 Good. Okay. Well, good afternoon everybody. Welcome to our 12 p.m. public portion of the closed litigation session of the June 11th 2019 meeting of the city council and this part of the meeting the council will receive public testimony Thereafter, council members will move to the courtyard conference room for closed session I would like to ask our clerk to please call the roll Thank you mayor council members crone here lever here Myers here Brown here Matthews here vice mayor Cummings Yeah, and mayor Watkins here So I'll go ahead and see if there's any members of the public who would like to address the council seeing nobody in our chambers I'll take that as a no and We'll go ahead and now adjoin our meeting to our courtyard conference room where we'll go into our closed session Well, good afternoon everybody I'd like to welcome you to our 1235 p.m. Session of the June 11th 2019 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council at this time I'd like to see if our clerk could please call the roll. Thank you mayor council members crone here lever here Myers here Brown here Matthews here vice mayor Cummings. Yeah, and mayor Watkins here Before we begin, I'd like to maybe turn it over to our city manager to explain a recent event that took place in Virginia Beach and a shooting that took place on May 31st at a city municipality and some lives lost and show our Condolences to that community and we'll have a moment of silence But I'll go ahead and see if our city manager or team or no one's to add to that Great. Thank you. Just wanted to just share a few words Just again in reflecting upon the horrific events that happened in Virginia Beach Beach at their municipal offices Again awareness of gun violence has become really particularly acute with our employees and so I wanted to point out that It's really important that we do everything we can to ensure the safety of our employees and we certainly committed to that Yeah, because our employees, you know from police officers to firefighters to our service workers Do put themselves on the line of danger every day to serve our community and I just wanted to say that, you know We are all ever so grateful for their service Given what's what's happened? Thank you for that. So if we could maybe just take a brief moment of silence to honor the victims in that community Thank you very much So at this time we'll go ahead and have our clerk lead us in the pledge of allegiance I believe We'll go ahead and see if member Matthews had a dish went and very briefly I know we can't take official action But I wonder if you could send a letter on behalf of the council and city to that community I'd be happy to do that. Thank you. Good suggestion. Okay Okay, so we'll go here to have our introduction of new employees at this time and I'll invite up Tony Elliott our Parks and Recreation Director to introduce his new employee Alright, good afternoon Mayor and City Council for the record Tony Elliott Parks and Recreation Department It's my honor to introduce Sarah Stevens. Sarah is a new Parks Maintenance Worker Within the Parks Division in the Parks and Recreation Department Sarah will be working or is working In the West Zone in the Parks Division. She is originally from England and Came to California by way of Minnesota She studied it's a very direct route. I think She studied political science at UCSC She was a police officer in San Jose for 12 years And she's currently studying horticulture at Cabrillo College Sarah is self-described as a family oriented per a very family oriented person That geeks out on hiking so she's a hiker back packer loves being outdoors And so yeah, you can find her in the West Zone Places like near your lagoon very frequently. So please help me in welcoming Sarah to the team Welcome Sarah We'll go ahead and now invite up our public works director director Mark Dettel to introduce his new employees Afternoon Mark Dettel Director of Public Works, and it's my pleasure to introduce Brian Saunders Brian's Ability Maintenance Worker too He's works under the facilities department is born in San Francisco and currently lives in Santa Cruz in the beach area He's married to his wife have four years, and he has five children from his wife's previous marriage He used to work up actually as a maintenance work up in at Mono Valley And which is a mobile home park up in Scotts Valley as well as a FedEx worker and recognizes a lot of people in the area In and on the campus from his FedEx days graduate high school in San Mateo and Also did some junior college work Santa Rosa and Cabrillo, and when he's not working. He loves spending time with his family And kind of a fun fact My mom actually works up at Mono Valley, and she said oh you got a good one in Brian, so please join me and welcome Brian Welcome Brian and then last but certainly not least we have Rosemary Menard introducing her a new employee at the water department Or employees forgive me Good afternoon mayor and city council members I'm really happy to introduce two new employees for the water department today. We have Jamie Stallings and we have Eddie Perez Jamie has joined us as an administrative assistance too, and she's working in our program management and sort of construction and Project development area and supporting the program team that's working on our CIP She's originally from Baltimore, Maryland, and she moved to Santa Cruz in 2017 after that rainy winter I'm sort of surprised she stayed but nevertheless She's got a lot of work experience of really diverse work experience property and Management and project management real estate and in an earlier life She and her husband own a commercial fishing crabbing boat in Maryland for blue crab So she has a lot of experience in the kind of environment that we have here She's a mom of three kids, and she's a car enthusiast someone told me I think we're nay Coletta before she left that Jamie was rebuilding her car like over the weekend So if you need anything, you know, we'll know how to who to talk to anyway, and she plays softball She lives in Watsonville, and she has said two boys and a girl, so please welcome Jamie Stallings New employees Eddie Perez Edward Perez. He's a new utility maintenance tech trainee And he was born in Colorado Springs and grew up in SoCal been lowman of Olda Creek. He's graduated from Cal State University in Monterey Bay with a degree in communications So I guess maybe he knows how to fix those things that are you know making us all crazy about they don't really work And we need somebody to fix them His first job was at the boardwalk. He worked in as a cook a carpenter and more recently as a barista and a pizza in Capitola he Is married And he and his wife Megan have two sons and he lives in up to Aptos He enjoys learning about philosophy, especially ethics of care, and he's taken Buddhist layperson Vows so please welcome Eddie Welcome Eddie and Jamie Okay, so we'll go ahead and move along to our presentation portion of today's agenda However, the first presentation on the agenda, which was clarity arts reached out and they were unable to Have their presentation today, so we'll go ahead and reschedule that one so we'll invite up the 418 project at this time to Talk about the future of dance education and training welcome. Hello. Hi Madam mayor members of the city council. Hello My name is Laura Bishop and I want to thank you for inviting us to speak to you today I'm the executive director of the 418 project on front street And I'm here to talk about the arts our community and the future of Santa Cruz and To request that not just the 418 project But the many arts and cultural organizations that in live in downtown be granted a seat at the table in planning for our future Now I hope it's okay if I ask you a question so if it feels good, I invite you to take a breath and Consider softening felt softening your gaze and ask yourself Why do you live in Santa Cruz? and Maybe notice if that lands somewhere inside you and then I have another question for you and that question is Why do you really live in Santa Cruz? I don't know about you, but there's one more question that interests me and that question is Why do you really? really live in Santa Cruz Now on to our talk So as I speak to you today The ability of the 418 project as well as the nearby yoga center and potentially others To remain in or near our current location is uncertain Because of major development projects that are or will be before you Projects which might redefine the very essence of Santa Cruz for decades to come and potentially displace our another community institutions For context, I would invite you to develop to view the development projects and the organizations They may impact through two diverse but compatible lenses The first is arts as an engine for creative growth Or what the 2008 arts master plan calls the creative economy? In its vision statement the arts master plan puts the Santa Cruz whose economic health and vibrancy are built on our finest resources our stunning natural environment educated populace innovative thinkers esteemed academic institutions small-town character and Highly respected arts community So in keeping with the vision the arts master plan called on the city to one Take a leadership role in fostering the arts as a community resource and to Leverage the arts as a key component in its overall economic development strategies in a moment I'll share with you how the 418 project can help achieve those goals The other lens is you know mayor Watkins and the council have already prioritized is instituting the internationally recognized health and all policies in a way that works for all of Santa Cruz Utilizing the three pillars of equity public health and sustainability These three pillars embody what we at the 418 project and the yoga center and our downtown arts neighbors do every day The challenge is that there are a lot of moving parts and as you guys know The goal is identifying areas of growth while applying health sustainable and sustainability and equity lenses to your decision-making At the 418 project we have 25 years Experience creating and supporting an astonishingly rich and deep community environment and I'm going to share a couple of ways we do this in the service of the values of equity and public health and sustainability But first a little more about us Last summer we surveyed our users and we found the following The 418 projects user base is comprised from people from all over Santa Cruz But mostly from the 950 and 950 6 0 and 950 6 2 zip codes We are students mid-career professionals and Elders ranging in age about evenly from 18 to 70 plus and including kids in Fact one of the unusual dynamics that happens in our space is how often in intergenerational transactions happen About a third of our programming is specifically designed to cultivate this and a lot more times it just happens for example Last month we made arrangements to share our space with four high school kids three of which were Latinx and one white during their first ever rap concert a Black mom teaching a series of classes on an amazing movement technique called contact improv especially designed to bring families together and a Long-time Soquel resident a Norwegian born Rolfer who's planning two evenings of dance performance and political commentary in September Here are a couple of programs that have been in our space continuously for over 20 years One dance church is our by-donation gathering the people of all ages backgrounds and faiths enjoy every Sunday morning Afro-Brazilian and Samba with live drumming Grateful dead dances theatrical improv and contact improv and Aerial dance the first aerial arts and Santa Cruz was done in our space So sort of like a healthy garden we mix the annuals one-time pop of events that create the color with perennials Which are sort of like Their own ecosystems if you will and they keep our soil vigorous and they invite a wide variety of birds and butterflies So now what about the creative economy? So consider this a large percentage of our users come at least once a week Often twice a week over three-quarters say they would like to come as often or more in the future And here's my favorite number Keep in mind the 418 project has one main studio Still over a thousand people a week come through our doors weekly We estimate that over the course of a year about 20,000 discreet individuals cross our thresholds Think about it. It means on any day a Couple of hundred people who live in Santa Cruz might take part in our classes workshops concerts and performances and eat at our cafe But aside from the meaning that they're driving from our programming these people are going shopping dropping their kids off Having coffee going to meetings and basically taking advantage of downtown's many offerings so How do we do this? I'd like to talk specifically about how the 418 project addresses the values of sustainability equity and public health Sustainability the 418 project is comprised of a community of communities They were originally drawn to us because of deed a need of space a Need of expression a need of connection a need of safety a need of accessibility As a nonprofit arts center, we have more creativity than cash So we've had to be creative to meet our communities needs We don't have much of what you might consider conventional power So in order to keep our doors open we use what we had and we discovered that listening Fairness and sharing the mic so to speak our effective tools for creating the vibrancy that sustained us for over a quarter a century Equity as We've grown in organizational capacity. We've become really aware of the widening income divide So we've been ramping up our by donation and sliding scale offerings About half our programming is presently either by donation or sliding scale and we intend to take this as close to a hundred percent As we can in the coming three years public health We believe that only part of public health is physical We believe that health is also mental emotional and spiritual So we create programming where as many people as wanted can come get their physical health needs met and at the same time derive emotional spiritual and mental benefits with practices as simple as Putting down your phone taking off your shoes and becoming present to yourself and those around you Now about our concerns of displacement as Things now stand the 418 projects home would be demolished To make room for a mix of market rate and affordable units and about 13,000 square feet of commercial space between 418 and 508 Front Street the Riverfront project This project is actually phase two of the Pacific Front mixed-use project, which we call the Taco Bell project That has already been approved by the city and has the same developer Early on let's say over a year ago The developer said he makes space for the 418 project in phase two Basically allowing us to stay where we are No rent was confirmed The amount of space was speculative at best and no firm commitments were made however as of today The developer has said He commit to a special study session with the 418 project This is an important first step for us a seat at the table a Seat at the table also means working directly with city staff as we explore various planning options We ask this today because it's important that the city not lose sight of the creative Wellness and economic importance of the downtown's thriving arts and cultural institutions like the 418 project We're actually part of the solution Because we deal on a daily basis with the complexities of equity public health and Sustainability we bring the experience of how things actually work and how they can be made to work for all Santa Cruz So in closing I'd like to read a statement from the master plan the arts master plan To a richly diverse and talented arts community our city's artistic reputation is vital To its residents who view our town as more than a collection of roads and buildings Also as a concentration of cultures and ideas Santa Cruz is the undisputed cultural heart of the region city arts Cultural groups patrons and volunteers have dedicated many years and countless resources to developing Santa Cruz as A hub of high-quality music dance theater film and literary arts Now Santa Cruz can put its creative assets to work and helping to build a new sustainable economy I'd like to add that I believe the 418 project is the heart of Santa Cruz I'm a little biased And I believe that the arts master plan is even more valid now than it was improved when it was approved by your predecessors in 2008 and especially since it's now linked to the arts objective in the draft 20 30 general plan Thank you so much for your time and attention Thank You Laura for that Wonderful presentation. It's wonderful to hear about the program that you in the programs all the offerings And I personally appreciate the health and all policies overlay And I know that I think we could all get into a lot of conversation with you And so I'll just encourage our council to reach out to you directly if they have any additional questions As well as our staff in regards to moving forward with our partnership. Thank you so much mayor Watkins. Thank you everybody. Thank you Okay, so we have one more presentation today, and that's the woody's on the wharf 25th anniversary and I'd like to invite up Don Iglesias Iglesias and the president of the woody's woody's club To give a brief presentation about woody's on the wharf wharf and the 25 years of positive impact and Contribution to tourism in Santa Cruz as well as the donations that have been given from the woody's club to our local community Organizations welcome. Thank you. Thank you city council members. I'll make this very brief but 25th anniversary of woody's on the wharf is coming up. It's been 25 years You know, we were all teenagers believe it or not when we started this thing I have some of the board of directors members here want to mention briefly Dave Wells Roland Baker prom wave, please back there you guys Kathy Stafanke all of us Santa Cruz residents for a lot a lot of years and Related to the surfing culture for starters gonna give you a quick 30 second flavor For woody's on the wharf if this works Does it work? We'll see here we go works here Always technical difficulty in the meantime The major thing is we want to thank all of you city council members city of Santa Cruz Park and recreation department for 25 years of a wonderful partnership and Let's see if it goes You have one old surfer, but here's some more. It's a quick clip on woody's on the wharf 25th anniversary of woody's on the wharf Walk through surfing's history with Bob Pearson and Pearson Air of surf boards Talk to artist Jimbo Phillips and score your signed 25th anniversary woody's on the wharf poster Saturday June 22nd at the Santa Cruz wharf So that's that's as quick as it could be We're anticipating record crowds this year We typically get around 20,000 people show up for that one event hard to believe on the wharf The wharf merchants tell us it's the largest highest earning day of the year for them We have about 450 people come just with the woody's they typically spend about a thousand dollars for the weekend each so Lot lots of money generated through this event 95% of the proceeds from the raffle we do go to local non-profits as well as state charities and Over the 25 years we brought in around a hundred thousand dollars. I've gone to charities So we're proud of that and most importantly we want to invite you June 21st. It's Friday night 530 Museum of Art and History on the roof the roof sculpture garden if the weather's like this you're going to want to be there or derv's love to see you there and The museum will be celebrating 25th anniversary of what he's on the wharf So there'll be displays and exhibits within the museum. There'll be cars on Cooper Street There'll be a surf band on the back patio So it should be a lot of fun for the community and we hope that you'll be able to attend So we'd love to see you there and we would love to see you at Woody's on the wharf although I know you've got something else going I think that day and We just want to thank you for the partnership and as a token of our appreciation Summer wherever you are And again thanks to Park and Rec Rachel Kauffman and Summer Lang and all the other people that work at Park and Rec Have just been incredible to work with so supportive so enthusiastic really appreciate it But we brought you some posters those are done by Jimbo Phillips well-known local artist started with skateboards gone from there He has a cult falling 25 years ago his his father Jimmy Phillips Who also around a lot of years in the surfing scene as an artist did our first poster? So we're going round circle on that but we have a poster for each of you And we hope you we see you on the 21st 22nd. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much John and to the board Congratulations on the 25 years 100,000 over to give back to the community is something extraordinary to be proud of and To the partnership between Your efforts and our city our parks and rec department. It's a wonderful thing So I will look forward to seeing you that Friday. We will be doing some strategic planning that Saturday Maybe we can sneak over for lunch or something, but we're glad to know that so many of our community can enjoy it So thank you again. Thanks for the presentation and for the awesome posters All right, okay, so I believe that will conclude our presentations at this time So before we move along I will go ahead and make a few announcements and then we'll get started on our regular agenda So today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website At the city of Santa Cruz comm all city council members can be emailed at city council at city of Santa Cruz comm And if you would like to communicate with us about an agenda item We'd like to receive your email by 5 p.m. Before our council meeting This will provide us with an opportunity to review the email and include it with the rest of our agenda packet Please do bear in mind that all items of correspondence with the city and the city council Constitute public records and are generally subject to disclosure upon request by any member of the public Accordingly if you have sensitive or private information that you do not wish to be made public You should not include that information in your correspondence Our rules of decorum are to my left on the ledge And it's my job as the mayor to keep our meeting running without Disruption and we ask that you respect your fellow citizens when you are inside and outside of our city council chambers At this time, I'd like to ask if any council members have any statements of disqualification today Councilma Cronen. Thank you. I do on the advice of the city attorney. I Will be recusing myself on item number 26. Okay. Thank you any others and City clerk Sufficient Based on a relationship with the appellant Okay, thank you for the clarification. Okay, any other statements of disqualification Okay, I'm seeing none. I Would like to ask our county. I mean our city clerk administrator to announce if there's any additions or deletions There are not no, okay I'll just briefly make an announcement about oral communications Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on today's Agenda oral communications will occur at or around 7 p.m. And members of the community are always welcome to reach out to us Individually or at any city council at the at the grander city council email and regards to any items of concern that are not on today's Agenda as well I'll go ahead and now ask our city attorney to report on closed session Yes, thank you mayor Watkins members of city council Two categories of closed session discussions this afternoon the first real property negotiations The council met with and gave direction to its real property negotiator Bonnie Lipsken Concerning the property at 125 Coral Street Potential acquisition of that property was the topic of discussion The second item involves three pending Cases before the United States Supreme Court interpreting title 7 of the Federal Civil Rights Act The cases are RG and GR Harris funeral funeral homes, Inc. Versus EEOC The second is Altitude Express, Inc. et al. Versus Melissa Zarda as executor of the estate of Donald Zarda et al The third is Gerald Lynn Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia Those are cases on appeal from the second sixth Annapel and 11th circuit circuits Court of Appeal at issue our Interpretation of title 7's application to claims of discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation This afternoon the council by motion unanimously authorized the city attorney's office to Join in an amicus brief being prepared by several other cities in support of the plaintiffs in those cases and That was the reportable action. Okay. Thank you Before I check to see if we have a city manager report We'll just go ahead and give a shout out to our Golden State Warriors being the home of their D League We want to congratulate them on that Squeaky win they won last night and knowing that some of the players from our D League I think actually contributed to it. So I'll go ahead and now and see if our city attorney No report today. Okay. Okay. We'll go ahead and move on to consent agenda before we do that I'm going to go ahead and ask our city clerk to orient us around a Edition we have here in In regards to the minutes, right so item four I believe the minutes from the May 28th meeting There was a change from what was put in the packet You have the red line in front of you. It's item one at the 730 session. There were just a couple of budget items added All right All right, so we'll go ahead and move on then to our consent agenda items Those are items four through 25 on today's agenda All items will be acted upon in one motion motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion I did hear from a member of the community who would like to have item number seven Pulled so we'll go ahead and pull that are there any other Additional items that that council members would like to pull pull at this time council member Brown vice mayor Cummings This is council member clever. Thank you. I'd like to pull item 15 for discussion I'm 19 and 21 I'm so clever. Thank you items 9 12 13 and 18 Council member Myers, and I just will make a comment on item Lost it Just on item 12. I'll just make a brief comment. Okay. Okay, so that's already been pulled council member Kern Just a comment on number four the minutes. Okay Any other items to be pulled at this time, so I have items 7 9 12 13 15 18 19 and 21 pulled And we'll go ahead and have comments on item four since they have not been pulled at this time Thank you Madam mayor, the only thing I want to say is I to continue to find I Hope we can make our way forward on minutes because they're they're really Not as useful as they could be You know this council member of that council member spoke Or this member of the public or that member of the public spoke is not really helpful and For the record, I just like to say these these minutes are not very useful They do not even mention what members of the public and the council members actually said We really need to explore a different system of minutes. Thank you mayor. Okay Okay, thank you Okay, so we'll go ahead and see if there's any member of the community who wanted to address the council on items On between four and 25 not including items 7 9 12 13 15 18 19 and 21 Any member of the community would like to speak on the please come forward you'll have up to two minutes Okay, this is in reference to item number six the public banking act I opposed the public banking act because it has too much potential to become another leftist Active destruction of America Concentrates more power wealth and increases through leverage of borrowing power of government to be misappropriated by political pressures In our state leftist political pressures the worst kind the advocates talk the usual leftism of their version of social justice Environmental protection divest fossil fuel and pipe up investing blah blah blah. Yes They want total control government control and ownership of everything It is the leftist version of socialism They will tell citizen and probably illegal alien borrowers what they can borrow on and it won't be evaluated by credit worthiness It is the government owning a financial business in direct competition with private ownership of similar for-profit businesses Profit generates new net wealth something the public bank will not do if it bows to a leftist Political agenda in loaning money to riskier debtors whose loans will go bad Making loans more affordable does not improve the credit worthiness of borrowers much something we found out in 2008 Profit if any does not really accrue to the public as owners of publicly traded private sector banks do but to the government Which is a poor proxy? Socialism is a known historically defective economic system. Just ask Venezuela. This is one big step toward that If elected officials were not corrupt and actually cared criminal mega banks can be Reigned in by breaking them up into smaller companies re-enacting last eagle regulations voided by Clinton and responsible for a life financial crisis and Jailing bankers who break the law instead of the government taking their mafia style cut with wrist-op lines such as Obama did Instead of this you should pass a resolution to that effect and send to Mark Stone instead This is another in a litany of leftist ideas Thank you Okay, any other members of the community who would like to address our council on any of our consent agenda items Without considering the ones that have been pulled Yeah, I'm Brett Garrett. I want to thank you very much for including item six Supporting the Public Banking Act. They'd be 857. I believe there were a couple of typos. I think those are being addressed Have been received. Okay, great. Great. I Just want to emphasize that it's We call it an enabling bill. It doesn't force any city to create a public bank. It doesn't create public banks It just creates a licensing process where cities counties regions Can form their own public bank It gives an option that enables cities to to have a different option other than the major commercial banks and Yeah, we did I do the city's need options I Just yeah, I'll just keep it very short. I really appreciate you having this on the consent agenda. Thank you Thank you Okay, see no other public comment at this time. We'll go ahead and return back to council for action Councilmember Matthews I'll move a bullet consent with the exception of the items pulled Okay, we have a motion by councilmember Matthews second did by vice mayor Cummings all those in favor, please say aye Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously So item number seven was asked by a member of the community to be pulled and spoke to before we invite up community members to Speak to the item all out those who brought the item forward on our council provide any context if they'd like to at this time I think I'd like to hear from the public first. Thanks. Nope So we'll go ahead and ask up Okay, mr. Escalante to come forward and I think I Don't remember if you requested extra time Apologize for that. No, so you have up to two minutes. Thank you I'll try and get through the one page that I have. Thank you for the time. Good afternoon madam mayor and honorable council Rudy Escalante. I'm the chief executive officer for Janice of Santa Cruz Resolution before you today is extremely concerning because of the factual and actual Accuracies and the potential for contract interference. Our process is bound by the National Labor Relations Board With oversight by a federal mediator this ensures that good faith bargaining exists through the entire process and no self-dealing occurs Any other involvement would be disruptive to this process What I will be asking for you today is to amend your proposed resolution to the following Number one correct the inaccuracies that exist in the current version to amend the resolution to include $250,000 of unrestricted General fund monies on an annual basis to Janice of Santa Cruz to support wage increases to the entire agency To purchase a portable restroom at the sobering center so that the clients and staff no longer have to share one And so the city of Santa Cruz pays its fair share for the services it receives at the sobering center and Three to advocate to our state representatives for higher reimbursement rates for drug Medi-Cal client services our Contract with the county sheriff to operate the sobering center is six hundred and thirty four thousand dollars annually in 2018 the Santa Cruz Police Department accounted for 35% of all the services we provided at the sobering center That percentage equates to approximately two hundred twenty two thousand dollars Currently the city of Santa Cruz contributes the zero dollars directly to the services provided at the sobering center Over the last four years Janice provided performance increases ranging from three to four percent During that same time period over ninety thousand dollars in benefit increases were covered by the employer and not passed on to the agency employees The employee plan pays for fifty dollars a month for their contribution their medical benefits while here at the city of Santa Cruz service employees have a $107 a monthly contribution. Thank you. Thank you Okay, are there any members of the community who would like to address the council on this item? Okay, please come to my left and you'll have up to two minutes. This is item number seven on our consent agenda Thank you very much. I appreciate the time. My name is Matthew van eyes. I'm an iOS counselor at Janice of Santa Cruz I worked there because I myself was out in the community in active addiction for a long time I've got coming up on eight years clean and sober and it's my way of giving back We're on the front line of the opioid epidemic, but outcomes are tied to therapeutic alliance I have clients personally who come back into my iOS group because of me not because of Janice But because they know me and they trust me. It's hard to have that therapeutic alliance when you have 40% plus turnover rate with the employees It's hard to give quality care when you're broke and stressed out I have an eight-month-old baby boy who is the light of my life the first child in my universe I've never had a kid before and right now he is in a sweltering hot RV because we're homeless, okay? He is we don't have money to get a place I'm homeless with my gal and my eight-month-old boy who right now isn't an RV Cooking his little butt off and that breaks my heart You know it breaks my heart that I can't give the quality care to my clients that I should be able to give because I'm distracted by these issues because I don't make enough money now I understand that Janice is a non-profit and I understand that they have funding issues That's why we tracked down $500,000 in federal funding through Leopold's office which is available to them and as far as we know they have applied for it You know a 2% raise You know it's that doesn't even cover the cost of inflation for bread basically around here I think Rudy is a good man personally. I like him personally and I want to invite him to return to the The bargaining table in good faith the other thing I want to say about health care is that I have it We have a $7,500 deductible. I had to have a simple sonogram and some blood work last year I just got done paying off the $1,200 that it cost me just to do that God forbid I'd found any kind of actual health consequences and how that would impact my family So I thank you for your time Thank you Are there any members of the community who'd like to address as an item number seven of our consent agenda? So any other additional members of the community who'd like to address us on this item? Okay? I think you'll be our last when you have up to two minutes. Okay. Yeah. Hello. My name is Anthony Hong. I'm a Psychotherapist at Janice Yeah, there's been made mention of raises They've ranged from zero to four percent and like Matt mentioned our deductible $7,500 which was increased by $500 this year. I Personally pay over 60% of my salary to rent It has not felt like there's been good faith bargaining on management's part and Yeah, the the ability to focus at work and be Balanced and centered and not stressed is challenging I've had to move away to commute and my rent is still high And also, I mean just the clinical Cohesion at Janice has been concerning There's no mandatory supervision for people with face-to-face clinical contact Yeah, there's been a lot of incidents that happen because of under staffing and under training The trainings that we do get are largely didactic which means like lecture-based There's not really any practice Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of concerns besides the financial Yeah, thank you. Thank you Okay, when we're speaker is there any other speakers who would like to address us on this item? This is item number seven of our consent agenda Okay Seeing none, we'll go ahead and have you be as our last speaker. So you'll have up to two minutes. I I support Janice and the workers and I really want you to You've probably thought about this a lot But that idea of turnover of staff and how that relates to outcomes of clients and how clients do That kind of thing for all of the nonprofits because the nonprofits are an exemption from the living wage But that is part of a lot of the issues that Santa Cruz is having for the homeless People say there should be more mental health. There should be more substance use Programs, but if everybody is turning over then the outcomes are going to be lower because they're not getting experience. So thanks Go to project connect next Wednesday. If you want to volunteer, it's an all-day thing or you can just come visit You see no other members of the community wanting to address us on this item We'll go ahead and return back to council at this time. Oh, we have one more Okay, so I if I could just before you get started Is there any other member of the community who wants to address this on the item item number seven? Okay, so we have Okay, so you'll be is there anybody else just checking Okay, so you'll be the last in and the jean jacket there. You'll have up to two minutes. Sure. I don't think I'll need two minutes Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Edgar Fuerte. I've been working for the Janice Soaring Center on Water Street 265 Water Street for over four years since the day it opened Yeah, it would be really great if you know We can get the city of Santa Cruz behind us and supporting us on raising some funds I've been there this entire time. I haven't had any decent increase on salary. I haven't left. That's not the same story for many people and over the time I've been working there many people quit many people are I Don't know whatever reasons they quit or they are fired and the high turnover rate is increasing all the time Nobody can stay there. Nobody stays at our workplace because of finding better jobs more more salary better raises I'm only there because I have another job that helps me out So I work as security at the catalyst which helps me out a lot if I only had this this job I don't know how I'd probably been an RV just like Matt I'd probably be asking you if I can move in the pay that they give us for dealing with Arrest the slash patience at the serving center is not anything close to the detention officers across the parking lot the sheriff's That's fine, right? But we deal with pretty much people that are not voluntarily really wanting to go into treatment Which is fine. I knew what I signed up for that doesn't really worry me too much But a little bit more pay would help out for having a better staff Today's my day off. I was asked this morning while I was still sleeping. Hey, can you come into work? I know it's your day off, but we don't have anyone. I Said I couldn't I have another commitment on Tuesdays that I need to take care of he said, all right. That's okay That's been for the past four years. We've never had a proper staffing at the serving center We're always either trying to come in and work extra hours or having to say we don't have medical staff to the officers that show up Okay Hi, I'm Maisie. I work at their residential treatment center as a treatment. I can I just wanted to reiterate the understaffing and the The overturn is that the word you turn over Yeah, in November-December there were at least eight people just from my department alone that quit many of which Decided to move on to jobs that paid better They went over the hill and we were very understaffed in our department And I just think that we could provide a lot better client care if we had a consistent staff We have a lot of clients that come through that have been there multiple times and they say oh, it's so nice to see this Person because they've been here and I know a lot of the people I work with a lot of the treatment texts of the med techs the Besides one of the coworkers who's been there for around eight or nine years the next person That's been there the longest has been there for a year and a half And so we're just having a lot of problems with consistency And I feel like if wages were increased then we could get people to keep staying especially because I know people quit because of the Pay and that's all I have. Thank you Okay, well go ahead and return it back at this time then to the council I'll go ahead and see if any if the council members who brought this item forward want to Sort of provide context for it and then maybe see there's any questions Well, thank you to those of you who came out to speak to us about this item as one of the council members who Brought this to our agenda. I just wanted to make a comment I mean, I think that the the text of the resolution kind of speaks to the reasons why we Opted to bring this before the entire council as we know the opioid epidemic and challenges with access to treatment and treatment facility funding for treatment facilities are a major problem in our community a major challenge to addressing one of our most pressing needs and I believe that the workers of Janice provide one of these critical services that We absolutely need and we need qualified and committed Workers, we know I having talked with many of these workers. I know they are committed and That you know the organization and the community relies on the fact that they will do this work for Limited pay because they really care about their clients and they care about this community so I believe that you know having having explored and talked with many of the workers having educated myself about what it was going on and and really putting time into The contents of this resolution. I'm Not convinced that there are There's anything that isn't factual here. I believe that it's a matter of perspective. I would welcome Mr.. Escalante to come up and tell us what the factual inaccuracies are And we can talk about that But otherwise I'm prepared to move ahead with Support Myers and then by smearcomings Yeah, I guess my comment is yeah, I think that Janice and the city need to have a very strong partnership because We we need to not only have success with the services they provide and the people who work at Janice but more more directly we need to continue and broaden that success because we do have a growing need in our community and I'm glad that you've invited Mr.. Escalante back up I I'm very interested in making sure that we do this collaboratively and I don't want to be on on the other side of Janice So I'm hoping that we can get some clarification and and I'll be I'll be hopefully Hearing that we can potentially work through this even if it means a little more time on this action Um councilmember Glover maybe before we do I'll just sort of remind and reorient us This is one of many items that have been pulled on our consent agenda Which is anticipated to be acted on in one motion and so for the interest of time for further clarification if it would Make sense to those that brought the item forward to maybe move to table it until the next meeting after a conversation with Mr.. Escalante could take place for clarification and Congruence of language and then and then clarified at that time as opposed to having this Conversation within the consent agenda item section and I'll go ahead and sort of put that out there Maybe think about and then I'll go ahead and see if councilmember Glover wants to speak and then we can go forward. Thank you Yeah, I'd be interested I think for the public as well as maybe the Janice workers as well would be very interested to hear Mr.. Escalante's claims as to what is inaccurate in the Resolution and then once we have that Out and about I'm ready to move the move the item so Okay, vice mayor coming. I'm sorry councilmember Brown or Well, I mean I'd welcome the opportunity to have a conversation with mr.. Escalante and Janice management about the situation and if that is Acceptable, I mean, but I also am want to be clear that I am very much in support of the workers and I believe that They they deserve our support So I'm happy to have that conversation and bring this back at the June 25th meeting if mr.. Escalante is Amenable and available to meeting Would that be appropriate mr.. Escalante? Yes, I am amenable to that I've never been contacted anybody to get our side of what's going on and so I'm glad to hear that you've had conversations with the staff But I would like to have some conversation too and nice to at least to be engaged in that I think a collaborative process should include us so having that moving forward. I'd like for that to happen Okay, so it sounds like there's an agreement that it would be great to have that conversation take place before the council takes Any type of formal action, but overall I'd say are hopeful that there will be some sort of resolution in support of your organization Council member vice mayor Cummings and then council member Myers. I just want to say that One of the reasons why I wanted to Bring this forward as well is the fact that I've also heard a lot from the Janice workers and Knowing how unaffordable Santa Cruz is and how difficult it is to live here that you know having a living wage is important In addition to that I understand how important these services are to the community a lot of what I just want to I can echo what Sandy said so I don't go into too much detail, but just the idea that we really need to be on top of opioid crisis and providing treatment and services to the members of our community Additionally, one of the things that I was really wanting to see happen and encouraging to do this resolution is You know having both management and workers work together to try to come up with a fair contract and a way that Can support the workers and that management can be comfortable it's really trying to bring folks together to have a meaningful conversation and if the city can now be a part of you know Working through these relations. I think that it's a great start because we really very much value Janice in our community and we want to do as much as we can to help make sure the Janice is successful and that the workers are supported Some remayers and then councilmember clever So I'm prepared if my colleagues are amenable I'd like to make a motion to go ahead and move this to the to our end of the art What is it June 28th our next meeting so basically and encourage Communication between individuals here at the city including city council members with the leadership of Janice And so that's my motion to Extend that okay, okay So we have a motion by councilmember Myers and a seconded by councilmember Matthews mr. Escalino for the vote I check in my calendar I am taking my son to college university for a tour on that day So I'm gonna be out of state okay on that on the 25th We fly to Washington State for a college tour, but you'll be likely available to have a Okay, well and congratulations to your son, okay any further discussion councilmember clever yeah I'm still unclear into what the controversial part of this is the resolution itself states statistics and data and then it just in the end resolves that Santa Cruz City calls on Janice to bargain in good faith with its workers So I really am still unclear because it has yet to be Submitted to us what the inaccuracies are and I understand mayor your interest in wanting to move quickly through the consent agenda, but I Don't I mean I Just still don't understand what the conflict is So maybe if it could be explained and then we could make a comprehensive Under the vote as to why we should delay it until the next meeting. I would really appreciate that councilmember Matthews one of the Issues is simply the long list of items that we have to deal with But the other I think is all each of us getting a fuller picture of what the issues are On both sides and I second councilmember Myers desire that we come up with something that does reflect and and I think also Cummings suggestion that we come up with a To the extent possible a collaborative Approach to this issue because certainly the workers issues are significant as are the need for services So with that I am going to move that we call the question on this so we have a motion to call the question and I'm asking for the information We'll need a second for that to call the question or does that go immediately go to vote it just it just happens I call the question. Yeah, okay You need a vote to call the question a vote to call the question second to call the question second to cancel Okay, seconded by councilmember Myers all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, so that passes with councilmember Myers brown Matthews vice mayor vice mayor Cummings and myself voting in support of calling the question all those in favor of the motion before us then at This time be without further discussion is my understanding. That's right. Okay all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, and that passes with councilmember Brown Matthews vice mayor Cummings councilmember Myers and myself moving to Have the item come back before us after some of the questions of clarification came up. Okay So we'll go ahead and move right along mr. Benal and the mr. Glover just one quick comment the the meeting should happen well before the 25th just so that you have enough time To prepare an item for the 22. Okay, so we'll encourage the council members to reach out to a mr. Escalante as Sooner than rather than later. Okay, so we'll go ahead and close item number seven councilmember Glover I just have a question of process I asked multiple times for information for mr. Escalante and it was never provided and then we made a vote without Understanding the context of the controversy or the misinformation So I'm confused as to why that request went unresponded to multiple times and then we just moved into a vote I'm happy to provide what I interpret the kind of the flow of that if there's a motion to call the question Then all discussion is supposed to cease at that point It was just I made that request before the call to question on multiple times. I'm just wondering. Oh, I understood Yeah, however when a motion to call the question is It is intended to interrupt the discussion So your question was left dangling That's but but it happened that the motion to call the question was made while that while the question While your questions had still yet to be answered. So just for clarity if I pose a question and It's not acted on by the chair and it just sits there Then someone can call the question and that question just totally goes out the way that's correct Well, it doesn't seem very fair and essentially what the Sort of the approach was to have this just to be held Sort of offline at this point to get further clarification on the details Given the constraints of the amount of items that we have on consent So that was sort of the majority of the council's decision at this point out of the eyes of the public Okay Sure, we'll go ahead. We'll go ahead and I'm sure that the those that brought the item forward would be happy to hear your your input as well Okay, thank you. Okay, so we'll go ahead and move right along then to our next agenda item that was pulled Which is item number nine and I believe that was pulled by I Don't remember Okay, let's see here item nine Yeah, which is a couple questions with regards to the consultant work work plan workflow, so the questions were It doesn't specify who the consultant is so have those bids been put out yet Also, it mentions that there will be a 17 person task force or advisory committee formed How was that process going to take place and then how will the community meetings be posted and promoted? It only says that they will be posted and promoted in English and Spanish But unfortunately from past experiences from community members that has been less than Ample in getting the information out. So those are the questions So we have Tiffany wise West dr. West here to help answer any of these questions. Yes. Thank you Thank you for the question Tiffany wise bus sustainability and climate action manager for these projects The LCP update project was specifically written with central coast Wetlands group and so that project was sole source to them and they are already under contract For the West Cliff Drive project. We put out a request for proposals at the beginning of the year We received three proposals Evaluated them and revel coastal who is a local Geomorphologist is leading a team of local Consultants and we did award that bid and brought it to council in probably March of this year So that answers I believe your first question. Thank you Number two you asked about the technical advisory committee that technical advisory committee was formed in April It has representatives from very diverse sectors of our community and that how we selected them actually ties into Your third question on promotion So you may or may not be aware that the city city staff were trained recently in a new way to conduct proactive Outreach with the community and as such we developed as our first step What is the possible universe of stakeholders or as we call it in this in this kind of model? Potentially in fact affected interests that could be potentially interested and affected in these projects We came up with a list of 76 different stakeholder groups that again range Environmental underrepresented groups business groups and so on and so on From there we picked represented and we invited 20 folks 17 committed so we do have a wide range and I'm happy to provide that to you again if you'd like it I think it might have came on a previous agenda But you can see who's involved in that including underrepresented groups So that also brings us into how we can't conducting the outrage. So going through this Model of developing systematically developing informed consent we go through a very systematic process of identifying how How are we able to? Best ensure that all voices are represented that we are conveying that we are the legitimate Authority to do these projects and that we are ensuring trust and transparency through that systematic process We identified several different outreach modalities That again as you stated will be both in Spanish and English with some events being exclusively in Spanish those range from focus groups Which we're starting in July nine focus groups six of which are with Say business members will all be together under represented communities will be all together And then we'll have three heterogeneous focus groups where? Everyone from those first sets of focus groups will be mixed so that they can share Knowledge we wanted to have kind of the homogeneous ones to ensure that folks feel felt That they were in their own community of practice in order to speak up and share their input So the focus groups start in July We will then have an open house in late August early September as well as an open house in the beach flats area That is will all be entirely in Spanish And then we have a number of other modalities throughout the end of 2020 including a charrette Which will be looking at community at solutions and alternatives Another set of focus groups another open house and then a number of other kind of more creative Outreach techniques for example the virtual reality mobile phone app that will be promoted at the library that you just approved funding to pursue Grant for we intend to have walking tours biking tours and a number of other things We have game playing nights at pubs and so forth So it is a very comprehensive outreach campaign that we've developed and I hope that answers your questions. Thank you. Yeah, that was I Was aware of some of the different outreach that we're doing but there were community members that were curious about it So I want to make sure that they had that information as well. I heard it straight from the source, which is wonderful So with that I'm happy to make the motion to approve and support a phased approach to completing local coastal program parks and recreation policy 1.76 and address sea level rise in the local coastal program update through the resilient coast Santa Cruz initiative We have a motion by council member Glover seconded by vice mayor Cummings before we go ahead and take the vote on that We'll go ahead and open it up to the community. This is item number Nine on our consent agenda to ensure that you have an opportunity to address the council if you wish Okay, so seeing no community members here interested in addressing us on this item. We'll go ahead and return to council for Action without further conversation. We'll go ahead and take the vote all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously next consent agenda item was item number 12 and I Councilmember Glover, okay. Thank you. This Was a question that I came up came upon and then also some of their community members were also interested in knowing Just with regards to some of the language that's incorporated in the item specifically the use of some of the monies with the Riverwalk and focusing on the communities that it serves and which area of the Riverwalk in question that this will be applied to and then also the Community vetting and idea generation of targeted communities. So if someone could just talk a little bit in more detail about that All right, good afternoon mayor and city council Tony L8 parks and recreation department Really just want to tee this up for Dave McCormick and ed and really provide some context This is within the proposition 68 grant statewide parks and community revitalization grant within the city We've got a variety of different expertise and experiences But so in particular between parks and recreation public works in ed. We've kind of assembled a team To work on prop 68 so with that I want to introduce David who can kind of speak to these questions most specifically But I'm happy to answer any questions you might have as well. Thank you Thank you Dave McCormick with economic development and I apologize. My voice is a little raspy today So if I have to repeat anything or Tear off to Claire. Let me know So again your questions regarding. Thank you. Yeah, the question was it mentions that they're That the grant or the monies are specifically usually designed for a serving or supporting critically underserved communities So the question is is it for the entire Riverwalk? Is it for a portion and if so which portion of it and how does that get termed as an underserved portion? Yeah, and that's correct the the Riverwalk has needs throughout its its length And the the structure the grant is such that you have to identify to target population as your outreach point and You kind of go for the most competitive Demographic you can find along the the within the boundaries or that overlaps the boundaries of your part project, right? so as mentioned in the memo the the Riverwalk is most competitive in an area that covers parts of downtown the beach flats lower ocean And so that's where the bulk of our outreach is targeted But there may be improvements all along The Riverwalk and that's sort of our goal to give it an overall refresh if the budget can stretch But there will be definitely recreational improvements and Touchups and things that will be targeted at serving those disadvantaged communities and that will be reflective of the outreach are the The input we receive from them and so we're really trying to get you know their breadth of ideas to make it speak to them Okay, great because I noticed down Towards the Riverwalk and by the boardwalk as it curves to get to the trestle There's very little down there with regards to amenities and recreation But if you get up closer to say River Street or the Gateway shopping center or those other places that tend to be a little more affluent potentially They have amenities like exercise equipment and all those other kind of stuff So I'm just a little hesitant because you say that you're gonna try and sprinkle it if it works throughout the entire Riverwalk When the moneys are specifically focused on underserved communities So a little bit uncomfortable with that reality the other question was How look like what kind of community vetting and idea generation. What does that look like? Yeah? So the the grant asks basically for maximum scoring you have to have a minimum of five outreach events And you have to have three at least three different Methods about reach so now your typical mail a poster and hope people show up, but getting out to where they are and so With the first two we've done already, so we had an outreach up at the ebb and flow festival at the tannery last week on Friday Together with the coastal watershed council and the arts council They helped kind of get the feedback from artists because there's gonna be a lot of art that'll probably work into the design And it's also an affordable housing development, so we're getting those sort of disadvantaged communities there But it was just a great opportunity a lot of people talking about the river at a really central place And then yesterday we met with a group from Nueva Vista a part of their summer fun program And a bunch of kids from six to ten years old and we had sort of a charrette with them where we got together They sketched out ideas they you know dumb to what they liked what they didn't like about the Riverwalk How we can make it better for them And so we'll be taking all that feedback meshing it together looking at the feasible sites You know what where we have some real estate to work on where things just need to refresh and yes our goal is really to To get into that highest-need neighborhood and get what we can deliver there But you know there'll be projects throughout and most plans are slated once they get all the ideas are generated and the things Yeah, then it'll come back for approval. Exactly. We have a tight window. You know the application is August 5th So we have up until about maybe the 15th of July to get the outreach done And then we have to condense and see what could be delivered within a two years time span and Put that scope of work forward. So that's that's the the concept level There will be additional potential outreach at the design level if we're awarded the grant and so just to clarify The it's due on the 4th of August we 5th of August. We are on break throughout July so how are we going to see or approve any conceptual plans before it gets submitted? That's sort of the delegation of authority to the city manager To apply for that grant Okay, thank you. Yeah councilmember Myers. I Just mostly want to compliment the staff team that's been put together It's been many many years when we've had very rare park funds come and go out of our reach here in the city of Santa Cruz for the river and So I'm really pleased to see the initiative. I appreciate our new parks director really Really being an advocate for the river and the river as a park and a space for all neighborhoods in Santa Cruz and As well as its value as a transportation quarter now with our completed bridges We've seen a lot of parking park bonds come and go over the last 20 years And I really feel like we're teed up right now to really Bring the river walk up to a better standard to provide more neighborhoods with more access So I'm excited and just want to thank the team that's put together. These are not easy grants I know to put together their Extensive and take a lot of time and thought a couple of things on all the documents that we have our adopted urban river plan There was a very great intent to Try to balance the need of nature with the need of recreation and use of the river as an urban river So I really hope you will dust that off and look at those things Specifically ways that people can enjoy the river. I know we put bird blinds in there We did some creative thinking around how to make the river to quiet space for people as well as a place for people to Ride their bikes. So please take a look at those objectives because we had a long Year-long process of our community that helped develop those objectives. So please dust that off and take a look and I just wanted to basically say thanks, and I'm glad to see the initiative moving ahead. Thanks All right. Thank you Is there any member of the community who would like to address us on this item? This is item number 12 on our consent agenda Please come forward and you'll have up to two minutes And if you okay for those that are interested you're welcome to line up to my left And you're welcome to start with you'll have up to two minutes. This is to address part one I know there are lots of people who want to address part two So you can go ahead and if you want you can go ahead and pause the time So this is for item number 12 on our consent agenda Item number 12 on our consent agenda I'm not sure if I'm understanding your reference, but this is in regards to the statewide park development and community revitalization program grant application for improvements That's not until later If you're in the grants or for there's two grants Oh, I see what you're saying I see yes, so this is in regards to do the two places that the grants would be used Yes, so that does have a reference to the rail trail. Did you want to address us on this item? Okay You can go ahead and restart the time and if you could please speak into the microphone You're welcome to address it my name is Barbara Riverwoman and I was going to raise the issue around the critically underserved communities and I'm still can I'm still a little uncomfortable with the vagueness of where the underserved community is along this river walk I mean, I would be happier if it were presented to you as a specific area That's underserved either in terms of the income level or the park Racial to the acreage So that makes me uncomfortable that we're not getting something more specific and I don't understand what happens now What happens after they get the money? And then also I read the Requirements of the grant and it said that they must address challenges facing the targeted underserved communities And I haven't seen anything Mentioned so far by either of the speakers from the staff that talks about what are the so-called Challenges that are being addressed by this grant proposal. So I would like that to be clarified Also This is being proposed by three departments one is parks and rec one is public works and one is Ed and I noticed that the person who was chosen to speak is the person not from parks and rec but from economic development And I first I was wondering why would economic development be Part of this proposal project and then I thought oh, it's about the art So I would like a question answered is what percentage of this grant proposal will go to art and what to economics environmental sustainability and what to actual recreational equipment or things so I always feel like the environmental sustainability gets short changed in these projects So I would like a really clear answer to that And then why yeah, why are these kinds of details not included in the packet presented to the council in the first place I feel like the council isn't getting the information in the packets that it would make it really possible for them to come up with an informed decision Thank you Okay, next speaker Bear Watkins council Jillian greenside. I have no questions Of the first section of this the Riverwalk would but to echo council member Myers comments and thanks The second part of it though. I don't feel has had much scrutiny and When I read the details in your agenda packet, it's quite specific of what sorts of things Are going to be put in this area of Segment 7 phase 2 of the rail trail then when I looked at the stakeholder groups that had already met I didn't see anything that involved any way the neighbors who would be impacted by Anything that gets put in here the lower west side neighbors And it seems that the grant is being applied for before that groundwork of sharing with neighbors This is what we're thinking. What do you think? Well, let's change it and apply for a grant and What I'm concerned about is going to all the trouble applying for a grant Good luck that the grant is awarded and then it's already fixed what staff has in mind Which will then be the neighbors will be told is going to happen And that's what happened on West Cliff Drive And so then the neighbors when they saw the exercise equipment going in on West Cliff Drive Then they opposed it. So to avoid unnecessary Conflict like that it would seem to me that some outreach should have been done and possibly could still be done Although the grant timeline is small to the neighbors the neighborhoods that will be affected And I'm only talking about the rail trail of segment 7 phase 2 And if we're thinking of Barranca Park, et cetera be nice if that came to the parks commission before any Decision was made because we haven't heard about that segment We did hear an FYI on the first part of it, but not on the second part of it. So just leave you with those thoughts. Thank you Good afternoon mayor vice mayor and council member my name is Greg Pepping the executive director of the coastal watershed council and In short, I just want to support the resolution from staff that you Approve the the recommendation from staff that you approve the recommendation and advise staff to work on the screen The You have a slurp which is a funny acronym SL URP, which your staff report pointed out to you It's a 2003 document the San Lorenzo urban river plan and you have a 2007 document activating the Riverway It's and then in 2014 City Council renamed the Riverway the Santa Cruz Riverwalk So you have those two plans that are guiding documents for what the community wants to see at the San Lorenzo River and Too often these grant opportunities come and go Often staff are very busy and don't have the bandwidth to pursue them Often there's a matching grant requirement where you've got to put local money in to get that There is no matching requirement on this and it's an 8.5 million dollar max So and you're pursuing two of them as the staff report said so 17 million dollars We've the Coastal Watershed Council has worked with the community We realized that not everybody wakes up thinking about the river So we've gone to the neighborhoods nearest the river oceans 11, which is east of the river between highway one and ocean and water That's oceans 11 Beach flats and lower ocean We've done a lot of work in those communities to hear what are most important issues to them trash and safety and access Or to the river are things that come up and so we've done projects with those communities We did one this weekend with city arts storm drain art and we've done river cleanups and neighborhood cleanups So we have done outreach and actually this grant proposal allows you to count some prior outreach since June of last year So we've provided that information to staff and we're going to do help in other ways to get additional outreach Share help with additional outreach. I'm about out of time other than so I'll just finish by saying we support it and We'll help with the pursuit of funds. Thank you Okay Any other members of the community who want to address this on this item? You see none. We'll go ahead and see if staff wanted to Come back up and further clarify in any way You're welcome to if or if there's any additional questions And we have council member Myers and then council member Brown and then vice mayor Cummings Did you have any seat? Yeah, sure and we can all weigh in certainly on this from Public Works and ED and Parks and Rec I'm trying to go from the very top here The first question we got was critically underserved. What does that mean? I don't know if we can pull up the map necessarily Dave. Do you know where that is potentially? Can't go to here Okay, I'll just sort of explain it. There are two two main definitions of critically underserved as part of the grant The first one is park acreage per capita. So per thousand residents. So areas in the city Where there are three acres per thousand Is or fewer is critically underserved. We have very little of that within the city. We're very fortunate to have a very robust park system Really in kind of the the upper east side if you will is kind of the only area Based on census tracks where we have that less than three acres per thousand the other aspect of of Sort of critically underserved is in terms of poverty And so that's 80 percent of the state median income And that area really is david kind of alluded to is more geared toward downtown beach flats lower oceans some of those areas In terms of the grant. So here's here's a great example here. So this actually is the prop 68 statewide fact finder tool and as part of the grant application, this is specifically Directed to our team applying to use this tool This kind of driven by census track data To tell us what you know, essentially these different metrics in these different areas So what we did is we combined all of this data We put together maps internally to show overlays of these critically underserved areas. So you don't have that map, but What I want to explain is that we don't have any areas in the city where we have both of those both a lack of parkland and And that that sort of poverty line if you will So what we did is we tried to find what is going to be most appropriate and turn and most Competitive in terms of the grant application and so a lot of those areas really there. There were just a few The primary ones being geared toward the river walk and toward the rail trail That we've talked about so I want to have dave come back up Or or claire come up and kind of talk about maybe some of the specifics on the rail trail And and what that means the public outreach and so forth But wanted to provide some context in terms of what are the critically underserved areas And how are we sort of assessing these to put forth our best application? Um and ultimately best serve these areas of the community But again, it's been tricky because we don't overlap perfectly in two areas So it's it's finding the the best combination of household median income and in park deserts, if you will I clearly slur transportation planner rounding out the trifecta of planning Parks public works and economic development working together on this In terms of outreach one of the elements that one of the members of the public brought up was concerns about not doing Outreach specific to rail trail segment seven phase two As you guys know you have an item before you later this afternoon And that's actually one of the projects that since we adopted the master plan in 2012 We have done a ton of outreach on and much of that outreach has been the formal type of outreach that you would anticipate planning commission Parks commission city council formal public meetings The interesting thing about this grant is that in addition to all that work that's been done in addition to our award winning master plan That we have there and everything we've gone through on that project This grant specifically asks that we do outreach since the adoption of this bond, which was june 5th of 2018 And that we target that outreach In ways that are not the come to this room and speak at you it's go to places where people are So one of the really neat things that we have been doing and will continue to do is go to places where These groups that are not your frequent fliers are probably not people that you've ever seen in this room are going Yesterday was a great example of going to the elementary school summer camp program of nuova vista and asking these little kids Who probably have never been asked these questions before can you draw me what you want to see in a park? Do you ever go to these places with your family? What makes it feel safe or not safe for you to walk and ride your bike? How do you get to school? You go to bayview elementary school and galt elementary school and you're traveling there from the beach flats That means that rail trail segment seven phase two And the river walk are going to be primary off-strait transportation corridors for you to safely get to school And so in terms of doing outreach We are open and encouraged to do a ton more outreach however much we can find and we can fit into this schedule Because it's really adding a lot of value to it But our goal right now is to do that non-traditional outreach That supplements the more traditional outreach that we've done to date Claire okay, I believe we had a question or a comment from council member mires brown vice mayor Cummings in that order I guess I was gonna go ahead and make a motion to approve the To uh to approve the submittal of the of the grant to the statewide park development community revitalization program The grant application for both the river walk and the rail trail segment seven I would add to that though In your team approach to this. Can you also please add the beach flats? Lay is on peter into your process so that he can do that additional outreach Needed I know in some parts of our community where You know language may be a barrier, etc. So I know he's well networked down there as well as edgars. So I'm going to go ahead and make the motion Okay, I'll go ahead and second that did you have additional comments that you'd like to add at this point? No, okay available for questions. Thank you very much. Okay council member brown and then vice mayor Cummings Yeah, thank you for providing the Report and the additional information and all the work that you do to try to get as competitive grant funding to supplement the limited resources We have um, you know, I'm I'm absolutely in support of moving forward with these and I don't want to delay But I do Have some concerns Expressed by council member Glover and I think we've talked to some council members have asked in the past If we could and I know in this case you may not have drafts of the the grants yet and the time is short But to at least have some Summary of you know, what the goals are, you know, what you're what you're telling The funders we're going to do what we're going to do with the money I think that that would really help us feel more comfortable in making these decisions And if we can't make that happen This time it would be really helpful to so if I could add Direct staff to report back to us once the grant applications have been Completed with a summary of the goals and objectives And kind of the key elements of the proposals Yeah, no, thanks for all the work on this and moving ahead with these grant proposals I was just going to ask that when the funds If the grant were to be accepted and we were to be awarded those funds if we can just get a report back on How those funds are going to be utilized? But it sounds like that can be captured within the summary of the reports that go out So that's just the only thing that I was going to ask the city manager. So Okay, council member Glover, did you have anything? Thanks. Yeah, just really quick I know Some issues in the past with surveying parks has come up because they count the beach as a park Are y'all counting the beach as a park in your analysis? because I would Be inclined to say that a park or is not the same as a beach and vice versa because of both You know, so is that included in your analysis? It's currently not in the state's fact finder tool Actually, which you can see up there everything in green is considered a park They do expect that we're going to have some reconciliation process over the next month to to take out and add what should be So we do have to clarify a few things about neary lagoon. We don't believe the Treatment plant should be included The rail corridor really shouldn't be included at this point. It should be an expansion And then and then the beach, you know, the majority of the beach is not city ownership In fee title and so we've kind of had some discussions with them preliminarily that it shouldn't be counted But ultimately, they'll be the arbiter. Okay. Thank you. Yeah Council member Matthews very quickly. I'm really thrilled that we can move forward This is a rare opportunity that has been mentioned And we're on a tight timeline. It's grounded on a will over a decade of city community involvement concern plans interest So it's it's great that we have an opportunity to move forward. I think it's important to say that at this point There's a general idea of how we will approach and there's some kinds of facilities But it's it's not a park plan in and of itself And so the specifics will come. That's where we get out to the community planning and outreach And I think it's fair to say if we do receive this grant a lot of the Specific planning will run through the parks commission and that's where you get the input and the feedback We see heads nodding over here So I think it's important that the council not micro manage from the very top But let let's get the funding with a broad sense of where we want to go And then let our parks commission do the work and and bring forward a plan that has a lot of community input So we'll go ahead and say we have a motion by council member meyer seconded by myself In addition by council member brown to have some report back at a future time in regards to the goals Associated with the grant application. Thank you for being here to answer the questions So all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That passes unanimously. Thank you So we are on now item number fifth. I'm sorry. I'm number 13 of our Consent agenda and that item was pulled by council member Glover. Thank you try to make it Short there has just been questions raised by a lot of people and it's just not in Clearly done in the agenda report. But if we could just have the police chief maybe come up and explain Why this is happening which and for people that may not know what the agenda might not have been specifically It is moving the ranger program from parks and rec underneath the police department Please Good afternoon madame air and council members. Thank you for the opportunity to address you This is i'm handi mills and chief of police The reason it's it's a continuation of a process that started well over a year ago To bring the enforcement arm of park and recs under the police department so that we can have better management And control over the activities that take place So that there is greater accountability as well as training for those that would Be part of our enforcement process As you know just recently recently we outfitted all the rangers with body-worn cameras as part of that accountability process And it also has to do a great deal with how we conduct investigations internally And to make sure that there's a high standard And the range with the rangers in terms of enforcement And then coordinating that with other police activities from around the city making sure that the parks have a good strategy So we can deal with the problems that arise in each of those areas of the city. Thank you And can you just explain some of the additional training that the rangers will receive that they weren't previously receiving in parks and rec Sure in addition to body-worn cameras as i've just stated because that does take training to save those videos and upload them into the cloud We also gave constitutional law training so that they understand the constitutional rights of people they're dealing with We also gave them training on defensive tactics and de-escalation and as well as Many other things i can't go off the top of my head on neighborhood policing And how to problem solve and some of those types of Techniques great And will they receive i know you said you couldn't remember all of them, but you know things like human trafficking and Make sure to be able to identify that and what the interactions that they're having and because i'm not sure I know that There have been conversations Just around with regards to the difference of training that takes place between rangers and police And making sure that if they're out there on the front lines doing the work like you're saying To be able to make sure to identify those different things as well as interact as appropriately and Effectively as possible with different members of our community. So that's great And with that then i'll just make the motion to move the item council member Um, yeah, I'll second it, but I just want a couple questions. Um What what do you see as we move forward? We've got the community service Officers we've got the ranger program and we've got sworn officers Do you see that continuing in that direction or is there going to be any any balancing or phasing out or moving more this way or that way and My main thing with the ranger program has always been that a lot of times folks You know, they see a ranger a park ranger And they want to know maybe what a bird species is or a particular plant or you know directions a lot of times But with the rangers now it's a little bit more of a Of a hardened, I don't know lack of a better word, you know tougher urban group So i'm just wondering how how how we're going to move forward So it is still very important for us to have rangers that are trained and understand the biology Of our community as well as the nature of our parks and to give that information when asked Uh, when they're in those parks, I think parks and recs and uh, tony might be able to address this portion of it a little bit better than I um I do not at least at this point see a Reduction in one of the group cso's rangers or police officers and merging those into different areas I can tell you this it's been a wonderful um Cross-pollination of of things and training between the rangers and the rest of the staff And the rest of the staff at the rangers So when councilmember glover brought up the the issue of human trafficking We certainly don't want them doing human trafficking investigations, but the awareness Of these kind of things is very important And uh, and so all all three are very distinct Positions that have a great deal of benefit for the citizens of our community And so we want to make sure that we're able to use those positions as currently funded I look forward to hearing from you about where we might increase various of those areas and what's what's working and what's not working But you know in economically, you know, what would be the best bang for the buck, but I understood thanks I'll take increases in all three So any member of the community who wanted to address us on this item? This is item number 13 of our consent agenda Okay, seeing none. We'll go ahead and return back for action We have a motion by councilmember glover seconded by councilmember crone any further discussion Okay, seeing none all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed that passes unanimously um next step is item number 15 And that was me. Thank you councilmember realm Hi, um, thank you for uh being here Ms. Flesler to try to answer some of the questions I have actually it's really one question and it's um, you know I've been on the council and participated in conversations About the proposed changes to our parking program. So, you know, I I feel like I followed along Every step of the way But what I'm still not clear about is and I and I actually under I do understand the benefits of of making these changes In particular to affordable housing, which as I think everybody knows is a major commitment of mine But I'm still a little unclear because we haven't really received Financial analysis. There are a lot of numbers in these reports, but it's been hard for me to figure out Under the different scenarios how much what we're currently bringing in versus What we might bring in how it is how it would be restricted I mean, I just I don't feel like I have a really good clear picture of that So if you could try to walk us through that it would be really helpful for me. Absolutely So before you today is our phase two update to the downtown parking resolution Which updates are parking in loufie and I'll get to your question. I'm just going to orient everyone to where we are The parking in loufie is an optional tool that new development or development downtown that intensifies It exists its existing use has the option and that's the key point there the option to utilize Paying into our shared parking model our shared system public supply downtown Rather than build parking on site So rather than have single use parking say you build a new office building and it has its own parking or a new residential building That has its own parking rather than loufie offers an opportunity to buy into the public parking system So we use our existing supply more efficiently rather than have single use parking The in loufie as we have it before you is updated for the first time since pre earthquake And now getting into your question about the finances of this at your September 11th. I'm going to pull out my phone because I have all the dates written down in here At your September 11th council meeting you approved our updated parking rate strategy And this had a couple components to it It increased the user fee so that the money that you put in the meter or one of the luke machines or Use park mobile at our lots and structures. So our hourly rates went up as well as our daily rates At the same time we put a five-year plan to increase our monthly parking permits In place to increase $10 per month over a five-year period to top out at $75 a month In order to bring the price of a monthly parking permit In line with the cost of a monthly transit pass so people are making a financial decision about how they choose to come downtown The third prong of this was that over that same five-year period We are sunsetting the parking deficiency fee, which is a fee that's been paid by businesses It's $425 per space per year for spaces that you don't provide as part of your parking requirement What that amounts to is businesses subsidizing the cost of parking and in line with best practices On september 11th. We voted to move to a user fee based model. So the whole Long-term parking rate strategy and financial plan came to you on that day and those were the elements part of it The in-lufi that's before you today has to our collective knowledge and public works never been used And the biggest reason for that that we've heard Is that the in-lufi is a one-time upfront cost that is paid by the developer at the time of building permit In the past we had the option to utilize the parking deficiency fee Which rather than be paid upfront and by the developer or the owner was passed through to the building tenant So the small businesses that we have downtown our retail and our office spaces Are we're paying for that parking rather than having the building developer pay for it So the in-lufi is not built into our financial projections And without the in-lufi being used we have a sustainable parking fund moving forward with the changes that you made on september 11th As we see how this is utilized we can come back to you with some analysis of the fund balance But we did not count on a single dollar coming in from this for the financial sustainability of the district If that helps If I could just it it kind of sounds like What we do with in-lufi is for affordable housing, but in this case We just don't know because it hasn't been used correct. Yeah, so we didn't want to make any assumptions there Great. Thanks Right. Thank you Claire Is there any member of the community who wants to address us on this item item number 15 of our consent agenda? Please step forward and you'll have up to two minutes Good afternoon. Tim will be speaking for affordable housing now We support this change For two obvious reasons one Is that it decouples parking In these projects, which enables developers to actually lower the cost of what they're building for units And the second part of it is that it incentivizes very low and low income Units which is what you are most efficient of in terms of meeting your housing element So this is to us. It's a no-brainer. It's a great idea. It's a useful tool to Getting more affordable housing. So thank you. Thank you. Please next speaker At ferrell. I'm the vice chair of the downtown commission. I just wanted to uh second the staff sentiment that The goal of this recommendation is to try and increase incentives and make more feasible to develop of affordable units downtown And secondly to make sure that the pricing of the market rate fees Is set in a way that doesn't Create a burden on the district in terms of future public supply responsibilities So, um, I sincerely hope you all adopt this. Thank you. Thank you. Okay Seeing no other Interest in public comment on this item. We'll go ahead and return it back for action And this is item number 15 on our consent agenda councilman matthews I want to thank the staff for their additional information I think if this is a really important policy that uh reflects directly A history of interest in Using our parking policy to support development of affordable housing So I want to reemphasize it's been supported consistently a lengthy process Originating in the downtown parking district the downtown commission and then Over time supported by council and so this is a graduated Um, uh in lu fee that supports deepening affordability No financial risk to the district And uh specifically I think we'll Set a policy direction and it's based on recommended a whole series of recommendations from our housing blueprint committee During the 2018 year which I think you were on that weren't you yet brought forth a number of recommendations None of which is a silver bullet, but which collectively helped get us where we want to go And so this is one of those policies that can support Provide an incentive for deepening A development of affordable housing so for all of those reasons i'm going to move approval of this Motion i'll go ahead and second that so uh motion by councilman matthews seconded by myself Councilmember crown just a question I was just wondering um from staff if there's ever been a Or maybe it's in our city budget and you could point out the uh the pages Any kind of financial uh analysis of parking district revenues and expenditures I'm gonna let jim take that In in your um budget proposed budget, uh the fund balance page looks at the district as a whole Sorry jim per public works And if there are specific questions on that fund balance analysis, I may Seek marcus the matthews but As the finance department prepares that But you would say that there has been a that analysis done of parking of revenues and expenditures every year Yeah, we do it every year Also on june 19th 19th We brought to you a rate a five-year rate strategy that claire talked about And that looked at all new revenues potential new revenues for over the next five years And so we we looked at Every piece that we thought might change in the district in the coming five years And brought that all to you and explained it all to you and um that was uh adopted finally on september 11th Thank you. Thank you All right All okay, so we have a motion by council member matthew seconded by myself all those in favor. Please say I I any opposed That passes unanimously Okay, we'll go ahead and move on to item number 18 on our consent agenda and I'm not sure who pulled this item council member. Yeah, it was just uh Looking at it. Let me just pull it up right now 18 Was that it was only suggesting a five dollar increase on? Residential parking permits. I remember that we had had conversations about it But I don't remember us landing on five dollars. Um, maybe that was I remember we talked about tier scaling. I remember we talked about Implementing it so that students could to be exempt from the increases we talked about Making it so that parking permits were Associated with the individual so if they have more than a single car then they'll be paying additional Costs for those additional vehicles. So I'm just Curious as to how all of that got distilled into a five dollar increase Jim bar public works again, um, so what What we proposed and what I heard consensus on was the five dollar base rate increase As we looked at those other questions all of which you just mentioned We first went to the parking office the staff who actually run this program what we found is There's The way we currently collect and operate the permit program. There's no way to even project what What these different pieces might mean to the revenue picture? And at the same time we were able to backtrack On one of our biggest programs, which is the west side program That's rolled out in uh late august And the mailers for which are mailed out in july so we felt we needed to get At least the five dollar rate which we Heard consensus on To you before we went dark for the july recess Okay, thank you So any member of the community who wants to address us on this item item number 18 of our consent agenda Okay, seeing them. We'll go ahead and return back for action and deliberation council. We're brown and then council Well, I Move the item, but I do have one other one follow-up question second okay, just in terms of um reporting back Can you give us a sense of when we might The kind of discussion about some of the other items and or additional increases might come back to us Your plan and I would think I would think right after the first of the year would be the best time That way would give us plenty of lead time for next year Rolling raising potentially raising the west side starting with that west side permit again I'm not super optimistic. We'll be able to get to a bunch of those pieces But at least we'll come out. We'll come back and explain it. Okay the problems or and or issues with you at that point Great. Thank you. So I would just add include that in my motion that are a direct staff to Report back to us at one of our january meetings with an update That's okay with except a second Okay, okay Any further discussion? Although some favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That passes unanimously. Would you like me to repeat the language? Okay Okay, let's see. We're getting there. This is item number 19 on our Consent agenda Vice mayor coming Hi, thanks for being here today. I had a question that came to me from some folks in the community around When this program is going to be set up what Kind of tracking or what's going to be the mechanism for making for tracking who the passes go to If for example, those people become they no longer work downtown Will there be you know, what's the process for making sure that the people who Have the passes are people who are working downtown. Is there an application? And just wondering if you could speak to that at all Yeah, for rollout, we're going to be working through employers and part of what we're going to be collecting when people When we distribute these passes is contact information and getting people enrolled in our commute management platform That will give us a list of people of who they are an email address a contact phone number and where they work And on a regular basis probably quarterly we can check in with those employers and see This differs from some other programs where businesses pay into the program and they have a vested interest in making Sure that they're only paying for those employees that are actually working there this Being all city funded via the parking district There is admittedly a lot more opportunity for fraud here. So it's going to be one of the things that we have to manage And are these passes are these for example like funded monthly where they scan the pass And that gets deducted or is it just a pass where they show it to the bus driver and then they just So the way that you guys voted on it Was to have a flat rate for the year So it's three hundred and eleven thousand dollars in change for the year and we're billed Monthly at one twelfth of that regardless of the number of people who use it So it's not based on any actual utilization rate. It's just a flat fee Which ties into your first question It means that we're not billed more if there's a higher level of fraud and we're not billed less if there's a lower level of use Thanks Any additional questions from council Okay, is there any member of the community who'd like to address us on this item item number 19 of our consent agenda Seeing none council member matthews Yeah, um I will go ahead and move the item before us with one addition and that is that the council receive a report on the Use and operation of this program at the sixth month time I think that's really important because it is a pilot There are a whole lot of unknowns and it will be important that we get a sense of how it's going as we enter into Budget discussions for the coming year. So we'll get a report in springtime and that that will be helpful to us So that's my motion second Motion by council member matthews seconded by vice mayor Cummings further discussion council member crown I assume maybe they're coming back to us on the sort of marketing plan in place for this So how to get the word out to Downtown employees like how they're going to know about the bus program because I would I'd be very interested in that because I think it speaks to What council member matthews wants because I do also would like to see it come back Yeah, at your february meeting. We approved a you approved a package of tdm options and one of those options Was a a budget for marketing. So we're going to be putting out an rfp for marketing services for all modes of transportation And in voting on this was option four that was presented to you as part of this option because it added $285,000 to the overall proposed budget We did include include an increased marketing budget there specifically to target transit because we figured if we're investing this Larger dollar amount in transit. We wanted to make sure that we put our best foot forward to be successful So that will be a separate item there Thanks So we have a motion by council member matthews seconded by vice mayor Cummings With further direction to have a report back in the Six month mark in terms of progress is that a cap included in the motion included in the motion Okay, um all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That passes unanimously So the last item on our consent agenda pulled was item number 21 And i'm not sure who pulled that item. Okay vice mayor Cummings. I said a question regarding this item There was a member of the community who um sent an email to this the city council And um was concerned about whether or not this contract went out for a competitive bid And so I was just wondering if somebody from public works might be able to answer that question My copper public works Um the california legislature recognizes the urgency of energy projects and so they passed And apologies in advance to mr. Condati government code 42 17 Which gives local jurisdictions? uh the discretion to Solicit and evaluate proposals on something other than price And so that's the belt the suspenders in this case is that our energy staff has been working Over the last year and a half to prepare a list of these solar projects They contact they posted the project at the corporation yard On a site called energy sage And we received responses from several companies local companies one of which was Mr. Biddle who's here today and who I had a conversation with this morning To look at these projects and we got preliminary Prices in terms of what? Dollars per kilowatt hour from these companies But also looked at the whole package that they presented um my My duty is to provide the best Value to the city not just the best price and so Based on the conversations that our staff had We decided that sandbar was a company that we wanted to work with Thank you. Thank you any further questions here I'm sorry. Did I miss a hand? No, I'm sorry. Okay. Is there any member of the community who wanted to address this on this item? Item number 21 of our consent agenda. Okay, you're welcome to come for you'll have up to two minutes Is there any other member of the community who wants to address us on this item? Okay, go ahead. All right. My name is Clint Biddle. I work for solar technologies We're a local solar contractor for 20 years here in the city of santa cruz Our office is across the street from shoppers corner in the buttery and although I did bid the project Yesterday, I just became aware of it. Yes over the weekend So, um, there are two reasons that were cited for rushing this project And not having a competitive bid process The first one was that the pgne inter interconnection application is going to expire You can keep that running by just sending a pgne in email saying that you're working on the project within the first year And then you just have to do that every six months to keep the application alive There's so there's actually no urgency there The second was that the 30 federal tax credit is stepping down to 26 percent at the end of this year Which could affect the financing? That's true. However, we finance our ppas in-house and as long as you sign our contract this year Our tax equity partners lock in the 30 federal tax credit rate So there's actually no urgency there either and as long as you sign a contract within this calendar year So no real sense of urgency there and after reviewing sandbar's proposal over the weekend when I first became aware of it We can say that Their ppa terms and rates are are well above current market rates And we do not really see how in good faith the council members in the city of santa Cruz can move forward with proposal Without getting um, I guess I didn't realize it was on an on an energy stage and there were other bids submitted But our ppa rate starts seven percent lower than sandbars And it is five years shorter. So it's 20 years instead of 25 years So five years less payments for the city So when you have a competitive bid that would over 25 years save you an extra $370,000 if you stick with the full term or if you buy it out in year five, which um, mike has told me you're interested in You would still save an additional $154,000 with our proposal So again, um, if there's any doubt that this isn't the best value for the city Then we believe you have a duty and responsibility to thank you see other proposals Okay, so any other member of the community wants to address this on this item. Okay, please come forward and you'll have up to two minutes Hi there council members. It's mayor Watkins. How are you today? My name is kale garamendi I'm the gentleman from uh, the gentleman. I guess I have a gentleman The gentleman from uh, sambar solar who put together the proposal I've been working with public works department here for quite some time and just wanted to Make mention of a couple of things with regard to the market value because I think that's what If I were in your seat would pull at my heartstrings the most and my responsibility to the community There's far more than price that goes into a there's far more than price in a ppa price there's a lot of levers that can be pulled and Based on some requests that were made based on some past experiences with the The city of santa cruz had with ppas We made sure we put a comprehensive operation and maintenance program Module cleaning 20 year inverter warranty extension or 20 year total inverter warranty that which required us to Budget for a warranty extension. This is far outside of the normal mode of operation And it it uh, it ticks up that ppa price If we were to just go in with a default I can tell you right now our Our ppa price would be right in the same ballpark. In fact, I looked back in the archives Before I specifically requested This the the ppa pricing or the o and m adders Module cleaning and so on we're at a at a landfill and and that's obviously cleaning is important And the pricing was was a little bit higher than than that number But by about a quarter of a cent higher And uh, we're right in line this what this is What this is is a uh a comprehensive approach That meets the public works department in city of santa cruz needs And so it's very very much a competitive market rate And um, I think that's that's the important message to share Okay, we'll go ahead at this time then and return back to council for uh action and deliberation Vice mayor Cummings and then councillor matthew. I said one more question for public works Which was just uh, what was the timeline? Around trying to find a sole source vendor to provide the service Well, the urgency that we feel is that uh, we have no solar capacity at the corporation are at ant or To mail lane And so uh, we're getting beat over the head with electric bills. That's that's our main urgency Our other urgency is we want to give you something that can be plugged into the budget that has Some firmness to it. It doesn't have a bunch of slushy costs um Sandbar's proposal was attractive because it included a annual budget for maintenance and cleaning Uh a budget that rolls over year to year. So if they don't use the full amount it can it accumulates If you fold that into the cumulative cash flow that is in the packet It makes their proposal even more attractive They also had an extended warranty on the inverters that wasn't offered elsewhere. So As I said, I think this is really the best value for us and it gets these projects off the ground We'll have other projects. They're going to be Put forward so Other companies will have the opportunity to participate Councilor matthew. Yeah, I appreciate the additional information and given that I'm going to go ahead and move the recommendation before us Just saying that It's clear that the staff has put a great deal of detailed effort into Setting the parameters for this. I think it it's To be noted that this reflects They're being proactive both for energy savings environmental reasons and also the financial and operational Future of this so I appreciate all of that Support the fact that it does include a comprehensive warranty. So Therefore moving the recommendation. I'll second it and I'll just say that Hopefully in the future, you know sunpower and some other companies can be notified about different City projects and contracts that are going out so they can be taken into consideration as well Okay, we save a motion by councilor matthew seconded by vice mayor Cummings for the discussion council for clever Just a quick question since the conversation of incorporating other businesses Is coming up. What was the outreach process for this project in particular? Besides, I mean you said to be posted it somewhere on on a and I'm not familiar with that Outlet that you mentioned before is that like a place where all the Energy people go looking for RFPs Yeah, I'm in the same boat as you but our energy coordinators Work off that side quite a bit to keep up with curtain technology and to find out who the players are So just we post stuff on there and then whoever sees it then applies for it Correct. We don't so there's not like a blanket outreach to all of the solar companies and Santa Cruz saying like Hey, the city is proposing this project. We're just correct It's useful to keep in mind that at the time we started doing research on this project We didn't know if we were going to buy this system or if we were going to go with the ppa or the least attractive option is leasing And it became apparent that Because of our capital restrictions the ppa was the way to go So it changes it a little bit from a traditional construction project I don't know if Those that have made in sector the most we want to include language around just ensuring a robust outreach process for the for future Solar projects as it seems like there may have been missed opportunities for competition and conversation It's totally fine with me. So i'll include that we We support ongoing robust outreach and also clarity on our criteria for awarding contracts. Thank you Okay, were you able to capture that clerk? Okay, got it. Okay, so we have a motion by councilor matthews vice mayor Coming seconded the motion all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously So before we jump right into item number 26, we're going to go ahead and take a short break Maybe about five minutes for the council to take a break before this this item I'll just remind the community that Those of you who were not here earlier councilmember crone will recuse himself and participating in this In this agenda item. So at this time would be a nice opportunity for him to also Step away from the dais. Okay, so we'll return in about five minutes Let's back to session here if I could Get your attention. We're going to go ahead and come back to our regular council meeting agenda We're on item number 26 of our agenda And we're going to go ahead and bring our council meeting back to session Oh, there there she is. Okay so we have Before us is a public hearing and before we jump into that and I explain the process of the public hearing I'll go ahead and ask councilmember crone if he has any additional comments in terms of his recusal Yeah, I just want to let people know that on the advice of our city attorney that I'm Going to recuse myself on this on this item item number 26. Thank you. Okay. Thank you Okay, so we'll go ahead and go into the item at this time This is an item which is which is an appeal and the process will be as follows Staff will have an opportunity to present their report the appellants Jillian greensight and rachio omali will have 15 minutes to speak and present evidence in support of the appeal opponents or responding applicant leo menna Environmental planner will have 15 minutes to speak and present any additional evidence We'll go ahead and open it up to the community for any public comment at that time Um, we have a couple of members of the community who reached out in advance for additional time on behalf of their organization We'll have a public comment option of one minute for those that want to briefly address us and then we'll have the Community organizations have their four minutes and then we'll go ahead into the two minute time frame after that we'll have a Five-minute opportunity for a rebuttal on behalf of the appellants And then we will return to our council for action and deliberation So many steps, but we'll go ahead and start right now with the staff presentation and reports Good afternoon. Um, this mayor, uh council members might vary with the planning department So to further complicate this i'm going to do a portion of the presentation And i'm going to pass it off to christ schneider and he's going to kind of cover the More technical aspects of the trail and then we're going to pass it off to leo menna And he's with icf consulting who did the environmental work and he's part of the presentation And then i'll summarize it So i'll start off So the um coast rail trail plan is about a 32 mile uh planicos from davin port to watsonville It's considered the primary alignment of the monoray bay sanctuary scenic trail The rtc prepared the uh trail network master plan to establish a continuous alignment design guidelines and regulations Um for the associated network They approved the master plan in 2013 after multiple years of study and public input Part of that approval was to design the trail in such a way that uh A rail wouldn't be precluded from the overall project The rtc recently completed a unified corridor study and that again emphasized the protection of the rail right away for Transit high-capacity public transit freight and a bike and pedestrian trail So segment uh seven of the rail trails about 3.1 miles long Phase one of that was approved by the planning commission in september of 2017 Phase two was approved by the planning commission on april 18th the um Phase two goes from california to the ralph uh the war for roundabout and that's behind the uh sewer treatment plant Um at that meeting We had uh got some late um comments from the sierra club And the planning commission directed us to respond to that letter if this project was appealed Both the letter from the sierra club that stated april 13th and our response is attached to your staff report So the planning commission's approval was appealed by jillian greensight and dr. Rachel omali The appeal letter is attached to your staff report as well um a summary of the appeal is that um They're saying that an eir is required when substantial evidence is provided In light of the whole record That a project could have a significant impact on the environment They further state that the project will eliminate a riparian forest wetland habitat Among other outstanding significant impacts And the letter also states that that the project does not sufficiently protect vegetation natural habitats And natural resources consistent with the coastal permit findings So the sequa guidelines that the city uses Um were created or approved by the city council in 1990 I think you guys got a late copy of that That was at a request of the appellant that they see a copy of that they were sent that this morning um The pertinent criteria that that document has us use is Does the project substantially affect a rare or endangered species of animal plant or habitat? Or will it interfere substantially? So that was that's the Calculus that's used when the initial study and the mitigated negative deck was completed The city's response letter is dated april 29th And that was attached to your staff report. So I hope you had a chance to read that um part of what we've heard from the sarah club and other members of the public is that there wasn't a Alternatives analysis completed. That's not required as part of the initial study process But I've itemized the uh different alternatives that we've looked at That finally came up with the proposal that's in front of you today so the the very first alternative was the Path was going to go on the north side of the rails Adjacent to neary lagoon. So as you can imagine the riparian impacts would have been much greater The potential for erosion Stormwater runoff would have been greater. We would have had to have a much more robust stormwater system to protect the neary lagoon Also, any of the retaining walls would not only have to hold up the path, but they would have to hold up the weight of a live freight train So moving it to the south side kind of eliminated all those potential impacts on the lagoon We also considered a route that went through labaranga park So that would have been Introducing a bicycle element that the park wasn't designed for first of all It also would have included the or required a very large um Structure to take the elevation of the trail You'd have to cut halfway through the park and start descending down to the rail bed And that's about 35 feet lower So it would be a substantial structure probably a visual impact. It would be very expensive And the alternative was brought to the parks commission and they weren't in favor of of the path going through labaranga park let's see the Bay street to the intersection of bay and west cliff and then on down to the roundabout was also looked at as well as the california street from the intersection of california and bay Down to laurel and then to pacific avenue and both of those would have been on site paths on the street Not on site, but on street paths Um, neither of them meet the uh, ADA because of a hill and i'll show you i've got some slides coming up There's a hill on both of those that wouldn't uh meet the ADA standards for a trail The project the the purpose of the project is to maximize safety of trail users encourage new riders on to bicycle trails And those existing roadways already have high bicycle and pedestrian collisions And again that slope with the ADA was problematic Uh during the original design One of the request was from the city emergency services from ecology action and bike Santa Cruz to create a 16 foot wide path That was looked at in the um Number of trees that would have had to been removed This would be on the south side of the tracks up against labaranga park And it would have to been widened to such an extent that it would have started impacting the park So the trail was ultimately designed at 12 feet in width It's primarily about 10 feet away from the center line of the rail except for the North and south ends and I think Chris will talk about that. There's a little minor variation So as part of this whole process the arts master plan Kind of uh zeroed in on some potential uh sites and i've got some slides for you on that Um, they've got um, they had some public um Meetings and pop-up meetings. I think was included in that they had a pretty robust public outreach project And got a quite a few ideas for some locations along this phase two for public art So overall the um Project is going to remove 16 heritage trees. That will require a replacement of 32 trees The location will be reviewed and approved by the city arborist The project plans also include tree protection for 13 trees and 11 of those are heritage trees and on page two of the plans You can see the netting The the rules and regulations that the contractor will have to follow to protect those trees. They'll be fenced off So public works walk the alignment of the path adjacent to the trestle last fall with Sierra club members and other members of the public in response to the Comments that they received they redesigned that portion of the path And where six heritage eucalyptus trees were going to be removed if now reduce that to five Um being maintained One potentially being reviewed and we have a condition of approval again during construction If the tree roots can be pruned instead of removing the tree then they'll work with the city arborist to try to do that So i'll show you some pictures So that's a rail trail So a little background on this this whole plan is all the way back to the 80s sam far was a champion that fostered appreciation and access for the Monterey Bay scenic trail system And with the help of sam the rtc purchased the 32 mile rail line in 2020 14.2 million dollars 2012 And in 2013 the master plan was adopted by all the surrounding agencies And they broke the 32 mile segment into um or the 32 mile trail into 20 different segments So today's package is we further broke segment seven down to phase one and two They both have a logical start and end point that connects with city streets Uh and the environmental was going to be um Um Well, uh not more difficult It was just going to to take longer to do the design and the environmental work for phase two, which is in front of us today Uh in 2015 the city hired rrm design group to uh do the design and the environmental Section and rrm is the same group that did aronic alch for us and uh, they've done really good work for us And we've worked well with them in the past In 2016 the transportation and public works commission approved the final schematic plans in 2017 um Segment seven was separated into those two phases that I talked about and we're currently expecting This has to be updated the completion of the phase one by 2020 So i'm not going to read all of these but these are all general plan policies that support maintaining the rail with the trail um These are in the 2030 general plan These are in the land use sections of the plan And it's all aimed at maintaining the rail along with any kind of pedestrian trail So this is a picture of The whole segment seven goes from the roundabout over to natural bridges Phase one is the previously approved phase we've discussed This is the phase two alignment that short section right there These are existing bike ways that uh intersect with those two phases There's another shot of a typical rail trail program This one's down in San Clemente And they have a really active rail line there that has passenger service It seems to come by at least once an hour and it's kind of neat This is a shot of our existing path that goes over to the depot And this is a illustration of what the path would look like adjacent to the sewer treatment plant And i've got a couple slides on the art Project and I included those specific pages in your or in the planning commission's packet which is attached to your staff report But they had a lot of outreach They had a lot of interesting ideas Pictures are better So this is an illustration of some of the stuff that could occur On some of the retaining walls They also have art objects that could go I guess this is a A speed pillow type of a setup They've got a location on the trestle where they can have some art And then of course there could be murals along the entire alignment So one of the things that I think everybody's kind of anxious about is getting more eyes on that area Currently we've heard from a lot of people that They wouldn't want to walk that stretch of railroad track and we took this shot at about 11 o'clock on a Weekday morning The police have a lot of trouble with illegal campers down here. They lead a lot of debris Open up the fencing and go down into neary lagoon. This is neary in this Side of the slide and that's la baronca park up there So this was a campsite that was just below la baronca park Upslope from the rail trail a lot of debris down along the ground and we can expect the same kind of Impact as we Experienced when the iranigulch path went in we got a lot less Problems as soon as there was more public eyes on it So at this point i'm going to turn this over to chris schneider He's going to talk about some of the details and if you just click that the pictures will switch for you so the current um trail Just turn it off The current trail is a tenths of a mile approximately 12 feet wide and a 10 foot offset from The edge from the centerline of the track and Where the exist where an existing fence Will go off with the project There's one crossing at the wharf intersection with a cross bike There's new storm drain. There are new wood lag retaining walls that mike had shown you as part of the art project Specifically that type of wall was chosen for a variety of reasons It's harder to graffiti It reflects a railroad theme Those type of walls require less excavation because they drill footings rather than Dig out for a spread footing. So there's less disruption of the area The walls are anywhere from three and a half to 19 and a half feet tall There's a dark sky compliant lighting and security cameras proposed. There's wayfinding directional and safety signage This piece of the alignment for the environmental review was uh Cut into a segment several segments segment f is from bay in california to Essentially the edge of the treatment plant There is This is the beginning of the trail Or to the side this is what it looks like Once it would be constructed Emergency access at the middle there where it says vehicles only authorized The trail accessing directly to the bay california street intersection And the stop sign that's currently at Bay and california avenue is moved to bay and california street So there's a stop crossing for pedestrian and bicyclists to make the move across the street And ties into phase one of segment seven And you can see the green striping on the bottom right And that's what's called the cross bike crossing and there's one at the other end at the wharf intersection And that was planned for during the design of the roundabout This is a typical detail in that area where you have the path that's 12 foot wide the Um right in here the two foot clearance minimums between each side for You know bike pedals and handlebars This is the retaining wall In this very section, there's no storm drain system. It starts further down There's a v ditch behind the retaining wall at the top which has been eliminated with the project To reduce uh, you know further excavation And um work on the hillside You can see that there's street lights and cameras up at that level The distance down here at the bottom between the center line of the track and the edge of the fence is 10 feet And that's the typical standard. There are times that we can get closer to the center line of the track You get to eight and a half feet In most of this case where it's curved track 10 is the minimum But at the very end uh down by the sanctuary center, it is going to be eight and a half feet This is a typical wood lagging wall Um, but the supports or the columns are a lot closer than what's proposed in this project This is uh segment g and segment segment g has Uh one feature that's a bit unique from what i've described so far and that's a turnout in this area here Um, which is uh informally called railroad bobs and that is a flatter area with um no trees And that provides a turnout for emergency vehicles or maintenance vehicles so they're not blocking the path Uh, this is again the same uh typical section in this area. The retaining walls are taller Um as they're further into the slope There's anchors at the very top where the wall is higher You can see this sort of this line dash line here. That's the existing slope that's cut back into for the trail There's storm drain in this uh in this part of the project Now currently there's no drainage facilities there for this part and you know, there's And that can be noted by standing water and the in the draining drainage ditches that haven't been maintained um This will eliminate those uh the inlets the catch basins that Tie into the storm drain will have inserts that prevent sediment and trash from getting into the storm drain The storm storm drain is ultimately tied into the neary legume pump station And that during the dry weather season isn't open to cow beach. It's closed off It backs into the uh wastewater treatment plant and is actually treated by the wastewater treatment plant during the wet weather season before Usually it's about october 15 before the winter starts the whole piping system is cleaned That water is taken to the treatment plant before it's open to cow beach So actually the the storm drain system is going to operate better than the current drainage system or lack of drainage system out there right now During um in this section and I forgot to mention the previous section there are the removal of 12 heritage trees and part of the mitigation measures is root pruning and uh tree mitigation efforts with the ability to try to save More trees as well as protection measures that mike had mentioned In segment g there are three heritage trees that are removed This is a cross section where that turnout area is which is base rock And this allows for you know areas for vehicles to get out of the way They're going to have to maintain the path as well as emergency services us This segment or this piece is h and that's from essentially the neary legume pump station out to the wharf intersection This is the area the eucalyptus grove that was mentioned Where when we redesigned the project the wall in this area We were able to Save five of the six trees that we intended originally to take out heritage eucalyptus and The one that's remaining we will try to save it We won't know until construction once we're able to expose the vegetation and the roots All that work is done under the guidance of the urban cities urban forester the section Again this so again, it's 10 foot from the center line This this is where the new wall is located This is the storm drain system that comes from neary legume and the pump station The smaller one next to it is the storm drain system For the trail itself Half again is 12 feet wide In this section, which is uh the sanctuary scenic centers on the left of the the photo are left And the car's parking that's the little parking lot across from the sanctuary center In this case here, we are eight and a half feet from the center line of track To the edge of the path and again the path is still 12 feet wide Trees are replaced being replaced at two to one the heritage trees The willows that are being removed are replaced at three to one and they will be planted at antinellis pond Some of the tree replacements that are occurring for this This segment will be for this phase will be planted in phase one So they'll be planted in advance of the construction of this project When mike had noted One of the alternatives we went from a 16 foot wide trail to a 12 foot wide trail We did actually look at the tree count and there were 18 fewer trees Removed with the narrower trail And one of the things that often comes up is why can't we remove the track? Well in this case, we really do have an active rail And and so I have a short video after the environmental presentation just to show What we're in camp really does out there in order to give people a sense of really how things operate For the railroad So with that i'm going to turn it over to leo menna with icf who did the environmental review for the city Hey everyone So i'll give you an overview of what we did for our environmental documentation for the Phase two of the center cruise rail trail project So the initial study was initial study mitigated negative negative declaration or ism and d Was published on july 13th 2018 And was available for review for a total of 30 days from july 13th to august 13th 2018 The analysis that we did in this document was prepared using the secret thresholds as well as the 1990 guidelines that That mike mentioned And so when determining our our whether a product whether our project would result in a potentially significant impact We considered those thresholds So i'll give you an example for biological resources We have to look at whether a project would result in a substantially adverse effect on special set of species or Habitat for example, so that's the question that we were answering in our document So our analysis included um, we identified potentially significant impacts that would be mitigated to a less insignificant level for um, aesthetics air quality biological resources cultural resources geology and soils Hazards and hazardous materials hydrology and water quality noise and transportation And right now I think i'll just focus on one of the key issues of this project, which is biological resources Since trees are going to be removed and vegetation would be permanently affected by the installation of the project so The projects the project does include several pre-construction measures in order to minimize impacts to special set of species To a less insignificant level and these species include the california red legged frog western pond turtle Special status birds special status bats the san francisco dusky footer wood rat and monarch butterfly The ism and d also includes mitigation measures requiring the replanting of willow trees at a three to one ratio So for all the willow trees that are going to be removed three will be planted in kind at um, not sorry not in kind But will be planted at antennae pond um The loss due to this project represents um Approximately 2.5 of the total riparian cover in the new lagoon area So that is what we considered when determining our our um our impact Based on the site features, um and the habitat relative to relative to the areas a whole And and considering that we would be mitigating at a three to one ratio It was concluded that the impact could be reduced to a less insignificant level And it wouldn't exceed that threshold of substantially adversely affecting riparian habitat And I would also like to note here that antennae pond Was chosen as a site for restoration because it is known a documented area For california red legged frog, which is a federally listed species So this project is actually going to Result in the creation of habitat for that that could be used by this federally listed species And in our um We also prepared a natural environment study for cal trends in that that document identified that neary lagoon due to the presence of predator species and due to its Location close to development sites has a lower potential To support california red legged frog. So this project is a creating habitat for this federally listed species um And on that I just did want to note that this project did go Under nipa review. So we prepared an a natural environment study with cal trends and that that um That document had the same information that was included in our ism and d and that Document was approved by cal trends. We received a c e and cal trends did do consultation With the u.s. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service So that's actually how we came up with the mitigation measure of planting um willow trees at antinally pond They consulted with us fish and wildlife service us fish and wildlife service what said well, you know, there's um To mitigate for the impact to california red legged frog and riparian cover You can uh plant plant at antinally pond, which is a place that is known to have california red legged frog So during our review period we did receive several comments Um including from the coastal commission the monterey bay air resource district the sierra club and from individuals 96 individuals in support and tenant opposition um We reviewed all those letters and responded to the coastal commission Monterey bay air resource district and the sierra club with letters addressing their concerns on october 31st um And we the city concluded that the comments raised in the letter did not rise to a level of significance However, we did identify that there was one comment about the monarch butterfly That warranted a recirculation of the ism and to address the potential impacts on that species From the removal of the one eucalyptus tree in the grove So based on that comment We did do a recirculation of the ism and and we took this as an opportunity to also update the ism and with some analysis that we did for air quality impacts as well as Updating the project to reflect the Realignment that reduced the number of trees to be removed So we published that recirculated ism and d on january 7th 2019 and it was circulated until february 6th 2019 So that document um did have an additional analysis for monarch butterfly So we included a um an analysis that identified that construction impacts could be mitigated to a less insignificant level Through uh pre-construction measures. So we added another mitigation measure that said before construction happens You'll look at the site and identify if there's any monarch butterflies there And if there are and if they're not you will do these these measures accordingly Um, and we also concluded in there that the loss of the one tree would not rise to that threshold of significance of substantially adversely affecting a species so we The way that we came up with that conclusion was by looking at background information And I Site visits that identified that the site was not a significant overwind overwind tree population. There weren't nectar sources That there would be a loss of one trees one tree compared to the more than 40 trees that are there Which represents a 5 loss of the total growth size. So taking all that into account. We concluded a less insignificant impact On this species from the removal of that one tree. So that's how we came up with that conclusion So during that second review period of that recirculated ism and d we did receive further comments from the monterey Bay air resource district the sierra club and from individuals 36 in support and three in opposition And the comments that were received were predominantly focused on aesthetics biological resources including monarch butterfly habitat hydrological resources climate change and alternatives and based on the review of the comments again, we identified that These impacts did not rise to a level of significance and That that was all documented in our correspondence. So in summary I would just say that the ism and d was prepared taking into consideration the secret thresholds of substantially adversely affecting a resource and conclusions were made based on The evidence that we that we were able to obtain and that's all documented in our in our document as well as in our Correspondence which you've had the time to review and I'd also just like to reiterate that this project would result in beneficial environmental impacts including that which I mentioned about california renegade frog as well as of greenhouse gas reductions, which was also documented in the ism and d so That's it for me. If you have further questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Thank you So in the planning commission staff report on page nine of that report I've listed 57 general plan goals policies or actions that support the development of the rail trail There's also three specific lcp local coastal plan policies that support the trail And although the this is outside of the neary lagoon management agents management Plan boundaries There are three objectives and policies in the neary lagoon management plan that support This project so again, those are on page nine I didn't want to list them all on your staff report, but we attached the planning commission staff report and you can see those on page nine So In summary the This phase two of segment seven would be the third Leg of the whole western sides trail that would be a off street bicycle trail The project will reduce transportation related to energy use greenhouse gas generation And it'll provide an equitable and sustainable alternative to coastal access for pedestrians bicyclists and the disabled And that last slide is our recommendation So the recommendation uh to the city council is to deny the appeal and adopt the mitigated negative declaration the mitigation monitoring and reporting program And approve the coastal design slope modification variants And the heritage tree removals based on the findings that are listed in your draft resolution So that concludes our presentation chris wants to show his Um video and then we're available for any questions It comes down from uh rory canter passing by the people side and entering the y and the y is used specifically to turn the train around And uh currently rory camp pass tractor tries a thousand feet up Into towards neary lagoon past neary lagoon and up to essentially the area where The treatment plant starts and if you were to look up on You know bay street, it's about where liberty street comes in Fast forward a little bit here As the the train goes past the y you can see over here this This green roof that's essentially railroad bob area where the Where the turnout will be for vehicles that maintain the path or for emergency services Um just recently. I think it was yesterday the day before there was actually a fire in the neary lagoon section adjacent to the wastewater treatment plant Um, which was an you know issue issue started with illegal camping Um and did have it have you know, it's where a lot of the main power source comes in for the treatment plant So it's another reason the more highs that we have on the path the more public use The better Things work. So as you can see it backed all the way up in order to do the train I could too for the train. This is not the longest train that they have they have busier season they have also Trains there for corporate events, etc. It has to get past the switch in order to make um To flip it and turn it Um The ceo with roaring camp was uh going to attend but had an emergency and could not She wanted to make sure that she noted that They were supportive of the trail and that this has been uh active use an active line for them for many years The route about to the um to the boardwalk The last piece of the report is the fiscal impact and currently there's two million dollars dedicated as a local match for A future grant the grant from prop 68 that you heard about today doesn't require A local match and if we're successful then this local match, which is A million from the city's measure d and a million from the regional transportation commission's measure d Can be dedicated to um other portions of the rail trail Um We also have another opportunity in the in the near future To apply for another grant for this project and One of the things that's really important to have these days for A grant application is the matching money And the approved permits and environmental certified environmental document And without those it's very difficult to get grants Um One question came up about what if the saver required to do any ir The ir is estimated to cost about 200 000 And in the staff reports as six to twelve months to prepare and the public process I've been told uh by a number of people that i'm overly optimistic And that it would actually take uh quite a bit longer Right mike Anyway, so that concludes my uh our presentation Guy Preston with the regional transportation commission Which has prepared the master plan and his important funding partner in this would like to say something before we Get into this Hi, uh, thank you for the professional courtesy By your city manager to allow me to come and address the city council and thank you for uh listening to me today The rtc started um dedicating funds to the segment seven project in 2013 A month after the rtc completed and adopted a master plan for the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail network The coastal rail trail forms the spine of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail Segment seven is one of the highest priority projects Of the 20 segments identified in the plan RTC also completed and certified a programmatic eir On the master plan to help streamline Implementation and environmental clearance of future projects RTC is pleased with the partnership Of the city of Santa Cruz and the great care that the city of Santa Cruz took in improving The project beyond its description in the master plan The segment seven phase two environmental document shows impacts as being less than significant With mitigations offered for potential impacts I want to echo what chris and your environmental team has said with respect to the quality of mitigation The quality of mitigation that you see in this project is far superior to the impacts that you have in an area which is much degraded additionally The city of Santa Cruz adopted the rtc's master plan in march 2015 RTC appreciates the city's commitment to deliver the city's portion of the coastal rail trail as a Bicycle and pedestrian path within or adjacent to the rail right away that is separated from motor vehicle traffic I also recently attended one of our Elderly and disabled committee meetings and they emphasized the importance of the segment of the trail because The alternative right now is to go up west cliff which has a serious grade and a lot of them cannot maneuver Going up west cliff I also ride my bike over to west side quite a bit and it's very congested and the segment of the trail would Provide significant relief and an alternative for bicyclists that would be much safer off of the street network and Out of grade that is more favorable for elderly and disabled people I also want to Emphasize something that your city manager mentioned and that's grant funding The rtc is working with the city to obtain grants And one of the first questions always asked is does the project have environmental clearance? There is going to be significant competition for grant funding And I would like to see some of those state and and federal funds brought to santa cruz county So we can complete the coastal rail trail. Thank you for allowing me to address the commission and let me know if you have any questions Okay, that concludes. I believe the staff portion of the Appeal here public hearing here today. Is that I had tallied the comments that we got since Yesterday and it looks like approximately we got 87 emails that were basically in favor One of those emails had a petition that was signed by 520 people in favor of the project And we had 15 emails that were concerned with the project or against it That concludes our presentation. Okay. Thank you very much Before we have an opportunity to hear from our appellants. I'll go ahead and see if there's any clarifying questions that the council may have at this time Knowing that you could also ask them in a future question question. Councilman Myers Just a question for the environmental consultant. You mentioned that the coastal commission had Submitted a comment letter. I think on the first version of the is mnd Do you I I've been looking through the hundreds of pages of material But I could you could you just summarize what what that letter Included, please I would have to take a look at that one again. Okay. Yeah, I know that that Some of the comments didn't have anything to do with the initial study they also Were interested in seeing different alternatives Sort of brought forward in the staff report even though that that wasn't a requirement And they were also interested in making sure that we looked through the neary lagoon plan To make sure that some of the policies in that plan didn't conflict with this project And that's sort of what we highlighted in the staff report. I don't remember if there was I think they also had some questions clarifications about visual renderings of the retaining walls and how those look like So we sent those in mostly clarifying questions And similar questions concerning biological resource impacts and Because the coastal permit does have requirements having to do with a tree Tree plantings. I believe that's that as well. I can try to find that for you I don't have that printed with me because as you said, there's a there's a lot. Yeah Any additional clarifying questions for staff at this time? Okay vice-mayors Thank you for the presentation from all folks who presented today. I was just curious What was the initial rationale for? moving forward with a mitigated negative deck As opposed to an EIR Well, um, I can try answering that because I wasn't I'm what I am aware of is that because No impacts were found to rise to a level of significance That all impacts could be mitigated to a less insignificant level Then that's that and since an ISM and D allows that that that's what was moved forward with Yeah Okay, seeing no additional questions at this time. Thank you We'll go ahead and allow for our appellants to address the council at this time And you will have a total of 15 minutes to speak and present evidence in support of your appeal I also will note that you will have a opportunity after public comment To provide a five-minute rebuttal at which time you will not be allowed to introduce any new information and Would you like the time broken up for in between or how how would you like to share the time between the two of you? Thanks for asking We I'm going to speak and then Julianne will speak and so If you would maybe stop the clock as we shift that would be very helpful Okay, so the clock will be set for 15 minutes and then when there's that transition time We'll go ahead and pause the time as you shift your presentation. Okay Thank you very much. I think I know many of you but for those who don't know me I'm Rachel O'Malley. I'm here because we agree. We agree on a lot of things We agree that we're in a climate crisis And we also agree with a biodiversity crisis. We agree that we need to get out of our cars We support vision zero We support the rail we support the Monterey Bay sanctuary signage trail But even good projects require trade-offs We all agree that everything we do affects our natural environment We always have to consider the climate and we have to also consider biodiversity We're in a biodiversity crisis. How do we do that? Here in Santa Cruz it's through our environmental review process We evaluate impacts and we avoid or mitigate the ones that we can That's what our code says. We also have the environmental quality act You've heard about right now and the coastal permit requirements The environmental quality act Is interesting because it's about disclosure to the public and public participation It is also about minimizing damage to the environment and disclosing effects and also disclosing what the decision makers are doing, right? So it's about democracy The coastal permit Fortunately also protects vegetation and natural habitats and natural resources. So that's a second layer that we get to Go through we all agree Again on those values. This is what we all believe in everyone sitting here Quickly sequel requirements the initial study you've heard a little bit about that's to decide Are we doing a negative declaration if there's no potential impacts or an EIR if there are potentially significant impacts Okay, that's the the standard of the law if it's potentially significant do an EIR EIR also analyzes alternatives that avoid impacts which mitigate mitigate a neg deck. Ev you've just heard does not Our project can't be considered until the final environmental documents are complete So this project sorry, I'm going so fast at seven minutes the proposed project you've heard about it already This is essentially replacing the repair this riparian corridor with that wall. You just saw We all agree that building it in the natural areas will have some impacts the question is are they significant Your staff says no, I believe we've shown yes What's the difference the thresholds of significance your staff has told you about the first one It the effect on a species that's sensitive or candidate or special status and their mitigations protect them from construction But not from permanent loss of habitat. That's what i'm talking about There are other thresholds that CEQA requires us to look at not just the sensitive species the first one which would be biological resources B Is riparian habitat that has been delineated like neary lagoon big Lagoon our best freshwater well and right. I believe Based on my professional experience that the proposed mitigations are inadequate and do not sufficiently describe the impacts on neary lagoon More important there are two other areas of biological resources that CEQA requires us to look at the first one is The unnamed creeks right the ones that we found here when we were looking at our site for the first time And this was new to me as well. I hadn't been there till I went We all agree including your staff that the project will eliminate just under an acre of wetland. Oops. I can't go back That's okay, but it's degraded. There are no wetlands left in california that are pristine so Even destruction of a human influence wetland should be considered significant in fact the eir for the Whole rail trail included that that even if it's not mapped An artifact of a construction of the railroad corridor They're still under the jurisdiction of the coastal commission and the regional water quality control board That's from the eir. We did not use the ar. We did not use from the master plan Said that impacts include loss of habitat and habitat degradation And erosion from erosion of those just disturbed beds. So The actions that we did use in our document, which was not that document We specifically did not tear off it are about frogs and pond turtles individuals and about avoiding them When we see them what i'm talking about is restoring the habitat. We're paving over and also restoring hydrologic function Not just specific individual species So there are two other there's one other important threshold that sequel requires us to look at which is movement Of resident and migratory species. That's not your special status named listed blah blah blah This is actually part of the threshold Again, the mitigations are focused on special status species and they Talk about construction and they talk about But they don't cover loss of the habitat now you've heard that The photo of a gray fox is not substantive evidence that there are corridors here as a biologist I'm sorry. It's hard to get a photo of a gray fox Similarly, it's all disturbed and and you know non natives You just saw poison oak and willow thickets Lots of small live oak canopy. We actually have a fair amount of natives supporting interesting native birds Very important native birds and even some of the invasives we've been told Well, the ivy which is generally awful isn't supporting monarchs because it's not fruiting well I actually took this photo in the corridor. It is flowering. It is supporting monarchs. We haven't measured it sorry the last thing Emanatory findings the very last category of the sequel checklist cumulative impacts This document should have peered off of the master plan document instead. It used the city plan Which doesn't cover the whole project So We should have done an eir. We should do an eir. It could have significant impacts on the environment I have 30 years of experience doing this. I can tell you this should have Had an eir So what do we do now at this point the fastest thing to do would just be to do the eir It's the right thing to do. We all care about the environment if we defend the inadequate Negdeck it can go all the way into 2020 The california coastal commission will hear appeals on this. It's appealable to the coastal commission They care a lot about wetlands. They want us to avoid it. They want us to look at alternatives You've heard we've looked at the alternatives, but remember the disclosure park remember the public park That's what the eir is about. We actually have to look at the alternatives systematically in an organized way. We do have alternatives We agree We're in a climate crisis biodiversity crisis And in santa cruz. We're also In a biological hot spot Look at the united states in that picture. We are it. We need to work together Measure twice cut once We only have one planet Please request an eir before you make your final decision You I think we're ready to proceed. Thank you very much Mayor Watkins city council members jillian greenside We are here today to appeal to you to reject the mitigated negative declaration for the project before you and direct staff To prepare an environmental impact report for the pros proposed project Segment seven phase two of the rail trail or as the birds butterflies and the gray fox call it home This project has the potential to impact the natural environment significantly California law requires that significant impacts be disclosed to decision makers and the public Before you make a decision about the project The document before you an mnd is used only for projects that could not significantly impact the environment An eir is needed to fully assess and prevent or minimize damage to the environment by means of project alternatives Mitigation measures and mitigation monitoring Additional mitigation and alternatives to lessen the impacts outline have not been considered Defending the mnd in approving this project as proposed would expose the city to legal risk bureaucratic delays and additional cost An eir can be far shorter and cheaper than is suggested in the agenda report At the last parks and recreation commission meeting The director estimated that the eir for the entire parks master plan Could be completed in a six month time frame at a cost of $40,000 The project before you today is less than a mile in length and some environmental work has already been done The regional transportation commission's eir for the entire rail trail Contains mitigations that the city could use for this segment although they declined to tear it off that Preparing an eir will get the project up and running most quickly Defending this flawed mnd will result at least in an appeal to the california coastal commission The ccc has an urgent interest in protecting remaining wetlands and riparian habitat and is likely to accept an appeal We support the rail trail We thank mere Watkins for representing the city at the upcoming climate meeting We all support getting folks out of our cars We also need to acknowledge when we are sacrificing the natural environment to achieve this end And fully mitigate what we can We must achieve the goals of the project while simultaneously protecting this habitat area We all agree as people who care about the environment that environmental review must be consistent for all projects The ones we do support as well as the ones we don't To point out a few inadequacies in the mnd before you The conclusion that this is a low quality riparian habitat by the city's biologist is directly contradicted by the evidence we submitted The mnd uses regional databases rather than on-site observation We provided a 110 page submission of evidence by biologist dr. Rachel O'Malley phd Documenting that this project has significant impacts on the environment On request the city said none of its biologists reports was available Sequa requires that an eir be completed when experts have differing opinions and there is public controversy which applies here An eir is necessary for a proper traffic circulation study to assess safety and vmt vehicle miles traveled reduction associated with the project The impact of great numbers of bicyclists on the wharf roundabouts and already impacted intersection should be studied Moving the wharf kiosks would only speed cars up not good for bicyclists or pedestrians Alignment of bike trails is important However, this alignment does not connect to west cliff drive Nor allow easy access from the lower west side streets the button to bay street and the bay street bike paths An eir would allow a thorough examination of alternatives Alternatives which exist and avoid both larboranke park and the steep dream hill hill dream in hill But they have not been carefully evaluated The conclusion from our staff and consultants is that quote the project would not significantly change the conditions relative to existing conditions This is hard to fathom Consider that this three quarter mile project involves the removal of 42 trees 16 of them heritage trees The removal of thousands of cubic yards of soil The removal of all undergrowth and brush habitat All nectar sources for the myriad of butterflies observed on the trail Covering the soil with a 12 foot wide three quarter of a mile long impervious service trail erecting a 54 inch wire fence on one side And a three to 19 feet high retaining wall on the other Introducing lights security cameras and hundreds of humans into this habitat And the conclusion is no significant change This is a change from a silver oasis into an urban corridor Complete with mechanical light operated monarchs as is proposed in the arts master plan In conclusion we ask that you vote to reject the mitigated negative declaration for this project And direct your staff to begin begin preparation of an eir as quickly as possible To lay the groundwork for a rail trail project that meets both human and habitat needs Which in the long run are all connected? Thank you very much Thank you So at this point we'll go ahead and turn it over to our responding applicant, which I have here as leo menna And you'll have 15 minutes to speak and present any evidence at this time and or staff. I believe So you'll have up to 15 minutes. Okay. Thank you So i'm going to try to respond to everything that was mentioned and I will just say that most of the answers that Or most of what i'm going to be discussing is already in the record as a part of our correspondence So i'll begin with the question around tiering. Why did we not tier from the from the Eir for the master plan And I'll just say that there is no requirement for a lead agency to Tier from from this the city has the ultimate discretion to make that decision and in this case they decided to make The decision to do a complete analysis of the project in an ism nd you And doing doing so by analyzing all potential impacts according to the sequel guidelines Okay, so I hope that clarifies that Um, and I'll just read to you exactly what we what our response Says the letter correctly identifies that the recirculated ism nd does not include the mitigation measures from the Monterey bay Sanctuary scenic trail network plan fat finally air the city is As a lead agency uses discretion to not tear from this finally i are the city crafted mitigation for habitat loss based on site specific considerations Specifically mitigation for the impacts on the disturbed riparian habitat was crafted based on consultation with caltrans During the need for process who in turn consulted with the department of fish and wildlife and determined that the proposed mitigation Of planting willows around antinally pond was sufficient to mitigate the impact And that's from the letter dated april 29 2019 um, the next thing that i'll i'll discuss is the question around wetlands and site observations We did do site observations that's documented in our Um in our ism nd as well as in our correspondence where we did go to the site as recently as i'll have to look at my notes, but you know Before our correspondence in in in april to see the site where the Monarch butterfly habitat was going to be be lost in 2019 so Our conclusions are based on Not just what the what records but also field Field reviews and that's all documented in the ism nd as well as our nes The natural environment study in terms of wetlands a site assessment was done To identify whether any wetlands would be affected by this project. What was what was identified was that the area south of the south of the site due to The vegetation there and the ordinary high watermark That area was classified as a riparian land cover So that's what we're talking about when we're talking about impacts of the 0.93 acres that would be affected By this project which is classified as riparian land cover and which we have qualified as low quality due to its separation from the railroad track the presence of non-native vegetation and Again, it's uh, it's the location of the ordinary high watermark The next thing that I will Address to you is the question around the loss of the riparian land cover Again our conclusion was based on whether this project would result in a substantial adverse effect On riparian habitat but as well as as well as special set of species and that's documented in our correspondence as well We looked at the quality of the site the whole site nere lagoon We looked at the 0.93 acres located on the south side of the railroad between Well, there's a between the lagoon and south of that is labyrinth park So considering all that this narrow strip of vegetation that is that we calculated to be a total of 2.2 acres That which we then identified we would Effect 0.93 acres Considering that we did include mitigation for the restoration of habitat off site The reason we we haven't done it on site is because there's not there's no space So we're looking off site to mitigate that that that that impact at a three to one ratio Not a one to one ratio not a two to one ratio, but three times the effect I will Continue with talking about I'll just I'll I'll add about the question about How VMT and greenhouse gases we did receive a comment that that we didn't account for the project's impact on greenhouse gases and In our correspondence we've documented that not this project will Mitigate trees at a one one two to one and three one ratio Which would offset the impact from any kind of carbon loss due to the removal of trees as well as the overall reduction in Vehicle trips as well as the fact that this project is supported in the climate action plan There was a there was a question about or there was a there was a comment about Lights and the effect of lights on species That's again something that was included in the document and included as an analysis in the document as well as in our correspondence We've identified mitigation measure in our aesthetics impacts that would require the screening of lights so that it's located on the rail and not disseminating Far from it. So again, that is something that we have considered and that we've documented in our document The the question about the converting this into an urban corridor This this area is already in an urban area. It's in the middle of the city of Santa Cruz Next to a wastewater treatment plant next to an active railroad and next to a park and next to homes as well So I just like to say that This place is already an urban area and our 0.93 loss of riparian habitat considering everything that I've mentioned Would not exceed that threshold of significance I think that's that's our And that's it for me. Thanks Just one response to something about moving the kiosk at the work. That's not in this plan All we are is tying into the existing roundabout And that the the crossing of pedestrians and bike was already Contemplated known about when the design of the roundabout was done. So it's taken into consideration Thank you Okay, so at this point we um, we'll go ahead and have our opportunity for a public comment to occur What that will look like is we'll go ahead and start since there's two approved extra time Organizations speaking they'll go ahead and go first for the four minutes Then we'll go ahead and open it up to individuals who would like to address the council Even just briefly in one minute and then those that would like to address the council within the two-minute time frame So we'll start with jenna cole who is the new executive director of bike santa Cruz county and jenna. You'll have up to four minutes Good afternoon. Thank you for honoring the request mayor Watkins City council members city manager and staff My name is jenna cole and I thank you. I am the new executive director at bike santa Cruz county This is my sixth day on the job And I feel as though the past week has been a crash course in all things bike santa Cruz county I kind of feel like i'm back in college again I'm here today representing our group We are here to encourage you to deny the appeal of the planning commission's decision to move forward with segment seven phase two The mission of bike santa Cruz county is to promote Bicycling How can we best accomplish this by supporting the actions and the projects that make it safer and easier for people to ride their bikes? The monorail based sanctuary scenic trail will do just this Providing sanctuary for folks who are intimidated by riding on streets that were created for cars To have a relatively level surface to get from point a to point b To entice folks, especially youth and families outside Away from their phones and their computers To access nature that is close to their home to their work and to their school To reduce the barriers of steep hills and heavy traffic that may leave people Unwilling to even try to ride their bike or walk as a means of transportation In doing this we reduce the human impact on the environment We increase community health and well-being and most importantly, we increase the health and the well-being of our youth As a watsonville native, I am impressed with the walkability of santa Cruz From my office. I was easily able to walk here today What was not super easy Was riding my bike to santa Cruz from my home this morning I found myself seeking some solace from the commuting madness that is freedom boulevard and so cal avenue I veered off the heavily trafficked roadway pedaled through capitolah and up The bike bypass the bike and pedestrian bypass there by knob hill I ran up claire street and I wove through the neighborhoods in live oak via a Bike and pedestrian friendly passageways over to bromar that has a really great bike lane Through the calm of iran a gulch Only joining the fray again at branza 40 and being able to just slide back down into my office The moments where I could relax a little bit on my bike Not to be on heightened alert the entire time watching for cars Watching for trucks and for buses Those moments were the sweet spots in my commute this morning All neighborhoods all residents Deserve access to those sweet spots on their commute from work To and from work to and from school to and from shopping or play Segment seven phase two is a little more than a half mile of sweetness It has the ability to link the residents of beach flats With easier access to their school to their work to shopping and to play To enjoy the area that they live in a little bit more To help people start thinking about how they can navigate the city without getting into a car every single time To create a new mindset for our youth It's reshaping the norm We believe that the city has done its due diligence in studying the information Is that four that's four and you're welcome to leave any comments you like and we can review them also. Thank you so much Thank you for having me today We'll go ahead and now invite up erica stranovic, excuse me, but sorry stranovic. No worries. It's senojevic. Oh, well, okay. There you go Thank you very much from the Sierra club and you'll have also four minutes. Thank you so much So my name is erica stranovic And I represent the sierra club and i'm conservation committee chair, which is what i'm doing so And I really want to emphasize that the sierra club really loves the idea of reducing vehicle miles traveled We want the rail trail to succeed because we completely agree with bike santa cruz county that it's hard to ride your bikes out there However, we are not talking about a segment that actually addresses highway one traffic We're talking about section seven segment two, which is Nowhere near the highway one traffic impacts that we're attempting to address This will actually pretty much be an excursion train piece of the of the ride so And we really want to make sure that this is the best possible project We aren't looking for a mediocre project. We want to make sure that this project succeeds fully So it actually reduces traffic the whole length of the trail um And because of that we really cannot ignore the fact that this is riparian habitat this is And cumulative riparian habitat throughout the rail trail project Needs to be addressed the environmental documents do not address the cumulative impact of all the riparian Habitat that will be lost along the rail trail and the section here really does not do an adequate job addressing The riparian habitat loss The other thing is that this is a wildlife corridor and that must also be addressed I am really bothered by the argument that because this area is not completely pristine That therefore it's okay to further degrade the habitat and excuse the metaphor But to me it seems like having somebody who's been abused their whole life and say hey, you know It's okay. You've been abused before let me keep abusing you and and that's just really how it occurs to me So I really hope that we get away from this idea that just because land is not pristine that it doesn't deserve our protection And the hope that it will be increased in biodiversity All of our land needs to be healed The protections that have been mentioned in the environmental documents are not sufficient and mostly only address Construction impacts they do not address long term impacts For example, there's some replacement habitat mentioned and there's some token reference to three to one riparian habitat reference however, I really want to be I'm concerned about that because There are many projects which are slated to have riparian habitat be mitigated and addressed or replaced however the mitigations Do not necessarily actually happen. Jesse street marsh in our backyard is one of those One such project that is very much associated with the replacement of the neary lagoon The yeah the neary lagoon park and jesse street marsh was never restored as the city had promised to do And furthermore the three to one as staff mentioned Yes, the there's a three to one standard for habitat replacement. That is because Immature wetlands is not equal to mature wetlands. So that is of course needed. However, I think we need to make sure it actually happens And the reality is that there may be other return alternatives that are cost effective and produce a better project And those need those options need to be evaluated the expensive retaining wall, which will damage the Ability for wildlife to migrate through there may not be necessary. The wall will also affect drainage patterns Which will further degrade the riparian habitat There's ample room on bay in labyrinth park And if a route up along that street was used That would lead to better connectivity for residents Your time is up, but you're welcome to leave your comments. Um, but that is concludes your four minutes. Okay. Thank you So at this point we'll open up to any individuals who want to address the council on this item What I'll do is ask if anybody briefly wants to address us Please line up to my left and you'll have an opportunity to do so in one minute And if you'd like to address us in the two minutes, you're welcome to do so We'll go ahead and have you do that after the one minute timeline So if anybody just wants to briefly address the council, I know that many of you have been here Waiting, please do so. You'll have one minute And if if there's nobody who wants the one minute, then we'll go ahead and open it up to the two minutes So interested in the one minute here. Okay Good afternoon. I'll do my best to do one minute. My name is bob morgan And as a representative of the campaign for sustainable transportation We urge you to move forward with The advocacy for a Mitigaya rather a declaration of a non eir review We walked the corridor this segment seven with Rachel O'Malley And we had a very healthy discussion after walking both that corridor as well as the bay and Westcliff drive proposed parallel project. We felt that that project was not satisfactory We do believe that this segment seven project will indeed enhance The potential for bike riders and pedestrians and we urge you to act quickly and efficiently and Approve this negative declaration. Thank you Anybody else within one minute, please? Okay Mayor Watkins council members. My name is solidine sale My wife and I live on western drive and we're 50 plus year county residents. We're also long time Sierra club members I speak today to urge your denial of the appeal of the planning commission's unanimous approval of phase two section seven of the coastal trail At this time the city faces a number of very serious challenges Budget housing homelessness among them The rail trail is a singular bright spot where a civic improvement project has been unanimously approved And results are already becoming apparent We love the new bike and pedestrian crossing of the San Lorenzo river on the train trestle Approval of phase two of section seven Will complete the last critical link between the east side west side and wilder ranch and the parklands beyond Thank you. Thank you Anybody else for the one minute time frame? My name is tom frederick's I Have attended rtc meetings in the development of the rail trail project I intended the city's planning meeting in in in advance of this meeting and I i'm basically an observer And what I take away from what i've seen so far Is that this could be the biggest public works project in the county? It's a protected transportation corridor that goes from one end to the other And I really got that when I went to the opening of the trestle bridge I really got that this is away from traffic It's safe and it has a multitude of multitude of uses and those uses Are the trail the trail and the rail benefit the least expensive modes of transportation. Thank you Hey And if there's no one else who wants to address us in the one minute, okay, please step forward Good afternoon council members. I'm matt ferrell. I live on the east side of Santa Cruz And I urge you to deny the appeal and approve segment section of the rail corridor Based on the experience of What arana gulch has done for our community on the east side? I think this will be a similar benefit to the west side of santa cruz. Thank you I don't believe I see anybody else who wants to address us briefly within the one minute timeline So we'll go ahead and open it up now for up to two minutes Thank you for having us here. I am kershiduram and I'm a longtime veteran environmentalist and And I'm an active transportation expert even sold my car and have biked around the county for 14 years But I'm coming here just having have served as a chair of the santa cruz transportation commission when you had a city transportation Commission and from my many years serving on the climate action task force and that is my goal I agree with my colleagues erica rachel jillion But I do not agree with the strategy because we have this urgency this overarching urgency of the climate crisis And I think we need to act like yesterday We are experiencing you just have to step outside The last month i've been pelted with um on my bicycle winter cold rock-sized hail pieces on my back In late may thunderstorms all right extreme heat I think i'm talking to people who agree that climate change is now it's happening It threatens a larger area or a beautiful redwood forest that rely on fog or not getting the fog they need to survive We need to change our behavior now Listen to people like gretta from sweden specifically car driving I know about transportation in the city of santa cruz in the county That's the biggest and largest contributed to climate crisis Is car driving and we need extreme measures to get people to convince them to change this behavior and get out of their cars So how do we do that? I sat where you're sitting before and I listened to hours and hours and years of testimony people saying I don't feel safe to get out of my car. I need an off-road path studies support this people need an off-road path I think I applaud the staff for listening to my colleagues concerns The one thing I would add is maybe they could meet with them one more time and just address specific refinements to better the design But don't delay this. I myself have waited 26 years waited 30 for ronagolch and similar This is so similar to ronagolch where we were divided. So, please don't delay it move it forward. Okay next speaker Hi, I'm uh elinor mendez. I just graduated high school. I'm also an intern at bike santa cruz county I'm not here representing bike santa cruz county though. I'm here representing the uh High schoolers and middle schoolers who I just left behind I Yeah as a young person in santa cruz and as a person with a lot of little cousins and a little sister there's a really huge need for bike lanes and Better bike facilities and santa cruz. I see this most urgently with my younger sister who is at home right now with all of her friends Playing pickup sticks in my living room because they can't get farther Than the boardwalk on their bikes. They don't feel safe riding on seabright or broadway or mission or bay or so cal That's That's about it. So this is not just um this This is urgent. This is not Something that can really be delayed any longer. Thank you Hello. Hello. Good afternoon. My name is mary odigard and I agree with elinor Because I work with children and it is really I when I work with children I walk and bike everywhere with them I also bike everywhere. I possibly can but especially when I'm with the children it's so much better to be safely away from the automobile and This is an opportunity to see this happen in our county. This segment is really important Another aspect of the segment that you've heard but I'll reiterate it is that there's a three percent grade that the railroad lines have used to put in wherever they are they don't Deviate much from that and so that makes it good for people that are a da and needs It's it's really important and I I Want to thank the city and the staff and all the people that have put in efforts to address a lot of the concerns that have been brought towards up to mitigate the environmental Degregation But I also know that as a railroad line they spray spray spray to kill everything along there This is going to be an improvement. There's going to be more life along that line I also know that um in that neighborhood on a sunday morning about a month ago I saw a gray fox cross in california avenue The creatures are out there with more people walking and riding and out of the automobile, which this is going to encourage The creatures are going to have a safer time and they're going to be out there with us and it's so sweet so I really recommend that you Deny the appeal and move forward and I also am a cr club member for a long time and I really want to see this happen. Thank you. Thank you Thanks speaker Micah bozner Sierra club member um, first I just want to say that I do respect the appellants I really appreciate how much they care about wetlands We have a large degrade at wetland at the jesse street march Which could be an active habitat and I urge the council at another meeting to work better on on recovering that Um, but I don't like that they say they support the rail trail because the rail trail is a specific thing The rail trail is a trail along the rail line And we've been working for that for 15 years to identify that to gather support for it to map it So if you don't if you want the trail somewhere else, you might care about bikes and the environment But you don't support the rail trail and and most people do I mean notice that you got about a thousand comments and you got about 20 against I mean, this is a 98 percent approval rating for the staff for the city like that never happens, right? So you don't have 98 percent of people come and say we support you we want you to do this That's that's unheard of and that's the history of the rail trail the appellants um Talk about EIRs in the sense that we should do an EIR for every change to a degraded habitat But I don't think that's the intent of environmental law Under that logic you'd have to do an EIR when you added a bedroom to your house or when you replaced a sewer line I mean this is a gravel filled Creosote filled rail road corridor with a road embankment on one side and a sewer treatment plan on the other Will it change? Yes. Is it is it anywhere near pristine habitat? No People have said this is similar to ronigolch, but it's not ronigolch was a much nicer habitat and ronigolch had significant opposition This is 2 percent opposition So just to start to read some of the people that don't usually come out to support city projects who are on record for this Foster from ride a wave edgar from the beach flats community center and simonton rolling seyer Peter scott chris connerly matilda rand the csft letter was signed by rick lonjanotti and bruce van allen jeffrey smidberg ron pomerance Micah posner these are people that are dubious of city projects But in this particular case we want you to go and want you to go yesterday and build this thing. Thank you Good afternoon. Hi. My name is teen andrietta and I have lived in santa cruz county since 1984 I am a seer club member and I disagree with this appeal And I am one of the many volunteers of friends of the rail trail who have been tabling All over the county to share news about the rail trail in general Our volunteers have been doing community outreach at farmers markets and special events like earth day Like to work day open streets the trestle ribbon coveting and other community fairs and events at these events We talk to people about the rail trail and the most common comment we get is What's taking so long? This is a popular project and people are eager to make the verses their voices heard And I just noticed here's a lot of our our postcards that we that get signed for the uh For the planning commission. I just got another person that just signed one We have delivered approximately 650 postcards in favor of segment seven phase two along the tracks Since the vote in april we have collected over 800 more postcards in favor of this project Most of the 800 cards are from the city of santa cruz residents including many from the beach flat residents These are just some of the copies from the beach flats residents that are in favor of this And let's see about 30 percent are from county residents who recognize that this segment is a part of a larger regional project If we don't build our segments as planned it damages the viability of the whole project. Thank you Here's another card. Uh, hello. I'm ryan sanataro. Uh, I've lived in santa cruz for quite a while I use my bicycle as my main mode of transportation here in uh in town And I want to speak in terms of the strategic vision that's involved in this decision here And basically you're being asked to uh Pay a lot of money create a lot of environmental destruction in the Very slim hope that there will be a commuter train that runs from the santa cruz boardwalk to Davenport that the voters of this county or the voters of United states will come up with the funds to be able to make something like that happen If you leave the tracks in place, you're forced to make these devil's choices of Where you end up with problematic A problematic construction the the vision of active transportation is one where you have a really proper divided trail where you can have slow people and you can have relatively fast people on their bicycles or their e-bikes You have the santa cruz greenway with 10 000 signatures And i'll bet half of those people also sign these green cards because the distinction between Rail and trail and a rail trail which in the united states means take out the rails and put in a trail Is not clearing people's minds as leaders you get the opportunity to take this higher view and look at the long run And if you put in a narrow trail that doesn't have like iran a gulch where You end up having people walking around each other where people go slowly where it becomes more dangerous You're what you're doing is condemning santa cruz county to a limited vision Based on a belief that is simply not going to happen and so I urge you to do whatever it takes to Change the discussion so that we actually get a rail trail here in santa cruz county that provides active transportation. Thank you I live in santa cruz on the west side Um The tracks are the problem. It's uh the presence of the tracks leave us Um quarreling over over the scraps what's left behind Dimethyl phenol anisol benzo quinone are listed as acutely toxic by the national center for biotechnology They are produced by natural processes acting on coal tar creosote Itself a band carcinogen Fully 50 percent of our rail corridors covered in creosote treated wood in the form of railroad ties and wood and ridges spanning marsh and aquatic habitat throughout our county Exposures by inhalation touch and leaching into water these materials persist bio accumulate and continue to be produced every day To my knowledge, there is no assessment remediation or accountability by way of eir sequa or epa due to the legal status of freight lines Broadly known as preemption On that basis alone good stewardship by our local leaders would indicate the removal and remediation of what may be the greatest biohazard in our county The plan thus far insisted upon by the rtc would increase exposure by of thousands of people per year Proximity and exposure being determined simply by the minimum distance allowed to a moving train Rail banking was created by the stb to separate rail operators from the financial Liability of lines that no longer pay while retaining all the legal status of preemption Pads are allowed in the interim and is typical of how paths are created across our nation Over 300 miles of trail have been returned to rail service since 1993 The authority of the stb under preemption is complete and its decisions perfunctory The existing rails are of no use for any future modern passenger rail And you're welcome to leave your comments if you like Hi, my name is berry scott. I live in aptos. I'm uh co-chair of the friends of the rail and trail and an advocate for transit and for trails I I've come today with to drop off 520 signatures 96 comments online Change.org device And it says please uphold the planning commission's unanimous decision in support of the west side trail and stand by the pledges you made during your campaign This phase along with the just completed sand Lorenzo trail expansion will connect all the Santa Cruz from the east side to the wilder ranch Not only that It'll allow me to take a to take a bike To these meetings from my home in aptos and thousands millions I don't know of other people to do the same but more importantly to me And i've been passionate about transportation and transit forever is those tracks are important anyone that tells you it's just an excursion train Or that we only really want to trail is missing Very important data The tracks are there for our future for transportation The rtc unanimously Voted to pursue High-capacity transit of some form On that corridor and we're building the trail now any attempts to get the tracks out Is in my opinion misguided and can only cause delays With respect to the the appellants passionate Work to improve the plan I applaud them. I think the system works I think what we've learned if you look and I've read the documents Nathan new yin's responses to the to the letters And the details and I can see that a lot of work has been done to make this a stronger plan a better design And I think at the end we end up with environmental Features That leave us in better shape than we are today if we do nothing. Thank you. Thank you Ah, good afternoon council members. I'm david van brink a santa cruz resident of 31 years as of last thursday And a member of the board of the friends of the rail and trail This is not a question of should we do an environmental review or should we not the city and its consultants Have done more than a year of environmental review They've published environmental documents take an input from the public delay the project in order to modify the project in response To those public comments, especially from the sierra club I expanded the scope of the review published the expanded review of the project and its environment This is what an environmental review and public engagement looks like the city has done exactly what it should have done We now have another new list of concerns another excited list of binomial species designations presented after all the others have been addressed We can always list some more To delay now with more review will not reveal new information. No new tradeoffs will be considered or will be available to consider It would be only that more delay on a fundamentally pro-environmental project Their planning commission gave extensive consideration and discussion to this issue They voted unanimously to approve the city staff's position that the lengthy environmental process conducted to date Should be finalized and the project should move forward The city has been responsive to concerns. The project is overwhelmingly pro-environmental And the public is overwhelmingly supportive and eager Um, please deny the appeal and move forward. Thank you Thank you Mayor Watkins council members. My name is bruce sawhill. I'm a santa Cruz resident and board member of friends of the rail and trail I have three points to make quickly One is about public health and safety This trail is not for the determined cyclists who are abundantly represented here today It's for the cyclists to be that aren't here the trail is to be a consistent and safe experience of refuge Free of challenges and gotchas Detouring onto streets like driving on the freeway and coming suddenly to a t-intersection with a stop sign Bay and west cliff is the only place I've had a bike accident in the last 30 years I've ridden through their hundreds of times on my way to go swim in the ocean. I would like to have an alternative About time and money Not only is time equivalent to money, but it is also equivalent to avoidable emissions of co2 and other environmental impacts If one segment of the rail trail is delayed or forced to adopt a more expensive alternative Less money is available to complete other portions of the rail trail in a timely fashion Or remediate environmental impact One isolated segment of the rail trail is like the first fax machine. Remember those it doesn't have to have It doesn't have a profound impact until it connects with others Uh segment 7b connects to the first completed segment the brilliantly engineered cantilevered trail bridge over the San Lorenzo river It's important on alternatives Descartes famously said a difference that makes no difference is no difference. He probably said it in french The alternatives put forth such as using some combination of bay street la boronca and the dream in Intersection have been considered and rejected on numerous grounds too steep for 88 too expensive too unsafe, etc The unacceptability of these alternatives will not change with an eir and summary Let us seize the day and move forward to 7b It's been seven years since we acquired the rail corridor. Deny the appeal time to ride Thank you I'm paul shellhammer a recent article in the new york times began with this sentence Climate change is the greatest challenge humanity has collectively faced The real question before you today is Are we in zanacruz serious about doing our part on climate change? Doing our part means above all else reducing carbon emissions in transportation Because in our community Transportation is the sector that generates more carbon emissions than all others combined The most achievable way to do that is to convert a portion of around town car trips To non-carbon alternatives like biking and walking Exactly what the trail in the rail corridor would do Climate change calls for urgency and we are failing the urgency test The rtc adopted the trail master plan and environmental document five and a half years ago A super majority of voters approved additional funding for trail construction Two and a half years ago and so far only a couple hundred yards of trail has even gotten as far as breaking ground Today you are being asked to further delay a key piece of the trail in a heavily populated area Where it would do the most good in converting around town car trips We have already had years of environmental study of this project The city began an environmental review and hired an environmental consultant four years ago The city has Caught the city has sought public comment has listened has modified the plan to Excuse me to deal with concerns only to have the new concern Only to have new concerns raised and the city has fully responded to those the city has done everything it should have The fact is the greatest threat to biodiversity by far is climate change I urge you to approve the resolution rejecting the appeal No more delays Hello, i'm shan shrum advocate for special needs adaptive and disabled communities in santa cruse in favor of the approved route The proposed alternative is not a da compliant beach street hill is too steep for those with a mobility impairment Street travel is also a much longer route The alternative will discourage trail use by those with disabilities because Bay west cliff intersection is very challenging for bicyclists and pedestrians, especially on summer weekends Pedestrians must find it or leave it because of a requirement to use the regular roads and blind people cannot read signage Children may not read signage Creating a frustrating experience may dissuade people from using the trail If a small group can change this route by threatening a lawsuit Think about another group who would threaten a lawsuit because the city has proposed an inaccessible trail diversity is here disability and I mean disabled and adaptive people with or without mobility equipment are here If you build your city without adaptive people in mind, that's a choice We can't wish these things into into existence Um, i'm building ramps walkways and boat launches on cal's beach July 13th for the disabled community because the city and the county won't We all have a choice And today the choice is yours. Thank you Oh, my name is steven slade. I'm the executive director of the land trust Our resident of the city for 20 some years Urge you to support the staff recommendation and proceed Just a few points. I mean one this is one part of a multi segment system And every single segment is going to have people coming up and arguing for delays Fortunately, you won't have many more of those but everybody else in the county will And so we could have the whole trail in 10 years or we could have it in 20 or 25 years We could have a whole trail, but oh you've got to climb up pass the dream in And uh, it's just sort of I don't know people are waiting for perfect. I think we're pretty close to perfect with what we have Uh, the second point I want to remain say is This is one acre of affected habitat in a county that has 250,000 acres So, you know the future of the planet is not going to rise and fall fall with this one acre Of course, the land trust is providing space at antinella pond to plant all the willow trees you want They grow really well And in fact if the city would like to own the pond, we are always ready to give it to you Right now today I could give it to you Or not And the final thing I want to say is I have to admit I'm confused when I hear We support the rail trail, but we're worried about lighting. We're worried about impervious surfaces We're worried about cutting down trees You can't build the rail trail without these things. So I don't know how to support the rail trail and be against its construction Um, we urge you to move ahead with this project I think the the positive response you saw about the san marinzo bridge Well, this is going to be 10 times that And I would think you would want to be a part of it. Thank you Hi marine people's executive director of trail now Um, of course we support a trail now with who we are But I think what we're here to talk more about is the elephant in the room and I I couldn't have used a better example than the video that chris showed about the roaring camp train going by there The current plan is 60 trains a day from 6 a.m. To 9 p.m. It's really not realistic So you're developing your plans. You're spending a lot of money I mean you're spending 20 million dollars a mile to build this Trail all to accommodate a future passenger train. But in reality, that's not happening The california transportation ash commission. I was there in march They're asking for a response from the rtc on their business plan of how they're going to fund this train It's irresponsible for our community to spend additional millions of dollars We need those millions of dollars for other things 22 heritage trestles hit in beach trestle. What are we going to do with that with 60 trains a day the capitol You're going to have to tear it down and build a concrete trestle trail train Bridge it's really not going to happen. And I think that's the main thing we need to think about So I would agree slow this down do the appeal process and hopefully You start to send the message that the elephant in the room Is that we're trying to build a trail to accommodate a future train will never happen How are we going to get 60 trains a day going from the west side? through the boardwalk Through it's realistically and so we're hopeful that you take that moment in time to think of Where how are we going to spend our money to make our community better? Thank you greener mcfarlane live oak I'd say I stepped into this whole subject first meeting I went to as capitol city council when sierra club mark mesetti miller presented and then bud colligan of greenway presented and then everyone got their two minutes and Um and right at the end one of the councillors says well, that's democracy folks and I went home really keyed up like I didn't feel like democracy it felt it felt full of things not being said and I was so keyed up that I got in touch with Jim ruff of center for wise democracy whose work I'd been following for many years One of the things that happened with his work the wisdom council process Which is supposed to give a we the people a true participatory democracy role Was in austria with syrian refugees pouring over the border and the wisdom council process into the electorate Was so phenomenally successful that they made a constitutional amendment So they have wisdom council process twice a year and more If the citizen says, you know, we need to talk about this issue and gets a thousand signatures They'll have more than two So that's my input. We've had Jim ruff come down and trained some of us and he's coming down again in july to train more And we've had one wisdom council in january that was about the coastal trail Randomly selected citizens and they came up with take the rails out Railbank and they were pulled from all the zip codes throughout the county random citizen for one and a half days Going through all of this. So that's um, there'll be another wisdom council. There'll be another training. Thank you people wisdom.org Hello, my name is virginia right and I am Hoping that you deny the appeal and build the train. I have I'm responsible for a bunch of other people People really want this to happen um I also The person who was the first person who wrote the public art plan for the city of santa cruz And so I've been around a lot doing a lot of work for the city and I know what vision can do I know what taking action can do And I just urge you to take a step and take that next place. I read the Packet for the today's meeting. I've read the plans. I've gone through the entire thing And there's been an incredible amount of really excellent work your staff your consultants. They are very This is not bad. This is really good work. Well done caring thoughtful And then there is a couple of people who have brought forth some challenge an appeal And I just feel like the weight of all of the research 20 years 20 however many years this has been going on Out lives these this one challenge this one appeal I'm also currently a grant writer and a fundraiser and I know that when local money is committed to a project That brings in money from outside like the city and the rtc is said so Once it's committed locally once the environmental review is approved Or the I don't know the language of environment, but once you appeal this negative declaration And you get the and it's approved and it goes forward it will bring in more money and we can complete the trail So thank you Before we begin i'll just see how many folks still want to address the council on this item Okay, so in addition to the two you'll be our last speaker Hi, i'm jane meo And you kind of remind me of having to be a parent who has two totally different children with different needs So the question is not really I would like to block that out It's not really Who is right or wrong by doing justice To both of your children because these issues eir no eir Do have specific needs and requirements so I would say in view of that a Environmental organization saved some trees by just walking with staff through that area Indicates that there is value that an eir Happens because just imagine how good this can be. It's not a question of building the trail It's a question. How well it is built We have sacrificed the environment over and over in the name of Profit or you know of the future or whatever we wanted to name it we can't do it anymore The kids are out in the streets They're demonstrating because we as adults aren't able to get it together to environment, you know protect the environment We got to stop that we got to come together and we need the right kind of form To make sure the environment is You know considered it's time and We can do it So thank you hi, uh jared boggs public school teacher in wasville for 11 years. Um, I walk I walked this segment here about five hours ago I hope you all get a chance to do that also um Appellants are I just want to make that one point I haven't heard today that appellants are speaking as I understand it contrary to the national sear clubs policies Uh, the national sear club rightly makes action on climate change its highest environmental priority Therefore it has extensive policies on transportation issues primarily A strong position on encouraging no and low carbon transportation activities Especially biking walking and rail transit, which is exactly what you're looking at Uh, so I think that's something to consider this appeal itself um Something that I have noticed about it is that there's one scientist involved In this zip code in this area It should be so easy to get 10 lined up in a heartbeat around an issue like this So that means something to me just as to right off the bat um And that's something that I hope that you would consider too We're we're surrounded with scientific institutions laboratories governmental agencies all engaged Environmental science or related activities Yet the appeal after so many years One scientist involved in my humble opinion from what I've seen and heard It seems overzealous about limited environmental impact And not appreciating the enormous benefits Um, and that's your job and I trust that you're going to do a good job of that There's always costs and that was that was in their president the appellant's presentation and I appreciated that They're absolutely right And of course your job is to weigh those against the benefits which are enormous And I trust that you'll do that finally since I still have some time social justice my god I mean as a teacher in Watsonville I know somebody said this isn't close to root one. They're not seeing the point It's someone else said a segment by segment We want to get to Watsonville those people are being punished in traffic Good afternoon, and it has been a long afternoon I know you can see from the pile of postcards from the petitions that have been delivered from the letters and emails You've received. This is a popular project Um, I know that a lot of people were coming here at about one o'clock this afternoon because they wanted to speak to this issue And they have not all been able to stay because this is you know gone a long day and um, it'll be even longer for you I'm so sorry But I'd like to take a moment to just ask the people in the audience who want to see this segment of the trail built And designed as and do that soon to please stand up If you're here to support the project Thank you it's You have a chance to approve a very popular project today And yeah, there is opposition and I believe they are sincere, but they are small in number and in this case I believe they are in error I think that this is a misuse of the environmental review process to delay this this this project And make it more expensive and basically destroy it and move it somewhere else And then it's not a rail trail anymore as mica pointed out You know other people have already pointed out that um this trail is not adjacent to neary lagoon at all It's adjacent to the sewage treatment plant There are acres of cement and equipment between the proposed trail and the lagoon and the plant is full of Activities and lights all the time any additional light or activity along the trail Will not be next to the lagoon and will be insignificant compared to the current level of disruption that that area has There's been a lot of environmental review already There's been a lot of accommodation to the concerns The appellants have really failed to present any evidence that putting a path on the far side of the sewage plant Is going to from is going to have any damage to the biology of the lagoon No additional substantial evidence has been presented the mitigated negative declaration is sufficient And I the a new eir is not required the appeal should be denied and I hope you will do that today. Thank you And you will be our last speaker Good afternoon scott graham. Um, here we are we've got another case of we must destroy the environment in order to save it Um The city has sidestepped the environmental impact report process By declaring that there is no unmitigatable Things in this project, but they're putting up this ugly Retaining wall Which I don't see that it's even necessary and they have to cut down a bunch of trees in order to do this To put this wall in Instead of rushing To do this project The way it is Let's take a step back And do the best possible project We don't need to rush into this and do a lousy project which will be a blight And just end up with this huge retaining wall which will be covered with graffiti in no time Why don't we do a project where we can Keep that hillside intact keep as many trees as possible intact not upset this wetland that's in there that area not cut down all these trees You know there's there oh, we're well We're going to save a bunch of trees and only cut down one in the in the grove where the butterflies go Well, why not we why don't we just make fake butterflies and have them fly around, you know I'm sure that's there's somebody building them somewhere already So I would encourage you To take a step back here and order an environmental impact report It would have been better if there was an environmental impact report for the entire segment All the way from Davenport to Watsonville so that you wouldn't have to go through this now But they decided to not do that originally And uh, so here we are Thank you Okay, so at this point, um, we'll go ahead and close public comment The appellants will now have uh five minutes to rebut and at this time, um, no new evidence can be presented Um before you start could I just ask one thing? We will be sharing the time. Could we just pause the clock while we change guard? Thank you Is and just a clarification ma'am. Uh, Watkins I know no new information But is it possible to respond to some of the comments that were raised that I'm seeing a had an eye for mercy the attorney. That's appropriate Thank you. Okay. Yes, um, I'm ready. Oh, it's started. Okay. Thank you First of all, we're not we're not Talking for the Sierra Club and the Sierra Club though does have a policy of protecting the environment I fully understand people's strong feelings and it's pretty easy to get postcard signed when it's I'm imagining It's the rail trail people are trying to derail it We're here because we are speaking on the side of we also have to protect the environment And in terms of getting this project done as soon as possible If that is the goal then it would be better for you in terms of timing to Ask for an EIR. The other process will be far longer. I just like to take an example of that The idea that the environment has been looked at The the biologists have said that the tree mitigation That we'll be planting saplings so that the carbon emissions issue has been mitigated Surely you don't even have to be a biologist or an expert to know that a mature tree sequesters carbon at a Huge amount compared to a sapling and people have estimated 90 to 1 So we are taking down 42 trees in this area 16 of them Heritage three times 16 does not equal these 16 trees This is not an urban area if you have walked it. It is an oasis within an urban area The neary lagoon is not the project site. The project site is the site you have walked And having a rail line that goes through an area doesn't mean that the animal stop on butterfly's stop on one side Is is contiguous the We are not saying don't build we are saying that We can build it right. We can provide a safe Alternative that doesn't involve beach here. We've already said that and I think the last thing I'd say is that I will pass it to my colleague go ahead. Yeah I realize I was quite breathless. We have a great deal shorter time than the proponents So I do apologize tearing. No, I apologize. It sounded like I thought you were required to tear you were not I would recommend that you did I'm there you are But it it was not required. It would have actually substantially improved your analysis had you tiered But that was not The the point the point is that the cumulative impacts were insufficiently Examined because you did not tear you chose not to riparian assessment good to know that you did not do What I had thought you had done It makes it actually unfortunately worse because that means that you've missed a big section of the riparian Impact, which is a shame 2.5 percent of the neary lagoon riparian area Because you have a large riparian area. It makes the percentage smaller, but that actually makes the The habitat more valuable. It's a bigger patch and so Increasing the edge and reducing the size of an important patch is more damaging than Then taking an isolated patch away similarly a small amount when you jump when a Bird jumps from patch to patch in urban area. It needs those refuges It needs those patches that it can get through an urban wasteland. So biologically ecologically the theory is out of date I respect the fellow who was concerned that I'm only one person. I'm one unpaid person everyone else around here I think is paid. I am also the only phd that I'm aware of I don't know it's possible that others have the experience I do I I want us to do any IR so we can get more analysis not that mine is adequate at all Similarly the alternatives bay and west cliff Is unsafe If we put our money into the alternative that actually went that direction and our engineering and our brain and our smarts We could improve the safety and I actually just rolled it with a friend of mine Who's in a wheelchair and she preferred to go The route that I have and I'd be very happy to share with the city that is 100 80 and a compliant the whole way so There are alternatives that have not been considered The alternatives that have been looked at internally have not been done publicly It's the whole purpose of this is to actually get the input and the disclosure. So The last thing the last two things I want to say social justice We're committed to ADA easy trail all the way to the beach flats both directions I'm very very those who know me very interested in social justice and Supporters two of my friends said, you know These people want me to sign this card and they wouldn't really tell me what it was about now I'm not saying anything, but it really a thousand cards Multiplied by by the information that you get about it. Thank you. Thank you Okay, I want to thank um the everybody who is here today to speak to the item The presentations on behalf of the appellants and on behalf of our staff At this point, we'll go ahead and return back to our council for deliberation in action And I'll go ahead and see if there's any questions amongst our council members. So we have uh Council member lever and then vice mayor Cummings and then council member frown Thank you. Um, just wondering can I have one of those green postcards I'm trying to remember what's on them As to review that do you want to ask any additional questions? Um, yeah, so there's a lot Of content here, especially hearing from both the city staff the environmental researcher as well as the Appellants with regards to this section. I think there's Some very similar values as was mentioned by The appellants, but also an interesting conversation around The weight of immediate transportation relief to making sure that we're protecting the environment as sufficiently as we can The topic of carbon Sequestration with trees came up a couple of times and I was just curious with that three to one replacement Because I went and walked the segment just so people are aware I went and got a chance to walk through it look at all the trees and some of the suggested Spacing so I'm just curious because I noticed that there were trees there that were At least 50 maybe 100 years old that were growing along the rail corridor that were old oaks and stuff like that I believe so with the The heritage tree so with those Suggested replacement Trees are they going to adequately live up to the carbon sequestration of the trees that are slated or Slated to be removed and then if not how long is it estimated for it to take for them to reach That goal of carbon sequestration to match the existing vegetation that's there right now Um, the trees are two for ones are 24 inch box trees. So they're not you know the smaller Smaller trees, but I don't know that calculation. I've never seen it Okay, maybe the Researcher because it's rather it's rather relevant. I mean if we're talking about removing 42 trees 16 Or whatever 12 or heritage and we're replacing them on a three to one or two to one scale and some other location But they're going to be saplings or box trees that Significantly reduces the amount of carbon that they're able to take in and has there been calculations on that there has not been calculations on carbon sequestration typically Um In terms of what I've done on environmental documents. It's a qualitative analysis Um, it's considering all components of the project fact that this is going to reduce VMT This is going to reduce car trips. It's it's supported by the climate action plan Um, so that's just one component of of the of our analysis, but it's a qualitative analysis. Okay, um I appreciate that it is unfortunate To not have that data in front of us because I think we could make a really More informed decision if we had calculated that With the trees since we're on that topic when I went there I noticed that there were a ton of birds In the canopies of those trees of a big variety of them So cutting down those larger heritage trees or the willows that are sources of food as well as habitats for birds and other kinds of species With the relocation of smaller three-to-one willow trees. How long are we anticipating to see a Rejuvenation of that quality canopy that exists there right now. Um, I could I would have to check our Um mitigation plan to answer that question so I could I can try to get to that Um, I would have to get my computer though and and and pick that up. Okay. Okay. Should I do that? Yeah Okay, um, thank you as a point of clarification though not all trees are being removed. I know. Yeah. No, it's 40 46 42. How many? 42 so a considerable amount and then 16 are heritage trees. That's right Yeah, so 42 trees and 16 is heritage trees. That is a huge impact on canopy and wildlife Um, I also really appreciate the outreach work done by the group that did these green cards I know I'm a me organizer so I know how much work that takes in collecting signatures and talking with people But I don't notice anywhere on here that it mentions issues of environmental destruction or concerns about Environmental safety So I'm just curious if there's anyone from this group that collected them that could come and explain Why it's not included on here if it's a specific issue with the trail and Um Also how it's relevant. I'm just gonna go ahead and interrupt here that will that is not the Proper process for this type of of proceeding And so if you want to ask them offline in terms of any information for further clarification You're welcome to do so but at this time we won't be inviting anybody up to do that We've heard from the community. We've heard from the appellants We've heard from the staff so at this point in the public hearing it would not be appropriate to invite them up Okay, well then in that case I will just point out to my colleagues that there's nothing on this Letter of endorsement that talks about anything having to do with environment or environmental protection So just something that's something to be thinking about And let's see Oh, so the question about the mitigation solution is not being reviewed publicly Can we speak to that and have the mitigation? solutions And or alternative options been reviewed publicly with public input because the appellant said that it had not I can answer that question. Um, so I think what you're referring to is the alternatives. Yes, you are. Okay, so under sequa An initial study mitigated neglect recreation does not require an alternatives analysis and EIR does And so what we've referred to as The alternatives that have been considered have been documented in the correspondence with The coastal commission as well as the cr club. So, um in terms of it being a public process That isn't it isn't in the ism and d but that's because it isn't a required Thing in the ism and d. Okay. And so just to clarify. So i'm on the same page I just wanted to add to that is that the alternatives that staff have reviewed as part of the process Moving the trail to the other side of the track etc all the ones that mike and i had noted Have been in all the staff reports that have gone to the commissions and the council To date. So they've been part of the public process. Great. Um, My main concern though is for people that don't visit or go to planning commission meetings or review agenda packets And that are involved in community that may or may not be aware of the situations that are going on As you can tell i'm a big supporter of the environment, but i'm also a big supporter of alternate forms of transportation So this is a really tough situation To be in and I was just curious the appellant also mentioned that if we Order the eir it will be a shorter process than the alternate. Can you clarify what they're talking about? I think that's based on the assumption that by ordering the eir you would foreclose or eliminate the possibility of A legal challenge to the adequacy of the eir or of an appeal to the coastal commission, but neither of those are um a given and so If it were to circumvent Someone deciding to file an appeal um Then that might result in a shorter process But but it could still be appealed to the coastal commission after you Circulated and certified an environmental impact report or it could still be challenged in a in a sequa lawsuit And do you have an estimated timeline or city cost that would be incurred by that process if you just had to estimate from your experience um Whatever the timeline is it's longer than what I would estimate It's several months and in the six figures. Okay, so again just to bring it back to my colleagues So it's really i'm really In a hard spot with this one because I want to move the rail trail forward as quickly as possible But I don't want to cost us more money, but I want to protect the environment So it's thank you for answering the questions everyone. Um really really hard one Okay, uh, we have more questions for clarification I'll just sort of remind an orient art council to where we are in today's agenda We have a budget item to follow this item in addition to some uh public Uh consent public hearing items and then as you know, we have a big item before us in the evening So if um your questions are sort of uh oriented around what it would take in terms of information to make a decision in this regard I think for the purposes of being able to adequately address all the other items I'd go ahead and request that so we'll go ahead and start with council member brown vice mayor Cummings and then council member mires So I just want to make a quick comment appreciating all of the work that's gone into making this happen from The 1980s forward and thank you to people who have come out and and put a lot of time into Supporting the trail trail and the appellants as well for being really thorough in The review their review process and I think that the comments that have been made have made this project a better project In terms of the mitigations that we've been able to Get into the mitigated negative deck that is proposed So We've heard a lot about support for the trail trails, you know support support the trail only So, you know, but that's not really what we're here to consider today. Our primary responsibility Is about whether the project um that kind of the narrow questions about whether a fair argument can be made that there's Um likely to be significant or substantial impact and whether adequate alternatives are available and have been considered so um with respect to that I have um a question about the um I guess I'm I'm still not clear In terms of the mitigations that and I've read the the the document the r.t.c.'s program Environmental impact report and it sounds like there may be some mitigations in there that haven't been considered here in the negative deck that could Be could make the project a better project. I Can't figure out from I couldn't figure out where to find those because it's a it's an overall program EIR and so I couldn't discern because I'm not an expert which mitigations might be Make this a more environmentally friendly project So if we could get some clarification about that, I mean I I know that this is not a time to ask questions of but the appellants could try to Either answer that here or Perhaps be willing to to talk about that with our staff in the future. That would be really great um and then um, I Would just like to get a little clarification on the grading issue for the spawn street versus the um, the the rail corridor the rail trail corridor because I've seemed I've been hearing different Opinions about the ad a question. So I just want to get clarification on that um And I think that's All I've got in terms of questions In response to those two questions. So we're not a we don't understand what the alternative is that um, the appellant was referring to all the alternatives we've looked at You know that are off-route require going down the beach hill. There's it's not accessible Um providing getting enough right away to make an accessible would be buying private Property like the dream in or some of the other things like that to make it work with bigger ramps, etc and higher costs In reviewing the the master plan eir This product the mitigation measures before you are more site specific than those and those are bigger pictures So I think we're really addressing them. I don't know what else we could add that are in the master plan eir so Well, I guess since there are others who have a perspective on this Are the is any but anybody here wanting to suggest additional mitigations that might be considered as perhaps a way to move us forward More quickly. I'm just wondering if that's I'm not sure if I'm understanding. Are you asking this? Well, I'm just the appellants have said that they're Additionally there potentially are additional mitigations and I'm just trying to clarify is the only mitigation that the appellants What want to consider an alternative route? Or might there be mitigations along this corridor that could be considered? Yeah Okay, so we'll go ahead and maybe if you briefly have a response to that. We'll go ahead and give you I mean very brief Um into in terms of clarification I don't know if you really if you want to get specific to the question that you have before Well, I just if there I'm just trying to find a way to To address some of the concerns being That have brought to us without Further delaying the project. I'm just trying to see if there's a way we can move this forward And so the question before the appellant is what they're suggesting in terms of addressing those specifically. Yeah Yeah, okay, that's I'm not clear about that because like Mr. Schneider said the the master plan eir speaks to the entire rail trail not this particular segment So yes, I'll go ahead and maybe just one second I'll go ahead and have you respond, but I'll just um, maybe just orient us again back to the process the appellants had I'm just going to go ahead and orient us back to the process The appellants had 15 minutes to make their case in that regard five minutes of rebuttal And so to invite them back up I think is not necessarily common practice But the city attorney says that's possible if you want to just maybe briefly have one minute to clarify Anything very specific but the specific answer in that regard. I'm sorry. Excuse me. Mayor Watkins. Um the the the The eir mitigation I was alluding to is mitigation b b-2 parentheses b wetland and riparian habitat restoration impacts for jurisdictional Sorry, thank you impacts to jurisdictional wetland and riparian habitat shall be mitigated at a ratio of minimum Two to one for each segment and now this is not the same as willows individual willows Remember a whole thicket of willows is one tree. So Three trees is not a wetland Ratio, but wetland Mitigation All restoration compensatory mitigation areas shall be permanently protected through a conservation easement or deed restriction As and it shall occur as close to the impacted habitat as possible. So that's from the feir that wasn't used So that was the answer next question. Okay. Thank you. And then the other thing is if you turn the screen on I um, I did provide a Picture of the alternative. Okay Okay, sure. Okay Okay, so while that screen turned on you can review that we'll go ahead and have vice mayor come in So my next question is um What is the current vegetation management along the trail? I would imagine that because we have trains going through there on occasion that there's likely to be some form of vegetation management Um, yeah, that's the responsibility of the regional transportation commission that owns the right away And so they do some brush removal and maintenance the cities helped with the trash cleanup and things like that And then the other question I know that there was a mention of 42 trees and there's the 16 heritage trees that are going to be replaced at 2 to 1 ratio Is there any potential for the other trees to also be replaced maybe one for one? um, there is always that if you wanted to Requires that a condition. It's not part of the environmental mitigation, but as a condition for the project that's possible There's the associated cost and finding the location of what those Trees can be tricky because the ride away the rail rideways constrained, but there are other areas within the city That's possible to replant Okay, I just like to make a statement. Um, so One of the things that I've seen from this and I it's a difficult Topic to make a decision on because on one hand you have the potential Impacts on the biological species that occur along that trail In addition to that you have the benefits the environmental benefits from getting people out of cars and getting people on to Alternative forms of transportation in this case Getting them on to bikes and also the benefits the community benefits that come from rather than having people bike in the street Or um, you know, if they're a wheelchair bound Riding in the street that you have a safe secure path for people to actually use From a biological perspective, I mean this is more of a degraded habitat within our Within all the green spaces that we have access to It's currently very underutilized and I feel like this trail would be a very good way to access the space Um, the staff has done a great job with working with community members to increase the mitigations And um, I feel like it would be great if we can add some other conditions and we make our decisions. So, um I personally think that this is a really great project and given the Costs benefits and weighing the costs and benefits to having the trail I actually would be fine making a motion to accept the staff recommendation to deny to deny the appeal at this point in time I'll go ahead. Okay. Well, we have a motion by vice mayor Cummings is seconded by council member Matthews Was there any further comments? I've okay Your comments have been made. Okay. Interesting time. Okay. Okay. So, um council member Glover any Yeah, thank you. Um, so Vice mayor Cummings with that motion you had mentioned And it was confirmed by the staff that there would have to be specific direction for one to one replacement of the trees So are you got would you include that in your motion that we would make that effort not not make the effort But make the dedication to replace one for one for every tree that is outside of the Two for one and three for one designations of willows and heritage trees Great And Since I think I'm still not entirely clear but I did read And sir in response to dr. O'Malley's response that it's there is some Reference to that in the appeal on page 11. So but I'm still not entirely clear what it is Would you be willing to include? I don't know if it would be a condition or exactly what we would call it but um that direct our staff to have a continuing conversation with the appellants to try to Work with them to see if there are other mitigations that that might be acceptable or supported And I'd also say that includes the wetland mitigations So that's a friendly amendment accepted If we could phrase it that there be An ongoing discussion as the project moves forward for Further improvements that could be the appellants. It could be community members. Yeah, I wouldn't want to deny It's not a legal requirement, but it's okay. We'll go ahead and I'll go ahead and restate that So we have a motion by vice mayor Cummings to accept The staff recommendation to deny the appeal to condition it with having a one for one Or pardon me. What was the specifics of the tree one from one for all trees that aren't heritage trees one from one for all trees that are not heritage Or willows or willows and then to incorporate within the motion a Opportunity for ongoing conversation between staff as well as the appellants or other community members to continually look for ways to mitigate any environmental impacts. Is that adequately or appropriately I say direction to staff to communicate with the appellants and Allow the for other community input You know, we've now had about four versions of language and this will not be news to anyone I like to be clear what the language is. Do you want as the seconder of the motion with difference? Yeah That we give direction for staff to continue discussion With appellants and any interest to community managers on further improvements To the project as the plans move forward Is that accepted by the maker of the motion? And there's one point of clarification that I just Want to say is also with the one-to-one replacement that we do not replace any invasive species period We'll go ahead and okay comes from Matthews You know, I haven't looked at all those trees. Are they acacias? Are they, you know, that's my guess is a lot of them are invasive In and of themselves So, you know, I'm being generous. I think the one-to-one replacement for non-heritage trees is Probably overreaching. I'm willing to go along with it. Um, I leave it to our arborist to Um, determine appropriate places within our whole city Limits to to make good choices on that Oh, if you know, if it's 16 heritage and do the math whatever is left over on one-to-one That's an acceptable way to move forward to me Okay, let's leave it. Okay. Yeah, okay. So all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously We'll go ahead and take a two-minute break while we change Bring us back to our city council meeting I would like to reorder our, uh, agenda here. We're going to go ahead and Just temporarily pause the next side in which we'll we anticipate having a longer conversation on And move forward with our consent public hearing and our consent public hearing are items 28 through 32 on our agenda uh, I uh My understanding is that there aren't any council members interested in polling any of those items at this time And so um in that regard we'll go ahead and see if there's any member of the community that wanted to address this on any item 28 through 32 I think seeing none We're going to go ahead and bring it back to the council for action Is there a motion to move the consent public hearing? Okay, I think it was a motion by council member Matthews Okay, we'll do second by vice mayor Cummings. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously So we're able to now go back to item number 27 on our agenda item number 27 are in on our agenda Is our budget and I will go ahead and turn it over to Marcus and Tracy to give us a staff report Good afternoon council members mayor We have a brief presentation because this is our Third in-depth opportunity. We've received very clear direction on may 8th More direction on may 28th, and we ended in the may 28th meeting very close, but still with a small A balance to fully fund our next year's general fund budget The rest of the city's budget is still doing relatively well So what we're focused today on is just that small delta for our general fund budget to finish that And if you'll allow us we'll go through our presentation and where we really would like to finish up is in Your direction on our live model on all the outstanding items What I handed out in front of you is a two page summary of all the outstanding items to confirm Page one and page two and that's where we really want to get your direction And a lot of this was summarized in the staff report and all the attachments But we try to distill down to two pages that really the the key outstanding items that we can focus on So we've seen this slide before but it's with repeating ongoing projected shortfalls exist in the out years Solving this year's deficit will decrease future deficits Um deficits are projected into the mid 2020s and we should plan for surpluses to build up against a slow slowdown You've seen these charts before this we're just doing a few quick three slides of overview This is the projection of where our cash balances went end up Within our general fund are available reserves So that's our 10 percent general fund reserve and our city public trust and economic development trust We are projected to fall short When we when we finish the audit this year Possibly as high as 3.7 million dollars, which might require us would require us to come back to council And indicate which trusts to defund to cure our deficit deficit or 10 percent reserve This will be a conversation we have In the fall it really is contingent on there's a lot of cost to firm up Especially with the priority to unsheltered services And how much we're going to reimburse so there's still some work to do there to fine tune that number Just our order magnitude is we have some work now to make sure our reserves and trusts are where they need to be And we have concerns going out ahead with projected deficits that tracy just Recapped we have challenges coming ahead Much of which again isn't are doing this is a state wide countrywide issue With regard to lack of funding for infrastructure Loss of revenue and tax basis shrinking for us and many other states increases in pension Payments to the state to backfill their portfolio shortfalls a lot of those things. We don't necessarily have control over So we're we're concerned about what's coming ahead And that's where we're taking aggressive action now And we've continued to take aggressive action to not let that happen But it is getting closer. We're In a potential model In 2022 all our reserves would be depleted and that's we do not want to end up there And that's we're desperately inquisitively trying to avoid So these are the deferred items that were discussed on the may 28th budget hearing Council decided to defer these items and not include them in the budget solution packages These are still in the budget No community group reductions were taken no open street reductions And there was an increase in parking permits and meters that I believe you guys saw earlier today I mean you just want to reiterate there are no proposed community group reductions and There's no reductions currently for open streets. It's as funded as it was entering this budget process There was a discussion about it and it was it was deferred. So there's no Changes on that. I know there's been a lot of public concern about that particular item It's where we do need action today and we'll we'll get to the live models Kind of two budget those first two items are specific to the budget items three and four house cleaning sort of Item one is approving essentially the budget is scheduled changes that you have in front of you and item two is since A portion of our budget impact will be determined later this evening is to allow identifying some contingent budget solutions dependent on how much the rental housing task force would be funded from zero to two hundred fifty thousand dollars We were asking for the direction now so that we can Essentially move forward with an adopted budget contingent on what happens later tonight, and we'd already have that direction decided So that's option two. It's a little atypical for us to do this, but since it's just a few hours away I think this feels like a reasonable alternative option three is just affirming the water commission's recommendations regarding the water department's budget and option four is An amendment to our risk policy that helps fund 450 thousand dollar solutions for this fiscal year So it's tied to the budget's action But those are the four motions we're looking for today And we've be effectively done with the budget process. I'd like you to move on with bigger better things We don't need you to read pull out the magnifying glass to read this It's in front of you on the handout and we'll have the live model up with a clearer view But essentially you've seen the schedule before this is the about it was 2.26 million dollars before of the changes since we proposed the budget and that's created a lot of our Necessities to adopt budget solutions The number we've decreased the number to 2.09 million that's by starting with a premise of unfunding the council assistance We recognize that that'll be discussed but under this model that got us to a budget balance play So where we're at now is still adding 2.09 million in new additions Those additions are listed here. They're the same additions you've seen in the past except for the council assistance and they're on the handout in front of you Included in our solutions are 711 thousand dollars of new solutions that were identified in the staff report The biggest one is omitting our risk policy to essentially create a deductible program in place So if there are any claims by the general fund or any other operations Those operations would only be exposed to Most cases at 10 of the claim liability and the rest is picked up by insurance fund It's really a financing mechanism that the all the The general fund the police department the water department the garbage fund They would all pay it back over time, but essentially in year one they'd be limited to the only 10 percent of the claim amount We have the Taking we took out the 250,000 dollars again recognizing that that will be discussed later tonight and we have a contingency for that 63,000 you already approved earlier today for the parking permit fee increases We have a balance to restore the it help desk of 12 000 dollars to add back to the budget and 30 000 dollars to reduce engineering services and restore meter hood replacements these were on the fringes items that were Modest in their ability, but could have some good impact. So we got to a net 711 thousand dollars of solutions We had to factor in our asa joint powers or animal services authority joint powers Authority increased their budget by for us 23.3 23,300 so we have to reflect that That just summarizes This is the delta big it is balanced with all these actions we Would be balanced the second motion related to the Rental housing task force. So we've recommended bringing back some things that were deferred As a contingent option so to the extent that up to 250,000 dollars might be approved later this evening These would be the probably the priority order of how we would fund the 250,000 dollars Starting essentially with 30,000 and the 10,000 I just talked about from public works We'd bring back those 40,000 in reductions We'd go back to the parking permit program that you just approved early this morning or this afternoon And possibly consider increases there, but we also have parking meter rates to look at one of those two could be a 17,000 dollar increase delta We're also recommending to bring back Some items that were deferred Items related to facility repairs about 60,000 dollars. These are generic repairs placeholders for city general fund facilities across And there's 30,000 was placeholder for vegetation management that was we'd have to come back to council if there became a need We wouldn't ignore it, but we would just eliminate that flexibility We'd bridge any gap by What is ending up right now about 103,000 dollars of extra budget available? So that would get us to 250. This would be motion to pre authorize us to implement these actions Again kind of dependent on what the number is agreed upon later this evening And I could pause there if that makes any sense. We haven't done this a lot. I just want to make sure that made some sense Maybe I'll just say for clarity. My understanding is that you are sort of presenting before us two budget options One of which we if we were to adopt both this is my understanding is no matter what happens This evening there will be a budget to reflect that and so what this this budget option that we would potentially adopt incorporates the 250,000 that could be allocated to the rental housing task force and these would be the Elements that would be used to offset that cost. Does that accurately reflect that? Okay My one question What's shown as Alt e2 Increase the residential and guest parking permits. We just did that so we would go back for an additional increase Or look at there's still the parking meters to be considered in the beach area. One of those two could come back Okay, as a change further increases Is the intention to go through this list? Yes, so what I just want to recap is the outstanding motions and then we'll go right to the live model Which is you've got a hard copy of it and we've got the model up Again, we're looking for essentially there's three parts to adopt a balanced budget Approving the one two point oh nine million dollars in additions The seven hundred eleven thousand dollars of solutions and the a say member contribution increase that would essentially give us a balanced budget We asked for the authority to give us the contingent authority To balance anything that might be done later tonight with the rental housing task force and that would cover our grounds So we'd be effectively done with the budget with these actions and then items three and four house cleaning to help with the budget process That's the end of our presentation and if there's a pause to just make sure there are any questions on this otherwise We'd be happy to jump right into the model. Okay I'm wondering if we want to see if there's any questions for clarity at this time Maybe go ahead and open it up to the community if there's any public input and then return back for Our work on the model. Does that seem appropriate? Okay. Any questions councilman? Yeah, this is just a clarity one so on the rental housing task force the way it shows on this form that you've given us It's c Or So in a motion we would adopt a C for a which is sustaining The rental housing task force with additional actions and a c for b Without it Or would we adopt A whole second motion How do you just i'm just trying to We just thought for clarity we do it as a second motion. Okay. Got it two parts two motions. Okay Any additional questions for clarification at this time councilmember Just wondering if you're if you have the woman self-defense program in there and where is that Yeah, it's listed in the in there are 2.9 million dollars of additions The right there can show me or It's the cpva w That's in our adopted. That's yeah, there's there was I was confusing Is this something that the cpva w they already act on that and they approved it or Their budget is already included in the proposed budget. There was no changes to their funding level And I don't believe there's been any do they not decide how they spend their budget or We grant the authority and then they determine how it's spent Right, but so this is an imposition though We were said what you were telling them to fund this or they chose to fund this What are you pointing to this? I'm missing the point. I'm sorry. I'm just I'm not cpva w They made a decision to fund this woman's self-defense program Do you see a women's self-defense program? Is that are you specifically finding something in the documents in regards to that? Are you I'm asking this question. Um, just does Because it's never been clear to me how this it's going to be funded Um, well, I'll go ahead and maybe just uh, generally the way it works is a The council adopts a budget that includes funding for the commission and then the commission Works to develop their programming and the the self-defense funding is something they've traditionally funded Although I think they were looking at it and I can I can find out specifically but But it is ultimately up to the commission to decide what to do and to Recommend to the council. It does come back to you. For example, if they have to be agreements I have to be approved and that sort of thing I mean because originally this was part of our budget here I'd like to put it back in because it just it was never removed the 20 000 There was never a reduction in their funding, but it's not it's still not clear It's not clear about the cpva w they run their own budget. They didn't approve it right now They didn't and then they've been cutting it back and they've been you know doing different things with it I just want to make sure it gets funded if I could just for clarification It's my understanding is that the cpva w is allocated a certain amount of funding per year Which we will approve that isn't changing or going down at this decision The process has been that they've had the discretion to To allocate their dollars as they'd like to you know as they see appropriate or fit And so I think maybe the the other question at a future time could be That a sort of an examination of that process But in terms of their funding level that will maintain the same for them to continue to do their work as they see fit Correct Council member brown I mean I think what council member crone is getting at and if he's not then I will that that I think that The count there I would like to see if there is a council majority support to direct that that 20 000 dollars be used for women's self defense Because I'm concerned Every year this keeps coming up that the cpva w may decide they're going to do something different And I understand there are all kinds of wonderful things that that funding could be used for But this is a priority. It has been a priority of the city for decades And I would like it to continue to be a priority And it's a longer term longer discussion about how that might what the term process is for Determining who gets it and exactly what it's used for but I want to clarify and confirm that it is for a women's self defense program That that particular portion of the cpva w budget or bring it back into the city manager's um department budget I appreciate the clarity and I think that's certainly within the council's Authority you can make that as part of your motion to specify and make that a restricted allocation We'd be happy to set up a project for it and make sure it's spent In that line. Thank you The other question I had was about I was misunderstanding though. Is there anybody here to talk about the heritage tree fund? And whether that money is spent or not? Tony's here from perks My question is um We allocated doubling it. This is a recommendation on the part of the parks and rec commission and um Does that money get spent and is there a need for more and if there isn't why would the parks and rec commission have recommended this? That's a good question. So over the so tony elli parks and rec creation department over the past three years the first question in terms of what we've expended This year we will spend 24,365 2017 or i'm sorry 2017 2018 We spent just over the budgeted amount 26,348 the year prior to that 23,698 um, I think parks and recreation commission uh recommended this one really I think um Frankly and kind of a symbolic way I think to invest in our in our urban tree canopy to some degree We have not felt the demand necessarily From the community in other words. We haven't received a number of applications and people saying we need more funds. We need more more resources To be fair though with that we've not advertised this program. So we don't really broadly Advertise this to the community. So I think in terms of additional funding We could certainly Certainly use additional funds We've talked internally that those funds could be used as well for for education On urban tree canopy and and just as well as granting Or increasing the grant amount by 25 000 but Hopefully to answer your question. I share the numbers that we've spent over the past three years But we haven't felt that that demand or heard from the community necessarily that hey, we need more grant funding so it really a decision for the council on To increase that or not, but we're we would support it certainly But just to be very honest. We haven't felt that demand necessarily Thank you. When it's appropriate. I would make a motion to restore the council assistance and the um Women's self-defense as well as the heritage tree fund or to go to the route that council member brown said that we designate money from the cpvaw Before we do that, we'll go ahead and maybe see if there's any member of the community that wants to address the council On this item. We are now addressing item number 27 on our agenda. That's our fiscal year 2020 proposed budget adoption If you're interested in speaking to us on this item, please come to my left and come before me and you'll have up to two Two minutes. Is there others that are interested in speaking to us on this item? Okay. Okay All right, so I've been here all afternoon waiting for the budget A lot of important issues came up and it was very interesting What I don't understand is On the resolution on the fiscal year budget. Is this just for the general plan or does it also include the capital improvements budget? We'll go ahead and pause the time. We'll take note of your questions during your time and then if we have a response We'll go answer. Okay. Yeah. Well, um, if it does include the cpi budget We do have some requests for items to be cut And these are items that um, I sent an email about this and these are items that would um encourage more car traffic and more carbon emissions and we spent a lot of time talking about Having more trees, but if we have less cars, you know, it's just it's all part of the mix But it's very important that we get the message out that we are a city that wants to start Getting people out of their cars and we don't want to build to accommodate more cars and there are items Very expensive items on this budget that um will Take money from what we really need to be doing to Expand for cars. So I do Do hope that you will Make an amendment to this if it has to do with of cip's and Say that they need to come back with some cuts that show that they are aligned with climate Emergency, thank you Good afternoon. My name is Alma Molina. I'm with meals on wheels. I'm the assistant director of the program a program of community bridges I'm here with a lovely note from our seniors at the laudan center Um asking for your support uh to to support the program meals on wheels. Thank you. Thank you Good evening scott ram some of my recommendations for Budget cuts would be to take the garage out of the budget for now Because as we have heard it's probably going to be unnecessary in the future and why pay for something for 30 years if it's going to be redundant or Unnecessary 10 years from now Take out the funding and support for highway bridge over san lorenzo um No highway one and highway nine expansion An institute a buy only electric car policy for the city And a policy to get to zero emissions by 2025 Already talked about the women's self defense project 20 k project connect Uh meals on wheels These are all things that should be added to the budget. I should say uh janice tenant legal services heritage tree fund and the council member assistance fund So it would be nice if the council members had people helping them Like they do in the county Probably not at the same level that the county has assistance, but uh Anyway, I know this is a tough job and anything we can do to make it better You know make it easier on the council members. Um the library garage project should be uh put on hold until There's some public hearings after the uh three Council members get done doing their research on this whole thing Thank you I can say good evening now because i've been here through the afternoon My name is jena kohl and i'm representing bike santa cruz county. I'm asking you to consider fully funding our Our open street santa cruz It's a it's I think on our fifth year That will be our fifth year in october It's a very well attended event it talks about Oliver and and reinforces all the things that people have talked about already with In response to climate change it encourages folks to ride their bikes in a car-free environment It has become a really great resource fair for local agencies to participate in and It brings an element of fun along with education To the city We just finished open streets watsonville. We had 96 percent Of folks that came said that they would do it again We're working So hard to be able to continue that kind of event in in santa cruz Other communities have done it santo's or sorry selenus has ciclovia, which is another really really popular event If we're looking outside of the u.s there I think it's keto That shuts down freeways Every sunday for the afternoon so that folks can get out and experience that Car-free Kind of pop-up recreation Event so again, I would encourage you to continue funding this event As it benefits the whole community. Thank you Okay, so I um I will go ahead and bring it back now to council Deliberation and action um marcus, i'm wondering if we want to go ahead and take care of items three and four if there's not any further kind of Discussion or a detailed discussion in regards to those items and then we can revisit items one and two does that feel okay? Okay, I'll look for a motion there. I'll go ahead and move item number three and number four Okay, that's uh motion by council member meyer seconded by council member brown all those in favor. Please say aye Aye any opposed Okay, that passes unanimously. Could you want to walk us then through? Motion number one Our scenario number one So essentially as The handout shows you on page one. We have 2.09 million dollars of additions It's the same list you've seen before except for the council assistance For the items have already been flagged as directions are already been provided. So we've already got four of the motions approved so Able for questions or motions in total and we've got this all at this level It's all factored into our adopted budget. Okay, so maybe um what would expedite the conversation is if there are any of the subcategories within this proposal that the council wants to address That we can go ahead and remove those move the remainder and have to further discussion at that time Does that feel appropriate? Okay, given the list before us and the list on the handout that we received I can get that out Which items would you like further discussion around in terms of scenario number one council member brown? I'll actually have a question because i'm looking at the The list and foster grandparent is not on there. It was on the list that I initially gave by council colleagues and the staff and I believe it went up on the budget solutions into the Um the spreadsheet on that first day. So i'm not sure why it's not there now. That was $5,000 Um for a foster grandparent. Okay with a nine to one match I will remind everybody nine to one match that they get from other funders I don't I don't think that's a controversial item. I have my understanding. It's good Councilor rafious. Is that already partially funded through? I think it was a set-aside fund that is now at spider No, and so I think if but I do recall that and um, we'll go ahead Maybe if we could add it as maybe c18 Unless anybody wants to pull that We'll just go ahead and incorporate it into the maybe consent package. I was okay. So another comment. Um, it's We're not making real progress here, but um, uh, the I that was um I propose but I wasn't gonna do it without putting it before my council colleagues because we all saw it in the first place the um the funding for janice, which is really um was kind of a Symbolic support for them. Um, I think that there's a longer term conversation that we need to have about funding for Substance of use programming and janice in particular and save that for another time. So we can trade those and Again, not much progress, but there we are. Okay. So maybe before that's okay with again I want to see how that feels for so maybe I think if I could um since maybe council around you have the floor And then we'll move over to council member matthews. Are there any of the subcategories that you are proposing be pulled for further discussion? Are you uh within this package? Feeling supportive at this time Okay, council member matthews I have a couple that I would like to pull for further discussion and I would like to add for discussion Um, uh reinstating funding for first alarm for targeted neighborhood Intervention we have had a lot of correspondence and distress Since our initial action And I do think there's significant value to having some funds. They're not Probably at the level that they've been allocated in the past, but to my mind there's real value for Having some funds available to allocate as needed. So I would like to Put a line item and come back to what? What we might Allocate to that. So I guess that would be yeah, I think that that's an ad is are you comfortable with the package then as presented? No, I would like to Re-look at the additional 30 000 for tenant legal servants legal services Um, uh, I Was um, I accepted the increase in our initial initial budget discussion to 30 000 to my mind. This is a still a pilot Program and I'm not comfortable with that. So I'd like to re-examine c-11 um, I would also like to Re-examine the heritage tree Allocation for 25 So I'd like to pull those two for further discussion. Um, I'm a huge lover of trees, but we've heard testimony that There's not been a high demand for this and this is a year when we have to make some tough decisions So we have um c-11 pulled c-13 pulled and then we also have the addition as c-18 foster grandparent at 5 000 And um, and first alarm as a pending additional line item and then Possibly pulling janice correct. I think it was the state. Oh, did you want to pull janice? I was just suggesting that we trade I mean, I don't mean to trade foster grandparent for janice, but um, because the the janice allocation was really a symbolic gesture of support That we are most likely going to be making in other ways Um, and that's a longer term funding conversation And if I if I could add to that in with previous discussions between the two of us That's not buying us any services or anything. It was truly symbolic. So I'm comfortable making that switch out Okay, so now janice will become okay. You already did it. Oh, no, you didn't do it That'll be the foster grandparent match at 5 000 Okay, sorry. I misunderstood. Okay Okay, are there any additional polls uh vice mayor coming? Not from this. I actually had a question. Um, well, I'll I'll get through the polls first and I'd like to revisit an item around vehicle purchases for the potential of of Making back about 66 000 dollars. Okay, so we'll go ahead and um, see if there's any additional Uh items to be pulled at this time Council member mires and then councilman crumb. Um, yeah, I'd like to talk about c7. I mostly information um with the note there About long meetings. So I just want to understand if We can Contain ourselves. Maybe save some money. I don't know Um, should I ask that now or you want to come back? Maybe we'll come back. Yeah, we'll come back. Yeah Any other ones have been pulled the other ones have been pulled councilor coon It's I mean just well, I guess we'll talk about the heritage tree. Um I would like to put that the c10 back in there For is that what you're asking for? I think if you want to pull it we can have to further discussion about it So we'll go ahead and pull that and then we'll move all the other items And then we'll revisit them one by one and get consensus for the majority of the council on those that's sort of the process Correct me if I'm wrong. Um, the person at the podium brought up the thing about the um, cip and uh, we never actually did talk about the cip this year That I can recall. I mean maybe I missed that one But we were going to and then we just kind of kind of dropped off All the all the departments the various departments presented, but we never got into the cip Yeah, I mean it was included in their departmental presentations. Um, it is part of the whole budget We don't end up spending a lot of time in a lot of the operations. Um, but certainly the whole budget includes that and if there's certain Projects you want to talk about or table or yeah, I would want to talk about some projects when it's when it's the right time Um, maybe we could do that after we go ahead and get through these and see if there's any additionals Okay, any other items to be pulled it comes over my ears. I just have an item to add I'd like to revisit, um Open streets once we've kind of gotten through some of the other items Okay Okay So we um at this time have c7 which is the community tv contract increase we have the Further discussion on c10 the assistance The contract with tenant legal services c11 C13 further discussion around the heritage tree We swapped jannis for the foster grandparents and we will have further conversation around Open streets first alarm potentially The women's self-defense and I believe any other cip questions. Is that correct? That's from Matthews On the women's self-defense I Which is really cpva w budget? Um, my understanding it's not about the amount It's how the money is spent. Okay, and that to me is a different question than Amounts of money. Okay, we'll go ahead and table that for that for this for at this moment. Okay Okay, so we'll go ahead and table that at this moment. Okay, so all those in favor of the other Proposed recommendations, please say oh wait. No, wait. Sorry. Is there a motion? I'll move. I'll move the the remaining items Thank you. Okay. I'll go ahead. Okay. We have a vice mayor second Those items are so that's items one through six. That's not including a c7 items eight Eight eight and nine and there are various sub sections That's including item c12 item c14 through 17 As well with 18 And 19 additions. I'm sorry with 18 and 19 additions. Let's see 16 is um out, right? C16 is out. Yes This would be the one that includes the rental housing task force or does this is this the rental housing housing task force is c4 That would be included in that would be included. Okay. Okay. Council member clever. Thanks. I just want to say something on the Janus Change out because while I understand that the $5,400 was purely symbolic in nature Some could argue that $5,400 is a couple months of pay for someone or you know, and as we heard from mr. Escalante Earlier this afternoon one of the criticisms that he had of the city was that we haven't given anything to Janus as far as a supportive monetary So if we're going to be having that conversation on the 25th, and we're going to be Encouraging Janus to be paying higher wages And we're going to be ideally taking more of a proactive role in figuring out maximizing mental health and substance use disorder services it seems unfortunate to remove that $5,400 from the budget just Because and then You know so I would much rather figure out where we can get another $5,000 from somewhere else And include that in the foster grandparents and the janus monies I would just hope that we could do that. Okay. We could we could revisit that also in terms of an additional line items So we'll go c16 c16 has been changed But if we do want to add at a certain point we can go ahead and relabel that yeah, that's the question I'll go ahead and post c16. Okay at council workroom with respect to the Rental housing task force So you're saying that that is going to that 250 is going to be included in This right here It's going to be removed from funding and then contingent on what happens later tonight We fund it Then we have to make these cuts over here So we're sort of adopting two different sort of versions of that. There's other revenue we can go for So but for the purposes of where we're at today, we need to adopt a budget So we'll adopt two versions of that and um, there will be Impacts based on what that becomes in terms of a financial constraint. Okay. So all those in favor of The items before us absent the ones that have been pulled. Please say I I any opposed. Okay. That passes unanimously So don't it do you want to and councilmember Myers? Do you want to to touch on the community tv? I'm just curious how this gets calculated. I mean if I'm truly the hourly Rate and so If for some reason their council meetings are shorter than we won't have to pay it because so, you know We fund what we think is going to be used But if if for some reason it doesn't end up being that amount then it's not fully expended. Okay. That's that was my Really quick. They actually amended their contract due to the long meeting to account for overtime and missed meals So we had to factor those in also And is that Is that based on an eight eight hour day primarily eight hour days and anything after eight hours? Was the dollar amount appropriate? Okay Do you want to go ahead and move that then? Yeah, I'll go ahead and move item C7, okay So the councilmember Myers as seconded by vice mayor Cummings all those in favor. Please say I I any opposed Okay, that passes unanimously Okay, we'll go ahead and move on to item c10 And Councilmember crone. Did you want to talk to this item? That's the Removal of the council member city council assistance Yes, um I mean, I I know council members know what what kind of work that we're up against right now and or have been And uh, you know, there's trying to keep a calendar, you know, scheduling stuff note taking Just answering emails is just an amazing, you know, sort of and I and I fear that a lot of emails do not get You know responded to that we have um, and I and with all due respect That used to be the the mayor would do that, but it's I think it's just overwhelming right now I don't I don't know if we have the the capacity to do that and um Also with all the you know, I asked um Marcus, I don't know if he was able to do it to bring back like the uh, What are we talking about in the first responder fee? Is there a guesstimate on that along with the increased beach meter fee the credit card cost recovery? um, and the fuel uh recovery fee from three to four percent um You have any of they're already built into the staff reports. So those those estimates are already in the budget How much are they? 264 for the first responder. That's our projected estimate for the year one 264k. Yes 264,000 it'll likely be higher in year two, but year one and we a little bit less And that's already built in we're already assuming that's coming We have to come back to council and set that up, of course parking permit you took action on earlier today of 63,000 The credit cards is 217,000. That's already built into the budget and that's set to go live july 1st The fuel we were estimated about 8,000 And that's already built in If I could um, what I mean if I if I could for What I'm hearing you say councilman chromed is you'd like to add that line item back in is that correct? Yes, okay, so for the 175,000. Yes, okay And then I'll just go ahead and say I think we'll go ahead and break at 6 30 tonight. So whatever, um The process would be given that we will need to break before oral communications, you know, you can let us know, okay, okay Councilman mires Let's have a process question. So are we going to go motion by motion for each of these then? Yeah, or So is there Are we doing discussion on the council assistance? I think if we want to incorporate it we should do the discussion I mean, I will say that you know it feels I completely understand we have A lot on our plates and given the situation that we're in today And the amount of cuts that we're going to have to make in terms of services I personally don't feel comfortable with adding a line item for that for myself. I'm happy to um If that's the direction that the council wants to go in to allocate the 25 25 000 person to go back into Potentially a parks and rec program that might have been cut as a result of that Councilman mires. Yeah, I similarly I don't really support the this action either, but if it does pass Similarly, I'd like just to use my amount to Fully fund open streets so add seven seven back into their budget and then support a parks and rec or A similar program with mine with my share of that. Okay, so that would then take it down to 125 000. It's still an ad though. It's still Sorry, it's still adding it's still adding. So I think we're just sort of we're just chipping away if that's the thing instead of spinning it here I spend it there Oh, I see what you're saying Um and open streets is funded. So it's fully funded. Okay, then yeah Okay, never mind. No, I guess yeah, never mind then. Okay. Go ahead councillor matthews Well, there's no motion on the floor, but just speaking to the discussion I am not in favor of this and what I am really not in favor of is saying well, everyone gets 25 000 to spend We had this thing of council spending accounts and I believe we trimmed that further from what it was so Either we're going to give everyone a 25 000 discretionary fund or we're going to Be disciplined Okay, so maybe an interesting trying to move as long Happy to entertain a motion at this time on this. This would be specific excuse me Um, this would be specifically to alleviate, you know workload and address stuff that's not being addressed. I mean getting back to um constituents who aren't getting back to currently I think it's a real I mean, I don't know if y'all don't share that but I I definitely have Encountering that and I spent a lot of time on this job. Yeah, absolutely Okay, so if I if I could I'll go ahead and entertain a motion in this in this way Oh, yeah, I'd make a motion to um add Restore the 175 for council assistance. Okay, so we have a motion by council member crown. Is there a second? I mean, I just I support the notion of assistance for council members. I am I think that there needs to be a conversation with the revenue Subcommittee to figure out how we can generate additional revenue to justify If we're having to make all these other cuts, it's just it's really uh It's tough and we're making all the other choices. So I just wanted to say say that okay, so So seeing that there's not a second for the motion then we'll go ahead and have that Not be incorporated the 175 thousand for the lack of a second Okay, so that then will take us to the um To the legal services. Oh councilor brown So, I mean I have really mixed feelings about this too because of the cuts that we're having to make if we were in better financial shape I would absolutely support this right now But I also don't want it to get lost. Um, so council member Glover made the comment about Revisiting this. I mean I would I would provide more um like explicit direction to revisit this um either um In in conversation with the revenue subcommittees work and or at you know at You know a future I mean I'd like I'd like to just clarify that we're gonna it's going to come back and it's not going to just get lost here Um, I think if I could and then I'll go ahead and have uh vice mayor coming's way and uh city manager martin Bernal was mentioning with the restructure there would be sort of this revisiting of how The city manager's office is structured in terms of supports So I do if my understanding is that's being factored in in this regard. Is that correct? Yeah, a couple of thoughts one is you can certainly also talk about this as part of your strategic planning Process that might be you know formed to sort of prioritize things. So that's one way to continue the discussion um, but yes, uh, we are uh, we are changing our office staffing because you know recognizing that uh Uh, there is a real need for particularly administrative support and there's other work I mean the staff couldn't do the political work I think that maybe some of the council members might might might like but with respect to admin support like Helping with emails and scheduling and and that sort of thing. We will have more support to do that And we have been increasing that certainly for the mayor uh in in recent months And we'll we plan to continue that as we staff up in our office to be able to do that We've had vacancies that have provided us for doing that So we are looking at that recognizing that there is a there is a real need because you are overwhelmed with quite a bit of Of uh correspondence and other issues and would be willing to certainly Work with the council to try to see how we can meet that given circumstances and what we have Sure, happy to do that. Okay by snare coming through then councilor brown I just wanted to express as well that I understand council member crohn's concerned with the need for assistance And it's great to hear that um that the city manager's office is going to be providing more assistance for city council members I'm also one of the things I wanted to To circle back to and I think that a number of the other city council members may have concerns around or suggestions for ways for other areas to make cuts and I'm just Also wondering whether or not, you know, if we can have discussion around that And maybe then consider whether or not Some of those funds can be used to fund assistance as well because I know we mentioned vehicles And I have a few questions around vehicle purchases for this year That I wanted to raise that could potentially lead to savings around purchasing new vehicles. So Okay, so at this time Okay, council member run Well, I just have a clarifying question because You know the restructuring of staffing and You know how that how what the the various staff members in the city manager's department are going to be doing is Um a conversation. I'm looking forward to having but I guess I'm just wondering Um, will that come to us in his agenda item where we can actually have a discussion and maybe make decisions about whether or not we want In the future to Reconsider council assistance in light of the restructuring. Maybe it's gonna. I mean I I just don't I don't I would like to see that be more there be more a more explicit Opportunity an actual opportunity to have that conversation and not just Via an update or what we see happening In the office. I think I think that's that's definitely possible. Um, I just want to keep us We have about 10 more minutes before we're going to go ahead and break for our dinner and then return back for our evening item So, um, I get that there's a lot of unknown kind of questions It's just I'm trying to clarify that so we don't otherwise I feel like I'd want to have the conversation now and I'd prefer that we just have another opportunity to do it in For the sake of time It's up to council So if you if you'd like to have a process to have a discussion Whether it's a subcommittee or again, whether it's something that you would discuss at the strategic planning session and then they're You know provide direction. Um, it's up to you. Um And then we can delve into the options and pros and cons and that sort of thing Council member mayors and then comes up first. Yeah Did that you can go see okay, um, I think the appropriate, uh venue for this discussion is Around the restructuring of your office and and when it's had time to get up and running Um, I think support for council members many activities and assignments is important But I think it's it is equally important that we see how the restructuring is functioning because if we're looking at What are we going to do with 175,000? I mean, we have cut a whole lot of really important City services already. I mean, whether it's parks and rack or Public works or planning or whatever. I mean a whole lot of things have already taken a big cut so, um I don't like to take any one thing necessarily I would like to have this discussion in the context of the functioning of city manager's office Yeah, and i'm happy to discuss that I don't want to give the impression that we're adding a bunch of staff or anything like that I think the biggest changes of course are That uh, you know, we've had vacancies. We're going to be able to fill the one vacancy that we've had vacant for about a year and so we can Because of that reallocate to some extent the other part of it again also just relates to workload and our work plan And what you do, that's why I think that's important. So To the extent that that is Is is addressed that'll help also with being able to provide those resources. That's been a challenge as well council member mayer, I think i'll That discussion sort of hit some of my questions. Okay. Okay, great. So we'll go ahead and then move on then to Excuse me c11 for a discussion around tenant legal services Yeah, I asked for that to be discussed. Um, as I mentioned In pulling it This was originally the tenant legal services was originally recommended by the housing blueprint committee And I think 15 000 was allocated for that when it came to the council for action earlier this year That amount got doubled to 30 000. Um, and still no contract. No No formal arrangement that had been mutually agreed upon Um, I was willing to accept that it is a pilot program. There's clearly a need for Information for tenants, but I am not comfortable adding yet another 30 000. So, um, I would like to Remove the addition and keep the allocation at 30 000 Okay, and if I could I if I recall that one of the thoughts was that if and when we get a sort of a mid-year Kind of update then we could revisit allocating the additional 30 000 So do we want to put aside that 30 000 and revisit it then or was it the 60 000 that was voted upon If My understanding was 30 000 we can revisit it to visit 30. It was 30 Okay, I'm so so to increase the total of 60 000 30 is already there 30 is in so this would be adding another 30 doubling it to 60 Okay, so it would be deferring to 30 I mean, let's move this along. I'm just going to move that we delete the additional 30 000 Okay, and keep it up. Okay. So motion by councilor matthew seconded by council member Myers council member Glover brown and then vice mayor cobalt. Thank you So tenant protections and tenant education is incredibly important. I'm just curious because I'm I'm not sure How I've missed it, but uh, where did the additional 30 000 allocation come from on top of the 30 000 that we Someone's suggestion. It was a council request council request So that was one of the was that one of the ones in the packet that you suggested council member Could you just elaborate on that a little bit? Yeah, so it was that was based on uh, budget that was provided to Us to all of the council members. Um About what it would take to annually fund with attorneys The the tenants legal services program. So 60 000 is about half of a year So because we had the 15 000 earmarked, which we Two years ago intended to be the pilot project program and then Funded at a more robust level Uh, we added the 15 so I suggested adding another 30 to get them through a year Half that's half of their cost because I don't know that we ought to be funding the entire program And certainly not indefinitely. Um, so this was my attempt to provide them with a year of support And but given that things have been delayed. I think waiting to Consider allocating the additional 30 000. I mean, I'm okay with that because they're not going to spend it right this moment, but I would Want to make sure that it gets considered at our our budget midterm budget review Yeah, just so I would then ask uh for there to be an amendment to the motion to direct for the revenue subcommittee to specifically look at the allocations or potential increased allocations to the rental Dure tenants and protections group Speaking to that if I may I don't think that's the function of the revenue subcommittee the revenue subcommittee is is as I understand It's traditionally been looking at what are big picture sources of additional revenue to support big picture general fund and capital expenditures not line items But just in in that I uh, okay So I understand how things may have worked in the past and Totally get that that's how things have been done What I'm hoping is that with the conversation of revenue generation that we are looking at the macro large scale version of everything But also while looking at that large scale view We're also taking into consideration the smaller needs for Incremental increases to the either the general fund because that's where this money is coming from Or other ways that we can generate revenue to support underfunded things that needs specific Attention whether or not the money goes directly to them or whether it gets allocated to the general fund For us to be able to decide later on where to go We need to think ahead of time of okay Well, if we're going to be increasing funding for tenant protections or tenant education Then we need to be thinking about that with the amount of money that we're focusing on generating in the revenue subcommittee So I hear what you're saying, but I hope that you can understand that we need to start thinking of things In different ways than we always have because that has resulted in us being in a 3.9 million dollar deficit Okay, just maybe for the interest of time I don't think that this necessarily has to have an outcome this evening in regards to potential Efforts on behalf of the revenue committee, but in in regards to the specific motion before us. We have the tenant legal services Maintaining the 30 30 thousand dollars and then revisiting based on Any kind of input that we receive or outcomes that we receive from their efforts as to whether or not the mid-year time We'd want to to increase that to the 60. Is that correct? Just to be clear What c11 does is add 30 000 to the existing 30 000 And your motion is to remove that additional existing and that's seconded by councilmember mires and councilmember brown further felt supportive of that knowing that we could revisit the Additional 30 000 at mid-year budget. Is that correct? Yeah, if I could just add I would like to if it's okay with the maker of the motion on the second to Be explicit that this return to us at mid-term budget review I think that's And I'll just say I believe in the action authorizing the 30 000 we asked for a mid-year report So I would say At the time we get the mid-year report on the program we consider Does that feel new funding? Yeah, I just would I would just yeah, I mean I I think this is important work for our community and to support it I think My main reservation is making sure that we have the performance marks so that we can evaluate And um, also, I just want to remind our community that We do have about 122 000 dollars Allocated this year for uh, two rental assistance programs already funded in the budget through economic development so Again making sure that all of our investments and helping tenants are evaluated and and working well for for the need Is I think my interest so I'm happy to bring it back mid-year. I think that makes sense Okay, so all those in favor. Please say aye. Hi. Any opposed? Okay, so that passes with council member crone voting against So I will go ahead and suggest that we maybe try to go ahead and cover heritage tree Marcus in terms of timing today If we were to get through the heritage tree and and have pending Further conversation on first alarm on any potential changes of vice mayor comings may have in mind in terms of potential revenue increasing measures in terms of The women's self-defense that that could happen at a future time. Is that correct if we get through? We can Absolutely, okay. So why don't we go ahead and finish up the heritage tree conversation And then we'll go ahead and break for dinner and revisit The item So I said one question with regards to this Is that 25,000? Is that the only funding that's available for heritage tree? No, this is an additional 25 on top of 20. They already have 25 And they've my understanding from earlier the conversation was that they've typically used less than 25,000 on heritage trees No, they use 25 every year and I think they'd use They could use it. Excuse me. They could use another 25. That's that's why the parks and rec commission asked us Mr. Elliott already said that they have not like made the program known People don't know so a lot of times they end up getting a permit to cut the tree down because you know, we They don't have any assistance to take care of the tree Is like wiring and you know different ways of cutting a tree and people feel that they go go to this fund In order to preserve their heritage tree So if people knew more people knew about it, but obviously it's been used up every year 24 26 and 23 We have Tony Elliott here I think that covered it really well actually I think yeah, we spend the 25,000 the request before the council is an additional 25,000 Um on top of the budgeted amount And as I understand it, it's more of it's a it's a nice to have not a need to have If I could propose maybe a potential solution is that we maintain um the uh The recommendation before us and then similar to the tenant legal Services revisit the usage at the mid-year budget and then potentially Increase it at that time because you have it as essentially as a swap to be able to have the it desk help desk Still correct work. Okay. Okay. Council member Myers and council member Matthews. I just um just being a parks commissioner for three years And we were I believe the commission that brought back this program at 20 funded at 25,000 My recollection is I believe we only approved one tree removal permit in three years and um, but the Demand for the program was fairly constant. But as director Elliott has mentioned We never turned anyone away. So the way that it's managed is Uh, certainly people are um provided the information. I mean we had a we had a fairly constant stream of requests But um, most of our requests were we were able to fully fund the 50% cost share So in my experience working on these for three years Um, I don't think we I think like I said, I think we only approved one removal permit So I don't think we're losing a lot of trees because we don't have additional funds at this point I think our community is doing a great job of stewarding their trees right now So do we want a motion on this on this item at this time? Well, I'm going to move that we do not double the heritage tree allocation that we keep it to 25,000 For the coming year And to use this to restore the it help desk as yes, oh my god Okay, okay, so there's a motion by council member Matthews. Is there a second? I'll second that seconded by council member Myers again I I think it's okay to also revisit it at the mid-year budget to see if where the funding is and if we wanted to increase it We might my only comment to this is we're looking at things in isolation. We asked all the departments Look at your operations It's a tough year You give us your best Estimate on how you can preserve services with the least damage to delivery of service Take off 4% and they gave us their recommendations and The the department Didn't recommend increasing the heritage tree fund the parks and rec department Commission did that's their prerogative But i'm not entirely sure that it was driven by An overall picture of the department's needs and I I can recall in terms of it We recommended a cut of some amount and it director said Well, we can do that, but i'll tell you i'd much rather Give up that and get this back. So it's it's important me If you're going to get anything restored to parks and rec I'd rather turn back to you and have a deep discussion with your commission If we're going to get any extra money, how do we most need to spend it? I don't get the impression that this is the place That's why i'm making it. No, I think it's fine. I think I think okay So I think I mean just given that we could revisit it maybe or maybe that would help move us along this evening For tonight's purposes. Is that appropriate for you? Anything can be okay. Revisited there you go. Okay. So we have a motion by council member Matthew seconded by The council member mires all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, so that fail that passes with council member crone voting against and council brown voting against Okay, so we'll go ahead and break at this time Marcus is did you need any additional action? We obviously have some uh a few further clarification Areas, but we don't have time to discuss those right now Do you need a motion for the for the second potential scenario? We do okay So I'll go ahead and entertain a motion for that I'll move the second scenario, which I believe the main difference is that the housing task force the 250,000 would be removed from that from would not be in the budget, correct? This would give us the option to restore the housing task force It doesn't authorize it depends on what actions happen tonight. So this gives us the ability to restore it Okay, financially Yeah, it's restored these things and That these things would be correct would be funded. Okay. I'll second that motion any further discussion wording wasn't great, but Okay Clarifying question. Are we just this is just a motion on the authority the contingent authority? Yes, because so we're and we need to do that now My understanding is that we're gonna approve the budget later. Couldn't we just well, anyway, this is the budget approval time You could you cut at the end of the evening if you wanted to continue this and in the evening Close it out the the only thing is of course that it'll be late in the evening So that you could you could do that Well, my understanding is we're also going to talk about some of these other Other areas that you want to talk about those and maybe you can do that But we do we need to do that this evening? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay Okay, so we'll just go ahead and continue the item to the evening and I think that makes no sense Correct. So we do all of this budget stuff after I I guess I just want why would we do contingent authority if we're not actually Approving the budget right this moment. We can just do it all later. Yeah, okay Okay, so we'll go ahead and break it this time and then we'll uh return around seven in that motion Um, it didn't that's fine. Yeah, we'll go ahead and get started here So good evening everybody. I'm going to go ahead and call our meeting back to order Um at this time I would like to ask if our city clerk could please call the roll Thank you mayor council members crone Here lever here layers here ground is currently absent. Matthews is currently absent vice mayor coming Thanks. Yeah, and mayor Watkins here Okay, so um, we're going to begin our oral communications since we're starting after Seven this evening. We'll go ahead and go until 7 35 To allow for the full half hour And so oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not listed on today's agenda And um, can I get a sense of how many folks are here for oral communications this evening? Okay, you're welcome to line up to my left and we'll um, go ahead and have that process ensued from that from that in that way Um, so you'll each what we'll go ahead and do is offer anybody who wants to just briefly address the council in one minute They're welcome to come forward first and then we'll go ahead and increase the time to two minutes and um Allow for those that have more to say to use the full two minutes Um, and so what I would ask is that if you're interested in starting with the one minute time and I believe In the front here. You're you're just in that you're welcome to go first Um, and then we'll go ahead and uh modify as needed Okay, go ahead. I hope you can all hear me and see me simultaneously here So I went to the county supervisor is meeting this afternoon and was happy to see that I'm happy to hear rather that they have a number of sharks containers available And I'd love to on behalf of parks recognition Make the suggestion that we work with them to put those jobs containers around Santa Cruz and specifically in parks With neighborhood approval. So that's all. Thank you. Thank you There any other member of the community who wants to address this just really briefly in one minute Okay, seeing them. We'll go ahead and move it to the two-minute time frame and you'll go ahead and go first Hi, I'm honor Brooks city administrator in SCIU member Although I testified virtually all previous SCIU contract negotiations in the last 20 years I decided not to this time I'm here in support of the other bargaining units, particularly those of mid managers as an employee. I have few opinions I don't consider that my function. I do have opinions as a citizen and voter I saw some previous mid managers testimonies about their negotiations and I read a guest column guest editorial in Bruce Bratton's column that wondered about giving managers less so that lower paid SCIU employees could get more I had mid management jobs before I worked for the city I made a conscious decision to demote myself because although I was good at it. I didn't like being in management Supervising employees would have been enough of a reason But I also didn't like some of the other aspects of the complexities and responsibilities of management work I object to giving mid managers a lesser deal than that of SCIU employees I was stunned to learn that at least the OE3 bargaining unit does not have a me2 clause The way that both union reps and HR have told me SCIU has for financial elements of its contract I don't know if mid managers bargaining units other than OE3 have a me2 clause For mid managers not to have that clause when SCIU's contract does seems to me at best backwards given managers more complex work and greater responsibilities I recall Dick Wilson telling me that the fire department once offered to take less during contract negotiations one time So that SCIU could have more Offering to do that which I do not suggest Is to my mind quite a different thing than the city proposing such an approach I urge you to recognize the city's mid managers contributions and hard work on behalf of our community And negotiate an equitable equitable contract. I thank you for considering my views had I had the information now I would have said this when SCIU was doing its contract negotiate here Okay, next speaker. I'm natalex dot kennedy at gmail.com and uh, what I have to say is Now marijuana is legal, but you can't smoke it anywhere in public We need to offer people a better alternative than smoking at their dealer's living living room What we need is some cannabis pubs that people can go to just like a bar and have it but Uh, we should have five of them licensed the same way we do the cannabis dispensaries But uh, I I just want to start one of them I want to put all my energy into that a cannabis pub where it would say right on the door No liquor no tobacco No outside cannabis right at the door so that people aren't Going to like bring a 40 into the bar or something But I want to see this happen and I am talking not only to the whole city council here I'm talking to the public in general including those on tv And I need to find people that will invest in this idea Both investing their time and money because I alone certainly Do not have anywhere close to what would be required to get this going, but I have the enthusiasm All right more to say Everybody's heard about what 5g is the new upgrade from 4g. We don't need it. It is way too fast and most importantly this far too dangerous to have Around and we need to ban it in the city of Santa Cruz in the county of Santa Cruz Maybe even statewide or more that would be awesome, but we need to get rid of 5g because Just one example, okay. Thank you. 3469 888. Thank you next speaker My name is Elise Kazvi. I'm a democracy Activist working to inform the public about the erosion of our right to free speech another already advanced forms of fascism in the city One form of free speech that used to be protected in our city is the right to address our elected officials In front of other members of the public Democratic procedures such as the public comment section of our regular city council meetings And a free and truly open discourse among members of the public is foundational to the protection of our civil liberties Free speech and the right to address our elected Representatives in front of other members of the public are crucial components of a safe and open society Especially one that strives to be democratic in turn Democracy is one of the important solutions according to many climate change experts We will need to meet the many profound challenges that global climate change demands of us now Many people sitting on city councils may not understand the advanced state that fascistic tendencies have already developed to We need our public comment time to be inclusive to all members of the public because this is exactly where democracy takes place in our local governments And this force of democracy And free speech fights the authoritarian tendencies and rules from becoming rigidified A generous public comment time has been historically observed even by conservative mayors here in santa Cruz Everybody who showed up was given at least a minimum of time to address their city representatives Council members. I urge you to protect our free speech. That is our public comment section of the agenda We must have at the very least a generous allowance of time for public comment every time we have a city council meeting This is the only place in our local government where the public may freely address our city government in front of other members of the public And therefore with a minimum of transparency it balances the control by city staff of the governmental process Thank you Nicholas whitehead I feel I must castigate those members of this council who have failed to uphold our american tradition of free speech Often the only resort of us the people against tyranny's a property privilege and high wealth I feel I must castigate those on the council who endorsed or permitted the mayor's action Encurbing the time allowed to public comment I particularly Scoriate those who stood by Perpetually as the mayor acted in her arbitrary manner It should have been their responsibility to advise the mayor to constrain herself not constrain our thoughts and words As things stands we've allowed one individual to set up a new regime on public input cutting back individual and collective time for free speech This particular mayor as well as the last one have been extremely rude to elders of the community Including highly respected former office holders disallowing completion of one or two sentences Even people with speech impediments or tardy in their remarks can be dislodged with the electronic buzzer We've obviously reached a new low in civility towards the public Especially toward those residents who are out of favor With the council minority I believe that furious attacks on councilman drew glubber from the very beginning Were false and orchestrated setting up a bogus atmosphere of tension that works against the process of democracy I feel the necessity to impugn that particular Entity which I believe stands behind it that entity being the once progressive now bitterly reactionary democratic women's club of santa cruz county In the past we were all colleagues in advancing human rights labor rights and environmental protections Sadly now we are divided along lines of economic status Educational privilege and property ownership I wish we could restore goodwill between our political factions And quit all the disrespect Good evening. My name is alicia cool president of the santa cruz chapter of the california homeless union I just wanted to take this opportunity to let you know that I will be traveling to washington dc From the 17th to the 19th for the poor people's moral action congress And we're also going to be trying to reestablish the national homeless union And we will be heavily talking about the homeless issues and things that have happened here in santa cruz And so I just wanted to let you know that I I'm hoping to learn a lot Established connections and bring that knowledge back to you And so the issues that have happened here in santa cruz are being talked about nationally And so I just wanted to take the opportunity to let you guys know that And say, you know, I hope everybody's surviving in this heat and have a good evening Good evening mayor and council members. My name is rick lon genotti. I'm from the campaign for sustainable transportation um the state of california a lot like A lot like our city struggling to match our transportation policy with our climate goals piece of legislation that passed in the state Requires that there's a change in the way the california environmental quality act deals with new development so The way it's up to been up to now if there's a large new development say in downtown That development generates car trips And there's money set aside in the traffic impact fee to widen intersections or otherwise expedite traffic flow Because there's something called level of service, which is a measure of traffic delay That's supposed to be mitigated Level of service is no longer going to be a criteria for mitigation instead When there's a new project that generates new traffic The money to the traffic impact fee needs to go to reduce vehicle miles traveled So that means it could be a bus improvement a walking improvement bicycling improvement We're required as a city to get on board with that by june of next year There are items in your budget Already that could conform to that if you remove the intersection widening items on highway one You'll get a head start on that and of course Money for the garage library is still in the budget Even though there's been a subcommittee setup to look at all terms for that So just in terms of public process and credibility would be good to remove that from the budget. Thank you Pauline seals santa cruz climate action network I would like to ask you to take a very serious look at health in all policies that we learned about I think a week ago It seemed like an excellent program that allowed a creative way to address all kinds of problems human problems Climate change problems and others without greatly expanding the budget The city of Gonzales, which was one of the presenters I don't I didn't look at the numbers, but I just can't imagine that's a wealthy city It's not Palo Alto or Las Gatos or Some place like that and if they can do it. I think Santa Cruz could and I think it would allow us A fresh look at a way different way to do business that's already Been tried and established in some places and people who are very happy to talk to us and explain what they've done So I ask you to put some priority onto that, please Thank you Susan worth. So Cal I I did read that the library project that Barry the library deal under the garage has been is being tabled for how long three months or Does it anybody have an answer on that? You know, you you can go ahead and address us if we can answer your questions. We'll do so after your two Okay. Okay. Well, anyway, I wanted to speak up once again for those over 200 year old trees that are in that parking lot that Can't speak up for themselves And I also would like to Have the um San Lorenzo park better utilized. I don't know why we do why we as as pride For our beautiful pride parade why we don't get to end up there anymore But used to be a beautiful place and the performers on the duck stage was just fantastic And I think we should be using that park and have something going Every weekend instead of putting fences up and we should restore all of our drinking fountains because We got 140 percent of our rain and we've got a disabled drinking fountain out here We've got a dead one in in the in the San Lorenzo park The only place adults can go is in the in the playground to get a drink of water So, you know, why don't we restore some drinking fountains? Okay. Thank you Are there any other members of the community that would like to address the council at this time during oral communications? Okay See two additional folks. Okay members of the community and city council Huff homeless united for friendship and freedom the group I'm with and conscious and action do meet tomorrow Everyone's invited to come to the sub rows at 11 This council has been stymied and stalemated in terms of any Progressive action for the last six months. The most basic issues have been Blocked by agenda manipulation a campaign of intimidation against public and progressive council members Who ran for city council on pretty clear platforms? I mean, it's amazing. For example, there was a a debate where every single city council member running aspirant who was trying to get on city council Promise to immediately attempt to reopen the Loudon Nelson bathrooms. This council has done nothing to do that So it is now we have continued closed bathrooms as well as the ones out here I continue to mention it because it's just it's sort of the most obvious example is something that Ordinary people at home don't have to worry about who have homes, but those who are outside And are crapping in their pants Are in fact In the middle of because this council is too busy writing rather than listening to the public As they speak and listening truly listening to the public I don't just mean nodding and looking up from what they're doing but actually paying attention to the issues I mean, you need a restoration of real Of needle exchange in the city, which was done behind closed doors You need to end the drug war here in Santa Cruz, which is still alive You need to stop police and by by you I'm of course talking to the council which is always a mistake And I keep doing it every two weeks But it's really the community that I am addressing The needs to take action direct action of different kinds to address A police force that's out of control with parks and rec rangers now Backing them up to criminalize homeless people who have no legal place to go Susie O'Hara's Concerns comments and so forth notwithstanding our next speaker. Thank you Go right ahead Hi, I'm sarah manilde Santa Cruz Um, I had the privilege of going to one of your special Meetings. I didn't know what it was about, but it was close to my house and I went and I really was pleased to see how The woman whose profession this is is trying to encourage relationship among city council members and ways of speaking to one another Because politics is divisive and it is difficult and she wanted the council members to come here and be allowed to be effective and you know governed So anyway, I wasn't here of this but I did read like What happened and that you know closing down the city council and da da da da da I realized people in Santa Cruz get rambunctious. I really have a hard time with it sometimes The shouting the yelling the sloganeering the fisting all that but I I feel helpless and I'm trying to work my way out of certain helplessness But I want to feel like the city council is strong enough in itself and its own ideas and its beliefs that got them elected to maintain The meeting And to maintain this place the way you should you're all intelligent. I don't believe in denigrating the city council. You're all intelligent gifted Caring working people So don't let someone whose fist going highly Hitler. God only knows what disrupt the entire meeting I think it really takes away from democracy. Thank you Hi, i'm susan kevillary from Santa Cruz. I just wanted to bring up the idea of zero waste policies for the city of santa cruz It was just reported that there is a lot of plastic in monoray bay um And this is definitely an issue for the fish that are eating it and that we eat The fish and so plastic is becoming more and more part of human bodies Fossil fuels are used to make plastic and More of fossil fuel is being uh shunted into plastic and so there is a need to stop uh The use of plastic And also the county is working on a zero waste um policy So I think it would also be good for the city to work on this too. Thank you Are there any other members of the community who would like to address the council on any item that's not on today's agenda during oral communications You'll probably be you can do it Um, I respect everybody here and how hard they work and there's a lot of division I know we just got to keep working for harmony and Work all together on this harmony that we have here Hopefully that we have and make our community fun again people need to get out and start being like on the mall doing music Going and conversating instead of being hiding in the box so much We need to start moving forward and finding solutions to these problems that we have I'm disappointed that the council members who didn't show up at ross camp when they put it down I would have liked that they would have showed up. I'm impressed that the people showed up that were trying to support it I think that we need to go for Keep finding more solutions to this, you know, once we've closed this camp down these people have kind of been their lives Been destroyed disrupted And so I know you all care to all the various degrees So just keep looking for the for the places to do like little houses places for people that park safely and keep Fighting for not having so much hate and division, you know, I'm not not having so much It's like when I heard take back Santa Cruz that really was insulting to me. How about give back Santa Cruz? You know, it's not we're not taking. What does that say stealing? Removing right let's help each other. Let's start trying to work together more You know and and the thing with the global global action thing I've I've been seeing people and I've been seeing how much waste we still have like these buildings around here at night There's lights on all over the place all these Lights lights lights I've encountered a man who is in the dump truck at Harvey West park in a city truck In the in the vehicle was idling for a long time. He was on the cell phone Was he doing business or was he talking to his friends just wasting energy? Okay, I said there's a 92nd rule and he goes go walk away Okay, is there any other members of the community who wants to address this during oral communications? Okay, seeing none. We'll go ahead and close oral Communications at this time and we'll transition into our evening item And that is just we have one item on tonight's agenda And it's our rental final rental housing situation assessment report And we have our staff coming forward as well as Our guest here. Mr. Asseppo is nice to see you Good evening mayor and council members. I'm leave out there the planning director and This item really needs no introduction. It's something that's been On many people's mind in the community for quite some time and This evening. We're pleased to have Dave seppos with us He's with the consensus and collaboration program out of Sacramento State University And he'll be presenting the findings of his analysis Before doing so we'll have sarah Fleming to Provide a brief overview of the The steps that got us to where we are today As well as some of the bills that we have pending In the state legislature that affects tenants and landlord relationships And we'll also have sarah noisy with us momentarily And Yep, here she is While you do that, I'll go ahead and just also Just sort of give the community an overview of what to expect this this evening We're going to go ahead and hear a staff presentation And then we'll go ahead and have any council questions for clarity in regards to the presentation At which time we'll go ahead and open it up to public comment to provide any input They'd like to on this item and then return back to council for any action and deliberation Just to kind of give a roadmap for the for the evening ahead Any council presentation, please Thank you. So I'll just go ahead and turn it over to sarah and sarah Just pulling up our PowerPoint presentation While you do that, I'll just go I just also want to take an opportunity to clarify Sort of the role of the mayor in terms of this evening's proceedings. It's my responsibility It's the responsibility of any individual who's elected to serve in this position to ensure That the quorum maintains as we move forward with our city government business So that any individual who wants to address us on any item has a right to do so without threat or intimidation Also in regards to allowing us to have A process ensue so that we're able to get through the government business So it's my responsibility to do that to facilitate and ensure that this can happen And I will do so in a way as best I can without Having to do any kind of extreme sort of measures and I hope that we can all really Participate in this evening's discussion Which I was a part of for many many years many months and many meetings and many hours of public testimony And this really honest Assessment from a neutral party that at times I think was really quite saddening And so I hope that when we listen we can listen with understanding we can't undo the past with A recognition that there's many elements that bring All of us into this report And ownership around that and then how can we move forward as best we can as a community? And so hopefully tonight we can start the tone in that regard I think it will be a bit of a difficult presentation to hear considering how it was a difficult presentation to read And so I Ask our community to rise to the occasion and I will do my best to ensure that that We're all allowed a process to participate in this evening's discussion without a disruption Okay, so we'll go ahead and ask staff to take it away. Now your powerpoint is open Good evening. My name is Sarah Noisy. I'm a senior planner in the advanced planning section and um, I've been working with Sarah Fleming Lee Butler and our consultant Dave Sappos from the consensus and collaboration Program out of Sacramento State University on Bringing this forward to your council this evening So just a little bit of background to recall how we came to be before you today Beginning on December 11th. We staff was given direction to Begin a process to report about resources that would be needed to establish a task force We returned January 8th of this year Kind of requesting clarification about exactly what the goals were and the timeline for that work On january 22nd. We received additional direction by motion To return with a specifically with a proposal for a task force and about and more information about the resources That would be needed to do a community poll to do some data data collection and then the publicity that we could run around that process we returned on february 12th and Recommended to your council that we enter into an agreement with a neutral third party Who could come in and sort of evaluate the situation for us and provide some guidance about how best to proceed On this topic and at that point your council did give us direction to enter into an agreement with ccp center for consensus and collaboration to Assess the situation engage with stakeholders to a certain degree and sort of get their arms around what Are the key factors that would affect a task force process on the topic of landlord tenant relationships So the assessment process that has occurred Mr. Seppos from ccp will go through this in more detail but In a broad view there were interviews that occurred with each of the city council members In march of 2019 And then the council members each recommended certain stakeholders that would be interviewed community stakeholders would be interviewed on this topic both on both people who represent sort of tenants interests and tenants needs and those that represent the needs and desires of landlords and property owners The idea was to have a representative cross-section of the community to sort of talk with and learn about the whole situation So then the investigator Conducted those interviews select selected a final interview interview list of about 20 interviewees based on a set of standards and then completed those interviews in april of this year and then Also spoke with city staff in april just as sort of the last step and then has been working on Compiling the final report analysis and recommendations, which was included with your council packet today that was completed in may of this year So one of the things that was mentioned in the report and that has bearing on All of these discussions about the regulations that cover the relationships between landlords and tenants Is some legislation that is currently pending at the state level So i was just i'm just going to give a brief overview of six of the bills that were proposed this year Just really briefly and i don't have a ton of detail on either on any of these But i can answer some questions in terms of the contents So ab 36 by bloom would have made some changes to the way costa hawkins Applies to housing so that instead of housing instead of costa hawkins preventing rent control to from applying to Anything built after 1995 it would prevent Rent control from applying to anything that was simply 20 years old. So it would have created sort of a rolling Deadline so once a building multifamily building had been in existence For 20 years it would be eligible to be under a local Rent control ordinance that bill failed in the assembly didn't make it out ab 1188 from Assemblymember gabriel Allows tenants to provide housing for people who are at risk of homelessness for up to 12 months The landlord is permitted to increase the rent based on that Occupancy but the tenants would have the right to provide that housing for a year Um ab 1399 by bloom changes the the ellis act which governs um rent stabilized units and evictions from rent stabilized units and clarifies how And changes a little bit how units can be removed from the market and then re-enter the market and provide some Limits the ability of an owner of a rent stabilized unit to um Pay a fee to avoid Offering the unit back to the prior occupant should it leave the market and then re-enter the rental market So that has passed the assembly and is now in senate in subcommittees AB 1481 is one that lots of people had been following that's the one that would have created The requirement for a just cause to evict a tenant that bill Was withdrawn by the author and did not pass out of this assembly Its companion bill 1482 by assembly member chou Was going to establish some a limited amount of Caps on the rent increases that could take place when it was first introduced this bill was Pretty different than how it is now and at this point it's it's Last for about three years as opposed to I think when it was introduced it was going to be at least 10 years of Caps on rent and rental increases So it allows rent to increase by seven percent plus inflation not to exceed 10 percent per year Doesn't apply to housing that's had gotten a certificate of occupancy in the last 10 years Is and but in this form it did manage to pass the assembly and is now in the senate in the subcommittees Lastly SB 18 Skinner deletes the sunset on a requirement that To provide notice to renters during a foreclosure. This one's a kind of minor This is existing law and it's sort of so this just deletes the date that it would have Ended this practice so The so property will continue to be bound by this existing requirement that Tenants need notice if a rental property is going through a foreclosure process and it provides legislative timelines for that So In terms of this legislation by the end of may any bill had to pass out of its House of origin and sort of cross the hall to the other side So These are the bills that the bills that remain have done that they've passed one house and moved on to the other The assembly has until the end of august to pass these bills from the remaining house houses and then The governor has one month to sign them During the month of september if he does not sign them they go into effect anyway But if he so he essentially has that month to veto any bills that he chooses to veto So one thing that we're not discussing here is The governor's budget which has a stated agenda to affect the housing market and how the provision of housing in california and all of this is very much Under way there is nothing here that I would say we can absolutely count on this the way that these legislative cycles work It's not finished until it's really finished, which is sometime in october So we will know more at that point. This is where we stand today so at this point, um, i'm going to hand it over to Dave seppos from the consensus and collaboration project at sacramento state university and he's going to take you through His situation assessment report Good evening. Nice to see you all again First thing I want to do is I want to thank you all who did I just advance it? Wait, there was a covers page. It's not there. Um, I hope we don't have We'll see okay, um The first thing I want to do is is uh, thank Some folks I want to thank all of you as council members for having taken the time back in february to eat with me I'll go through that a minute. Uh, sort of recounting the process that that was used. I also want to thank, um members of the community that are willing to be stakeholders to be interviewed um It's time-consuming it it was time consuming for your staff to coordinate and organize The series of interviews. I want to thank both those stakeholders and yourselves for being candid and open That's the necessity of a process like this is for me to come in as a neutral and It always amazes me honestly the the willingness that people have to sort of or at least by as best as I can tell To be very candid and open and with that comes a huge responsibility that I have to both protect that in terms of not attributing things to people which I'm very very, um Focused on not doing um It also comes with the inherent responsibility and something I decided therefore I want to apologize for which is Um, this is a candid report. Anybody that has read it knows that now. Um it's Not easy to know the things that in my professional opinion need to be said And nonetheless put them in black and white that I then know are going to be part of the public Discourse and that people are going to need to read whether it's about you as council members or the community So I likewise apologize. That's that kind of comes to the territory I'm going to cover there seems to be some slides missing, but I'll just kind of tell you what my presentation outline is going to be I'm going to cover The assessment process a little bit more in detail in what sarah had just discussed and then I'm going to talk about the conclusions I'm not going to address the recommendations That I made because at this time they're premature. I wanted to build recommendations in because of the way in which I Handled the conclusion. I'll describe that in a bit more, but I'm not going to go over that in detail So uh going into the the process, uh as I've already alluded to and as you all know foundational to this was for ccp Consensus and collaboration program myself as the principal investigator to be neutral So in that regard both for you as council members to affirm this and for members of the public The city no member of the city not member of the council Staff nobody had any editorial oversight on decisions that I made as to who to interview Or in the report. They had no no oversight in that regard the questions that I asked all of that was neutral determination To remind folks And this is a very key distinction and I and I should say that you know Since the report is out and even before then I Have the latitude to be privy to certain social media communications and conversations that are going on whether it is Responses to an article that is written in the paper and seeing how members of the community respond to that Whether it is letters that have been provided to you The council itself Or other venues So for better or for worse, I see some of that conversation So I'm going to try to dispel a couple things that I've seen perpetually coming up that I that I want to frankly go on the record and and say So it's important to note in that regard that we were not we were scoped to assess the task force feasibility Notwithstanding that you as a council within your responsibilities had already directed staff to proceed When I was asked to put a scope together I made it very clear when I came to you the last time I made it very clear That I was going to assess feasibility and it had to be in that regard regardless of the fact that you had actually directed that because absent that Then I would already be Pre-decisional and I can't do that in my role Um, I did not assess membership There was absolutely nothing in the report that assesses, you know, who should be a member And I did not assess nor was it the responsibility to assess the appropriateness of the topic And I say that because some people have said the very fact that this is even being discussed is inappropriate Other people say the very fact that this is being discussed is completely appropriate That wasn't my role my role was to assess a variety of conditions and to come back to you with a recommendation about the feasibility of creating a task force not the Appropriateness of whether it makes sense or not So we began with city council interviews I was very determined to do that and I therefore did in february interview all of you all as you'll recall and that was to See where your alignment or lack thereof was as a city council and to see what you all had to say because if By virtue of that conversation I had concluded that there was a lack of alignment of even what a task force would be about I needed to report that first and while there were some differences of opinions about how broad or Constrained if you will the topic of a task force might be by and large you all were Focused on the idea of it being a rental housing task force So that that was important and then also as I stated here I was assessing to see where your levels of alignment on some other things were which your interests were What you perceived is the role the council going forward if there were to be a task force Your concerns and then your recommendations on who should be interviewed So that then translated to so I want to thank you all again for providing me your recommendations Your recommendations and we talked about this and I had advised you to think about people that you felt were in some cases Maybe on the extremes of a particular Topic and then worse interest give me a broad perspective We talked and I worked with all of you about giving you some further advice about you know Who are some people that might have collaborative capacity and then lastly? I asked you give me your recommendations of who your priority was I've received those back from you I should say that again. I've seen some communications and social media people who were Saying I was supposed to have been interviewed. I I've been told that I was supposed to have been interviewed I'm going to say publicly. That's not accurate. I know who the lists are. I know what you all gave me as council members I know the communications that I had back and forth with you and I know how that played out If there was a person that you had identified as a priority I Felt Completely comfortable deferring and being deferential in that regard and I went with that priority individual that you identified After that I went with if there was overlap So if two or more of you identified the same individual I went ahead and proceeded with that That overlap was very sparse. There really wasn't I was surprised frankly There was not that much overlap from the seven of you as to who should be interviewed, but there was a little bit I went with that Uh, I asked staff then subsequently for their recommendations and I then cross-referenced and their recommendations were completely independent from yours But I then cross-referenced so if there was not overlap I went to see who has been identified by you as a council member and is there overlap with staff recommendations And then I went to to pursue that and then lastly I used my own recognizance and did my own research and Filled the list out and of course the list and the number and something that I said in the report and said the last The most here is that the goal was to be representative but not exhaustive and that was Frankly to limit the budget So on that note, I want to dispel one little other item Which is the budget there's been communication in social media That this project and the the contractor the agreement with with sacramento state was $400,000 And this is even been from people who I have had email communications with and have made it very clear to them that that is not accurate So I want to again on the record say that the agreement between the city And sacramento state was for $40,000 $40,000 that's what the number was okay not 400,000 So uh stakeholder views expanded a little bit and those are included both the interview list for the what I worked with you and the Interest list of what I what I then walked met with the 20 some odd stakeholders um Their interests and apparitions as aspirations again alignment We talked about are there people in the community who have collaborative capacity or lack thereof people who could be involved and could Serve in a task force effectively The risks and threats that were out there that people perceived about doing or not doing a task force The use of data and what that meant to people Membership selection and how people would recommend a membership selection process be done if they had any recommendations And then we talked about what I recall were a version no action alternative What if the city did nothing what would play out? So that was the general gist of the the 15 questions that how we covered So again, I interviewed the council in the latter part of february And then got your recommendations began the process to work with other Local stakeholders and then the interviews took place for the other stakeholders between the 15th and 18th here in person And there were some follow-up phone calls. I had to do with each where just some of the interviews weren't finished So i'm going to move on to uh conclusions And i'm going to start with the sort of the end or the overarching statement Which some of you many of you have seen under current circumstances and using the council's current goals as a target It is very unlikely that a task force will be successful Now there are mitigating factors to this and i'm going to cover some of these this evening But that is my recommendation and those mitigating factors are what i'm going to try to talk a little bit about here today One of the things that i'm going to speak to you right now is that throughout both the report And this is stated in the report and then in this presentation is I refer to side other side every side both sides And in the report i always do that with quotation marks and i want to reiterate what i say in the report that This is not that simple. It's not that binary Many people that i interview they nonetheless refer to themselves in terms of sides one way or another But at the same time it is very clear that this is a highly complex situation in your community And does not get distilled down quite that easily to binary conditions, but for Efficiency i continue to use the term sides, but i'm just putting out framing out there that it doesn't mean i believe there in fact are quite that simple So in the conclusion section i identified 10 what i call dichotomies and this is really the gist of what i discovered And um, it's telling in its own way So a very significant number of participants independently and confidentially believe that there are reasonable middle ground solutions that might be mutually acceptable There were many people on both sides who frankly said If measure m had been written differently We might have had a different outcome There were people who were involved in the measure m campaign who said if i had to do all over again I would have written measure m or i would have asked first to write measure m differently And there were people on the know on m campaign who said if measure m had been written differently I might have been more inclined to consider and or perhaps vote for it I think that's very telling that indicates that there potentially is some middle ground and then subsequently in the discussions i had with people It came out but nonetheless, however, as is stated here a similar number of participants expressed a significant lack of truck trust That people on the other side and any significant lack of confidence they could achieve any agreements I think what that really comes down to is you have a community of people that in my professional opinion has spent An increasing amount of time talking past each other that is completely common Hardly any case of a conflict nature like this that i've worked in doesn't have that dynamic So that's not unusual I think another factor that's going on though is that there's appears to be a number of conversations going on in vacuums as i call it There's a sort of self perpetuating echo chamber of people talking And so when i come in as a neutral and i ask questions and people say you know if only such and such or so and so Or i think this or that but i don't think those folks would ever agree to it Well, maybe they wouldn't maybe they wouldn't but when i talk to the other side People would express some similar little nuggets little some things that might just might work But they have no belief that the other side could see it that same way at all And there's been no space to build faith And that and that lack of space is perpetuating because of both communal and to be blunt council behavior Almost all participants expressed dismay frustrations so on about how stakeholders have behaved in city council meetings Now that's not universal and as said in the report there are some people who are very non-plus about it There are some people who say look council meetings are the the location for social theater. That's a good thing That's people being and expressing themselves So so that was not universal was a small minority people that said that most people did say things have devolved and they've devolved beyond What we would prefer to see and also behavior external to the council meetings So many of these participants acknowledged that a minority of stakeholders on their own side have behaved inappropriately But i must say to be very honest and confounding almost all the participants In fact, not a single participant that I interviewed openly said Yeah, it's us We shouldn't have done x y or z. There was a consistent theme of Despite the fact that there was a dissatisfaction with behavior In every single conversation I had then resulted to but those guys started it Which to be honest, I think that's unfortunate For a community to be dealing with a policy issue of this magnitude where this many lives are depending on it in various ways And I will say that I'm going to deviate go back and forth a little bit from findings to The other part of my role which is to provide you my professional opinion as a neutral and a person that mediates conflicts So I will say that On a regular basis when I'm working with stakeholders, I have a saying and it's one that I try to apply to my own life to be honest Which is there's a difference between being right and doing the right thing We all want to be right as humans There's not a single person in this room that doesn't get into some kind of conversation And expresses their feelings and would love for the person they're talking to you to go You're right I see it completely your way now It doesn't normally happen that way And then we have to all make decisions of what we deal with that and do we escalate So do we opt to continue to be right or do we choose to do the right thing? And sometimes the right thing is let the pitch sail by And unfortunately that hasn't been happening in this community a lot Landlords and private property advocates claim to have an unassailable mandate reflected in the measure m outcome because of what happened Renters and tenants rights advocates claim to have an unassailable mandate reflected in a progressive majority recently seated on the council I don't think necessarily either is wrong But this is a set of countervailing political forces that your community faces and beyond that Has the stated in the report and to be honest under the current circumstances that a recall has now been initiated in the report I refer to for those of you that are students of politics and geopolitical politics the mad doctrine which was a doctrine back in the 1950s when we were escalating for the first time in nuclear superiority The mad doctrine with an escalation of nuclear power was based upon the fact that you were never really going to win a nuclear war It was mutually asserted destruction was going to happen I'm giving you my professional opinion whether you choose to accept it or not that I believe in this community because of this dynamic because of these countervailing conditions you have the makings for Mutually assured destruction There appears to be a reasonable rationale to claim that there is a progressive majority on the council The votes have been counted and People are seated on this council as we speak The progressive majority does not seem inclined to take a unilateral approach on some form of rent control and has Identified a desire to try to delegate this to a proposed task force. That's not wrong. That's not bad But the history of how this played out going back to january where there was a second reading of just cause eviction And it was tabled and this moved ahead indicated that a progressive majority was not at that time prepared to Operationalize on that and again. I'm not saying that's good. I'm not saying it's bad I'm just saying that it's a dichotomy between what is expressed that a majority exists And whether or not that has been politically activated or not Again, I'm being blunt and I apologize for that Many participants in the council expressed a need for rental housing policies So this is moving on to data to be supported by defensible mutually acceptable data however Any of the very same participants expressed uncertainty about and an unwillingness to consider data if it was offered from the other side So what do we do about that? Data is out there people exist that there's meaningful data that can be supporting it and likewise a number most people said You know This is such a significant policy condition to make decisions without data would be untenable and yet we have this dichotomy So how do you balance that out now? There are ways there are methods There's totally methods and I describe those a bit in the recommendations one methodology that's commonly used as what's called joint fact finding Where you're mutually working on defining the tools and the methodologies and the data quality objectives if you will rather than As I call it having my phd can beat up your phd or what we sometimes call combat science But to do that has to have an atmosphere of trust or at least a commitment of people to be willing to Work in that regard. You can't just take a conflicted set of people and go all right Let's get some data and expect the outcomes to be any different than the rhetoric and behavior that has been expressed several oops Most participants are reluctant To support convening a task force again that many people were very reluctant It wasn't like when I asked this question. So how do you feel about a task force? It wasn't like we were like, heck Yeah, let's do it. That didn't happen And our skeptical about a task force chances however Most participants see little likelihood that current conditions are going to improve and frankly that was before the recall effort on its own terms in terms of civic relationships and mutually agreed on solutions And most people said something has different has to be done something different has to play out But their confidence and again Some of that lack of confidence was a lack of confidence in this council As to whether this council could convene or be willing to convene a task force And then take their hands off the stealing wheel stealing steering wheel stealing sorry Or something to that effect It wasn't just a lack of confidence among stakeholders. It was lack of confidence as to how this council would work in that regard Several participants feel that time is of the essence and the solutions protecting their interests be acted on rapidly Or in the case of landlord advocates that the outcomes of measure m be left alone Because measure m is what measure m is and the outcomes of the outcomes But there is definitely a pressing feeling from the tenant community that Left unresolved people are at risk And the landlords feel that they're at risk However several participants feel that the city should wait to see how the legislation that we just heard of plays out And that would be premature. So we're starting to see how that's playing out and That's one of several externalities. It's that I'll talk to you in a little bit Any participants express a lack of trust in the other side to provide rational participants and engage in a thoughtful dialogue However, when I asked the question of are there people on the other side Almost completely opposite answer almost everybody said yes, there are there is there are somebody there is somebody there are a few people And those people their names are repeated several times. It's not necessarily the usual suspects sometimes it was So there are people out there that on either side people think, you know, I could still work with that person, but There's no faith Which again comes back to the whole talking past each other working in a vacuum things like that I'd asked a series of questions beginning with perspectives on behavior in city council meetings And both of the council and stakeholders members of the public that participate and I then followed on with that with a set of questions about How a task force might work in that and I did that because to be honest professionally Having watched videos of the council meetings from going several months back to most recently I had reservations as a person that does this and has been doing this for 30 years I have reservations to expect that a group of people if there was going to be a task force would be able to do that And withstand and really frankly be we willing to put up with The behavior that you as a council have to and that is expressed here now again, that's not good or bad Public discourse takes all forms Centrists extreme and everything in between and that's fine There's nothing wrong with that necessarily But to ask a group of people in a task force to do all that work in the public and not have an opportunity To do some of their work behind closed doors. I can tell you categorically is untenable Now I will tell you that almost every single person I interviewed including this council both said that they felt that there had to be a way If there was going to be a task force for that task force to do some of its work behind closed doors with absolute non-negotiable Methods for accountability in the public and engagement with the public and reporting on the activities that are going on behind those closed doors When the time is right So it wasn't a one-way street there But everybody almost everybody I spoke to and on this count on this council Almost everybody actually everybody said they understood the need to do some work behind closed doors Some folks described that the challenges and solutions as being unique Uniquely local and not well served by looking at other examples to other places because of the unique conditions be it social economic even geographic nature of Santa Cruz And other people describe this as being fundamentally a regional problem because of the current and anticipated pressures From the bay area So that's an interesting are we do we look to other sources to find solutions for problems or are those other sources irrelevant? So I come back to this conclusion Now I want to be very clear in advance of the next couple slides that I cover I'm going to talk about what I refer to as internalities and externalities these sort of overarching pressures and internalities are The things that I discovered so I'll just go on to This compelling desire for change a hope of a better tomorrow. There's dissatisfaction frustration things like that The fact that there are some possible items for agreement had this not been communicated The large number of people that I spoke to So I had all other behavioral conditions stayed the same had the legislative conditions and were played the same Had frankly the behavior going on within the council been the same had behavior of the way stakeholders Were working or not working with each other in the community both prior to measure m and after measure m had those all been staying the same But these kinds of desires not been expressed routinely I would have categorically come to you and said do not pursue a task order or a task force No, that would have been my answer not a you know is unlikely I would have flat out said no the externalities Externalities will be destructive to a task force And these are things I've already talked to a little bit, but council behavior Council and potentially external intervention with a task force Or I should say the fear of it Stakeholder behavior behavior in the meetings to each other in public settings these kinds of conditions and the legislative solutions and now the recall So go back to what I just said about the internalities now. Let's for argument's sake say that these had all been in place These same kinds of sentiments had been expressed the desire for change a hope for better tomorrow all these kinds of things And these externalities were not in place if your council was functioning differently if behavior within the stakeholder committee was different I would have categorically without any hesitation said yes, you should pursue a task force I hope that's clear what i'm saying It's these countervailing conditions That's not what played out But I can tell you that notwithstanding these the internalities And at the end of the day The reason why I grappled with and it took me a while to continue pouring over the notes But the reason why I came forward with the conclusion that I did is to have come forward to you with an absolute blanket no Would have been dishonoring Dishonorable to the candor It was expressed to me many many times by several people many people majority people Expressing this if I'd said no if these I couldn't do that in good conscience. This was expressed It is there but And I felt compelled to honor that however It is these that are the mitigating factors These are the things in my professional opinion that have to be Addressed Not uncommon in conflict in any form of conflict interpersonal conflict Doesn't matter whether it's spouse significant others to each other Anyway, you slice it is The retaliatory cycle I'll describe that there's some sort of initiating circumstance something happens There's an internal emotional reaction all humans go through this as an emotional reaction that takes place That reaction turns into an external Exhibiting or external acting on that And you're in a cycle and it doesn't matter whether you're with a significant other or you're and you're arguing about where the car keys are Or you're a city council in a community arguing about rental control It escalates and you find yourself going to def con for before you know it And there's nothing new to this So all relationships if you're trying to solve things you've got to try to find a way to go from retaliatory cycle to a conciliatory cycle Which is is there a way to be conciliatory to each other? That doesn't mean apologize can Can you acknowledge your own part things like that? So conciliatory examples are Listen and validate these are basic things that anybody that's ever been in therapy to be quite honest has probably gone through Honor and not challenge each other's stories. There's a significant number of stories legitimate Powerful painful in some cases stories in this community on both sides But both sides have gotten into a my story is more painful than your story rather than Let's try to find a way to listen to each other's stories Be accountable for self and organizational behavior Again at the risk of sounding overly like a therapist anybody that's ever been in a 12 step program knows that self Accountability and in making amends for things is a foundational aspect of that. That's a conciliatory gesture You have to do things like try to define your shared beliefs You have to try to move to the center and away from the extremes. There will always be people that are on the extremes You have to embrace compromises a means to an end knowing that compromise will be distasteful To certain people and they will hammer you forward to compromise But that's the kinds of things that happen Under conciliatory examples in order to make it work So when I come back to this for the third time I submit to you that think about any dispute that you or anybody in this room has been in Any conflict or dispute gets solved by one of two ways and I'm oversimplifying but it's really pretty much like this Conflict or dispute either gets solved by a power disparity That a person can employ and then they can be as moderate or extreme as they choose to be because they have a power differential that allows them to operationalize what they want Or people have got to move towards the center and move from the extremes that is how Conflict gets resolved. It is either resolved by force Or it is resolved by moving to the center Under current circumstances that I've talked about these externalities. I am not optimistic It pains me to say that I wish I could tell you otherwise I do believe as I've said several times here now That the seeds exist within your community to do the right thing and the desire Notwithstanding most recent political conditions that the desire is there to try to find a different way of doing things But it's a big hill to climb Thank you Saying at a friend's wedding once and after I got done singing in the wedding everybody started applauding I was like Do I stand here or do I go back for what you're welcome to say mr. Sepos I just um Let's go ahead and uh, I'll just go ahead and um Take a moment. Did you have additions to we have we have just two more slides sort of um summarizing the um options for council motions as we've written them in the staff report. So um just really briefly We wanted to come up with at least a few ways that your council might choose to proceed tonight just to sort of offer you a path First you could direct staff to continue basically our current work Which is largely defined by the housing blueprint subcommittee report, which was completed last year the housing element in the 2030 general plan Um, this is essentially our current work plan So you could give us direction to simply carry on doing the work that we are currently doing and sort of set aside This issue of a rental housing task force for the time being Option two Your council could choose to initiate an ad hoc committee subcommittee to address some of these key Key dichotomies and see if some resolution can be raised around these these questions that are raised in the report um within some kind of a stated timeline and then Once that time frame is concluded and those dichotomies are resolved to some extent then launch into a task force process um number three You could direct staff to return as soon as possible with a process design to initiate a rental housing task force um Despite the findings of the situation assessment report there will be some opportunity cost in terms of The work plan for the advanced planning section and those items that are in the housing blueprint subcommittee Report and the housing element in the general plan. So keeping in mind Priorities and that your council hasn't yet had a chance to set a set of joint priorities something to keep in mind so Obviously option four is to direct staff to take some other course of action as defined by your council by motion this evening So at this point we can't accept any questions you have Thank you Maybe before we jump into questions. I just really want to acknowledge and thank you mr. Seppos for spending so much time in zanacruz and for Diving deep into our community for the thoroughness of the report the interviews And the excellent presentation is difficult as it was to hear at times um I um not only enjoyed our conversations, but truly admire the work that you do and I appreciate your honesty And I'll just say that I to my colleagues in the community that I take your feedback very seriously I think that we as leaders do set the tone here in our community and Really honor what was said in that report by a number of people that I know and respect and others that I don't But also shared similar concerns from those that I do know in that report And in terms of the characteristics that you spoke to in terms of listening to honor what's heard self-accountability To find areas of shared belief and to look for the center in compromise. I'll just make that A public that I will approach this evening's conversation with those in mind So that said we'll go ahead and see if there's any questions from council members of your report And um at which time once we conclude the questions we'll go ahead and open it up to Members of the community who want to address us in this regard And then we'll return back to revisit some of the potential policy options that we have before us So I'll go ahead and look to my colleagues on the dais here to see if there's any questions of mr. Seppo's or the staff in terms of his presentation or report Any questions at this time Okay, vice mayor coming. I have one question for staff. Um with regards to the third op Or maybe it was the first option with moving forward with the housing blueprint subcommittee recommendations. What are Currently or at the last time you all were working on those recommendations Um, what were the priorities because I know that within that report there are some priorities based around recommendations around Rent control and tenant protections and but there's a lot of other components to that report And so I was just kind of wondering where staff was at in terms of the different Of what parts of that report were prioritized. Sure. Um, so sarah flaming principal planner over the long range planning team So most currently we were planning to launch at the beginning of this year A renewed discussion on the rezoning of ocean street That has temporarily been pushed back To have these rental housing task force conversations and with some of the homelessness items that have come forward as well We also have some outstanding adu items on our Plate right now if you'll remember in january, um, we did bring some adu items back some of those items were Kind of put on hold while we did some research into Tying some of them with affordability. We're working on that. There's also some additional adu items that hadn't come forward yet Related to lowering of fees Creating prototype or similar types of plans to help make the process easier Um, and I think there's one other adu item that i'm not remembering We're also going to be looking at a range of housing types. So potentially i'm mending our sRO and so u ordinance Creating a new language for to allow junior adus in the community Working on some land use policy issues related to legalizing illegal dwelling units and then we have a Which is not a part of the housing blueprint subcommittee work But we have a long outstanding lcp local coastal program update that we've been working on for a long time That we'd really like to be able to get across the finish line We also received a grant which you heard about from tiffany wise west earlier today Yeah, i'll get there. Thank you Earlier today regarding The grant that we received so we're working on some adding a hazards element to our local coastal program as well That would address sea level rises rise and potentially wildfires and things of that nature And then we have a citywide parking update review and potential update that we're looking at and many of those things were slated to be done in this Current fiscal year but have been pushed back and now they're kind of compounding on the other items Additionally, we also have about 350 implementation items from the general plan 2030 That have been on hold through the housing blueprint process that Um, you know should be should be looked at and worked on and that includes about 10 Either updates or new area plans that are in there and about 10 Ordinance and policy updates that are in there as well that were envisioned as a part of that general plan that Haven't even been looked at yet very candidly and then finally we have our housing element which also has a Pretty broad array of implementation efforts that some of which are being addressed through the housing blueprint subcommittee Recommendations items, but some of them aren't Oh, and I'll add one more thing I just remembered The housing blueprint subcommittee recommendations that came through were only 44 of the 99 that were Recommended so while it's not on our current workload I would expect at some point potentially council would end up revisiting those balance of recommendations and potentially Directing staff to look at those as well and most of those would fall to this team Just out of curiosity How is it so 10 protections has has been a big thing that you know for years has been An interest in the community and i'm just curious because there were recommendations around that within The blueprint subcommittee report and I just want to get a better sense And i'm sure people in the community want to probably get a better sense of how that didn't make it on to that list of priorities Sure So the primary item that was in there was the large run increase item that we brought back Last year and so we had drafted a large run increase ordinance that we initially brought in Mid-september that was originally Limiting increases to 10% and 15% over two years And you may recall there had been some back and forth on that and the council finally adopted that ordinance on January 8th and that had made it 5% over one year or 7% over two consecutive years Um, so that's been adopted as of right now. That's everything that we have on our workload related directly to I shouldn't say workload, but out of the housing blueprint subcommittee related to that And so we that was one of the first ones we addressed that in the community outreach policy We're the first two things that we tackled and then obviously as the adu legislative cycle was moving forward That was the next kind of low hanging fruit and then here we are Well, clearly you have time for a lot more work to do Thank you. That was an impressive list Councilmember Myers any questions? I just want to thank you for the report. Mr. Seffo is great. It was uh, it was very sobering But I thought very well done and I think I think you got into the psyche of our community and so I appreciate you being honest with us It's never easy to hear criticism or critical Critical feedback, but I think uh, I think you your honesty. I think was um, I just respect it So thank you I'm I'm just curious if You guys ccp is I'm just curious if if you're finding this in other communities obviously housing is a huge topic poverty People here in california not being able to make it anymore is is in the paper every day I'm just curious. Uh, sometimes it's nice even though we're not we don't have the same pay possible situation Per se for our specific issues with maybe our market or the way our Housing is working right now, but I'm just curious if you guys are doing any other work With any other communities in california and with regards to sort of you know, this kind of this kind of Divide and in approach in a community. There are um There's a couple cases that I'm working on right now not to be honest not as conflicted as this but they're The circumstances in those conditions Aren't exactly the same. There's some rena Uh rena inventory issues that I'm working on and affordable housing issues that I'm working on To be honest, I I'm getting more inquiries From communities. I I can categorically tell you as a student of public policy, which is I am um Prior to even the governor bringing forth his agenda And the legislature then acting on what they're currently working on right now You could see the groundswell beginning to happen. You could see the And I'm going to be very clear this I'm giving you a professional albeit personal opinion. You could see the untenable nature In california Of of the economics of housing, um the unsustainable nature again I I'm not I do not say that in the context of had because c4 or against Rental control or rental how any any the other thing. I'm just saying that that there is an unsustainable nature In many communities around the state of california. They are seeing it. They are recognizing it. Um It ties to a number of broader conditions in terms of tax revenues and All the about it subsidization in order to sort of, you know, vote with your pocket book and and live by certain codes Or values in certain communities if you choose to do all these things are Are playing out with the unsustainable nature that certainly in in some major urban areas, particularly the l.a Based on the san francisco region of the bay area, such as you'd want to define it. Um the Quite literally the amount of distance that people have got to Move to live in one place and work in another is creating a socioeconomic instability And that's seen and so we are seeing that in terms of inquiry to me and some of my colleagues I yeah, I just appreciate your reflection on that because I I think with some of the other issues that we're dealing with as a council um There are big issues, you know, this is not a santa cruz city issue This is and so I think as we we think through what we could do as a community I think it's always nice to reflect a little bit in the shared the shared Humility of what's happening around the state And and and you could say this Similarly about homelessness. It's it's difficult. It's hard There's not a lot of clarity and it's going to take some time. It's going to take time to Not only come up with the policy But also to trust, you know to trust each other with ideas and to try to try to move forward without with sort of an unknown ahead so I I appreciated your report though and I and I just wanted to kind of provide a little bit of context I think for our community because sometimes it can feel very very Local in terms of the issues in the grocery store or as you're looking at people across the room And so I think we're just living in a time of of difficult Policy issues in california and and we can all take a deep breath knowing that we're not alone But thank you for the report and for the presentation tonight Are there any other questions for mr. Stepos or the staff before we go ahead and open it up councilmember brown I was going to say I just I'd rather wait and hear from the public And I possibly will have questions afterwards but and comments, but I'd like to hear from people who are showed up So we'll go ahead and take a pause. Thank you very much and um, hopefully you'll be able to stick around for any further questions of clarity Okay So at this point we'll go ahead and open it up to public comment on this item Um, I want to see is is faz still here He had to leave. Okay. I was just going to honor his request to go first But I don't think he's here. So no problem. We'll go ahead and open it up I will unless there's anybody who wants to speak for one minute seems like I we were anticipating We weren't quite sure what to anticipate this evening. So if folks want to speak briefly They're welcome to if not, we'll go ahead and open it up for two minutes So there anybody who wants to just briefly speak for one minute on this item Not you're welcome to Just a question. So are we still where If you speak for one minute, you go to the front of the line, speak for more you're at the end of the line That's right. Yeah. So if you're anybody who just really wants to briefly address the council before we go into The two-minute public comment, we'll go ahead and allow for you to do the do that at this time No problem seeing them. We'll go ahead and open it up for the two minutes and we'll start with the folks on my left Nate alex.kennedy at gmail.com What I think is one of the biggest priorities for housing right now. We need to have mandatory Inspections of all rentals whether it's a house or a single room We need to have people come in building inspectors making sure there's no asbestos We need the fire department to come in All rentals to make sure there are not any fire hazards And I have lived in situations where I was with my mom and She had actually done certain things I'm not going to name any specifics, but that were serious fire hazards And when she finally came home and the friend of mine that helped look at all this She was shocked at all the stuff she had to do to make it fire safe I mean it pretty simple stuff with stuff like a long Cables for for a stereo system speakers stuff like that But yeah, we need mandatory and I've been through this before In housing that was anything but standard We need building inspectors and the fire department to come into absolutely all rentals before they can go on the market Um, well that was pretty intense for me. Uh I'm got 30 seconds here and I'll I'll give myself 10 to think of what to say in 20 If three people you love a hug pay it forward. Thank you Hi, um, my name is reggie misler Uh, I think it's helpful at this point to like go back and figure out why we even tried to establish a task force in the first place We were in a housing crisis. It was identified by the previous councils so much so that they did a rent freeze with eviction protections They were not threatened of recall. Everything was fine Um, and then those against measure m when that sort of came up Said that they just had problems with little pieces of it And so and then the majority in Santa Cruz the city voted for proposition 10 which expanded rent control In cities where it already existed. So it was very logical Uh earlier this year when sandi and justin tried to just take m and take pieces out of it I was just a totally rational thing to do based off of the current conditions But uh, the goalpost started to move It wasn't just that people didn't like parts of m. It was that they didn't like Eviction protections at all. They didn't like rent control at all. They didn't like rent regulation They didn't like any sort of government action in any way and so You know we we need to act somehow and what the staff has proposed really does not address the same things that uh Rent stabilization and eviction protections address and that's why I think we should do uh Go ahead with the task force but um Sorry, I'm a little nervous But uh make sure that um those on the task force are willing to compromise on um You know just regulation in general just basic, you know government action Uh, and I think if we can get just some like very basic Level of moderation from people who are on the task force We can find something that people will agree to because that was the point of the task force Was that they didn't want city council to just sort of In one meeting pull apart m and then just pass something they wanted to take their time and figure something out Right next speaker Hello, my name is elise casby and I am really um really happy that we I think made the excellent decision and I applaud council for getting this consultant Because I do feel that this consultant is exceedingly neutral And to that extent I think there are some failures in the report and I just want to say this as somebody who Over time developed a political philosophy that I never thought that I would ever develop into Um, I thought I'd be more like one of you up there a little bit more mainstream And somebody who is like a democrat or a progressive democrat and that just didn't happen and So what I want to do here is to bring in a concept that I really learned recently Through a group called santa cruz county community coalition to overcome racism and the reason this is so relevant is One of the things that these people educated me about was that When you're addressing racism society is not like a blanket thing that everybody Can approach in the same way A lot of times in our merit meritorious culture we have this idea that you know More or less even if you have some handicaps you can make up for it Right because society is a kind of even thing and that everybody has more or less the same opportunity Sure, some people have to work a little harder What i'm saying is the flaw that I see in this report is it comes within a context of neoliberalism of a completely Beleaguered and failing democracy because money rules everything And I think that although mr. Seppas what he did was a job well done He did it fully and completely within the bounds of his professionalism We still can are going to have to address the culprit here and that is we are in a horribly authoritarian extremely unfair system Sarah could you pull up the slide that had the externalities? I just want to thank out loud with you about what your next steps might be. I thank mr. Seppo's for This call to action or call to transformation Um So I think on this slide we're the the factors that that If we don't change them then mr. Seppas is suggesting we don't move forward. So let's see what we can change Council behavior council an external intervention. So I I think we'd like to hear from you tonight about those two things Stakeholder behavior in meetings and to each other Let's figure that out I mean apparently they're you know of the sides that uh, mr. Seppas interviewed Each side thought there were members of the other side that were reasonable enough people that they could deal with So will the tenant groups and the landlord groups support this process? Can they Can they um Can you find that out if if they will support this process? Uh legislative solutions. We don't have a lot of Power over that the recall. Well, you all can say something about the recall. Is that something that you support? So I I would look forward to hearing you tonight. This is really a call for all of us What what what can we do? And uh, at least three of the items up there about you. Thank you Evening council. My name is barbara river woman To me the answer is looking at our empty chambers tonight And it both argues against moving ahead with the task. I'm going to go ahead and pause your time here for just a second Okay, okay So Okay, well, I see this person is being asked outside at this time We'll go ahead and just remind each other that we have an all have want to hear We want to be heard and we want to allow everybody to be heard. So If we can move forward with that intention, that would be great. We'll go ahead and start your time And uh, we'll give our undivided attention to you at this moment um, so I was saying that I I feel that that there's a strong message from the empty chambers tonight I think we live in a culture of conflict We identify with one group or another group And we tend to do what mr. Seppos Said which is to think they're wrong and we're right. We don't really have faith In the peace process. It's easy enough to want Countries abroad to sit down at the peace table together, but it's really really hard For us to sit down with our enemies and have any faith that we can reach some kind of Agreement and even respect and an agreement that might work better for all of us. I'm a preschool teacher I'm a developmentalist. I don't think we can create the ideal Overnight, but I think we can move ahead as much as we can So the fact that this is an empty chambers pretty much tonight. I expected it to be packed. I thought everybody would want peace This is our big chance This is this is what we've been waiting for somebody with the leadership quality of somebody like mr. Seppos who can handle Acrimonious situation who can handle people who are really really angry at each other We're looking for that kind of leadership. We're looking for that kind of faith that kind of Model in our own minds But we don't have faith in it most people don't have faith in it. They don't think it's going to work And so we're stuck with the fact that um We don't have it I do think that what mayor Watkins said Um is true That the council sets the tone Believe in each other find peace with each other and then we'll follow. We'll try to do our best. Thank you. Thank you Excuse me Hi, Darius most need here. Um one thing. Um, I'm kind of a johnny come lately to facebook Um, I find out you could actually waste about 20 percent of your day on it But anyway, one thing I've learned about being on facebook a little bit more is when people the folks in santa cruz Have a problem and don't like something they immediately go to facebook and complain about it And it's been what two years since the rent freeze was february 7 2017 I see no Facebook pages no post about oh my landlord did this. Oh, he's kicking me out. Oh, he raised my rent And in fact if you talk to a lot of folks the tenants they say, oh, I really like my landlord He's great. But I heard about this other guy. So again, this idea of having real data is very important And I don't think I think Landlords like myself and others have been quite self-governing in the past two years despite all this there hasn't been a mass exodus massive mass evictions Massive rent increases and so forth. So that's one point second point different is one thing I noticed in the the report was this Common theme about with this animosity towards a rental inspection program And it seemed to be coming from not just landlords, but the tenants themselves, which I find really ironic You hear about the stories of substandard conditions, which mr. Three hugs here had talked about yet He wants and wants rental inspections yet There's folks I think in the report. I'd like to hear more about that frankly If there's a way to get what what exactly is wrong people eject to the rental inspection program Which I find which I also find a slap to joe and oscar And the other folks that are really Great bit side manner and good representatives of the city when it comes to the inspecting rentals. Thank you I expect you're getting a little weary of seeing some of our faces at every meeting We likewise are getting a little weary but I think we've seen Santa Cruz in a very different light from the way we See Santa Cruz in our hearts I want to say as a person On this side of the dais That what we just heard was a willingness To work together And I want I want to second what we heard from rick lancinati And that is That we really need you To work together If the recall goes through And is successful We're going to have no end of bifurcated enmity In this community We can't I've said this over and over again. I'll say it one more time We can do better and I really do Trust each one of you. You're bright. You're caring. You love Santa Cruz. You can do it We're here. We're willing to say yes I was a participant in the process I'm willing to be a participant In the ongoing process We can do it together Good evening. I'm norah hockman I was a stakeholder and interviewed in this process so for those of The one two or however many of you put my name on that list I thank you for that. I was very honored to be Part of this process in the city Having said that You know, I really hope that there is no intention to put together a task force As a result of this because I fear that we will spend six to eight months arguing About how those appointments are to be done and those are really boring Discussions on this side of the dais The endless horse trading and you know, how many people got how many appointments by who and How many people they'll there will be and will it be two people per council member? Or will the campaigns Submit names and I don't care Because every day that goes by There are challenges for tenants And if there are challenges for tenants, there are challenges for landlords. It's just the nature of the relationship So if we don't have a task force We got to figure out then by what means we managed to approach each other I'm talking about the two sides now To figure out whether we can pull some sort of rabbit out of this hat And you know make this a go and bring a legitimate recommendation then To council if we can knock out some sort of compromise agreement I'm very committed to that because I don't think The crying need for some kind Hi, carol polhamas. I was also um a stakeholder in the interview process I really appreciate that I thought it was a great process I really enjoyed meeting mr. Seppos and and going through the process and actually sitting in the hallway and Seeing people coming and going and talking to them um I think That there is a way to have a task force I think that the only way to come up with any kind of recommendations is by getting People on the opposite sides to speak to one another I really believe that people want the same things. They want stability. They want predictability They don't want over-regulation They want to be honored and respected for their opinions. I think that's a very doable thing And again, you set the tone for that. So I would encourage you to think about having a task force. I think it's important I don't know how else we're going to figure it out Good evening. I'm scott cram Well after his presentation there it's he kind of The report made things seem kind of hopeless as far as getting going moving forward But I think as a community we can rise above all this this fray And sit down and make something happen, you know start with measure m and Pull the piece pull it apart put it back together Maybe look at other communities what their rent control ordinances are pull them apart put them back together Come, you know take multiple situations put them all together and I think You know if the right group of people sits down together and they have the backing Of their particular Whatever groups they represent That maybe we can get somewhere And I was glad to see that Several times in this report The whole idea of the rental inspection thing came up Because that's something that landlords don't like and it's something that tenants don't like Tenants don't like being invaded by the city. Hi, we're the government. We're here to help you And then they kick you out of your out of your house, you know, it's like, uh You know when that when that Ordinance first came forward I made up t-shirts with pictures of Joseph Stalin on it and said hi I want to search your house. I don't know if any of you remember that but uh anyways so Maybe the first step that everybody can agree on as far as tenants and landlords is get rid of the dam inspection program And then move forward and find other common ground. Thank you Hi, I spoke earlier. My name is Sarah Manilde I am a section 8 tenant and I have just been through an awful lot with someone whose name I will not mention Is but is publicly known as a wonderful helping the Kind of landlord and we went through hell together And he sold the house and I thought I was going to be homeless And it didn't work out that way But I had a rent increase of about 40 percent not five percent And other lovely things and I'm a senior I've had cancer. I had a broken leg and broken knee. Is that the other thing? The complexity In this stuff requires that everyone Listen more carefully. There's power. We were talking about stories I think as my landlord just wanted to get rid of the whole problem He escalated stories against me and I'm not going to escalate stories back, but it wasn't good You know, it wasn't good And you do need to understand that a person needs to justify if they feel like they're using their power And um, I don't know what to do about it, but I think that I mean, it's like my grandparents lived in Santa Cruz county My grandmother talked to teddy roosevelt at the old st. George hotel in 1903 Okay, so when you say it's you know, it's all of california. Well, maybe it is But I think there are extraordinarily unique things here And there I really did work hard. I really did work at oak tree villa I really did do a lot of things I wish I could have done more or worked in san jose and then But that is part of the reason my income is so low as santa Cruz used to pay nothing Because the rents were nothing and now that i'm old and retired The rents are enormous. My personal experience is irrelevant probably to the larger process But I do want to remind you that there are response They're having responsible working people and you don't get to denigrate them and turn them into irresponsible people Who are suffering terribly here? Thank you Are there any additional members of the community that would like to address this on this item? Okay, seeing them. We'll go ahead and return back to the council for action deliberation and comments or questions at this time Councilmember mathews I'll go ahead with the comments since I didn't have a question Um and mr. Seppos, I want to thank you for the report the process both the individual Interview was very frank and comfortable and honest and I have to assume from comments that others had similar experiences and Your report sounded Very um It rang true to my own experience and and In the community and observing the community as a whole I would say um, I am not inclined to Go for a task force at this point Exactly and I understand all the good things that are operating in our community in terms of a desire to do better and Be nicer to one another and so forth When I looked at that first option that the the staff showed which was to Refocus on the current work plan the huge pile of recommendations from the housing blueprint subcommittee the housing element, etc I think there's so much Work that where we can get doable result results In on a satisfying timescale I am not hopeful that the a task force will deliver different results Particularly if the burden for running it Falls on to our our staff I really am eager to to make progress on some of the things that have been put off for A half year a year a year and a half two years and and see some results. So that's I'm just putting it out there That's where my preference lies I'll just um, maybe take a moment while I don't see any other hands at this time And then we'll go ahead and kick it over to councilmember Glover and then vice mayor Cummings But I I can't make a motion, but I was part of the housing blueprint subcommittee and really enjoyed that process I know it came from a really robust listening tour and within the three areas is housing protection and I'll just say that I think part of why I don't think that was Prioritized to the level I think it could have been is because we knew there was a conversation happening in our community around measure M and so we wanted to allow that process to play out But within that within that report are a number of suggestions around how do we support the rental housing in our community. How do we support? Protecting those rental units as well as other recommendations So for me knowing that, you know, maybe at this time given really just an honest report from a Um unbiased outsider To not pursue a task force that that could be a start to really look at what are as I know was referenced in in the report Are some of the lower hanging? Fruit items that we could find agreement on and build on those relationships. I potentially and see movement, but ultimately see Um community benefit, which is the center of what is behind that effort and within the report And I know is really what I think every single one of us in this room and on the dais really cares about So perhaps maybe it's sort of a blend of the two options of really saying look We want to keep working on housing in all forms because it's it was identified that it's now one solution to address the housing challenges in our community And we want to say maybe we'll take a real a real look at the rental protection components of the blueprint because that was sort of Sort of cast aside at the time And that could come up in the context of an ad hoc council subcommittee But instead of maybe having it being sort of narrowly focused on the the topic before us that it may be be more inclusive of Housing protection as well as how it complements some of the other efforts I also just want to speak to what I think was brought forward by the community in regards to the council behavior I feel that I I as I said I take that that feedback really seriously and I Recognize that within the report there were aspects of passive and more active elements of how council members behaved within the context of Not only measure M, but in general and so I will reflect on my own personal behaviors And I will also be mindful moving forward in terms of how we as a council can really start to move forward and seeking compromise and Bringing our community together So with that, uh, I'll go ahead and acknowledge councilmember Glover and then Kick it over to you at vice mayor Cummings. Thank you, mayor so First one. I appreciate mr. Seppo says has others but uh, definitely a positive experience in the interview process as well as the Questions and the clarity as well as the candid nature of his report back because I think it really provides a Important perspective and view of Santa Cruz to some it might be really surprising to others Not so much especially if you look at the discourse and the conversations going on in the community both in real life But especially uh online with the way that people communicate. So I'm hoping and looking forward to moving Closer together. I also appreciate some of the statements from the public Something that stuck out to me Well, first there was uh, I believe our last speaker that mentioned that uh, they thought that their personal experience was potentially irrelevant for other people and I just wanted to let you know that your Opinion matters if you're still here it looks you may have left But every story matters whether they be rich poor renter or landlord Something else that stuck out to me was we live in a culture of conflict, which I think is important to acknowledge Both for the fact that I know that for a lot of people conflicts It used to be that way for me too is something that we try to avoid And I would encourage all of us within the community To not be afraid of conflict And to embrace it and engage with it because if we come at it from the perspective that conflict is neutral It doesn't carry any good or bad attributes to it It just has to do with how we manage conflict when something happens How we address it and move through it because ideally we can use conflict as a tool to bring ourselves closer together Because after we deal with that conflict, we have a better understanding of each other and a more clear understanding of our shared values And goals so I look forward to Implementing those philosophies and ideologies both in the community and on this body And I will be excited to be a part of that process also When we're out to the motions The It's difficult and I think that you know just looking into the calendar and knowing that we have our Strategic planning session on the 22nd That may be a good opportunity for council members to really dive Deeper into the conversation around rent renters protections the structuring number down how committee so I don't know if it's I mean, maybe it's good if we set an intention with the motion to do it But do we think that it's maybe premature to do it before strategic planning sessions? So just a question I pose to my colleagues And then council member brown I had a question actually for um, mr. Seppos And I won't first. I want to also thank you for the report you were able to provide to the city of Santa Cruz for all the work you did around interviews and Just the honesty of the report that you brought forward. I thought it was really helpful and um, And I think it was pretty spot on for where we're at I also, you know, want to acknowledge the fact that you didn't say Absolutely not and you didn't say yes And you you know, you you focus on it being Unsuccessful at this time and for the variety of reasons that you brought forward it makes sense. Um, just given the Uh, the climate that we currently are facing in Santa Cruz In the absence of bringing forward a task force. I'm just curious from your professional perspective um I just envision You know, you address the fact that there is a recall happening right now and um And I think one of my concerns is that that's going to continue to divide the community And additionally, I feel like a lot of tenants in Santa Cruz and tenant supporters Also, you know, if we don't do anything are going to feel I think it's going to continue to Drive this rift because we continue to see more Market rate housing built and more tenants getting either asked to You know leave their homes or face high rental increases. And so I'm just curious if you have any thoughts around where we go from here and and Yeah, just any professional perspective on this Million dollar question Where to go from here, um Well, um You know, I I feel um It's an interesting experience doing any time I do an assessment because There there necessarily has to be a disassociation you know from The conflicts or the challenges that folks are going through and yet at the same time I ever cliche the sounds I care about the people that I meet and work with and talk to it's you know It's hard to not be engaged in these kinds of candid discussions and not do that in that context I feel badly for this community um I'm not taking sides. I want to be very clear. I you know, I I'm not going to get into the legitimacy or the effectiveness or appropriateness of a recall I'm going to say that You're this community is about to go on a war footing for the next two years That's my assessment. Um Right wrong good bad needed not needed. I'm not going to get into that. I'm just going to say that the dynamic of The compellingly expressed need for something to be done about the topic let alone the relationships but just the topic and that sequentially more than likely having to now take a Seat to the immediacy presumed of a recall means you're going to be in the success of dynamics It's going to be a lot of time. It's going to be a lot of emotion. It's going to be a lot of money There's already been frayed relationships or at least it's been expressed to me So I feel badly for this community in terms of where you go next I think some of your members of the community have really stated it. I but I I think it it's they have to people have to look in a mirror too I think um whether or not you engage a task force, um The externalities that I spoke to and mr. Lunge and I Called back up. I think that those remain fundamental. Um Going to give you a very blunt answer to something you can't This is a progressive community by and large and and You can't point to certain conditions at a national scale and say that the words and behavior of a particular leader Have impact and emboldened behavior, but then disassociate it when it happens at a local level So if you're going to presume that the behavior and actions of other leaders emboldened certain behavior Then so too does that kind of dynamic in this community? Um That's a blunt answer um, but so too then is a requirement of people taking a Disciplined way on how they behave amongst themselves too. So whether or not you engage a task force I think that those things are things that probably for the better of this community It's my recommendation is you'd want to be trying to deal with the things that you can deal with I don't know if I'm really I don't think gets the heart of your question, but I don't really know what I mean What else to say other than that really Hopefully that touched on it somewhat Thanks, I appreciate it. Um I just want to say that Moving forward. Um, I have an alternative motion to make that's in addition to the ones currently posted, but One thing that I've been trying to do Since getting elected is really find ways to engage with members of the community and Engage with other members of the city council who maybe haven't always shared the same opinions with because I think that we need to As has been mentioned, um, really try to work together as a community I've met with folks who were very much know on m have met with my other colleagues who were on the rank control campaign and um have Maybe not voted the way that everyone's always wanted me to see and I think part of that's been trying to actually get the community To work together and figure out ways we can collaborate So I'm very much interested moving forward Trying to work with members of the community in any way possible If the task force isn't going to go forward and if the ad hoc committee doesn't go forward I'm going to be really reaching out to community members to figure out ways that we can pass Um policy that's going to be um very inclusive of the folks in our community We're proud. Um, yeah, thank you. Mr. Supos for your candid honest, um Reflection on what's going on in our community. I'm having a I mean, I don't want to repeat what's already been said So I'll just I'll leave it there. I really appreciate it and um Wish that we I mean one of the reasons that I wish we could Do a task force right now? We could actually vote to proceed on a task force that I think Working with you that it would be really great for our community to have Somebody who's honest and and really capable to come in here and help whip us into shape When it comes to you know working on what I believe is the most vital issue that we face in this community The thing is the Kind of talking past each other. I mean all of the dynamics that you Have have raised in this report For me Were precisely the reasons. I mean, I didn't really come as a surprise It's I mean, it's obviously hard to see it in the these stark terms, you know staring back at you when you're reading But it it didn't surprise me much And those dynamics are kind of precisely why I thought Genuinely, it would be a good idea to have a task force to kind of bring people together Who say they're willing to negotiate and good faith to have those conversations Because they don't happen otherwise. They don't happen On their own or they haven't been So it makes me sad to you know, but you know, I could only recommend doing a task force if At this point given what we've seen and kind of what we've all been through if that was a unanimous decision By all of my colleagues and I'm sad that that's not happening here that that others aren't inclined to To move ahead and and give this a try And make those commitments to to stay out of the way and and see if the community could come together and we could help facilitate that So I'm looking forward to hearing what council member coming or vice mayor coming's excuse me Is thinking about as a way forward because I don't think it's acceptable to do nothing right now if we do nothing if we do not at least Step up and demonstrate that we can provide some leadership and that we can work together The community is going to go do good out again and Or maybe the community will come together But you know as as I think some of the members the people folks who spoke tonight They're looking to us for leadership and walking away and doing nothing is not leadership So Like I said, I'm looking forward to what vice mayor Cummings has come up with I have a few thoughts of my own and I hopefully they'll I think they are likely to align So I think I'll leave it there for now well, um I'm not seeing any not seeing any other hands being raised at this time So if I could just and maybe in summary Try to see how we can move forward as a council unanimously I think you know one of the things that I Think I can say that I hear is that there's not really this sort of let's go Let's not do the task force But I think but it could maybe happen eventually but maybe not tonight. It's sort of my feeling at this moment But in terms of what I believe council member Glover suggested and And I'm and I am in agreement with if that's the direction we want to go is we want to continue to work on Bringing our community together showing leadership and actually making a difference in regards to housing in our community and so if that comes out of our Strategic planning session then that is fine if we want to have that conversation there Um, if if we don't want to move forward on forming an ad hoc in any way to kind of dive deeper into What I think is already and actually I will just give a shout out to our planning department too They received award of excellence for their work around our housing blueprint subcommittee from the northern california association of planning Northern california american planning association. We're very close. Yes, anyhow, um, it's it's a it's a document that's been It's been acknowledged by their peers in terms of excellence and I think it's also the foundation for What we can really do together in terms of supporting our community and bringing us together So I'd be happy to say If it's at the will of the council that we Continue the conversation to really think about that in terms of our strategic planning if that's the approach and or look at a sort of a merged motion or direction in regards to Some sort of ad hoc of council members coming together to really dive deeper into that report particularly around the housing protection components and looking at some of the low hanging fruits as was identified in the In this in the summary report. Okay. I think I saw councilor glover vice mayor comings and then council member mires Thank you. Um, so I'm also curious about vice mayor comings alternate motion, but something that I could see to respect what council member brown had Uh, brought up was the Way to move forward and take action tonight Maybe not a task force But doing something to show that we're able to take some steps and at least still have the gears turning in the ball Moving forward or moving the needle. So I could see a fusion of one and two. Um, I could just see one with the establishment or the Kind of statement of intention that we will be addressing this at the strategic planning meeting Uh, so those are all things that I could be totally open to supporting. Can you go to number three again, please? Citizens, oh, yeah, um, so Uh Either one or two I mean we do one and include parts of two so it could be something like direct staff to Continue on the current work plan And initiate an ad hoc subcommittee that would spend some special time talking about it at the strategic meeting If we were to break into groups, I'm not sure how that's going to be structured So if we're going to do small group work, then there could be a group specifically focused on The issue of renters protections and or task force formations So just some suggestions For conversation, but I don't want to make a motion until I hear vice mayor comments Okay, the million dollar motion. Let's go ahead um emotion was something um a little bit different but Uh, there have been a number of folks in the community. I mean pro m and against m and pro rent control and not who really want more data and so um Taking some recommendations brought forward by community members I wanted to um direct staff make the motion to direct staff to bring back recommendations to pursue an online rental lease rental increase notice to quit and eviction submission and tracking program For the purposes of gathering fine scale data on the frequency and magnitude of rental increases notices to quit and evictions in the city of sanikers and in addition to that that we um review the blueprint subcommittee report and bring this back at the planning session on june 22nd Okay, so at council more clever So i'll second that for conversation so that we can have a conversation about it um and the question then I guess is with the online database survey structure Is it a mandatory thing for all landlords to participate in? Is it an optional thing because that could mess with the data? Well, this is for staff to bring back the recommendations. Oh, I'm sorry to bring back the recommendations at the next city council meeting for how to implement it yes So that we can take all the considerations of mandatory how would the structure of the process be timelines costs All those kinds of considerations I get all right yep second Okay, I'll just um Have a little bit of hesitation here because we have a full meeting We have one more meeting prior to our council break and um that seems sort of detailed and um Potentially time-consuming to have that type of turnaround Not to say that that isn't something that could be forthcoming nor nor to Sort of dismiss it as not even a potential option. I think I think that could actually really help Feel potentially maybe what would be a conversation around this ad hoc, but I think it might Evolve into that but not necessarily start with that would be my sort of just instinctual response to that But I'd like to see what the staff says in regards to Sort of the timeline the different information that was suggested or requested in terms of the data Do you have a response to that? Before you sorry I was talking to him. That's okay. Do you want me to repeat the question? It's essentially your take on sort of approach timeline. Sure All right, so leave out their planning director and yes I certainly think that that is doable in terms of it being something required. We would need to do Ordnance updates getting ordinance updates in front of the council By the next meeting certainly would not be something we could put together but You know the the reports are due To the city manager's office in two days for the next meeting So that draft, you know, I I understand there has been some community work surrounding this and so building on that community work and At least agendizing it as a discussion for the council you could provide some direction so that during the council break Over july We could be working on an ordinance and bring that back early after the council recess with an ordinance that could mandate the requirements and that could dovetail with some of the other things that we're doing in terms of moving some of our rental inspection service Information online and so the the timing is nice in terms of complementary efforts that we're doing in that respect But we would need an ordinance For it to be required That would be a council decision. That would be sometime, you know, august at the earliest If you want a significant outreach In the interim it may be longer than that Or if you wanted some of that public discourse to occur at the The council meetings then it could be it could be sooner I do think this could land outside of the zoning ordinance and as a result Wouldn't need to go to the planning commission for recommendations It could nest within some of the rental inspection service provisions that we have which are in One title 20, I believe chapter 20 of the municipal code So given Yeah, there's a there's a motion on the floor. There's a motion by uh, vice mayor Cummings. Cummings There's a second by a council member Glover. We're in conversation and deliberation at this time Um, I guess I would just say that you know, I think to the earlier point made by uh, council member Glover That we will be having a strategic planning session in terms of short term work plan goals. And I think this could easily be Identified as something we as a council could find support for As well as some other elements that might have shared interests amongst our council So my instinct again would be to sort of pause that at this time and wait to have that conversation when we have actually our Planning session. Okay, uh council member matthews and then council member miers A couple things. So you just mentioned you have a full schedule planned for the strategic planning session, but it does seem to me like More focus on the the whole cluster of What do we do next on housing issues is appropriate for that? Strategic planning session. It's kind of in everyone's mind. I wasn't clear from your motion if you intended this to be Something that happened right now. What are individual people's experiences? In which case you get what's a statistically Valid Accounting or were you looking at a mandatory ordinance that would be landlord based? It just wasn't clear from me where you were going with your motion Which is let me just say another reason to put it off and have a little bit further discussion The point of the motion was mainly to get this on the agenda so that we can Begin to have a discussion around what this kind of program would look like and so um, the idea being that One of the things that's been expressed in the community is How often are rent increases happening? How often are we having people ask to leave their homes? And they're not being any mechanism for actually tracking that and so the idea being that Given the fact that we know this is to be true within our community Bringing this forward as something to put on the agenda that we could discuss in further detail and then Make recommendations to staff whether or not it's to Review the potential for changes in ordinance language that would come back to us in the fall And better understand how we can implement this. I think it's just a piece of this This issue around rental house housing that Folks have been saying that we need more data on and I think this might be a good mechanism to do so My own feeling is that dropping it cold without much preparation on an agenda Just gets us back into this kind of flashpoint of a whole lot of we'll go ahead and ask that if you Go ahead and reframe from making comments. We've had an opportunity to hear from the public at this time We'll go ahead and return it back to the council and we'll go ahead and allow you I do like the idea of bringing this up as part of our strategic planning discussion on housing My own feeling is that some outreach to different Stakeholder categories about How to go about this would be good on this one item So there's some sense. I mean, I think that was in a way part of the difficulty with measure m. It was It was cooked up and delivered cold So that that would be my approach there. That's part of why I wanted to get staff's input and recommendation So that we can have a discussion about how staff feels that we should move forward with implementing this kind of program And then we can have a discussion about it and during the summer The steps and recommendations we take to implement it could be taken into account One more question It just do you feel comfortable deferring this to the strategic planning session? I think that's fine. It's going to be I mean it's earlier. It's sooner, but yeah, I'd be fine with no I mean just to get this initial discussion. I'd be fine. Okay councilmember meyers and then councilmember brown Yeah, I guess I just want to echo I think that the work of the blueprint the blueprint subcommittee report is a really Workable set of of priorities for the community So I I don't want to lose track of the intent of the work that you guys did which is Housing protection housing preservation and housing production, you know, and so I think we have to balance this Need to address immediate needs around tenant protections and tenant tenant concerns But I do agree. I think we're starting here some consensus here. I think Taking this to our strategic planning session makes a lot of sense to me right now and in versus making a motion tonight But maybe we just refer to our strategic planning session and we come back after the break with additional work additional action councilmember brown and then vice mayor I understand the the interest in Trying to fit figure out how this fits in with our the workload and in terms of our overall strategic planning my concern Is well, I guess I'll start by saying I believe the intent of vice mayor Cummings making this motion was to Agendize this for discussion and direction to do something so that we could actually be doing something in the fall Rather than waiting until the fall to provide direction to do something for the winner So I feel like if there's a way that we can actually out of our strategic planning session Take that action and direct staff at that time on the second Then that that's okay, but I if that's not going to happen then I would vote right now to agendize it for the 25th because I don't Think we can wait All through the whole summer and then get back around to it after our break councilmember clever and then vice mayor Cummings the nice c-city manager martin Bernal I don't know if you want to weigh in before we have the only thing I was just thinking about is with respect to the strategic planning session The intent is to discuss a whole variety of different issues. So you just kind of be careful to not have one item Take up all your time. So these have to be really strategic about that Because it's intended to discuss a whole variety of different issues But I mean if I could just add that it's also designed to give some direction of consensus items on behalf of our council for our staff So that we can move forward in a thoughtful way in terms of policy and priorities within a short period of time, correct? That's that's right. So the the idea is to develop a six-month Work plan is a starting point and then then work on the longer term or a process for the longer term Two-year work plan. Okay councilmember clever and then vice mayor Cummings and then back to count Thank you. I just want to confirm the structure of the motion because there was something that was suggested before Which I don't support and I don't think I didn't accept it. So I just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing is that vice mayor Cummings motion which was to Have staff come back with their thoughts On it for the next city or genderizing it I should say for the next city council meeting so that we can have discussion and then give instruction as Director Butler mentioned over summer to do the work and the groundwork and then come back so we can do it in august And then specifically have a conversation of some length to address it so we can all talk about it at the Uh, strategizing meeting on the 22nd because I I think that the change was and this is kind of getting to my question Which was going to be would we be able to take action on this on the 22nd if we bring it earlier and if the answers No, then that would be a concern because I think that um the whole point and having had the um The planning director mentioned that we would be able to bring something because it's a recommendation for discussion on the 25th I think that if it's to come on the 22nd if we can take action on it that'd be fine. It's coming sooner But I think that if we can't take action on on the 22nd I mean the whole point of this is to have a discussion around this type of program And so what can come out of that is recommendations for community engagement It's the potential for you know learning more about how much it's going to cost getting more input from other members of the city council But the idea being that We've now taken about six months to take a step back From working on anything related well most things related to tenant protections And now the recommendation is that we should not do a task force And if we're not going to do a task force then One of the things that's been brought to me that i've been patiently waiting on is bringing this forward to the council And I think that this is a good opportunity for us to begin Having discussions and starting to think about how we're going to address these issues I think I was next so that was my question actually too that I guess to the city manager Because it's related if we can take action on the 22nd on this if we put it on our strategic planning or if It needs to go on a regular agenda. Yeah, I think I was just thinking trying to think that through I think the there's a challenge in the sense that If you're taking any kind of substantive Action and there's public interest, you know Trying to formulate an agenda Or around that in this kind of setting it will be difficult You can certainly discuss, you know discuss it and how it Fits in with priorities and give us a sense of that it's important and you want us to work on that I think you can certainly do that But if there's an interest in the council to actually have Potentially some public comment on it and and sort of your normal decision making process That setting would be difficult to be able to sort of give that type of direction I believe I think having an overall discussion how it all fits in and then bringing it back Would be more of the standard process so then there would be the proper notice and In the normal way the council would sort of give direction to staff on a particular item Particularly if there's public interest and weighing in and and hearing it Okay, I'll just go ahead and add and then I'll kick it over to council member brown that I think the there's sort of it's a yeah, it's sort of a both and you can kind of give direction in terms of broader strategic alignment in terms of efforts, but it's Not agendized and it won't be agendized to have us taking any specific policy action And I don't think that would be appropriate in terms of You know detailed discussion in that regard at that in that setting So I think it's it's sort of that tricky sort of in between space But I don't think taking specific policy action if it's agendized as a council retreat for strategic planning on this type of very specific policy Would be appropriate under the brown act constraints council member brown Thank you. So given that I'm going to go ahead and Say that I will support the motion as it stands to have this agendized for june 25th That sounds like our staff a director butler said that at least some kind of Information could be pulled together to provide a basis for that conversation We also have some materials that have been given to to several of the council members So I'm going to go ahead and call the question on that motion Okay, so we have a motion to call the question by council member brown seconded by council member crone We could have a repeat of the motion if we could go ahead and restate the motion at this time sure So the motion is to direct staff To bring back recommendations to pursue an online rental lease rental increase notice to quit an eviction submission and tracking program for the purposes of gathering fine scale data on the frequency and magnitude of rental increases notices to quit and evictions in the city of santa cruz to come back on the agenda for june 25th and to um Have the city council review housing blueprints of committing report recommendations um for action to be taken at the special planning meeting So we have a motion to call the question and i'm not going to support the call the question at this time But i'll go ahead and take the vote all those in favor to call the question. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No So that passes with council member brown vice mayor comings council member crone and council member glover voting in support of calling question Which means all discussion on the agenda I mean on the motion before us We'll be voted upon without any further discussion at this time. So all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? No So that passes with council member crone glover brown and vice mayor comings voting in support And council member mires mathews and myself voting against council member mathews I just want to say since I couldn't say it before i'm quite sympathetic to the Desire to gather credible statistics My concern was the speed of this action the specificity of what was required And the idea that the housing blueprint subcommittee would be Also included in that same discussion seemed like too much too soon that I I fear will Create some backlash right away. I'm I'm actually very sympathetic to the underlying desire I actually would be supportive of the underlying desire as mayor It's very difficult to agendize this way And I think just to acknowledge that there's likelihood that we would have to remove some other types of items that we had At you know, sort of tentatively scheduled for that meeting given the the depth of Agenda items we have before us. So Actually, my vote is not in opposition to the content. It's in opposition to the process council member mires. Yeah, I just like to Reflect also. I think from the very beginning. I've been really Interested in making sure we design the policy around the best data that we can get and So I just Yeah, so I will we'll see how things play out But yeah, I mean I understand the intent of the motion um, it would have been uh, really nice to be able to support it, but it's I'll let go there Yeah, so I might just want to say that I uh hear and acknowledge the concerns expressed by both council member Matthews and the council member mires with regards to the speed at which we are moving to Explore this option now I would do would do want to remind us that it is just a conversation of the next meeting and giving instruction for staff So that could take a very short amount of time in the agenda based off of the conversation that we have at the meeting, but I would call Excuse me attention to uh, mr. Seppos and the report And in a in an effort to try and work together and try to figure out some things We ended up again with another four three votes, which is not a very good look for a community Especially when they're looking to us to engage and in response to the question too much too fast I'm just a little concerned that we're at this point right now because we've done too little too late And so now we're at the situation where we have already waited six months because we wanted to see if there was a task force option we Did that Now we're here and we need to decide are we going to wait another two to three months before we even can really start doing it Because it's going to get through Summer and then we're going to get into august and then there's going to be things like the transitional encampments and the Opening of facilities that are going to take up a lot of meeting time. So when are we actually going to get to it? I think I hope that y'all can understand where I'm personally coming from and the vote I think that was reflected by the other three and then really figure out how we can start working together and compromising so that even And and work together. So I just look forward to that Okay, so we have another agenda item after this which is our budget. So I'll go ahead and acknowledge city manager martin Bernal. I just wanted to make a clarification. I was Conferring with our planning director just to be clear about what we would be able to bring back because the motion Noted recommendations and I just want to be clear that What we can provide is sort of just initial background information It's not necessarily specific recommendations that want what to do or not to do just kind of initial thoughts It really just background information to at least introduce you to the topic. I think that's more of what we're thinking Not specific recommendations And you can add a little bit more to that but sure Clarify that just giving the timing of the turnaround wanted to set some expectations about Our ability to come forward with well thought out recommendations could be a challenge But certainly would welcome the information that's been gathered from the community that we could build into that report Have initial thoughts related to that the timing implications It requirements for implementing that program will need to coordinate with our it staff to understand that And we can have a brief Set of information related to that as well as outreach That would dictate the timing as well in addition opportunity costs With the direction councils previously provided related to bringing back The options related to our rental inspection service and Seeking to get some prioritization from you related to that so that can relate to your strategic planning discussion as well so just Want to set some expectations with the the staff report actually being due in two days Reasonable expectations. Okay, so we have count. We'll go ahead and remind the community that We'll go ahead and refrain from comments at this time before we wrap up I think there was a comment Just one. I want to speak to the 4-3 vote on this. I think it's worth saying that That was based not on the intent and desire of the motion more strictly on the Timing and immediate workload, so I think it does not reflect the degree of division that was implied Okay All right, we'll go ahead and then close the item. Thank you, mr. Supos. Thank you staff Appreciate your work on this very much and you're in your trip to san to Santa Cruz from Sacramento Okay, so we'll go ahead and take maybe a two-minute transition break and Get back to our budget All right, Bonnie Okay, we'll go ahead and bring it back. We um, we are not done. We are not done yet for this evening We have to return to our earlier item item number 27, which is the We're nearly there in terms of the budget adoption. So We'll go ahead and ask that the council and the community Come back to session and then we'll turn it over to Marcus To bring us up to speed on where we left it and what we need to Finalize before we end tonight's meeting. Oh again, Marcus Pimentel your finance director We are close. So this is just recapping sort of the last motion sets that we were working on Motions three and four are done Motion two is no longer relevant based on the action that just occurred. So we're focused really on filling the Final questions for motion one, which is adopting a full fully balanced city budget And I do recognize that there were some other questions council members had Beyond some of just our logistics on getting a balanced budget So if you wouldn't mind we'll start with focusing on the balanced budget And I know there were some other questions and areas of concern that we wanted to explore afterwards So I'll go over to our revised version of our live model So these are kind of the four items that were dangling when we finished the afternoon session And I realized one of the first big questions we have after this is the first alarm that seemed to be a common concern Janice was identified as a placeholder there are I think some comments Related to that Prior afternoon session council opted to defund that and use that to fund the foster grandparent program First alarm private patrols. I have a little schedule that we can talk about that one We have just just an administrative action that was left out of increasing by 23,300 our contribution to the animal shelter services A jpa board that's just an administrative general fund increase And then there's an administrative water fund omitted $20,000 for a water purification project and they asked to have that Added to their budget. It comes out of their operating fund balance. So those are the four remaining budget actions remaining to go I might recommend Maybe starting with them in order and seeing what the janice discussion was and then we can pop into the First alarm discussion and review the level of interest council might have to restore or have a discussion around that program Okay, thank you or just take the easy ones in seven and eight first at my period Get some rhythm going whatever you like great. Let's do that. Is anybody interested in moving items number seven and eight Yes, okay. We've been motioned by councilor mathews. I'll go ahead and second that We did have public comment earlier on this item. So we're just sort of continuing the items There will be no public comment at this point. Um, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously So then we'll go back to items One and two or 16 and 19 and um, if I recall If councilor brown Please do Further elaborate, but if I recall your intention of having the money was really just to show our support But what you were suggesting is to have A more robust conversation about our relationship with Janice but also just our efforts around The opioid epidemic and and those types of services in general. And so you were feeling comfortable with Waiting for those conversations to take place before Doing any funding allocations at this time. Is that feel accurate to you? Okay Okay, does that Feel appropriate to the council councilmember govern? Oh, I just uh, I was the one that brought back c16 because we had replaced it Replaced it with the foster grandparents, but I requested to pull it and bring it back because Of the statement made by mr. Escalante about the criticism of the city not providing any content or compensation or support for janice, but then Talking about labor negotiations and or the relationship between janice and its workers so I just Wanted to reopen that conversation because Is it worth just 5400 dollars because that's a really Tiny amount compared to all the other stuff that we're talking about to still maintain that symbolic stance of wanting to support The substance use disorder and the workers and That kind of treatment so okay Councilor mathews. Yeah, I actually thought that was a kind of weirdly spurious comment on his part I don't believe we currently provide any kind of funding for janice Obviously, they are really important Treatment facility in our community. There are many many others. Some of them are supported in part through Our community programs grants Other others are supported through CDBG in some form so I think The time to have that much larger discussion is when we come up for the Core funding programs with the county The county is really the main consumer of their services So in my mind, I I totally support Putting foster grandparents in here at the $5,000 level and deferring the whole issue of how and At what level the city may support janice in the context of all the other support for other agencies Who also have probably many of the same issues. So that that's how I'd like to That's how I'd like to approach it I shared that council member ground. So I yeah, I concur with council member mathews Comments there and I would just add the In response to mr. Mr. Escalante's point just so we all are kind of clear about this the The city does not fund janice In part because of the core process that was established and the discussions that were Had About how the what the mix of city and county funding would be so I believe we did use to fund janice to some extent a small amount maybe and It all went to there. You know, maybe not janice in particular But some of the ones that where the county with the county and city split there was the reconfiguration So and the county does provide a significant funding to janice of Santa Cruz. So I think that It really is a conversation for a broader conversation to be had At a later date and hopefully not too much later. Okay. I completely agree. So it's maybe just not now But potentially after a longer a larger conversation and I just want to express that I hear the statements of all of my colleagues with regards to having the opportunity to have this conversation at a future time and the like I'm just a little And while I accept it I can move forward with that. I do just want to go on record and say that The issue of substance use disorder in our city is a huge issue It's important to a ton of people across the spectrum of political ideologies and 5400 dollars to make a symbolic Kind of just like yeah fist bump to janice I don't see the biggest fiscal impact of that right now in this budget right now for just 5400 dollars, but I hear it. So we'll can just we can pull that I guess, okay So for for another time. Do you need a motion? I don't think so. I don't do we need a motion? No, okay, so we'll go ahead and go to first alarm and see If there was any Um, I think how it was left if I recall was an interest in supporting particularly the areas that find first alarm incredibly valuable Like those that were expressed from the neighbors in the ocean street area Um, and what we could do to continue that support in that regard councilor mathias. What I'd like to do is take the 30 000 from oh no that we funded the community tv Let me see the um additional 25 000 for the heritage tree That we did not fund and the additional 30 000 for the tenant legal services which comes to 55 and allocate that for first alarm services To be Directed at the discretion of the police department according to specific neighborhood needs So that would be my motion And um, I'll say that I did talk at some length with the police chief I think we will not get to the level of designated First alarm service between certain hours on certain days that we have had in the past But I'm absolutely convinced that the availability of first alarm has made a A critical difference in certain neighborhoods at certain times and it has motivated and encouraged The residents in those neighborhoods to take an active part in Basically creating a sense of community and safety in their neighborhoods and I want to say specifically these are not rich protected gated communities these are working class low income heavily impacted communities that have Really felt over the years The brunt of a combination of forces so For that reason I think and I should also say in talking with the police chief Many businesses in these communities also hire their own security In our conversation we thought there was probably a lot of potential for police Deploying first alarm And in conversation with the businesses that are that are paying their own security To collaborate better and more effectively To everybody's increased benefit. So I think there's a lot of potential At this amount of money. We can still do something that's significant for the neighborhoods not just no Upper ocean but some in harvey west some in the beach area As as determine where the PD is going to determine it's most effective. So that that's kind of the backstory of The motion I'll second that and just for the sake of time concur with council member matthews I do want to point out though that I believe the heritage tree Funding was going to be used to restore the it help desk. So we can't use it for both purposes But nevertheless, I yeah And I'll know we have some available budget so that can draw from there and the 30 000 would also draw from Available budget great. Okay. Thank you At council member clever. Yeah, absolutely. So marcus just confirm with me that number at the top the 134 is the excess I wouldn't classify it that way when we're facing a three seven million shortfall and some reserves, but right It's the wiggle room, right that we have more or less. I know you're you're a fiscally responsible guy and you're just like no, but This is a example of the paradigm shift that I hope to see change in Santa Cruz We're not going to fund 5400 dollars in substance use services or support But we're going to spend 55 000 dollars on patrol and enforcement like That's dumbfounding to me because that makes no sense from the data if you look at data You are much more effective at preventative care than reactionary enforcement. So why in God's green earth Would we cut 5400 dollars of symbolic money to an organization And spend 55 000 dollars on a first alarm and I've had I had a great conversation with mr glenn who is the one that has written us many emails and messages about The situation on uh ocean street and from his reports frank sounds like an amazing person just all around Not to mention the work that he does with first alarm But does frank alone cost 55 000 dollars a year? What's frank's annual income? All I've forgotten a request for frank. Um, so I think that there's a values break here and I do not agree with this allocation of money And I do not agree with our approach to dealing with issues of substance use and enforcement So I cannot in good conscience Support this motion at all I'll just maybe say that I think what we're also seeing and I know it's not Stark in terms of our shifts, but we're not funding them at the level that we had in the past which was 250 000 I recall so it's just sort of that transition of A service that a community has or a neighborhood has gotten used to particularly one that's um felt impacted And find their services beneficial So it's a step in the right direction and an incremental step that I think um as government sometimes That's how we that's how we work and so hopefully we can Maybe move forward and then go from there. Okay council member mires vice mayor comings and then council member matthews and then council member glover I think it's important to clarify a little bit. I think about some of the some of the Feedback I got from from neighborhoods, which is um It's it's not A lot of it is is also dealing with some of the drug dealing and some other issues that have been a Identified in that neighborhood in particular. It's um working to make sure that Businesses and you know are able to you know maintain Their properties This is I don't think that we're funding we're not funding treatment and for We're not we're not choosing treatment to for We're not choosing first alarm over treatment. We're choosing first alarm because This neighborhood has um well documented um a variety of issues and They also have worked really hard as neighbors and as individuals to um bring A lot of stability to the neighborhood and they're seeking a way to continue working together with first alarm in that way so i'm not sure that comparing the two is um Is super beneficial in terms of of recognizing that this is a you know kind of a neighborhood sustainability issue And uh, so i'm going to support the motion after speaking to a lot of the neighbors over there and um, so i'll support The vice mayor coming to then council member matt I just wanted to and then comes just in the in the interest of time I'll just echo the I just want to echo the same sentiments expressed by council member mires that I think that There's been you know when we're thinking about an entire neighborhood A lot of folks have come out and expressed that This has been very helpful for them around a lot of issues with theft and And drug dealing in the neighborhoods and I don't want it And similarly I think that um the questions around Drug prevention and what we can do about that in a way that's really meaningful I think we should continue those conversations Which will include meeting with management of janice and also having further discussions with janice workers and then seeing how we can collaborate So i'll also be supporting this motion council member mathis No, okay done. Okay council member lever. Did you have additional comments or should I go ahead? Yeah, just a couple things that were mentioned So one was that it's a service for the neighborhood and that we've dramatically cut the contract Totally agree used to be 200 thousand 250 thousand dollars now. It's 50 thousand dollars That's definitely a shift I also want to acknowledge that I don't not think that that kind of I don't not think that that kind of um Feelings of safety for the community are Irrelevant I had like I said, I had a good conversation with mr. Glenn and he expressed just how important it is to have frank As a part. I'm just looking at this number up here with the 79 000 that is In the not extra but their category Which is why I'm just Distraught and this is what I said before I'm distraught that we're willing to spend this on this but not on the drug issues and What was also mentioned was that these neighborhoods are dealing with issues of drug dealing Which I think is interesting that we don't want to support services that will help people not use drugs, but we want to Pay for police representatives to enforce people's sale and or use of drugs So it it just doesn't make any sense to me. Um, and it's not that I don't appreciate a feeling of safety It's not that I don't appreciate the work that frank or the impact that it has on the communities And if it's possible With that extra, you know, we have that money. Let's do this funding for this but also give some money to Address issues of substance use disorder. I don't I don't see why it's either or but if no one None of my colleagues are willing to work with that and Adding stuff then again, I just won't support the motion But I just want to express that I really hope that this body whether it be in the Strategic planning session or over summer take a deep look within ourselves and ask ourselves What kind of policies are we wanting to pass? What kind of message do we want to send to the community? And is this it because I just don't agree with it, but that's me Okay councilor brown I just want to make the comment. Yeah, I seconded the motion. So I will be supporting it I absolutely understand the and and agree largely with the Comments that councilmember Glover makes. I mean, I I Also hope for a day when we can Really think more strategically and big picture about our funding priorities if we were talking in the case of janice if we were talking about a $50,000 grant for janice and We were talking about actually Providing them with a significant level of support that could actually expand their services and or provide Actual wage increases for a group of you know a classification job classification or something Then I'd be all for it. That's why I'm saying I think that we ought to have that conversation And I'm very much willing to have the conversation about what more we can do for janice in the future So it's not an indication of not wanting to support them This is just something that you know, I put forward as Gesture as a symbolic gesture. It wasn't a request from janice. It wasn't a request from the workers It was something that I Thought might be a way to provide that symbol like you said symbol or unlike I've said symbolic support So that being said I do want to talk about supporting janice in the future in larger ways in in broader ways And and support it and having a longer term bigger conversation about substance use disorder in our community So I don't disagree with anything Council member glever that you've said I just think we need to do that Not when we're finalizing the budget at 10 o'clock at night, I guess Okay, I agree. I appreciate your comments council member brown as well as your points raised council member glever And I will take advantage of my hand up previously Okay The place for that discussion to have is when we are talking and particularly with the county as it relates to health And and human services is what what is the big picture of needs and they are enormous in the county Who are the providers? What are the resources where can we make a meaningful contribution? What specifically are we getting for that contribution and we do that collaboratively with the county and with our non-profit and other funding partners Okay You're here. Okay. All those in favor. Please say aye. Aye opposed So that passes with council member brown vice mayor Cummings council member matthews council member mires and myself voting in support The motion was made by council member matthews seconded by council member brown Okay Okay I would be remiss as a finance director should not remind in the staff report that we identified four other very likely cost increases coming to this council They have harry west that has a net increase of about 400 000 that is not funded yet We always have a couple of capital projects Failures or needs that come up because we're not funding our capital improvement program. Those are generally 500 000 upwards We likely We're trending to higher increased legal services is more demand for legal analysis And finally we have a likelihood of a potent environmental cleanup some big costs that we know are coming We just don't know when and what the amount but they're going to be next year So you know that could be a million million five new stuff. We have to figure out. So that's just my caution of Um, I appreciate your comments about you got to do anything with the bigger picture in mind. Okay. Thank you for that bleak picture I'm sorry And I'll And I just want to Reflect that there were some other comments that came up Um during the afternoon that just want to flag maybe the appropriate what's appropriate to do is come back when there's more Capacity it's probably been a long night. What's been hot. We had mine up. I've been sleeping so well the last couple nights Um, but I do want to flag some items that were clearly in the need of coming up Now or to come back to council some more information We have vehicle purchases and I think Justin you talked about some ideas there Chris you had some You wanted to put a restriction on cpva w are generically. Sorry. I'm just picking who to talk first I'm not saying that's you know only your items and then we had some capital project Discussions that look like there was some interest in delving deeper into those projects Just because we're adopting on june 11th doesn't mean we can't come back to these on june 25th Or even postpone some of these items for budget action until say august our first august meeting There is some room To deal with some of these now or to come back on june 25th or the first meeting in august I think june 25th is likely to be really full So i'm not quite sure how to to build that into the agenda But if if the will of the council is to do that then at the cost of something else um I mean, I guess i'll just simply state that I think some of these items are really big discussion items that I don't feel comfortable taking action on it at this time personally um I don't fully understand what the without having kind of understanding the context of the 20 20,000 Constraints on although of course prioritize it, but I just don't haven't I don't have the context there So I don't feel comfortable making it so i'll just sort of set the stage with that I'm okay with not necessarily addressing these at this time I didn't have a chance to hear from vice mayor Cummings in terms of the vehicle purchase Um, and I have my glasses on but I think it's a staff consideration Anyhow, thank you. Okay. Okay, we'll go ahead and go to vice mayor Cummings councilmember brown um So looking at the new vehicles that are supposed to be purchased. I guess this can be information that might be able to come back with potential Action taken at a later point in time, but looking at the cost of operation. Um, there's some vehicles that Obviously, um in terms of maintenance are pretty much at the point where they need to be replaced and there's some where the maintenance costs are below $13,000 or $14,000 and so one of the questions I had for staff was For those vehicles that are below $14,000 whether or not they could They could be used for another year and Just looking at the caught the the savings on that it would be around if we Held off one more year on all vehicles whose costs of operations were below $14,000 We would have the savings of three hundred eight thousand five hundred dollars So just thinking about whether or not that might be an area of savings and additionally One of the things I was interested in and have been in correspondence With some of the folks in PD is ensuring that the police patrol vehicles are the new 2020 I think they're either hybrid or fully electric Ford explorers that are Hybrid yeah, you'd have to be so you can't run out just making sure that we're going to be focusing on purchasing those vehicles as opposed to fully You know cast combustion engines Yeah, we can look at that. We'll look at the information and bring it back to you Brown and then comes over I'm sorry today. Yeah, um, so I um, absolutely support, uh, the direction that councilmember Cummings just raised in terms of waiting on some vehicle purchases and um Looking at the hybrids for and I believe that as PD said that they they saw they literally saw the The announcement about it or the advertisements an hour after we they had told us that they didn't exist So technologies are moving so fast that I think it would be great if there are some that we can delay and see what happens And then do our best with the police department's looking at police vehicles Yes, so they'll acquire the hybrids and then with respect to that less We'll go through through it as well because the other thing are those all general fund vehicles Is it we but we you don't have to do it This is a list provided by public works. It's all the vehicles that were proposed for And so some of them could be could be enterprise funds and so the savings So we just have to go through it. So we would be happy to go through it with you and then bring it back Councilor mayors, I just have a question regarding the What's listed here is the downtown mixed use project So I think it's probably more accurately called the library project It says unfund fiscal year 2020 allocation and time until item returns Is that whose note is that I was just suggesting since I believe there's no immediate action to do anything with that project And it's got to come back to council I believe that there's there was some funding in there and I know our subcommittee actually Is going to be doing some work on I believe getting some renovation costs on the existing library So I don't know that we want to take all the money out of there because I think there will be some allocations I think I think right. I think it's an item for the subcommittee to to look at Okay, great. Okay. Thank you Marcus. So I think we've That all we can on this sentence. So thank you very much. We're officially adopted. We're balanced. Okay. We're set for next year Do we need a motion? I think we've motioned by motion did a motion by motion. Yep. See Okay comes from Matt. I would like to thank our finance director and department for their meticulous work and patience Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much And extend our thanks to Tracy. I'd say just for clarity purposes if we can just have a motion Proving the resolution that's in the staff report on that way. We just have clear because that's all that'll encompass all the actions that we did tonight So moved second right. Okay. So we have a motion by council member Brown seconded by council member Glover If you want to restate the motion for our clerk just a motion approving the resolution as submitted in the staff report Okay, great. Okay. Thank you very much. All those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed Okay, that passes unanimously one final agenda item. That is the council calendar Um city clerk any updates there? I have nothing. Okay. Okay, great So moved Even though we have filled out the control for the most of it Exactly All right, so that will adjourn our meeting this evening and thank you for the remaining community members here and Yeah, have a good night