Eric let's go ahead go to Shelly do you hear me yeah okay hi hi everybody um this is the first time I've been here since the COVID lockdown and I came in the heat just because I wanted to see y'all face-to-face and say hello um this isn't about public banking for the first time ever I've been at the podium it's not about that um but I will say LA put forth their RFP last week for a viability study and business plan for public bank of LA so that's exciting but I am here to speak about what Eric just now spoke to I'm a resident in the Cherry Street district I've owned a home on Humboldt Street for the past 18 years and for the first 17 years if we wanted guests we were given placards to place in our guest car if they were to stay more than two hours um however um a year ago this new policy was imposed upon us where we are now only we are limited to seven guests per 30 day period and that means if I if my family members come just visit me for a couple of days a few of them I'm done for the month having guests and it used to be very easy to have friends over walk downtown leisurely hang out shop dine support the downtown businesses contribute to your sales tax revenue and that is now limited it's a huge frustration as a property tax owner as someone who pays a hefty amount of property tax and this is being imposed upon us now and I was very concerned about my privacy because initially we were informed that we had to give them make a model of the car to have guests over so I did a little investigating I asked the parking department to provide me with our parking policy which I was told they would give me if I would keep it private well I'm not because they've invaded on our privacy and within that policy um it's state I wanted to know who has access to those records they keep on record who my guests are yes they do who has access to that to what they refer to in the policy as surveillance records who has access our private litigants journalists and others may utilize the freedom of information act or california public records act to request surveillance records is very unsettling to me that I'm now limited on the number of guests I can have and they're being surveyed and now I've been I've learned that we can um bypass entering to make a model of the car but it's not a user friendly website that comes up first and you got to keep scrolling to get past that it's not obvious so what I'm asking is that they bring back the placards number one and um and that's basically just it is that that would be my very simple request we have a long list of requests we will follow up with the parking department share them um I'll email you guys to what the requests are beyond that but um essentially that's it and I thank you for your time thank you thank you shally let's see if there's any other public comment are we on yes roger mcconnell I am with the santa rosa manufactured homeowners association wanted to talk to you briefly about our rate control ordinance here in santa rosa we've been struggling for several years seven or eight years trying to get on to this council as an agenda item as we speak I understand the ordinance is being tweaked and turned and being looked at by the people over in the annex our our ordinance here is tied to the bay area cpi many of our residents that live in our communities are there on social security only the difference is about 33 to 35 percent over an eight to 10 year period these people lose their buying power we're asking for a reduction in the amount we come to each year let's do a percentage of that the money to administer this ordinance is a great big balloon number somewhere around 540 to 50 thousand dollars just sitting there we're asking to stop taking that out please it's it's very difficult for these people who are there on social security only and we're asking if this can be done we're about to be hit I think late July or August the new cpi out of the bay area comes out it may max out at 6 percent as allowed under the ordinance we have now is there any way we could put a freeze or a moratorium till this is all taken care of all worked out the negotiations with the owners all of that and that's what we have to do with that it's just been going on for a long time I would remind the council there's a great big barbecue happening on July 23rd that you've all been invited to I hope some of you can make it out there we've had many of the council members in the past I have heard from Mr. McGuire's office he can't make it this year and I would like to thank Mr. Schwunhelm and Mr. Sawyer for their time on this board our people out in the city here we appreciate you guys I understand you're not running again it's what it is right we all get older and tired of what we're doing anyhow appreciate your time thank you guys very much thank you Mr. McConnell and I will have staff circle back with you we had a study session item earlier today to talk about our housing element and that was one of the elements that generally received the thumbs up from council so not a done deal we're bringing it back but it continues to move forward and make progress on it let's go back to zoom and go to Cindy can you hear me yes we can okay great um so I'm okay I'm in the cherry street neighborhood and I finally figured out how to do the comment sorry I meant to go right after Shelly um excuse me being a little nervous just talking in front of a group Shelly and Eric and some other neighbors conferred with those of us who are on an email uh group about the parking issues and I was really glad that they reached out because when this new parking non-placord policy went into effect it was a surprise and not a pleasant one and I had not talked to any other neighbors about it so I welcomed the opportunity to learn more and confer about what we were not happy with and Shelly alluded to other points that she would bring up later and I would like to bring up those points that were put together by conferring with various neighbors about what hasn't been working for us since the simple placards which worked so well I've been a resident with my husband for 23 years in the cherry street neighborhood and we were just fine with the placards um it feels very much like we're jumping through hoops and the privacy issue of uh guest is an issue let me read if you don't mind some of these points first we'd like to bring the placards back one placard per registered vehicle and hopefully one per guest per address to help benefit those without driveways or shared driveways continue for those who want to utilizing the printed parking permits as an option for residents who prefer them I never use them myself again it's jumping through hoops that I don't wish to go through um and if um the one day if the one day permits remain we ask the parking division to consider granting at least 15 per rolling 30 day period instead of seven like Shelly was talking about for family visits that's it for the month um on the website apparently I've never used it to request a permit but it says optional enter the plate and make of the car that we're requesting permits for and that's a privacy issue that I'm hoping will be eliminated if the requesting of permits is continued um we would like to request permits for contractors via the parking divisions online self-service parking site and not require us to go to the parking division for those permits and we'd like to change the two hour maximum parking time limit to three hours and to remove the orange placard on the parking signs which states vehicles must leave the block for the day upon expiration of time limit thank you very much thank you so much Cindy thank you do we have any pre-recorded voicemails we have one pre-recorded voicemail one moment please public comment on non-agenda item number 13 name is Dwayne D. Witt from Roseland on the 11th of June Santa Rosa City employees visited the southwest community park at Hearn Avenue and the end of Burbank Avenue there was easily a dozen city trucks there it was wonderful that day that they were helping the community and there were some volunteers out to help volunteers from there went down to Roseland Creek area where a number of behavioral health transient vagrants have moved into the city-owned land and have been destroying some of the campsite area making campsites destroying some of the area it should be said excuse me and when uh Eddie Alvarez came there that afternoon at 11 o'clock to talk to members of the Hughes Avenue neighborhood association on McMinn Avenue over 29 people came out most were quite concerned about how these free range transient vagrants are essentially taking over area that was open for the public to walk through have a chance to see some nature the children could walk to school and now it's blocked off by these people who have no respect for Roseland or the nature it's a quite sad situation and one would hope that the city would help the community to get these people out of that area we're grateful to the city workers at the parks and rec department the debris removal team from the streets department and for Eddie Alvarez to come out there it's a dilemma though that the city as a large organization seems too slow to react to getting these folks who are burning fires you know oak woodland an area that's dry and it's like tender waiting to be lit on fire and the city's talking about wildfire prevention please move these hurtful people off that city owned land so that the city's not responsible if the neighborhood catches fire and the fire goes over in to private houses watch out for the taxpayer owned resources of the roseland neighborhood but that concludes pre-recorded voicemail okay let's go on to item 15.1 14.2 no no uh 15.1 our first public hearing item 15.1 is a public hearing flora terra dispensary appeal susie murray senior planner will deliver the report while susie pops up we'll do our ex parte disclosures from council members i'll start on zoom councilmember rogers do you have any ex parte communications to disclose no how about councilmember fleming no mayor councilmember schwetl i've viewed the site uh talked with the chair of the planning commission but everything i learned is contained in the staff report thank you councilmember mcdonald no i was just contacted by the applicant but i didn't respond so everything is in the in the package it's public okay and i did go out and uh walk the site but had no contact elsewhere all right susie do you want to take it away my presentation come on up there we go so the item before you this afternoon is the appeal of the flora terra conditional use permit to operate uh cannabis dispensary and the site is located at 1226 fourth fourth street next slide please before i give you the background on the project i wanted to give you a little bit of background on the cannabis uses in santa rosa first um back in uh 2000 december of 2017 the council adopted a comprehensive cannabis ordinance that went into effect um mid january of 2018 um part of that ordinance established zoning districts where cannabis dispensaries were permitted uh most well all of the zoning districts where they're permitted are commercial and industrial and then of course business parks um not all commercial districts but certainly it's permitted in the the general commercial zoning district um all dispensaries are required to obtain a major conditional use permit which includes a very public process um first of all if they're located near residential which uh flora terra would be um they're required to have a neighborhood meeting which this project did um second was when the application is uh submitted we're uh required to send out a notice of application to all neighbors um and not for any uh cannabis or any major conditional use permit um cannabis or otherwise um and then of course the public hearing process includes noticing again um and a public hearing before the planning commission so then on on march 24th the planning commission approved the flora terra conditional use permit to operate the the retail facility at 12 24th war street that was a unanimous decision um and then on april 20 um april first um which was the end of the appeal period we received the uh the request to appeal the planning commission's actions so next slide please when the appeal um was received the grounds for appeal provided i'm going to quote the project impacts on the mcdonald historical district have not been studied nor have the valuation of properties of homes impacts tested value been analyzed for the historical district next slide the uh the location 12 24th street is shown by the gold star um and the mcdonald district is in the uh kind of greenish color to the north and then um it's surrounded by um residential uses kind of to the east and south as well so there's there's quite a few residential uses nearby um the night of the planning commission meeting we had one person from the public comment on the the proposed conditional use permit and that person lived in the neighborhood out not the mcdonald preservation district but the neighborhood more to the um to the east next slide please so as i mentioned um the zoning code table 26 uh that that requires a major conditional use permit for any cannabis dispensaries in the general commercial or cg zoning district um that that section also regulates the location for cannabis retail uses and says that um uses or cannabis uses cannot or retail cannabis uses cannot be located within 600 feet of another cannabis retail use or um a school it does not regulate the proximity to preservation districts next slide please um there are six required findings the first three are shown here um the project is consistent with the general plan and zoning the site uh it was analyzed and determined that the site was appropriate for the use next slide please and i think i just want to summarize without the planning commission found that all six findings required findings could be met so next slide please so with that it's recommended by the planning commission and the planning and economic development department that the council by resolution deny the appeal of robert Jacobson and uphold the planning commission's decision to approve a conditional use permit for floratera a 1140 square foot cannabis retail facility at 1226 fourth street and that concludes staff's presentation i'm here for questions if you have any i know the applicant would like to make a presentation as well council do we have any questions council member mcdonald thank you thank you for the presentation i know in the report it mentions santa rosa middle school but what i didn't see in proximity to where the dispensary is um planned is proctor terrorist elementary school and i was wondering up on the map you could tell me if there's any other schools that are within not just 600 feet but up to a thousand feet away from this dispensary i i can't tell you that right off the top of my head without going and just doing a quick review and gis can i can i report back on that in a couple minutes and i would like that information um before i'd be comfortable to make any decisions tonight so if you're able to to pull that up for us um before we can before we move to that would be great thank you absolutely i will i just don't want to hold everything up well i'm looking for that but i can pull that up on my my gis thank you so much i appreciate it and we can come back with that answer let's see if there's any other questions from council members and while susie looks at that we'll go on to the applicant presentation i have actually let's see uh i apologize we have the planning commission chair i believe karen weeks and i'll see if karen had anything that she wanted to add um thank you mayor rogers uh can you hear me okay i hope yes we can thank you um so mayor rogers members of the city council my name is karen weeks and uh as chair of the planning commission i'm here tonight representing the commission i'd like to provide you just a brief overview of our actions as it relates to the item before you tonight as mrs mary said on march 24th the commission reviewed this item all seven members were present to review this project as we stayed at the beginning of each meeting the planning commission is charged with carrying out california planning and zoning laws in the city of santa rosa which includes the implementation of local ordinances and policies relating to land use matters during this meeting we heard from two members of the public one opposed as it related to traffic and one in support commissioners asked questions regarding the issues of the applicant and staff and the the application was very thorough and complete and met all the local and state requirements at the end of the meeting the commissioners approved the project with a seven zero vote and i'm happy to answer any questions if you have them any questions for the planning commission chair go ahead thank you karen um do you know if there's any other schools in the closer proximity just off off topic um since that was the last question i asked it was that something that you considered when you're i know it says 600 feet is the state ordinance but i was wondering if you knew they were close to that i don't and we look at what is in the state and local ordinance with respect to schools thank you okay let's go to the applicant oh go ahead sue i did want to mention in terms of setbacks our code also provides for requires a 600 foot minimum setback from any k through 12 school uh as defined under state law um i know at the time that it was adopted there was consideration of having um a setback a greater setback and that was not moved forward so under our code the requirement is simply the 600 foot minimum setback thank you suzi go ahead yeah i just wanted to let you know that i could get back so generally when we do my staff reports i i add the closest you know the um the number of feet to the closest school so the closest school is santa rosa middle uh school the proctor terrace elementary school is about 2300 linear feet away from the site and that says a crow flies so that's a straight line thank you keep that okay now we'll go to the wing guards you'll have up to 10 minutes for your presentation wonderful thank you um i so my name's alisha wingard and i'm joined this evening by with my husband david and we are here to talk about the appeal um if you could move on to the next slide um i will just summarize suzi has already said this uh that we were approved unanimously in march and then at the end of that approval or at the end of the appeal window someone had filed an appeal based on issues pertaining to the historical district um there we go hello if we could go on to the next slide i will try to make this brief just in an effort to get through this so my name is alisha this is my husband david and we are owner operators of flora terra we are a licensed cannabis dispensary in santa rosa we are looking to expand to a second location at 1226 4th street um we both have backgrounds not in cannabis so we're coming into this industry uh you know with a different perspective than some who have been in for you know an extended period of time over we have learned a lot in the past two and a half years and we are hoping to continue growing and servicing the community that you're in if you could go to the next slide do the next slide please i think we're having a little technical difficulty at the moment oh can you hear us or is it the slides perfect okay so um as outlined our project does meet all of the requirements set forth by you know the city um this is the same presentation that we gave the night of our um meeting with the planning commission um we are design aesthetic is going to be similar to that of our existing location which is shown here and again we're consistent with the general plan um for the city of santa rosa we go on to the next slide we discuss security measures um we have enhanced security age verification is done by all staff um anyone that is an employee would enter through employee only doors with you know a key card we will have up to 20 high definition cameras to monitor all the entrances and exits all limited access spaces with recording 24 seven maintained for 90 days um and we make that information available to the police department or a designee from the city upon request we've actually offered this information up on multiple occasions one of which allowed our neighbors to identify somebody who hit and run their fire hydrant the person was leaving their building and rounded the corner and we were able to provide that information in addition to a domestic violence dispute that was in our parking lot um so our alarm system again it's monitored and maintained by first alarm their local company we have panic buttons installed throughout and again monitoring 24 seven um shipping and receiving we will utilize our existing location and perform weekly deliveries from there that way we can monitor or we can have absolute control over when and where those deliveries are taking place at this new location um next slide please so when it comes to community impact we provide jobs at our existing location we employ 15 people in our retail department and all of our all of our employees are Sonoma County residents most of which are currently living in Coffey Park um at our new location we'll anticipate hiring between six and ten additional people up to two security guards and we'll utilize our existing location to train all of our staffs to avoid any hiccups that new businesses experience we generate tax revenue um as you guys know there is a three percent tax on all cannabis purchases and to date we have paid anywhere from twenty five thousand to thirty five thousand dollars per quarter in tax revenues since uh since we opened in 2019 um some other ways that we impact the community would be our collaboration with the california community colleges um we work closely with them um speaking on panels and working with college professors they are trying to determine a way that we can have cannabis education at the jc level and so this is a project that's near and dear to my heart to you know further continue education um at the jc level in this industry is heavily needed in addition to that we're making donations to various public schools as well as hosting toy and food drives for the redwood empire food bank um on this next slide i just wanted to highlight our demographics there was some concern about um the distance to schools and potential marketing to children and so i wanted to show the demographics of our existing customer base mostly just show you that 63.5 of our customers are over the age of 30 um we don't market to children we never will that's not what we're here for um we serve anyone currently serving anyone over the age of 21 but again most of them are over the age of 30 so on this next slide i just want to talk about the appeal um the appeal was filed by a community member who has concerns about the impacts on the historical district um including but not limited to financial impacts on property evaluations so unfortunately there's really limited data that we did building but we do border the district um and the data that i have found almost supports the opposite um there is a company called clever real estate and clever real estate's mission is to be the most trusted real estate education source on the internet and so when they conduct their studies they utilized expert subject they utilize experts in different subjects including real estate agents brokers property investors attorneys mortgage professionals and data scientists to really go through and comb the data um in a recent study they utilized us census bureau data and real estate data obtained from zillow and the what they stated was for every one million dollars in additional tax revenue from marijuana sales they've seen home values increased by four hundred and seventy dollars they also said that home values in areas where they have legalized recreational cannabis um it slept up to seventeen thousand dollars more than places where marijuana is illegal so obviously sonoma county does not need any assistance in increasing home values but again i just wanted to point this out due to the appeal um at the end of the day we were approved by the planning commission um the city has put forth this path that you have to take in order to become a cannabis operator in this city and we have gone down that path we have gone to you know through the application process the neighborhood meetings um and we were given unanimous approval and i really do hope that we can get through this and keep the decision from the planning commission um on this last side i just was going to show our design aesthetic and talk about why we're here when we built this dispensary we had one goal in mind and that was to bring an elevated experience to our community by curating a space that felt inviting to purchase legal cannabis we consider ourselves a wine country chic cannabis boutique we hire well-spoken individuals who are smart and talented and they have an immense amount of knowledge about all of the products that we carry they pride themselves in the ability to make effective recommendations to the members of our community and we were absolutely thrilled to be approved for this second location to continue community or continue um servicing our community um we welcome anyone who has questions to reach out to us on this next slide you'll find our contact information um and at the original planning commission meeting we had also offered this information up to anyone i did have a couple of people reached out who were neighbors two in support one concerned about lighting from the exterior of the building um we've addressed all of that and i've assured the neighbor who's worried about our exterior lights that will make sure they don't shine in her yard um so that is all we have for you today we thank you mr mayor council members mr vice mayor for being here and look forward to hearing your decision great thank you so much council do you have any questions for the applicants seeing them we'll go to a presentation from the appellant yes so mr jacobson if you want to do it i'm sorry my name is bill kuziara i have uh had a law office at uh 7 13 spring street for 38 years bought it in 83 and remodeled it won a award really fast before you get too far into your comments are you here representing no the appellant no no i'm representing myself my wife we have three properties one is where we had i just sold the one of 7 13 to a person who's taking very good care of it so i'll come back to you for public comment oh we're looking to see if the appellant uh is here to make his presentation but we'll come back to in just a couple minutes if that's okay susie did you have something to add no i i don't oh i'm sorry i didn't realize my hand was up no i didn't that was an accident okay another technical challenge it's a phantom hand okay well uh we'll see we have no appellant to make a presentation so oh oh yeah perfect set right up then once again my name is bill kuziara kuzi i a r a i have owned property at uh the 7 13 and i still own property at 7 18 and 7 22 spring street which has a back uh carriage house at 1508 13th street i'm on that i wish i could can you put up that map that shows the mcdonald district and its relationship to uh the project because i think that kind of describes what i would be very helpful and yeah let's see if we can get that put back up i can continue um there it is yeah well as you can see right across the street from the mcdonald district is the project it's on the entrance way into spring street and uh i own that those properties right there in the first uh seven well i did own 7 13 and 7 18 and 7 22 which are the ones and back on the other side of the street i have uh my wife and i have won a couple awards we did it out of a contribution to the community as i believe a lot of people in the mcdonald district do they uh this is the this is a core of the city it's a jewel and if you've ever been down to the mcdonald district on halloween you'll see that people come from miles around just to enjoy the spirit and the ambiance of that era it takes you back uh maybe a hundred years ago but it's a time of fourth of july thanksgiving you can go by look at the direct decorations christmas it deserves a little bit more circumspection than the planning commission has given it and it deserves your circumspection is two i contacted miss murray and i said didn't anybody consider any of the impacts on the mcdonald historical district the answer was well no it's not uh it's not in the district and uh she provided me with a four page well written summary of why there's no jurisdiction well i researched that a little bit too and i found that the city council gives the cultural heritage board its jurisdiction you have not given it the jurisdiction to ever look into this issue it's the for their charter i asked for the charter i got the charter okay well they can consider everything in that district that green district there but they can't consider anything that might endanger infringe upon impact the mcdonald historical district because it's not in their charter and the only one who can change the charter is you and you can change it tonight by a boat by asking by authorizing the cultural heritage board to look into this issue what are the impacts on the mcdonald historical district i'm impacted first so i'm here i'm on the fringe and i hold the line there so to speak in keeping the area protected but you have to protect it too you have a prize right in the middle of your city and the council needs to expand the use excuse me expand the powers of the cultural heritage board to study impacts of the pot shop on the character cultural heritage of the mcdonald historical district nobody can do it but you i urge you to do so thank you thank you sir do we have any questions from council members no no no i was saying if council members had any questions for you uh so the applicant will have a couple of moments to respond if they would like do we still have the the wingards i don't have much of a response i would just like to say in regards to the character of our shop the the store definitely aligns with an upscale boutique so that is all i will that is all i will say at this time okay i'll go ahead and open the public hearing and we'll see if there's any additional public comment that folks would like to make if you'd like to leave comment on this item hit the raise hand feature on zoom we'll go to eric to start thank you very much this is eric frazier and i'm a resident of san rosa just want to be clear i'm not representing either my neighbors in the historic district at greater cherry or people that research the short term rental issue but this issue does sort of touch on all that uh and i have to say that you have to support the applicant here not the appellant because this is a robust process that these applications go through it's a policy that was born out of months and months and months of public hearings and planning commission and um you know a very robust uh process both on the local level and i i didn't realize that the city of san rosa was a pioneer in creating local policy for cannabis so that was sort of interesting but also on a state level and so uh it seems it seems pretty clear that you the the person who came forward as a vanguard to his historic district i i also want to support and respect because really preserving these historic districts is essential and um i you know i wish maybe he came forward a little bit sooner in the process to eras concerns but it sounds like and it really looks like that david alicia would certainly be out to protect the integrity of their neighborhood in this last minute however i do want to say that this yet again provides a way that we can create an interesting juxtaposition between the hassles that you've subjected the str audience to in public policy controlling their use and as this stands in juxtaposition to cannabis regulations we can see clearly the abuses of civil rights that you enacted on on str owners and managers the proximity level the level scrutiny the ability to allow public comment the the idea that neighbors can have control over their fellow neighbors property certainly is at the essence of all these decisions but you unleash the bulls with the str policy and created an amazing case study and how not to do it right and again thank you for the the proud people that came forward with their business concept i hope they'll go smooth for them but you have to support the original applicant thank you let's see if there are any additional hands do we have any pre-recorded voicemails we have no pre-recorded voicemail on this item perfect all right council any additional questions i'll close the public hearing and i will bring it back i'm gonna look to councilmember mcdonald for a motion thank you mayor i move resolution of the council of the city of santa rosa denying an appeal and upholding the decision of the planning commission approving the conditional use permit for floratera and approximately 1140 square foot cannabis retail facility located at 1226 fourth street assessor parcel number 009 dash 112 dash 028 file number c up to 1 dash 061 and wave for the reading of the text second we have a motion from councilmember mcdonald and a second from councilmember rogers is there any input councilmember schwaethelm thank you mr mayor i just wanted to comment that i will be supporting the motion coming from a district where floratera currently resides the original shop and i would venture to guess that district six probably has as many if not more cannabis cannabis dispensaries as any other district and the reality is because i've talked a lot of my constituents i think it applies also to the mcdonald neighborhood there is that fear of someone new coming in the neighborhood but our experience and that's what i can only base it on what has been the experience of you know throughout the city the impact of dispensaries and especially being on council when we created the policy and i think we we did an excellent job but this is where they should be located and the oversight and management of it i i think it's this will be a wonderful addition to the neighborhood because it is illegal it is a legal business and we're treating as such so i'm welcoming them i'm hoping to welcome them to the neighborhood thank you councilmember let's go to councilmember rogers um i was just going to say that i think that i will be supporting it um but i i did want to say i think that pellet has a somewhat of a point that we do need to maybe look at um how we approve um from here on out the businesses on the cannabis um how we approve them going forward that it it has served us as far um but i've heard some say that we're being inundated in certain neighborhoods or just we're being inundated with storefront uh cannabis storefronts um so maybe looking at that as a council um that's feedback that we're getting from the community thank you councilmember councilmember mcdonald i will be upholding the appeal as well um so but i do have a question on bringing back the ordinance to have a consideration to extend the where schools are located i understand that the state law is 600 but i do think that the city of santa rosa could go further to ensure that it's farther away from schools and children um in that proximity to make sure that it's at at a thousand to 1200 feet is where i would be more comfortable i'm glad that this actually meets that um because there's some research and data around that and where children walk to and from school um and i understand that this facility is going to be an upscale facility i don't mean any disrespect to the applicant but i certainly want to make sure that we're protecting our children and i'd feel the same way if it was a liquor store or something else selling something that uh children would have potential access to so i too will be voting to deny the appeal and uphold the approval uh we have created regulations around cannabis that are a model across the state and actually i appreciate eric bringing bringing up the nexus between this and the uh vrbo ordinance because i do believe we put an emergency ordinance in place for cannabis and then came back and did a comprehensive that is now well received which is exactly what we're doing with the vrbo so thank you eric for that point um we have our rules and regulations that are in place the applicant meets all of them is a business owner and good standing in our community uh and so i have no grounds to deny the project after going through all of the hoops the city requires i'm happy to have the the conversation with you council member about 600 feet versus a thousand feet my question would be what does 400 feet actually buy you when you have security plans that are in place robust security plans uh and most kids who get access to cannabis don't get it from a legal business they get it from an illegal grow in a neighborhood uh which is a completely different issue uh so we can have that conversation going forward about what we're actually trying to accomplish uh but with that let's go ahead and call the vote on the motion councilmember schwetham hi councilmember natalie rogers hi councilmember mcdonnell i look forward to the discussion i councilmember flamin hi mayor rogers hi let the record show this motion passed with five affirmative votes with councilmember so you're absent and vice mayor alvarez uh recuse of stating thank you so the appeal has been denied we'll uphold the approval of the project uh madam city manager let's go into item 15.2 and then council will take a dinner break following 15.2 and then come back for our remaining items item 15.2 is a public hearing on adoption of the city of santa rosa fy 2022 2023 operations and maintenance budget and capital improvement program budget veronica connor will lead the discussion thank you i'm promoting her now good afternoon mayor and city council members my name is veronica connor i'm the budget and financial analysis manager and i'm going to be presenting to you today our fiscal year 22 23 budget adoption presentation for the public hearing next slide please before we jump into the proposed budget i just wanted to recap for you our budget process for fiscal year 22 23 we did come before council back in february to hold a public hearing on budget priorities when the public was encouraged to speak during this time we also took submission on our website from public opinion to hear their council i'm sorry their budget priorities city council held goal setting at the end of february and so the input from council goals as well as the public was considered when departments were putting together their budgets during the spring the city manager did a detailed review of all department budgets in march and at this time she was also able to approve some additional budget requests within the financial constraints available and then we came before city council on may 10th and 11th with a study session and that was our deep dive into the budget for the next fiscal year you were able to hear from individual departments ask questions offer feedback and we took all of that feedback into consideration and here we are on june 21st with our budget adoption public hearing we have a final draft of the budget that we will be presenting to you not in as much detail as we did in may but still going over the numbers so next slide please so at the study session back in may council did not direct us to make any changes to the budget we presented at that time we do have one change that does not fall within the general fund it only falls within the housing authority both revenue and expenditures within the housing authority have increased by 30 thousand and 80 dollars just due to updated department of housing and urban development allocations so that's the only change in the numbers you'll see for when we came back in may next slide and so same as we did back in may we're going to start broad and we'll talk about the citywide budget and then we're going to kind of hone in on the more focused perspectives but the next slide please we'll first take a look at citywide revenues by fund so total citywide revenues are 467.2 million for the fiscal year 2223 the general fund is the largest portion of this at 197 and a half million and we'll look at that more in detail in the next section our enterprise funds this includes our all of our water funds as well as parking and storm water and transit as well as the golf course special revenue funds consist of our public safety tax measure our gas tax funds our measure end funds for both parks and streets as well as several other small ones other funds are mostly our debt service funds and special assessment districts and then we have the housing authority and successor agency to the redevelopment agency which are their own discrete entities aside from the city and next slide and this pie chart is a visual of the detail we're going to get into on the following slide this shows citywide expenditures and the big takeaway from this slide is just to show you that general fund that big blue pie wedge is the bulk of citywide expenditures followed by our enterprise operating fund or enterprise operating funds the red pie wedge at 29% and our CIP our capital improvement program totals about 14% between both our enterprise funds and our non enterprise funds and next slide please and this table is just more detail from the pie chart you just saw on this previous slide as I mentioned the general fund that top line item is the bulk of our citywide expenditures and again we're going to talk about that in more detail in the coming section the next line down our enterprise are operating funds the expenditures for those have increased year over year mostly due to the labor agreements that all bargaining units were able to enter for the current fiscal year there have been cost of living raises across the board so we're going to see that in all departments our enterprise CIP fund going down the next line shows a pretty stark year over year variance a decrease of 28.5 million per 43% and this was driven by an appropriation in fiscal year 21-22 for 30 million dollars for the uv disinfection project at the luguna treatment plant that was a one-time project that was not repeated in the current fiscal year or the next fiscal year excuse me 22-23 so that's why we show that big variance non enterprise CIP funds are increasing by about 5.6 million dollars our special revenue funds and other funds are remaining just about flat and the housing authority is increasing their expenditures by 10 and a half million dollars they're spending out the resources they have available and the successor agency has remained flat so in total our expenditures are 478.8 million citywide if you were to compare this to the total revenues from a couple slides back of 467 million I believe it was the 467.2 million it does appear that there's a deficit but I just want to point out that that is not an actual deficit or budgeted gap or shortfall several of our enterprise funds including water and parking have planned spending of their reserves in fiscal year 22-23 and this is kind of a timing issue of having expenditures that weren't able to happen in the current fiscal year to come over to the next fiscal year so that's why that does appear that way in total our capital improvement program that bottom line is 68.4 million and citywide operations net of CIP are 410.4 million we'll go to the next slide please so that concludes our look at the overall citywide numbers and we'll jump into the general fund next to take a look more at the budget for next year next slide so this slide shows our general fund summary of the budget we're proposing to you today total revenues and transfers in are 199.8 million and total expenditures and transfers out are 199.8 million so we have for you a balanced budget and these numbers are rounded but I do want to point out that if you have the full long number here these are balanced down to the dollar there is no hidden deficit or hidden surplus in there this is a truly a balanced budget and we're very very excited to be proposing a balanced budget today this is the first time in probably six years I believe it is that we've been able to propose a balanced general fund budget due to the pandemic and wildfires and PSPS events it just hasn't been a possibility so this is truly an indication of the city being able to get back to basics as the city manager has said again and again we'll go to the next slide please so this slide takes us through the major categories of general fund revenues the top two lines property tax and sales tax are by far our biggest sources of revenues in the general fund and the main point we want to show with these is we do have significant jumps in our estimates from the adopted budget 21-22 to the proposed budget 22-23 simply because when we came up with our budget last year this was in the height of the pandemic and our members then were just far too conservative the pandemic did not play out as terribly as we thought it would so that column of 22-23 truly represents what we think we're going to be this year so those substantial jumps of eight and a half or I'm sorry 8.7% for property tax and 19.6% for sales tax might seem aggressive but they're just an indication of trying to catch up to where we truly need to be utility users tax and vehicle license fees show modest increases other taxes this includes our franchise fees our cannabis industry tax real property transfer tax and transient occupancy tax these are all recovering at a very healthy rate comparable to property tax and sales tax which is why we see an increase I do want to call out the Interfund charges line that shows a decrease of 4 million or 28.7% this is a subject that we'll talk about again in the coming slides and it's a reflection of an organizational change where we moved our water billing function out of the general fund and into the water enterprise funds so when that function was in the general fund water would pay to reimburse for this program through that Interfund charges line so when we moved it out of the general fund we had to reduce our revenues and there is also a corresponding expenditure that we'll see on a future slide so it's really a net zero change to the general fund but we do see the revenue component of that here and then finally the other big line item to call out is that last line intergovernmental interest in other we show an increase of 62.4% it's truly only 3.2 million and that's just because we will be receiving a grant within the general fund and transferring it out to our CIP fund for the highway 101 pedestrian over crossing so that's just a one time thing in this next fiscal year and next slide please this pie chart is a visual of what we just discussed so as I mentioned sales tax that large green wedge and property tax the smaller green wedge this is the bulk of our general fund revenues followed by other taxes and vehicle license fees and next slide please so moving on to the discussion of general fund expenditures by category these total 190.3 million and again this is all expenditures within the general fund for all departments just broken up by categories so our top two lines salaries and benefits are obviously the largest pieces of the pie here within the general fund we have police fire administration we have a lot of fte's this is where the majority of our costs come in general fund fte headcount did increase by 1.0 during between fiscal year 21 22 and fiscal year 22 23 and we also had those cost of living increases which is why we see an increase in salaries benefits also rose primarily driven by our CalPERS unfunded liability costs other major items to call out on this slide would be that drop in professional services of 8.4 percent this was because back in 21 22 we had the the in response contract funded within police that now was moved out to our american rescue plan act fund so it shows a decrease even though this was just moving out from the general fund into a different fund our vehicle expenses are increasing by 18.5 percent this is partially due to gasoline costs that everyone is well aware of as well as our garage is increasing their rates for repair so our garage does work on city vehicles and charges out to general fund departments as well as enterprise fund departments so departments across the board are seeing an increase in rates utilities increase due to electricity and gas going up our liability and property insurance line item a couple down that had a substantial increase as well of 37 and a half percent and this is industry-wide this is certainly not anything specific to the city of Santa Rosa and overall citywide expenditures are 190 i'm sorry general fund expenditures are 190.3 million that's an increase of 7.8 million or 4.3 percent from last year and next slide please so this pie chart is a visual of what we just discussed and as i mentioned salaries and benefits the largest pieces of the pie when we're talking about general fund expenditures and then all of our services and supplies over there on the right hand side total up just about 23 percent of all our general fund costs and next slide so this is my final financial table for you today this shows the general fund expenditures by department so if you look down at the bottom line of the 22-23 proposed budget 190.3 million this is the same total that we just saw on the last financial table this is still all of our general fund expenditures but now they're broken out by department instead of by category so we can see the year over year changes in departments at the May study session departments had the opportunity to do a deep dive of all of their funds this is just the general fund portion of these departments so for example Santa Rosa water which is second from the bottom is just 0.7 million when obviously we know that's a much larger department but this is just general fund so our top line administration that includes our city council city manager human resources finance and communications departments this shows a decrease of 2.3 million or 10.3 percent and that is from that organizational move i talked about earlier of the water billing program going from finance out to the water enterprise funds so we're seeing that corresponding decrease here where we saw the revenue increase on the other side most of the other increases within these departments as I mentioned we are staff heavy within the general fund are primarily driven by those cost of living increases in our labor agreements go to the next slide please and then finally this pie chart is just a visual of the table we looked up before which shows by department all of our general fund expenditures police is the largest department at 68.5 million and fire follows that one at 49.8 million tpw is a 32.6 million dollar general fund department they obviously have a much more significant capital improvement program budget that is not included within this snapshot same with Santa Rosa water and housing and community services which have very tiny pieces of the general fund but much many more expenditures and other funds as well and next slide next slide please thank you so that concludes our discussion of the overall general fund and we're kind of focusing in more on some important pieces of this budget within the general fund we spoke in May about a replacement schedule for fire equipment up until this year whenever the fire department needed to replace any general fund funded fire engines or apparatus we would just do so on an as needed basis this obviously caused some problems with such expensive equipment when it came to planning and there were financial constraints of resources so we all put our heads together and are proposing to put these general fund funded equipment on a replacement schedule we can put aside a piece of those replacement costs every year so the funding will be there when it needs to happen this is going to require an appropriation of 2.7 million initially in the first year to kind of catch up a lot of those pieces of equipment and then thereafter ongoing from fiscal year 23 24 and out you will see an increase in the fire department's budget of about 1.2 million so I do want to call out specifically that this initial 2.7 million dollar appropriation is not within the annual budget this is going to be a separate piece there's a separate resolution asking counsel to appropriate this and this is coming out of our general fund reserves that have been set aside for fiscal stability funds but again going forward starting at fiscal year 22 23 we will see this as part of the fire department's annual general fund budget and next slide please and then finally our public safety tax measure does have a stipulation that requires the general fund portions of fire police and violence prevention to not fall beneath a certain baseline funding amount so for transparency's sake we do like to call out that these three departments are well funded and well over their baseline this council item also does have another resolution to amend the implementation plan for measure o that has to do with our special revenue fund and so while we're discussing measure o we do just want to mention that the implementation plan has been brought before the citizens oversight committee back in april they approved it and they're recommending counsel to approve it as well and next slide so in the final section of my presentation today i'm going to go over again a summary of all the staffing changes proposed in the next fiscal year's budget next slide the next two slides will show the fiscal year 21 22 headcount as compared to the fiscal year 22 23 count for each department our city attorney's office does not have any staffing changes the city manager's office does have an increase of two fte's these are the two assistant city managers that were moved from other departments into the cmo office so we'll see corresponding decreases to offset this plus two the communications and intergovernmental relations office did not have any staffing changes finance shows a decrease of 27 fte's but that's that water billing move that i keep mentioning and we're going to see the corresponding increase when then on the next slide when we see the 27 fte's moved into water the fire department had nine fte's added year over year seven of those were done at mid-year as part of the in response team and two of them are firefighters that have been added with the annual budget housing and community services has added in 3.0 fte's they had i believe it's three of their texts three housing and community services texts excuse me one within the homeless services fund and the rest within their housing authority fund human resources did add 1.0 fte human resource analyst at the mid-year budget amendment and next slide please it added a media services technician and that was done at the mid-year budget amendment as well and that is funded by pg&e funds by one time funding planning and economic development had a total of 6.0 fte's added this is a net total it was actually seven fte's minus the one acm that was moved over to city manager's office they added a director of planning and economic development they also added three planners mid-year that are all funded by grant funding and then they had some staffing to help with their operations including a development review coordinator a civil engineering tech and a building plans examiner tpw also added a director of tpw when they moved out their acm to the cmo office they also added in 4.0 fte's for real estate services that was an organizational change as well a reorg that came from water that staff that used to be housed in water were now moved into tpw and then finally water we see 27 and a half fte's being increased 27 of those are coming from finance when they did the water billing move they also had other various reclasses within their departments and next slide please so before the public hearing is opened and i'm happy to take any questions from council i just wanted to summarize that we have a total of nine resolutions today involved in passing this budget seven of them are specifically to pass the budget we have one additional for the amendment to the implementation plan for measure o and then the final one will be to appropriate that 2.7 million of general fund reserves for the fire equipment replacement program thank you that's the end of my presentation great thank you so much so madam city manager i'm gonna ask a question right off the bat because it's something that you and i have talked about when we talk about the budget we talk about positions we talk about staffing levels in each of the departments but what we're really talking about is the impact so this is the first budget you've had a chance to present to the council what is the impact if we approve this budget what is going to be different that the people of santa rosa are going to see than from previous budgets well one one of the things that they they will see but what they won't understand is that it's structurally balanced because one of the things that i would like to get to is you'll hear conversations about mid-year and i think one of the things that we need to focus on we have our core services but oftentimes what i hear from council members is that they would like extra um projects completed but we don't have that money so when you pass a structurally balanced budget what it helps me to actually see moving forward is how we can get those projects completed how we can allocate those funding how allocate that funding during the mid-year cycle so for instance and i will say it because i've said it a couple of times when i talk about basic services i'm looking at quality of life issues here in the city so we talk about infrastructure we talk about roads we talk about tall grass and weeds we talk about crime and we talk about finding ways to recreate passing this budget allows the departments to come back one it allows the departments to focus on their core services then it allows me to come back and say we have maybe two point three million dollars these are the projects that we would like for you to approve based on the conversations that we've had either prior through the prior years budget are during ongoing work plans so one of the things that i have brought to you is tall grass and weeds i think it's an issue i will talk about the broken window theory trash begets trash right it's one of the old adages that we've talked about probably for 20 30 years we have to be able to invest in the community and make it beautiful and those start with the quality of life issues when we talk about something as simple as vehicle replacement and i want to thank jason and his team for actually having done the homework on the back end so i can actually have a number for vehicle and replacements you know you're talking to someone who's purchased and specced out more than 3,600 pieces of equipment from fire trucks to lawn mowers our staff needs the tools in order to perform their job well we can't expect firemen we can't expect our grass crews to be able to go out and perform their functions daily functions if we don't provide them the resources when i present you a budget that is physically sound those are things that we can actually tackle and those are things that will allow our employees one to do their job and do their job well so you know i mean we can't i can't go back and you know in the past of course we haven't been able to pass the structurally balanced budget because of the wildfires maybe the floods and some of the other things but i think we're at a point where we can actually manage revenues and manage expenses and i can come to you to say this is where i think we need to start do i need more staffing i need more staffing do i need more technology i need more technology but what it just helps me to do is to be able to stop being reactionary and be able to be prescriptive one of the things about government is most of our plans were put into place when we had a stable government now we've turned the corner you know we've had recession after recession after recession and now we have to do business different because now we're a little bit reactionary right so now we have to be able to to adjust our policies for this new wave or this new era that we're in so while it was it was extremely tough because as i meet with the departments i understand their need i've been on the other side of the table when i look at police and i look at fire and i look at some of the other departments especially utilities and they have a lot more money than some of your general fund money but the departments did a very good job explaining their budget explaining their needs and explaining their core services and for me as i sit in this seat i just want to get back to good government and what does that mean so like i said it was very difficult but i believe that i'm putting something in front of you that allows us one to get back to core and basic services and be able to plan uh in the future you know i would like to look at our streets and roads and be able to present you a plan to say well maybe we can bond out some money for a million dollars and what does that get us does that get us three million does that get us four million so while it was just a tad bit conservative i think this is the best budget i could have delivered and you know i have to thank the team city attorney's office and all of my directors for coming to the table and working together don't turn off your mic yet i'm going to let you also tout what you did with fire that you were telling me earlier yeah so i'll let that can you actually promote cheap westrop i'll actually let him because um this is of course he's coming into his first year as fire chief and you know when you take over an organization it's much different than being in the rank and file so um chief westrop thank you city manager smith and thanks mayor and good evening members of council scott westrop fire chief of the city of santa rosa so what we saw in this year's budget um is something that we actually haven't seen in santa rosa before um there's a couple different pieces to that that i'll go back to uh city manager smith was referencing core services and so number one is what bronica now and um and the team put together in a capital fleet replacement program that's something we've never seen before and council knows all too well that every year we come with our handout we need to buy a $750,000 fire engine or $1.2 million ladder truck and um and one of the problems we ran into was you know we wanted to build a fleet replacement program but there was no capital initial capital investment to put in there so working with the team and working with council to put that together is a is a huge huge accomplishment for us to where we can actually plan how we replace our fleet um and put the right tools in the hands of firefighters that are on the streets on a daily basis and speaking of those firefighters the two positions that were restored in this year's budget are pivotal for us so as i've explained before we have a daily minimum daily staffing of 39 10 fire engines two ladder trucks and a battalion chief on duty on a daily basis and we've been very good about maintaining constant staffing and constant staffing is 39 39 people for 39 positions but what these two positions do is put us into a position where we have one over per shift the big difference is we've had those positions before in previous budgets we've never been able or been authorized to actually fill those positions so they existed vacant on the position control list and they were used for other purposes so the fact that we're actually have them and we're authorized to fill them and they're already we already have interviewed these potential employees and they start a little start in august is the big catalyst change so we'll have 40 people for 39 writing positions that helps financially on the overtime side but really helps is it takes the pressure off those firefighters who are working a lot of mandatory overtime right now to maintain the core services that we provide to the community so so it's a huge step in the right direction i'm right i'm right with city manager smith we're we're heading the right direction but it's a it's a huge win we've never seen this before we've actually filled over where we need to be and so really it's the highest level suppression division staffing that we've seen in the organization in my history nobody can remember us ever actually filling those those over position so thank you to council thank you to city manager smith thank you to alan and his team uh human resources Amy and her team thank you all for getting this done um we're definitely heading the right direction appreciate all your support thank you chief and then uh madam city manager or if we have uh in term chief cregan on can we talk about what the impact of the three additional sworn officers will be what they'll focus on and what the community should expect from them sure can you promote chief cregan please good evening mayor and city council member and we're happy to participate in this process for us one of the things and i've i've met repeatedly with city manager uh smith to discuss our focus with these three new additional staff members is going to be focused on violence reduction and the city of santa rosa we saw uh 471 reported shootings uh last year in the city of santa rosa with six homicides and so far this year we just had our seventh homicide of the year and it's only in june so we're really focusing holistically on what we can do to be able to reduce some of the firearm violence on our street and be able to get these uniformed officers making an impact not only with the firearms with the violence but as we saw again this weekend with the side shows and that's something that we have strong community support to put more resources to we launched with the support of our city council and our city manager last year our new special enforcement team which has been making an impact but we're seeing clearly that we need additional bodies for the special enforcement and for some of the gang violence that we're seeing across our community and that's where these focus these resources are going to be focused on for this next year thank you chief um uh last one i'll ask about although there's a lot of good in here is the additional code enforcement positions certainly can you promote um deputy director uh claire oh excuse me director right yes good evening um claire hartman director economic development yeah so for our code enforcement we're looking at one-time funds which is fine because it allows us to test performance and as well as address a backlog in code enforcement cases so with the one-time funds what we're looking at for code enforcement is the hiring of two code enforcement officers by contract one would be dedicated to short-term rentals as you know enforcement is a big community expectation when you adopt a when you adopt an ordinance like the short-term rental ordinance the expectation is we have the resources to support the enforcement of it so we we do need those resources and we will not only address the backlog of code enforcement cases but really be able to get a handle as we enter into the comprehensive ordinance process the second code enforcement officer um will also be caught by contract and that will address a backlog on our top priorities just the general enforcement cases throughout the city um and will allow us to address performance with our priority ones which are life safety cases um and to better handle customer service excellent thank you so much director and then alan the last one and then i'll kick it over to other council members for questions uh obviously we're coming out of the pandemic there is a hundred thousand dollars in the budget specifically for programming community spaces and events and i'm hoping you could talk a little bit about that and the process moving forward on on that sure so um we do have uh those funds identified in the budget um uh for that um excuse me uh the the process though is that uh given the the award authority on it will need to come back to council for uh um for the actual execution of the contract but uh the appropriation there wouldn't need to be an appropriation because those funds are uh contained within the uh fiscal year uh 23 budget great i just want to say thank you to the team for all of the hard work i know we've we've talked about it but we do see the cracks uh after years of dealing with disasters and this budget does feel like we're turning a corner and getting back to being more proactive in addressing the needs of the community and not just reactive so i want to thank you to the entire team i'm going to turn it over for questions from other council members go ahead council member mcdonald he knows i'm going to have a few questions for you um so first i want to just say thank you so much for a balanced budget it's really nice to see that coming into an organization which i haven't that had the opportunity to do that actually ever with anything that i've been a part of so i do appreciate the balanced budget um a couple things i do want to call out is the establishment of the 115 trust for calpers i think that's a huge accomplishment at mid-year that we saw but moving forward i think for the security of our employees is and their pensions is so critical i also wanted to just note on measure o because that was something that is really in the document but we didn't really talk about the importance of measure o and how much that funds um in all of our programs and i think it's critical to call that out for the public so that they realize how many of our fire and police are actually covered under that particular measure and i just wanted to specifically call that out well done to um alan for your 325 page documents to you and your team i read every single page of this i want you to know so i do appreciate the detailed work and everything that your team and everyone had put into this i did see that you do have a um a projection of a two percent uh or it goes from four percent to two percent i believe for property taxes do you have any decline in sales tax revenue as well and then i have a few more just clarifying questions i didn't see that projection under sales tax because it was quite high as an increase in this budget um i believe you're referencing our long-range financial forecast in the budget draft where we do project um property taxes to yes behind and taper off of it sales taxes those numbers that show the year over your growth rates those specifically came from our consultant for their most likely scenarios and in their you know the our long-range financial forecast only goes out five years within that timeframe they do not anticipate a downturn at this time great and then um a couple more things under um let's see on salaries and benefits i notice that it's 77 percent of the city's budget can you tell me the average of a city our size and how much they appropriate for salaries and benefits i have to come back to look at an average for cities of our size but i do know within a general fund that is um personnel heavy for things departments such as public safety and administration that is that is reasonable but if you'd like us to look at similar cities i'd be happy to do so and come back with that sure at a future time that would be great um also on page 74 it's actually 82 in the presentation there was a presentation about sam jones hall and it looked like in 2008 there was 849 beds or slots that we were able to use and now in 2022 we only have 650 is that is that correct i'm just curious why there was a drop if if someone could tell me that if the contract or something had changed council member mcdonnell i need to know what page you're referencing because i don't believe that page 74 of the budget it's actually page 82 of the presentation it looked like there was a drop in in beds and it's not really anything to do other than if we're in contract for something i'm just curious as to why maybe we lost beds i know they're currently in a transition with remodeling so potentially that could be it and i'm trying to pull it up right now to help out but i believe that that would probably be a question for our homeless services yeah can you promote megan thank you good evening council and megan bassinger director of housing and community services uh unfortunately off the top of my head i don't have this information but we'd be happy to look into it and provide you with more information on why there is a difference in the numbers thank you i would really appreciate that and i just have a couple more things here um on the cip budget on page seven it's page 21 of the presentation um there there were three garages that we mentioned in that particular budget do we have a map of where those garages are i know that it said it i think in another document i was able to read where we were where they were located because i looked it up on my phone but is there a map when we reference things like that someplace in the city i assume you're referring to parking garages yes um yes uh we do have a map of those that believe it's on our parking site um i could off the top of my head tell you where those where they are they are they are been burned into my brain um so we have uh let's start with garage one which is on seven street then we have uh garage three which is laid up on fifth street and garage five which is on third street so both of those are are over in the in the downtown area there we have garage nine which is on b street so right out where the annex is and then garage 12 is on first street by the roxy theater that's a very general uh idea where they are i just realized i'm not giving you cross streets but uh that's that's generally where where they are we do have a map thank you i'm aware of the streets in our city but that i appreciate that map that you just drew for me in my head so i really do appreciate that so i just have one more thing and it has to do with the work councilmember mcdonnell we have a couple of clarifying uh some clarifying information for you oh great thank you so on that last question you were asking um uh the chief financial officer alton uh just wanted to also clarify that in the budget book in the capital improvement project section with each of the projects there is a project identifying number a p id if you go on to srcity.org slash cip you can actually input you can actually input that into the map uh component on it and it will actually take you to the project identifying page and show it to you on the map as towards located within the city that's really cool thank you i appreciate that and your question regarding sam jones hall so that is a cumulative number so that's the total number of people that have been served filtered at the annex so you have eight forty nine seven 64 number of people served okay thank you very much for that clarification that does change things okay and so my last comment or question really comes down to the workers compensation issue and i know i've mentioned that before and i called city manager about this issue before um a lot of times in budgets we just end up paying insurance and liabilities because we have to we're um you know we get billed for it and um i was just wondering if in the future you could bring to us um maybe a study session perhaps around our workers compensation rate to see if we could draw a nexus between when we were fully staffed and and our workers were not having to do as much over time perhaps and where we're at on our current rate and the reason i mentioned it is because um if we're having fatigue or we are understaffed in some way sometimes there could be additional injuries and um it can be physical injuries or just mental health as well so i'd like to have us take a look look at that because when you have a budget our size it can actually be quite expensive just by going up a percent or down a percent specifically on workers compensation and so i i know everyone's working really hard to make sure that we're all safe all of our employees are safe out there and we're doing our part but i just think that that's an important thing to actually drill down into so that we would know if we needed to add some staff and and as she's uh rest throat uh actually mentioned today that adding the two people does a huge huge um benefit to our our firefighters and so i just want to make sure that we're looking at that in all of our departments so that we can really be mindful of that particular issue and then i did notice that we are getting closer to the full-time employee numbers from 2018 compared to where we are now so i just want to say thank you so much for the work on that we know that there's not a lot of folks out there that you can hire and it's not just city of santa rosa that's down folks it's all across our nation and so i really want to commend uh you our city manager as well as all of the departments for working so hard to find such great employees that represent our city so thank you great budget thanks any other questions from council members seeing none we will open the public hearing if anybody would like to provide input on this year's budget go ahead hit the raise hand feature on your zoom we'll start with eric yes thank you very much mayor rogers this is eric frazier speaking on behalf of truth in tourism at gmail.com hats off to city manager smith for this tremendous effort organizationally as well as personally her own personal fortitude to deliver a balanced budget to the city of santa rosa i i can't think of anything more responsible as a manager a city manager and again hats off to her team uh jason uh everybody else the uh the presentation however gives me the opportunity to revisit my favorite topic which is the uh aberrant uh urgency ordinance uh regulating short term rentals within this presentation i see again something that totally went off the rails uh urgency ordinance was truly a waste of money in its approach uh irregardless or regardless of whether it was used for cannabis policy uh it's a mess when it was applied to short term rental policy several million dollars in opportunity lost costs lost already few hundred thousand dollars in tot on top of the millions of dollars that you forgot to collect over the past several years really quite a big scandal uh and litigation costs and the possibility that srt bi might need to be clogged back but i do want to say however that in spite of all these uh difficulties and challenges showed by the really irresponsible approach to str regulations what we do see as a major disconnect between the costs that were incurred in the last fiscal year concerning us and then the upcoming costs that are anticipated so just sort of a review of reality because i know uh enforcement was an issue and so of course we've been tracking enforcement on strs and we see that there's been over a hundred citations written but they're pretty much all fictitious there's only four or five that had to do with quality of life issues uh the rust were advertisements and people getting citations because they came forward in the permany process and out of the four or five that alleged quality of life issues they were pretty much all across the board refuted by evidence that the owners provided and so on and so forth so i would hope that your uh code enforcement gets up on protecting civil rights due process and that's incorporated in your approach to the budget but again hats off however to the new city mad i know she's just sort of inherited this poo poo platter upon arrival this this political stunt this str thing but hats off to you thank you and i'm glad there is some sanity some adult in no thank you let's see if we have any other comments tonight do we have any pre-recorded voicemails we have no pre-recorded voicemail on this matter okay i'll go ahead and close the public hearing councilmember sweatham do you want to make the motion sure and i would also like to add my thanks to the city manager alan and veronica and i really want to appreciate uh veronica with your depth of understanding and knowledge of this budget and the way you explained it not only to council but the members of the community excellent job i really appreciate that veronica so this is one of nine resolutions just fyi dinners nowhere soon but i will move a resolution of the council of the city of santa rosa approving the budget for the city of santa rosa for fiscal year 2022-23 the capital improvement program budget for fiscal year 2022-23 and establishing reserves for the 2021-22 fiscal year and waive for the reading of the text second we have a motion from councilmember schwedhelm and a second from councilmember rogers uh let's go ahead do comments now from council members if you have any additional comments as tom mentioned we have quite a few ordinances excuse me resolutions to pass so let's get comments out now and then work our way through councilmember rogers i will make mine very quick um i just really sincerely would like to thank the the city manager um we gave you um i think eric um said it best we gave you a lot of stuff to deal with and you have gracefully came and started to to deal with it and with that came a lot of change for a lot of us um but i sincerely would like to thank you for taking on the task and coming to our beautiful city um and starting to write our ship so thank you very much and thank you to um the assistant city manager um also the city attorney's office our wonderful staff and my wonderful colleagues for also seeing that you have what it takes to come here and to write our ship i think that um it was a lot we knew you were gonna have to come here and deal with um and this budget and you holding firm to what you said you were gonna come do um is just the the beginning but i just wanted to thank you for that any other comments mr vice mayor well it goes without saying you showed up and i appreciate you showing up and to the rest of the team of the city of san rosa and as stated before uh as as as a native of san rosa i'm appreciative that i see this city of san rosa moving in a in a positive direction and i'm very thankful for the effort that each of you have put forth thank you councilmember schwedem just a brief moment i just do do have to give a shout out because of my time on council i've never seen what was on slide nine the surplus slash deficit and it was a zero thank you thank you councilmember fleming so uh i won't uh repeat all the things i will just put an exclamation point behind all the things to you for today and then i'm gonna highlight something that i think needs to be pulled out which is to all of our line staff who have had to put in mandatory overtime and work with reduced ranks um i thank you for your service while waiting to get to this point i know it is not a perfect fix i know that we need a lot more staffing in most of our departments and that you're still understaffed and to our community we know that conditions are not what you want them to be we are moving towards getting things how they need to be and we're working on fixing our fundamentally flawed budget um deficiencies and it's going to take some time but i think in this budget what our line staff and what our regular community members can see is a move in the right direction so um a sincere thank you to everybody who shows up you know at all hours of the day to make our city function with less than optimal support here we are trying to fix that thank you councilmember well since i i was thanking you when i was drilling you for questions i just want to straight thank you all now and and i am tough when it comes on budgets i do read it and take it very seriously but it really is hats off to you city manager and for the whole team and i do feel really lucky to be able to join this team to be able to adopt a balanced budget is is a huge thing and and all of you should be applauded for that so thank you so much the final thank you that i have it is for every employee of this organization um last year we went through contract negotiations with all 13 of our bargaining units and it was a conversation around how can we pay you enough to live here and a sincere desire from the council uh to support the good work that so many folks are doing while also talking about the longevity of the council uh of the of the community's budget of our ability to deliver services for the folks who live in santa rosa and i think because of those productive conversations that's why you see for the first time in years that we're not cutting from the budget that we actually have a balanced budget and i think that there needs to be an acknowledgement for every single one of those employees who understood that conversation and got us to this point today there's still the commitment for from this council to grow the economy locally that allows us to deliver those services and continue to pay competitive wages and fill those positions that we do know are vacant and so i just want to thank everybody for working with us to do that and this is certainly it's a it's a good day for us and it started last year in those conversations uh with that let's go ahead and call the the role on the vote councilmember spudhelm hi councilmember natalie rogers hi councilmember mcdonald hi councilmember phleming hi vice mayor alvarez hi mayor rogers hi let the record show that this vote passed with six affirmative votes okay next uh i'd move a resolution of the council of the city of santa rosa amending the city salary plan and schedule and authorizing the city manager to implement these changes including the fiscal year 2022-23 budget and waive for the reading of the text second motion from schwedhelm second from rogers let's call the vote councilmember schwedhelm hi councilmember natalie rogers hi councilmember mcdonald hi councilmember phleming hi vice mayor alvarez hi mayor rogers hi let the record show that vote passed the six affirmative votes and then move a resolution of the council the city of santa rosa authorizing that public facilities improvement fees funded pfif projects contained within the city budget and the capital improvement program document continue to replace the pfif map and list on file with the city engineer in making certain findings with regard to sequa requirements for the adoption of the city budget and waive for the reading of the text second motion schwedhelm second mcdonald let's call the vote councilmember schwedhelm hi councilmember natalie rogers hi councilmember excuse me councilmember mcdonald hi councilmember phleming hi vice mayor alvarez hi mayor rogers hi let the record show this resolution passed with six affirmative votes and i move a resolution of the council the city of santa rosa setting the stormwater utility budget in determining the amount of eligible funding that has been received from the flood control zone one a benefit assessment in fiscal year 2021-22 and based there on setting the stormwater assessment per equivalent residential unit for the fiscal year 2022-23 and waive for the reading of the text second motion schwedhelm second rogers let's call the vote councilmember schwedhelm hi councilmember natalie rogers hi councilmember mcdonald hi councilmember phleming hi vice mayor alvarez hi mayor rogers hi let the record show this resolution passed with six affirmative votes now move a resolution of the council of the city of santa rosa approving certain project within the fiscal year 2022-23 capital improvement program budget year which is a roseland pavement maintenance and waive for the reading of the text second what helman rogers let's call the vote councilmember schwedhelm hi councilmember natalie rogers hi councilmember mcdonald hi councilmember phleming hi vice mayor alvarez hi and with my eye i want to thank the city of santa rosa for investing into an area that historically seemed a lack of attention so thank you to the city santa rosa for not only their annexation for their but also for the support mayor rogers hi at the record show that this resolution passes six affirmative votes now move a resolution of the council of the city of santa rosa approving certain project within the fiscal year 2022-23 capital improvement program budget year this one is the b street high traffic slurry and waive for the reading of the text second motion from schwedhelm second from rogers let's call the vote councilmember schwedhelm hi councilmember natalie rogers hi councilmember mcdonald hi councilmember phleming hi vice mayor alvarez hi mayor rogers hi and madam city attorney did you have something to add uh yes i'm a little concerned these three cip projects were pulled out from the uh general primary resolution uh because of the need for certain council members to recuse themselves because of uh either a home or a business near these projects um i unfortunately do not have the list of um who those were for i'll be able to help you out sue sorry about that um the roseland pavement maintenance that is a conflict of interest for councilmember alvarez so we should redo we will uh we'll revisit that motion for a cip project 2113 yes do we have to vote to request for reconsideration or can we just retake the vote we can read just thank you um we have a motion we have a second let's recall the role on that one so are we going back to the roseland one at this point are we doing that okay cip project 2113 great thank you it was a motion from schwedhelm and a second from rogers go ahead city attorney before we before i recuse myself from that item could i be informed why i am i am is it proximity to my home it would be proximity to either your home or your business um i don't have the data in front of me right now okay very well very well understood thank you thank you okay thank you councilmember schwedhelm hi hi councilmember natalie rogers hi councilmember mcdonnell hi councilmember fleming hi councilmember al or vice mayor alvarez will be recusing abstaining mayor rogers hi let the record show this vote or this resolution passed with five affirmative votes okay i'll move a resolution to the council of the city of santa rosa approving certain project within the fiscal year 2022 23 capital improvement program budget year which is garage one repairs and wait for the reading in the text okay and do we do we have the identity of the councilmember that must recuse i'm sorry could you say the project id number again on that one 2264 yeah that i'm sorry that is a conflict of interest for both councilmember natalie rogers as well as councilmember fleming thank you do we have the right number because the one i just read garage one repairs is 1822 no i think we're on the second one i was on the i'm sorry i was on the second your well oiled machine for a moment here it was 2264 was where we're at we just did 2113 which was the roseland so we have cip project 2264 which is the b street i believe so 2264 the b street high traffic slurry is a conflict of interest for both councilmember natalie rogers as well as councilmember fleming or the mayor may i ask what the address is because i can't i don't hold a business or a residence anywhere near that location and if you give me a minute i can look this up councilmember rogers is that near your business um that is where my office used to be prior to covid on the corner okay but i i work from home i tell her i tell the word so i do i do have an address here that is a conflict of interest for councilmember fleming but i'm sorry i'm not sure if i'm going to be reading aloud councilmember fleming's home address so i don't necessarily want to jump in and do that but it does show me i'm okay because i i recently moved in the last couple of weeks i'm guessing it's an old address what is it it's 555 fifth street um that's an address of a former business i no longer hold oh okay okay thank you so councilmember rogers it's probably do you still own the business in the area uh no okay i don't have a business downtown okay then i think everybody's good to vote on this one it's good to vote yes so we have a motion from councilmember sweat helm and a second from councilmember rogers let's call the vote councilmember sweat helm hi councilmember natalie rogers hi councilmember mcdonald hi councilmember fleming hi vice mayor alvarez hi mayor rogers hi let the record show this resolution passed with six affirmative votes and i suspect for this next one if it's garage one and that address is not a valid address for councilmember fleming was that the conflict or the perceived conflict i believe one i'm sorry it was a conflict for councilmember natalie rogers oh okay it's probably for the same reason i think we're all good to vote on it then yes i understand the conflict would have been a former business address which is no longer um no longer a business address so we're all fine to vote okay councilmember so move a resident here right we were a finely tuned machine here i don't have this all out okay resolution of the movement resolution of the council city of san rosa proving certain project within the fiscal year 2022 23 capital improvement program budget year which is the garage one repairs and waive for the reading in the text second motion from schwedhelm second from rogers it's called the vote councilmember schwedhelm hi councilmember natalie rogers hi councilmember mcdonald hi councilmember fleming hi vice mayor alvarez hi mayor rogers hi let the record show this resolution passed with six affirmative votes only two more promise okay i'll move a resolution of the council the city of san rosa amending the transaction and use tax implementation plan for gang prevention slash intervention services and waive for the reading in the text second motion schwedhelm second rogers let's call the vote councilmember schwedhelm hi councilmember natalie rogers hi councilmember mcdonald hi councilmember fleming hi vice mayor alvarez hi mayor rogers hi let the record show this resolution passed with six affirmative votes is this the last one too okay so i'll move a resolution of the council the city of san rosa to approve and appropriate funds to set up the fire capital equipment replacement program for the replacement of fire fleet vehicles and waive for the reading in the text happily second and let's call that vote councilmember schwedhelm hi councilmember natalie rogers yes councilmember mcdonald hi councilmember fleming hi vice mayor alvarez hi mayor rogers hi let the record show that this resolution passed with six affirmative votes i swear that was not hazing councilmember schwedhelm it was a sign of respect and with that we have a budget congratulations to the whole team and again thank you to everybody who worked hard on it we will take a dinner break uh we'll come back let's say at 740 we'll give council a half hour dinner break and we'll be back at 740 let's go ahead bring us back madam deputy city clerk can you please call the roll certainly mayor councilmember schwedhelm here councilmember natalie rogers councilmember mcdonald here councilmember fleming councilmember or let's see here councilmember natalie rogers have you joined the meeting present thank you vice mayor alvarez president mayor rogers here let the record show that all councilmembers are present with the exception of councilmember fleming and councilmember soyer all right madame city manager item 14.2 item 14.2 is a report propose city charter amendments i'll turn it over to city attorney sue gallagher thank you thank you uh madam city manager and uh thank you mayor and councilmembers so i know we've had a long day so far so i'll try to move through this pretty quickly um we're back to talk about the proposed charter amendments um based on the recommendations from the charter review committee um as you recall on may 24th we had the study session um and uh we are now back to look at the final three ballot measures that were recommended by the the charter review committee uh if we get the green light uh tonight um we'll come back then on july 12th with the full ballot language uh and with the resolutions that will be necessary to place um the measures on the november 2022 ballot so next slide um i think uh you're all familiar with this so just very quickly um this process started last august um when the council adopted resolution 21 20 21-147 um establishing the charter review committee and initiating the charter review process the decennial review process um and just a reminder as you all are familiar with um the committee was comprised of 21 individuals it was a very diverse group both by age race occupation background and really that group was very highly engaged i was impressed with how involved they were in all the discussions and how our attendance level remained high throughout the the the entire process so the committee worked over about six or seven months reviewing a series of proposals and made key recommendations and of course at the may 24th um study session uh the council did hear the committee's final report and recommendations next slide so at the end the end of the day the committee recommended three measures to present to the voters for the november 2022 ballot they had other recommendations for maybe down the line but those were the three that they felt were appropriate to move forward with this year and the three were the ballot measure to increase council compensation that would tie council compensation to the area median income second the ballot measure to align the charter with the city's district-based election of council members and then third the ballot measure to update and modernize the city charter and that included kind of three areas i'm wanting to remove some ambiguities second to add some flexibility in city operations and then the third is to ensure gender and citizenship neutrality in the charter language so the committee also considered another number of other issues the next slide um and among those the committee considered the expansion of voting rights to non-citizens and the committee did unanimously urge the council uh to move forward to just to study that proposal but not for this november's election but to study it in the future um the committee also considered two other um issues at some length the directly elected mayor and the ring choice voting on the directly elected mayor the committee recommended on a 10 to 7 vote against moving forward with the proposed transition to a direct elected mayor at this time um generally feeling some concerns about equity issues and some concerns about let's let the districts um mature see how it goes on ring choice voting that was a stronger vote it was a recommendation on a 17 to 3 vote and not to move forward with the ring choice voting at this time so next slide so i'm not going to really focus just on the on the three recommendations and then of course the council can consider and discuss whether there's anything else they want to add so next slide um the first is the ballot measure to increase council compensation next slide um as you all well know council members currently receive 800 a month and the mayor receives 1200 a month there's been no increase in that salary since 2005 um the committee heard about the workload saw the calendar the calendar of the mayor um heard from council members and really did recognize very strongly the difficulty of balancing private employment child care family uh and the responsibilities council membership they also received information on uh council compensation and other northern california cities next slide so the committee unanimously agreed that council compensation should be increased and they found that the increase is necessary to enable a greater diversity of council membership again to enable those with young families those with lower paying occupations those without independent means of support to enable those individuals to be to participate on the council also felt that the increase in compensation would ensure continued strong commitment and professionalism not that they had any questions about the commitment professionalism of any of the current council members but they did recognize that in some other councils um and and arguably even in ours um we had young um younger council members with often with young families deciding that it was just too much um uh to continue to be on council so really recognizing that pattern and a couple of different councils in the area and then really just reflecting the fairness and respect for the extensive work um of council members so next slide um they they discussed a lot of different options um and again at the end of the day they recommended to set the mayor's salary at area median income for a three person household so that and then to set the council member's salary at two-thirds of the area median income for three person household and that parallels a measure that was passed in berkeley in 2020 so there is um there is a uh a precedence for that the recommendation would permanently tie the mayors and council members salaries to area median income for a three person household and to explain that that's the area median income for sonoma county uh the median income of a three person household um the committee also recommended um that the council consider establishing a penalty or a reduction in that salary for unexcused absences or if the city imposes a salary cap or pushes down salaries city-wide that that should also um perhaps apply to the council as well um we talked about this at the uh study session back at the end of may um but i did not hear clear direction from council so this is um something that i would like to um have a little clearer direction whether you're interested in adding that provision or not um if you do want to add some provision for reduction in salary for whatever bases um you are interested in um i would recommend um that what we do in the ballot measure is to have council able to adopt whatever those standards are going to be by ordinance so that they're not embedded in the in the um charter itself but gives us some flexibility next slide uh we talked again at the study session about some of the alternatives there was a strong minority of the committee members that uh encouraged a higher level of compensation suggesting 140 percent of am i for the mayor and 100 percent of am i am i of course this area of median income for council members um at least two of the council of the committee members i'm sorry um wrote separately to recommend that council utilize the existing authority under the charter and under state law to increase uh council compensation i'll go over that in just a minute um and then the other options again that we talked at the study session and that the committee really talked about at some length we're tying council salaries to the salary of county supervisors tying council salaries to the average uh city employee or maybe the lowest paid city employee there was a suggestion of maybe having the council paid at the average of council compensation in comparables in the santa rosa's comparable cities um number of other options also discussed so next slide um and my experience is i'll get to the next uh there agree there we go um my experience is there's always questions that come up about well what what's the current authority what could we do um and this would you could do without making a charter amendment the existing authority ties council compensation to state law state law provides a schedule compensation based on population of the city for city of size of santa rosa compensation is set at 800 a month voters can approve a higher rate and they have and for the mayor um state law also provides that the council may increase that 800 a month by five percent a year not compounded and that those increases may accumulate so where are we right now we've had no change since 2005 so we have a 17 years of accumulation of the five percent increase five percent of 800 a month is 40 a month times 17 years so it could be an increase of 680 dollar a month increase that would equal for an annual salary for the council members of 17760 still quite low and the mayor at 26640 again that could all be done without need for a charter amendment next slide this slide i had in the study session as well i just think that when we start talking about it although in the in the charter we want to base it on a formula and not on a specific dollar amount still people are always curious as to what the dollar amount means um again this slide is from um may um uh the new area median income numbers just became effective last week so we do have a new number the new number for uh am i for a three-person household in sonoma county is 101 500 so that means if you went with the 100 percent am i for the mayor that would be a salary of 101 500 council members at two-thirds of that would be 66 990 and then the the line right above that the 140 percent of am i would put the mayor at 142 100 and council members then at the 101 500 so next slide um and i'll ask the mayor do you want me to go through all three options and then then you can discuss second recommended ballot measure is to align the charter language with district based election of council members again we went over this at the study session so just very quickly california voting rights act prohibits at large election of council members if a city experience is racially polarized voting in 2018 when we did the study independent analysis of multiple prior city elections revealed racially polarized voting and again racially polarized voting doesn't mean it's about animosity it just means that a protected class tends to vote differently than the non-protected class so in our case it was a latino voters had a tendency to prefer different candidates different results than the majority white population and that is racially polarized voting and that is why then what happens is that the minority is consistently outvoted and so is unable to realize their preferences so in 2018 we had the threat of litigation and the council after considerable discussion did adopt an ordinance to transition to district based elections i'm sorry next slide because i've already now gone through that and then the next slide so the recommendation from the committee is the committee is very supportive of of district based election of council members and i know there were some public comments at the study session really want to emphasize this isn't this proposal is to bring the charter into alignment with district based elections it's not an issue that anyone's raising gee maybe we should go back to full at large elections so the recommendation is to revise section four of the charter to provide for district based election of council members to have the district boundaries set by ordinance to have the district boundaries reviewed every 10 years following the federal census in accordance with federal and state law and then additional review of district boundaries as required as may be required by law and that revision would then ensure that we're in compliance with the California Voting Rights Act next slide the third ballot measure that was recommended by the committee is to provide for a charter update and modernization again there were some questions i think at the study session about kind of where does this come from it's those feels like you're throwing a lot of things into one measure i want to assure the council that yes this is a practice that we have engaged in the last at least the last two charter reviews so in 2002 we had a charter update measure which revised 19 different charter sections in 2012 there was again a charter update measure and it revised seven different charter amendment charter provisions the 2022 or the current proposal it proposes to amend 10 different charter provisions and so we'll just walk through that quickly the first is a frequency of charter amendments themselves there's some ambiguity in the current language that yes it gets reviewed every 10 years um but the question comes up can it be amended in that interim period and i think from a legal perspective the answer is yes but what we want to do is make that very clear um and so what we would be doing is adding to that section section 12 a provision that nothing in this section precludes additional amendments placed on the ballot by voter initiative or by council ordinance at such other times as deemed necessary i also want to note that we've proposed to revise the not less than every 10 years to a simple every 10 years review in 2002 and every 10 years thereafter one of the issues that came up though and that we talked about at the committee level was that because of this timing it always comes right after um after the redistricting of council boundaries so if there that was one of the concerns that some members of the committee raised with respect to directly elected mayors that we would then be redistricting once again so we you may want to think about whether you want to make that charter shall be reviewed in the year 2002 and um and at least every 10 years thereafter so maybe we want to move so that you're doing the charter review um right before the decennial census in case you want to make any amen any changes again i'm not sure i would recommend setting a particular date um but at least to give that flexibility i will note that there were some members of the committee that suggested it should be reviewed every five years or maybe every seven years that's another option next slide so the next um set of um revisions was to clarify responsibility for emergency management um city's been through enough emergencies now that we really know and understand and value um having professional emergency management team in charge uh during emergencies um the charter has some ambiguity so what we're looking at is to amend four sections of the charter uh to confirm that it is the responsibility of the city manager and public safety for leadership in the times of emergency the four sections that get amended are section 15 regarding the mayor that section currently suggests that uh in the event of certain types of emergency the mayor can take over um the whole of city government so and then amendment to section 18 the city manager to clarify specifically that the city manager has is the director of emergency services and then some clarifications to the police chief and the fire chief responsibilities next slide uh and then there are a couple of provisions um to add some flexibility give some flexibility for city operations um first to clarify that the board of public utilities may at the council's direction uh their jurisdiction can include stormwater and dry utilities so electricity broadband and others if the city ventures into those kinds of utilities um i do think that the current language probably allows that um but this would clarify and remove any any doubt about that um the other uh area of flexibility is for the budget and that would clarify that the city manager may propose either a single year or a multi-year budget we would keep all the remaining procedures in place so we would we would not be short cutting any of the procedures they would all remain in place but would give that flexibility next slide and then a couple of um ambiguities to clarify one which respects to the city attorney um there was a question raised apparently before i was before uh before i was here um that the charter requires three years of california practice and it suggests that that three years of california practice has to be immediately prior to appointment this just gives the flexibility of the council at some point wants to hire someone who maybe has three years or more in california but then where it went and worked someplace else for a year or two um the other ambiguity to clarify is that the section 32 uh states that if a council member is recalled that the vacancy that's created by that recall would be filled by appointment um whereas any other vacancy could be filled by either appointment or a special election um so the suggestion is no if however the vacancy is caused whether it's by resignation or recall uh or other reason that it's the the the filling of the vacancy is the same procedure we talked last time too i know there were some concerns about the actual procedures for appointment and the voting process that's by a council policy so that can be changed by council policy and does not need a charter amendment and then section 37 had concerns of deputy officials officials that are appointed by the city manager and by the city attorney that section currently provides um that that those appointments need confirmation by council i know at the study session there was at least one council member um who voiced some support for retaining that confirmation process um but that is one of the recommendations from the committee is to not require that confirmation process next slide and then the final um change two changes are for um gender and citizenship neutrality um and those were both recommended by the committee by unanimous vote um and so i've gone through and uh in the in the draft and changed all of the language to be gender neutral and then to to substitute resident for citizen the only two sections that that came um that that the word citizen appeared are with respect to boards and commissions the two sections that address those um so next slide goes to uh questions but i will say you know kind of explain why we're here today was just want to get final direction um from the council um with respect to these three measures and if there's anything else you want to add um we will be then coming back uh to council on the um on july 12th and at that point we will have the full ballot language the language you know the little sentence that you have to have for the ballot um and we will have the resolutions that will um enable us uh to hand it over to the registrar voters to place on the ballot so what we're looking for tonight is kind of the final direction on these three measures and if there's anything else and happy to answer any questions great thank you so much sue sure i'll look to my colleagues to see if there's any questions council member phleming thank you i have um many questions but um i'll probably ask a couple and then um check in after everybody else gets to ask a couple one is have we um or will we do any polling around the public's appetite for council compensation and and the reason i ask that is that i think that if we get out ahead of where the public is that the chances of passing compensation really go down in breath uh could be adverse to our goal of diversifying and maintaining council members um we don't currently have a budget for polling um but if the council was interested we can try to pull that together um and i would have to look to the city manager in terms of funding for that for that effort okay um and then when we look at the cleanup language what is the cleanup language specifically around who maintains um who is the spokesperson for the city does the mayor retain the spokesperson ship in a disaster does that change hands uh no the let me pull it forward um so the um current language and i'll then tell you which there's one sentence there's a this is in section 15 regarding the mayor so there's the first paragraph talks about how the mayor selected and and uh and their length of their term second paragraph is the mayor shall be the executive head of the city and then the then the troublesome sentence in the case of riot insurrection or extraordinary emergencies the mayor shall assume general control of the city's government and all its branches and shall be responsible for the suppression of disorders and the restoration of normal conditions it is that second sentence that we're proposing to delete again in order to have all of those emergency powers rest with the city managers city manager the police and the fire um so if i take that sentence out the paragraph will read the mayor shall be the executive head of the city the mayor shall sign all ordinances and resolutions and is authorized and directed by the council other legal instruments on behalf of the city the mayor shall have the power and authority and then there's a list of six eight different items which include presiding over the meetings establishing the agendas appointing committees appointing chairpersons of the board's commissions and committees delivering an annual state of the city address act as a ceremonial representative of the city and spokesperson for the city to make appointments to all county regional and state bodies with the approval of them of majority of the council and then to act as chief negotiator on behalf of the city with county regional state and federal bodies and agencies okay so if we do delete that sentence i consider it um potentially written by a lawyer who wanted to be in the theater would it be replaced with a similar sentence saying that the city manager would be um have such powers in the event of riots and insurrection and hopefully things like will not come to visit us here in santa rosa um actually what we're proposing for the city managers for the language of the city manager is simply to add not that flowery language but more straightforward um among the list of powers and duties of the city manager we would add to serve as director of emergency services responsible for controlling and directing the effort of the emergency organization of the city in response to actual or threatened conditions of disaster or of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property within the city that language also um portions of that track the language in state law which is why it's worded with the extreme peril and conditions of disaster okay that sounds like it was written by a lawyer who wanted to be a lawyer um so an improvement i'll i'll rest with my questions for the time being thank you and good things so su important question and not to draw parallels to the federal government but under an existing charter if the mayor starts the insurrection does the mayor still then get to assume control of the local government boy i'm not sure i want to answer that mr mayor but presumably yeah you could i'll go to councilmember mcdonnell you'd like me to follow that comment um well maybe we should have a caveat in there that adds language that if that's the case perhaps we should have the vice mayor then take charge um just as a thought um so so i think for me i'm absolutely fine with the recommendations that are coming forward as far as number two and three where i find discomfort comes with the council pay and so i'm not sure if you want to take one item at a time mayor rogers or just for me to give feedback on that one specific item is as i said in the past that it is uncomfortable for me to go from the current pay which is eight hundred dollars a month up to this other large fee which is a median price for am i with a family of three and it's not to say that council doesn't work this hard for that amount of money because i i do believe uh we do so um it's just that i think one we haven't budgeted for that amount and so i hate to see us with a balanced budget that would then not be a balanced budget i know that numbers fall sometimes at mid-year and you can make some adjustments but i am uncomfortable going for that much uh i will say that it it is a concern for equity for me it it's past my time it would be past my time on council in fact if this was something in the future if it would prevent somebody from running for office that perhaps wouldn't have the means and that i know is part of the equity statement to making sure that we do have some type of pay for those who are working and as i said in the past as a former single mom there was no way i would have been able to do this council job and work and take care of a young child so i it doesn't go without that um thought process and in mind i am just uncomfortable going to that amount i would feel more comfortable looking at the low or very low median price range i think that that's a fair assessment perhaps um it's more consistent with what our lowest paid employees are for the city which i know that we were using that and i would feel more comfortable um being within that price range of what our current employees make versus at our highest rate employees any other questions council members and so sue walk us through how we get from here to the ballot so you have proposed language for three different ballot measures are you looking for council to sign off on that language tonight or give refinement to bring back the language for approval at our next meeting uh yes um this is the opportunity and what i am looking for is guidance um if you are comfortable with the ballot measures as they are drafted that's great i'll finalize those put all the other materials together if you are would like to make revisions to any of the three that's what i want to hear tonight so that i can make those revisions and bring them back if you want me to bring back a couple of options i can do that but july 12th we will want to be able to to make pretty close to the final decision if not the final decision on july 12th okay so let's go to if there's uh i'll go to council member rogers for additional questions we'll do public comment and then i'll bring it back and i'll take each of those ballot measures one at a time for council to give feedback or direction on uh let's go to council member rogers so i hope it's not really loud but i did have a quick question and that question is about the voting is it possible or even legal to allow um people that have been convicted of a felony that are that has so much time has passed to allow them to vote in our um local local elections um is that something that we can consider um i'm not familiar with all of the uh laws that govern uh the inability of felons to vote um so i would have to research that um and you know it's it would it would probably be difficult just frankly to come back by um uh by july 12th with a fully baked proposal on how that would how that might be able to work i don't know what kind of flexibility there is in federal and state law for local jurisdictions to vary from the from that regulation from that from those laws again i did look at the local you know ability of a local government to expand voting rights to non-citizens but i just don't know off you know at this point sitting here this evening um what kind of flexibility if any there is with respect to felons yeah i just um maybe not not to be implemented right away but i just want to say that to me that is an equity um issue that when people are convicted of the felony that they're been not able to vote and we are supposed to in respect to reforming people when they go um a way to serve time that is supposed to be the whole point um and we had uh case in point today when we gave away one of the awards um not gave away during that um today um but so that is my thesis but otherwise i'm there all right thank you councilmember let's go to public comment if you're interested in providing comment on tonight's report go ahead hit the raise hand feature on zoom we have eric thank you very much mayor writers i appreciate the opportunity to come out once again i appreciate your patience with me and this is eric frazier uh a resident uh of san aroza so uh let me just sort of start from the bottom of the list and i don't really understand why a bell question about a directly elected mayor was pushed aside and this is nothing against the incredible talents of our city manager but i can totally see where a strong mayor that is a mayor that's elected from the general electorate of the jurisdiction together with a strong management base can really get a lot done and also a strong mayor then would be a subject to recall if they're not doing a good job whereas now with a weak mayor system it seems a bit unfair really to launch a recall against just somebody who's elected from a district the the barrier wouldn't be all that high and it would be more symbolic it just wouldn't be a pretty picture at all but i think it's also the missing half if you will of the balance of the district election question and so even though the city attorney uh you know doesn't believe that there's opposition to the district-aligned um electorate uh there probably is i'm not one of them i totally support district elections but there probably is opposition they're going to seize on that also i don't understand why rank choice voting was pushed aside but really the city council compensation is one that gives me incredible pause because in the one hand there is demonstrated need for professional people to be prepared for paid compensated professionally i get that but here you're being you're you're saying pay me as professional managers of the public person the public trust but yet you've allowed 17 years to go by without even enacting that the process that already pays you an increase i don't understand that and why this big if we have this big raise of professional politicians elected we just get more politics we don't we get policy of politics which as you know is already blowing up in your face we don't need more leftist politics that are just based on propaganda and stuff no no no no no we need we need city services we need people that are responsive to the people that are doing the people's business and i don't mean that in a communist way i mean that in an actual way at the monster of way not all those politics and all those policy effective policy give me a break now that one also the city attorney should be embarrassed this is a very biased out of information it did not discuss the insurance and other compensation you get and i i think that's really quite embarrassing i don't see any other hands do we have any voicemail public comments we have no voicemail public comment okay i'm gonna go ahead and bring it back uh so we will i'm gonna take first what i think might be the easiest one so we'll start with ballot measure number three that's the charter update and modernization does council have any feedback on those proposed changes councilmember schwedem i guess my feedback would be i support what's being recommended all right let's just go around the the table on each of these just that we're all very clear councilmember fleming i support uh item number three as as stated during the presentation uh councilmember rogers i support as stated okay councilmember mcdonnell yes i support this one thank you and mr vice mayor fully support okay and i will support that as well so i think we're good to move forward on those let's go to the ballot measure number two that's the district elections uh ballot measure start to my right councilmember mcdonnell i'm in full support of this councilmember rogers okay councilmember fleming i'm in support councilmember schwedem i support the committee's recommendation mr vice mayor i support and thank you for having me here all right myself as well so that's for the two easy ones let's talk about council compensation now i'm going to go ahead and start with councilmember fleming thank you mayor i think this is certainly not the easy one i wish it were going to be the easy one but perhaps we'll reach a unanimous decision tonight so what i think about this one is what is the purpose of the city council um and that's really where i think we should come from when we look at this question not um just you know what are we politically comfortable with but why are we here you know vice mayor alvarez just said thanks for letting me be here well um you know if he's here we're here i'm here because we represent each of us represent 25 000 souls in the city of san aroza and do the work uh bringing forward the um the opinions the desires the needs and the basic necessities um as representatives for the community and so to that end it's not so much about um how much we get paid but it's really about what is that you know if a budget is a statement of values and i certainly believe that it is then are we going to say that council members are are worth two thirds of what it costs to live here and i think that that's saying that the public is really worth two thirds of our time and our resources and so while i understand that there's a lot of good arguments to be made around budgets and around what it could take away from i also think that council members provide really good guidance and really instrumental direction in improving the economic welfare of the city and if you look at what san aroza has done over the last five and ten years and even further back we have set the set the stage to have what's going to be an incredibly robust and profoundly effective economy in our core that is going to well balance out whatever costs we incur to continue having leadership at the highest levels of excellence and so to that end i have some significant concerns around the two thirds recommendation while i very much appreciate the committee's work and that they based it off of a jurisdiction that was successful what i would propose actually instead and for a couple of good reasons in my mind would be making council compensation at a hundred percent of am i and maintaining the mayor at a hundred percent of am i and here's why if we're going to pass up the opportunity to go for a direct elect mayor what it means is that the mayor like each of the council members is elected to represent those 25 000 persons and that the mayor does do extra work but the mayor is a person amongst equals and we should not over politicize since it doesn't seem to be the well of the people to have a direct elect mayor it should be somebody who is um well aware that they're a leader amongst their peers and to that end i think that having a disparity between the mayor and the council members of 30 or 40 000 um really makes the mayoral position one that's not only um more powerful but really set apart and something that people may be competing for based on needs for their household income and furthermore i think that it creates a challenge for for people's planning if their income is going to go you know moving around that much um depending on a two-year stint um i think it causes inequality amongst council members and it um i'm just queasy about people wanting power based simply on that that incentive and a pay bump once they're already on the council i understand that having a council that earns a living wage that we can feel proud of that we try to provide to our employees that we try to provide across the board may get some people heartburn but i also think that it's um strong leadership and you know we may get some negative feedback for it and it may not pass but i think that it's our job to be leaders in the community and it's our job to step in where who are others may not be feeling so strong about it and speak up on behalf of our communities who need us to be here and need us to be paying attention prepared enabled to execute this job regardless of what our personal finances or background or education or ability to do this job based on our our previous experience and that would lead us to have financial circumstances that differentiate us and that's that's what's been the history of this council um we're starting to see that change but it's uh leading to turnover it's leading to people not selling out their terms and i do believe that if we had a council that made area median income you would see it be much more um like other professionalized councils and boards of supervisors where people get elected they keep their jobs and and they finish their terms and paying someone am i for a household the family of three is certainly not lavish nobody's going to be you know it's not like you won the lottery i mean you're going to be still um you know you're not going to be you're going to be median you're going to be a person amongst people in the community which is what i think we're here to do which is to be representatives of our community both as in the way we come to these council meetings but also in our finances and ability to be present thank you for indulging me so councilmember i want to make sure that i captured it because i think we're going to probably need to get a couple of refinements and feedback as we hear from people to see if there's a clear direction to give to the city manager excuse me city attorney but so i heard from you yes to pay but council and mayor should be indistinguishable in terms of it should be area median income for both is that correct i mean yeah so to to give a little background i thought that the mayor should be direct elect but that's not the hill that i'm going to die on today since it looks like we'll have that conversation after this conversation okay well then with that should the council decide to remain at our current structure with each council council district electing one person in the council choosing the mayor amongst themselves it's my recommendation that each council member earn area median income and the mayor include it so everybody is equal okay let's go to councilmember rogers so i think that uh i agree with confirmatory um i think that we should all be equal uh and if there is a any sort of difference in pay i don't i do not believe it should be as wide of a difference in pay um because i think that everyone works really really hard um and i just want to point out that um how do i say this if there is not pay then there is not um we're not making the position um obtainable and or equitable for for everyone to have um access to it and i'll use myself as an example i mean working three jobs even just to live in sonoma county and really wanting to strive to do my best i can only sustain that for so long um before something has to has to give um so it would be very helpful to have some sort of supplemental besides the eight hundred dollars um that we currently get that i actually spend on doing council duties so um i just wanted to point that out so direction yes i i think that we should get paid and we shouldn't move forward and that there shouldn't be such a a large gap between the mayor and um his or her peers okay let's go to councilmember mcdonald i think i was clear in my statements before that i would i wouldn't be as comfortable with the um the pay that was indicated in the presentation that i would feel more comfortable in i think it's attachment five under either very low or low um to go i still think that that's a really large jump from what we're currently getting which is eight hundred dollars a month but i you know in listening to my colleagues and their concerns and i certainly have concerns myself with sustainability for the position in future um for future leaders but i am even uncomfortable with that amount to be perfectly honest i would feel more comfortable with going with our lowest and paid employee but what i'm hearing from our other council members it does weigh on me and i certainly don't want to um put them in a bad position by not supporting them or really the future um leaders but i would feel more comfortable around that um line of pay to put that forward for voters and then we can see what they feel about it um i don't i don't think polling is going to help us in any way um i would i i don't know that that's going to change between now and and july i think we're running a little too late for that type of um data but potentially if that was the will of the um council that might not be a bad idea to know where we would stand as far as voters but that would be something i might be more comfortable with is that median low to low to very low okay council member swedle thank you mr. mayor you know for me on this it's a process issue that um seven months ago we identified 21 members of our community representing cross sections of the city of santa rosa and since chair cisco couldn't be here today i will channel her in on the 18 page recommendation i think she hits the nail on the head here the chart review committee has worked diligently creatively and collaboratively over the last seven months in reviewing the charter and proposed revisions critical issues have been explored debate has been lively significant and recommendations have been made and i'm supportive of these recommendations because the message that i really want to send is that we asked these 21 members of our community for seven months to explore these issues lively debates when we heard feedback from our city attorney when chair cisco was here when this first came to us they were lively debates and if we were just going to discard or change what they recommended we could have done that when we chose to form this 21 person charter review committee we didn't do that and so i'm trusting that they hashed this out the representative of our community and i'm supportive of what the charter review committee is recommending if it doesn't pass because i do think council pay should be addressed that's feedback from the community then we can start looking the city attorney also provided us some options that we don't have to go the charter route if we did want to increase the compensation but it's a step in that direction i say let's let the people give the feedback is this an appropriate way to compensate your councilmember so i'm supportive of the charter review committee's recommendation mr vice mayor thank you mayor when i was campaigning i really felt that i'm gonna i think most of us would do this job for free but there was something that was pointed out to me this is the the the stock that we have because we are blessed to have the opportunity to represent our city and when we look at equity issues how many and i've said this before how many people how many more people and even in my district are better prepared and qualified to sit in this seat but they aren't able to because of financial obligations because of family obligations that are dependent on their financial obligations or financial stability and when i had that conversation with constituents it definitely educated me on the on on the importance of providing someone who wants to lead their community an opportunity to be able to feed their family i've seen it too many times in my community where people who are advocates social justice advocates later on in life they're they're dependent on other people for something as simple as a ride their food and i understand the importance of providing people who want to lead and defend their community whether it's a single father or a single mother or or someone who just cares enough about the community that they feel the fire inside of them to be able to provide for their family it's it's it's respect to their to to themselves and those around them the amount i think the charter review gave us direction i believe you've heard direction from my colleagues as well so anything on this on those lists will work for me i'm not leading heavy one way or another now in regards to to the importance of the finances i mean even even the lowest one but it really does come down to having the opportunity for someone to be able to provide for their family and with that compensation has my support i'll leave it up to both the charter as well as my colleagues to determine what that number looks like and i think i'll leave it at that i think i'll leave it at that thank you all right thanks councilmember one of the public comments and i hear this pretty frequently and in fact it was mentioned by former council members and in their letter add in in the appendix for the story or the report was council could have been doing this all along which first of all i want to say i can't wait till i'm on council and then point out to existing councils that they should do what i failed to do when i was on council there was a deliberate choice year after year after year to not increase compensation within the realm that we could do as a council and the reason is the five percent increase is not worth the political fight five percent of eight hundred dollars is not worth dragging this all through the public every single year and that's how you get compounding problems and that's where you end up where you are today where the compensation does prevent people from being able to serve so i'm going to be supportive of council pay i am a big advocate that there are folks with lots of skills in the community who deserve to have their voices heard from the dais who can't serve whether it's from their upbringing aren't in the same position uh have families that they have to take care of whatever the issue is focused on their business at whatever it is their voice matters and that not enough people can actually run and do this job uh i'm going to side with council member sweat helm that we have a group of people who didn't just throw a dartboard uh a dart at a dartboard to figure out what the compensation was they spent months discussing how to peg that and how to message that and looked at the value of what we as council members bring to the city and made a determination i'm not interested in second guessing that at the dais having not sat through those discussions having not heard from elected officials from other cities that participated and came and gave testimony on different issues before the before the charter committee i don't want to second guess how they got where they were at unanimously uh ultimately uh to to make this recommendation the one thing that i will change or that suggests is a change for the council is i think that it's really difficult if you're sitting in their seat to say uh we're going to wait or we're going to delay how we do this and i've i've had conversations with certain council members uh as they come in my general vantage point is that it's not about us as council members i think that when we talk about issues we're not talking about how it benefits us as individuals we're looking at how it's going to benefit the community in the future and so i do think that what's missing from the ballot measure is a requirement that existing council members do not receive the additional pay if if approved by voters until they get reelected we all signed up for the job doing what the compensation was and this isn't about getting chris the mayor a bigger paycheck this is about in the future san rosa will be better positioned by paying council members regardless of who's sitting in that seat and so that's one thing that i would suggest to this council that we need to change before we ask the public to approve it because otherwise it also ties it too much to how people feel about individual council members individual issues before the city and it's not looking long term about how to get better representation from the dais i also heard uh from council member soyer and others in the public that they don't want this to be a professional position i said this last time i'm not a big fan of term limits we have those their elections but if it made people more comfortable to have a three-term term limit for council members and who are receiving the pay so that that way it doesn't become a long time professional position for folks but is an opportunity to serve that you might not otherwise have and then make way for somebody else to have that opportunity i'd like to do that as well i think it's a net benefit for the total community so i'm going to support the committee's recommendation on the pay but i'm also going to ask council if they'd be willing to make those two changes in the ballot measure that you have to be reelected before you get the pay so that it focuses on future councils and not on the existing council and also with it with the increased compensation there's a three-term term limit for council members i saw a couple hands pop up so i'll start with council member Fleming thank you mayor for a well balanced review and i think a moderate finding some middle ground between some of the positions you heard tonight well done in regard to the the question about re-elected waiting till re-election until council members are able to obtain this pay would this mean that there would be a differential between council members such that some were being compensated and some were not be if the public decides to compensate the future council there would and that's the unnecessary evil of the proposal is council members who got elected at the end of this year would get the pay presumably if it was approved council members like myself who have two more years would have two years where we are getting the pay that we signed up for when we got elected with an opportunity if you want to run for re-election and have that conversation with your voters great but like i said it'd be it'd be it'd be an inequity amongst the council and i understand that and i also think it would be a necessary evil to make sure that the focus of the ballot measure is on future councils and not the existing council okay i can see that where i think that i have a concern in there therein is around what that does to our set i already have a concern as as i stated earlier around paying the mayor 50 more than the council members and then we would have you know potentially some council members making $9,600 a year some making $66,000 a year and one person making $101,000 a year and i think that that is a recipe for for potential problems for the public in terms of i understand the then goal but i think that if the the goal is to have a functioning and inequitable council that that could potentially undermine it so unless you have another argument to present i'm not going to be able to support that the second thought is around the raises around term limits and the issue that i have with that is that our council is is already staring down you know council members what helman soyer have much to our detriment announced that they won't be running again and we benefited from you know council members soyer's two decades on the council as as a result of you know and many other council members before him as a result of their abilities to to do this job and council member schwet helms combined you know four decades of knowledge and service both as staff and chief and and council member and that by saying that you know we're going to have a 12-year limit i don't think most people are going to want to serve i mean you look at the board of supervisors and it's rare for anybody that to serve long enough to to really hit that mark but when you do you have somebody who brings a lot of institutional knowledge so i think that that the risk of having a career politician it'll happen once in a while but you know we look to those members of our community and sort of a revered status i mean you you take council member mckenzie and ronard park i mean he when he left there was a you know some loss of knowledge you know it happens frequently that the people amass knowledge and i'm not willing to set an arbitrary limit on it i think that the voters can and will as was the case with council member mckenzie they will remove people when they feel that it's time so while i appreciate the intent and spirit and agree with the intent and spirit i will not be supporting those recommendations yep understood council member sped up thank you mr. mayor regarding who receives this it's a question for the city attorney because i know we've been or i've been been in conversations with other community members about this isn't there some state law that would forbid me to get myself a raise i thought i was told that there's a state law that would prevent any of us until as the mayor mentioned you're reelected because again i signed up for 800 bucks a month there there is but because this would be a charter amendment that's adopted by the voters the voters can can can provide something different so you wouldn't you're not going to be i mean you'll vote on the ballot presumably but you as a council you are not enacting this the voters are that's that's helpful and then regarding term limits it seems rather subjective you mentioned three and and again i go back to if the charter committee would have want to put term limits let the charter committee do that because again there is an expectation i think in the districts that if you're not performing they will find someone else who is willing to perform so i'd have hard time supporting that and did you have feedback on where you would be on council members not getting it until reelected i'm supportive of it again is my understanding that state law would prevent us from doing it anyway but you're yes i'm in agreement that we shouldn't be compass we shouldn't be voting on our own compensation councilmember mcdonnell while i i do appreciate the intent of that i think my concern would be the equity amongst our own council and and the reason that i've seen that is if if if one person's getting say a hundred thousand dollars and another's getting sixty six thousand dollars and somebody else is getting ninety six hundred dollars the person that's getting ninety six hundred dollars is going to look at the person that's making a hundred thousand and say how hard are they working and so i think what you could end up having is um some in-house concern amongst the council and so while i appreciate the intent of what that does for voters specific the voters are going to decide or not if they're going to vote on our pay and so i'm already uncomfortable with the amount of pay but i would be more uncomfortable with having council at different spaces on that and and it's only so that we can remain um equal as council members and that that would be uh something i've seen in in other boards that i've been on where you can look and say that person's doing a lot more work than the other person and so i wouldn't want that to happen amongst the council over because i do feel that we're a collegial group and i wouldn't want to have money start to make us feel different towards each other so um so i would not be in support of that term limits however i do think has merits and it's so that sometimes people have to be moved out of space to create space for somebody new and that's what um term limits do and it gives us an opportunity to get a new set of eyes and a vision for perhaps what they want to see for the future and so i i would be in support of term limits but i i don't feel that um we should stagger the pay okay council member rogers oh sue go ahead sorry one one second council member let's go to the city attorney and then i'll come back i was just going to mention another option again not not to engage in the debate but just to put it on the table is that you could have the effective date of the salary increase at whatever time whatever point that the council might decide so it doesn't have to go into effect immediately it could go into effect in two years or it could go into effect whenever you chose that was my adoption of the next budget but that's try go ahead that was mine i was gonna say that sorry sorry no we don't have to implement um the the raise and pay right away that we can wait until the second round of elections so that there would not be a difference in uh council pay if we're worried about um to address the the mayors the mayors concerns so then and it also i think would help to address some uh council member McDonald's concerns too because it would give us some time to work up to uh getting prepared to pay council members um because it would be a delay of two years people implementation um so that would be my thank you guys okay is there anything else you're gonna want from mr vice mayor yes thank you mayor i think we know we signed up for in 2020 around the election we were elected and we knew what the pay was going to be um and i think you should say that it's a necessary evil um two years it's not a decade it's not it's not another term i think that that we should wait for the next time so we can't have that conversation with our constituents about what we are being paid uh so i have no issue with that and in fact i support it uh for us to wait to our next election and those that are elected in this upcoming election are paid whatever the voter ultimately decides which brings me to the second topic of term limits uh we've we've entrusted our charter review to come back with information we entrusted our constituents who formed this charter review to do so and therefore i would also support or think that our voters determine when it's time for us to write off into the sunset if we don't have the luxury to decide it for ourselves um and there's something else that i want to bring up which i forgot to do last time was that there should be a difference between the mayor pay and the council pay and the reason i feel so is because the mayor doesn't have an opportunity to take it easy so to speak i mean ultimately the the constituents will decide if the council member is not an active one or a very active one should that be the case but i don't feel that the mayor gets that luxury or that opportunity with the amount that that is being demanded of that individual him or her they they're definitely at the front of the city of san rosa and therefore take on more responsibility than any other member as we've the governing body of the council has decided who that person is and therefore i feel that that person should be compensated more than the colleagues or his or her fellow colleagues so therefore i i and and again the charter spoke about this and they they highlighted that they would like to see the mayor receive more pay than the council member so i will i will echo their sentiments thank you so as always council we're clear as mud uh so by my tally we have unanimous support for moving forward with a ballot measure that increases compensation for council members i have three council members who are supporting the committee recommendation two council members who are supporting the recommendation with the caveat of bringing council members and mayors to the same level one council member who is uh looking for lower compensation so we don't we don't have a majority at the moment with uh with only six council members here um to provide that direction so perhaps soon when we bring back the ordinance that will have to be a fill in with seven uh there was not a majority for adding term limits in but i did hear three council members supportive of uh waiting for a council member to be reelected or new council members coming in who received the increased compensation and i'll and i'll throw out there and suggest and people are welcome to disagree with me uh with the adoption of the next budget uh wouldn't i probably wouldn't want to do the the amendment mid budget but with the adoption of the next budget and i heard three people who said that they are not interested in doing that approach though perhaps it was thrown out there that you could have new people elected who for two years would have the normal compensation until the other folks who are either reelected or or their seats were up could move into the same realm i i still i still shade towards you get reelected you get the pay or new person gets elected they get the pay that's that's my personal preference council member schwedum as we were talking about this i really appreciate the um suggestion those both council member rogers and our city attorney but if it's just effective in 2024 which means we'll all be equal you know whoever's on the council and after the election november 2024 so i guess it'd be january one of 2025 this would be effect which gives us two years we'll know in november if the voters do pass it then gives the city two years to figure out how we can fit this in the budget that would just be my suggestion and i'd that i'd be supportive of go ahead council member well you could have a consideration of just a one-year proviso so that it would be in the next budget year so while you you still wouldn't be able to go to your voters on those three on the on the three that still would not be up for reelection because four are actually getting elected you could still delay it since we just adopted budget tonight so it would be built into the next budget and that would give us time because again i go back to if the voters are going to approve for us to get pay they're not saying we approve for you to get pay but we we want you to stagger it so that politically it looks better for all of you they're either going to approve that we're getting paid or not so that that's that's where i kind of am confused on this one i think waiting and delaying it for a one-year makes sense rather than staggering it and it goes back to the the issue of equity amongst the council i do think that the mayor's pay can be higher than the rest of the council because of the amount of work that the mayor is required to do on behalf of the city so i don't have a problem with that differentiation amongst council members not at all so and again i don't have a problem with the term limits but as far as the proviso i would be more comfortable with a one-year so that the the voters can approve it or not approve it and will know in november if we're going to build it in the next year and everyone will stay equal on the same timeline yeah so i think i want to make sure i'm really clear because for me this discussion goes back to that fundamental point of it's not about us the ballot measure is not about us it's about future councils and so perhaps so the best approach i think you're hearing the discussion maybe on july 12th when we bring the resolutions and we have a full seven council members we have the option or the ability to fill in the implementation date as well as the the compensation level because it does seem like the council's a little bit all over the the place generally all of us moving in the same direction pretty unanimously but with little distinctions or little changes it'll be a little bit easier when we have an actual motion about what it'll say and then can work through the motion with the exact language but with six council members it's difficult that that that'll that'll work for me i'll i'll put i'll put it together i have this discussion in mind i have my notes so i can also listen back to the tape um and we'll try to have at least in the presentation or in the staff report what some of the options were that you were considering so okay and the final discussion around sorry before i go on council member rogers i was just going to say that i i hear you saying like it's not about us um but in some respects it's not about us that we learn from our experiences so it it has to be kind of about us and our experiences just like it was about former council members and their experiences and the time that they put into this so i'm in my second year and it is about me because this is not sustainable for me to be able to work and provide for my family and for me to give a hundred percent to the council um because i i like to read all my emails and i like to respond and i like to attend all my meetings when people ask me to have a meeting and i like to go to community events and i i i enjoy doing all those things other those are things that i enjoy doing so yes it it is about me um but it's not sustainable i i can't do that i don't see and i would love for someone else to be able to come and do it but um and for us to have some diversity on the council but do i think that if i don't run again that we're going to get that if i'm if i don't run again i i don't know if we don't have if we don't have compensation i don't know that we're going to have that diversity i think that maybe we will go right back to what we used to have and so then all my efforts of missing out time with my children of missing baseball games of being in new york with my son and my daughter on a college tour and sitting at dinner and doing a council meeting because we're on budget we don't get time off when you talk about our lowest paying our lowest paid person i hope that they get to clock out and get a vacation because guess what we don't i don't my phone rings i answer it council meetings things happen we have to respond so i mean it's just i love the the sentiment that it's not about us but we learn from our experiences and from what i see my peers we love serving this is something that we love doing but we have to learn from our experiences and we want it to be better for people that come on if it's not us so that would be my my two cents thank you for allowing me to come here okay council member fleming yeah i just want to um you know echo or uplift what council member roger is saying that i think that it's um well taken but idealistic to suggest that it is not about us for some of us it really isn't because some of us won't be here to to see or not see the changes but you know i think that that how we compensate council members will directly impact our abilities to come to the table except for some of us will will come to the table with all of our concentration i mean i think that that you can see that i you know i'm missing bedtime by the frequent inclusion you know intrusion from like from my daughter tonight and you know i don't want to make it about me what i want to make it about is that i think by all of this like hair splitting and you know hand-wring we could just adopt the the suggestion from the charter committee and and move forward without over politicizing the darn thing and bring some some actual justice to our council members and their families and thereby allowing them to do the work at the community at the end of the day if the community doesn't want to pay us that's that's something that we have to live with and that's a decision that they'll make so i think that you know given everything i've heard tonight i'm i'm pretty queasy with how we we've with the discussion that we've had and i think we ought to just go back to the recommendation as made by the charter committee without amendments okay else member sweater just one thing i haven't heard us talk about the city attorney also talked about potential language for in the charter review they wanted some language about unexcused absences so i would be open which you suggest by ordinance we could make that adjustment whatever that may be further down the road so i just want to give that feedback thank you seeing nodding heads okay let's move on to the the last one we'll bring back the discussion with the final ordinance adoption on july 12th the last one was what the charter committee did not recommend that was the 10 to 7 vote to not pursue an at-large mayor and so i wanted to give council an opportunity to weigh in on that before we close the door on it and so i'll start with councilmember mcdonald yes as i indicated before i do believe that we just moved to the district elections and i'd like to see that work for a while before we would move to an at-large mayor i do think it's a could potentially be um right now there's representation around the whole city and i'd like to see how that works and that's all i'll say about that so i'm not interested in doing that now okay councilmember rogers i'm okay with that's not having an at-large um in our an at-large mayor although i could see where it could be beneficial um i i i would like to go with um the will of the charter review okay councilmember fleming i think that it's a missed opportunity but um i'm not interested in messing with the recommendation okay councilmember splittle i'm still supportive of the the recommendation i know it was a 10 to 7 vote but on page 10 of their final report it was by unanimous vote of the 19 members present they all accepted the straw vote of the final vote so just with our structure given the city manager is the one who is leading us um we should say at the policy so i'm comfortable with our current situation and i support the committee's non recommendation okay mr vice mayor i to adhere to the recommendation of the charter review council uh committee all right i uh i'll be the outlier i suppose i think that it is a mistake for us to not put this before voters and ask them if they'd like to directly elect their mayor i think that if you did that i think half of them think that they already do and i think that the rest would tell you that they probably want to um i think that particularly in a district system where your councilmember is elected every four years i think it is a missed opportunity for us to not drive community engagement in public turnout and elections by having the mayor position on there every two years a two-year term would be equitable because then council members would always have an opportunity to run without worrying about which cycle they fell on for their original council seat it allow folks from the public to weigh in and as i mentioned every two years the district that doesn't have their council representative up for election still has a reason to show up and participate in local city elections i think that uh i think it's it be i think it's a missed opportunity for for the council and i understand that the charter committee didn't recommend it but i think even just the split on the car the charter committee shows that it's worth having the discussion and asking the public do you want to elect your mayor but with that so i believe you have direction for charter review i do thank you very much i appreciate it ma'am and i want to say a huge thank you to you to stephanie to dina to the entire team i know rob jackson has retired but i know rob was particularly involved uh in the charter process you all did an amazing job i want to thank the 21 members of the public who did take time away from their family to discuss very seriously these issues and make thoughtful recommendations to the public and to be able to talk about the issues that we have here in san aroza i mentioned that there were mayors from other cities that participated i want to thank teresa barrett from pedaluma as well as kate collin from san rafael who did have a chance to meet with the charter committee and talk about the directly elected mayor position and how that impacted their cities and whether we would want to see that impact here in san aroza it was certainly a herculean task from everybody in a real community effort to get us to where we are now understanding that there's some still minor details that we will have to deal with on july 12 we'll see if there's any other comments from council members go ahead mr vice mayor thank you mayor in regards to the directly elected mayor i do see the point of and the strength that it gives the city when you have an entire city deciding who their mayor is opposed to seven individuals although we are elected by the that same populace but nonetheless so as as representative of a district that is having a first go at district elections you're absolutely right some people think that they did vote for mayor and i think that's a hilarious statement to make but when that's true uh with the same perception i will say that a lot of people do not know what district they pertain to or or some have never even voted because they do not even realize that they are now part of the city of san rosa so i'm definitely saying that i do understand the importance of having a mayor directed by the people but i am definitely saying let's give it a little bit of of time for people to become to the new custom to the new system with that i would ask a question will it be 10 years before we address the issue of a directly elected mayor uh no the timing will be up to you and in fact the um in the charter update modernization measure specifically calls out that you're going to have your 10-year review but that you can also put things onto the ballot at any time and it was in large part because of the discussion of at-large mayor uh and that a number of um committee members did feel that may be something that is good for the city but we're not ready for it now right now is not the time and perhaps reconsidered in a few years there was also that discussion in connection with rank choice voting if maybe in a few years we'd look again at it so that um charter amendment in the update that allows it expressly allows i think it's still allowed under the current language but that expressly allows yes you can come forward with new proposals at any time that you find it appropriate so that conversation does not need to wait for 10 years i appreciate that any other feedback all right we'll move on from this item we have a number of written communications as item 16.1 on our agenda i'll go ahead and see if there's any public comment on 16.1 um i have no recorded voice public comment and i don't see any raised hands okay and any additional feedback from council members on our written comments all right let's go to our last public comment for non-agenda items for the night that's item 17 if you have a comment that is not within the jurisdiction or excuse me is within the jurisdiction of santa rosa but not on tonight's agenda go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on zoom there i see no raised hands okay we'll go ahead and adjourn thank you everybody