 and we are live streaming now. So whenever you would like to begin, we are all set. Thank you, I appreciate that. So we'll go ahead and call our December 3rd, downtown subcommittee meeting to order. I welcome all present this morning will be myself as your chair Ernesto Olivares and council member Sawyer. Vice Mayor Fleming cannot join us this morning. And as in past meetings, of course, everything's being done through Zoom, but we try to keep this meeting rather informal, but you will be prompted when it's time for public comment. We'll run a timer for you. But as you know, we want to hear from all of you. So I don't really stick to a lot of the three minute time limit. I think we have a lot to cover today. We're in the holiday season. And then later on the agenda, we also have a good presentation from Nancy Adams, our transportation planner, who's going to introduce to you an idea for some shared mobility devices that would be hopefully implemented here within city of Santa Rosa. So with that, we'll go ahead and get into our agenda, unless there are any other announcements to be made this morning. John, do you have anything? I do have an announcement, Chair Olivares. Yes. Okay, if I may. Good morning, everyone. And my name is Rafael Rivera of the Economic Development Division here at the city. And on behalf of our downtown subcommittee, we would like to offer Chair Olivares a heartfelt thank you for your tenure as a chair of the committee. You have been a true champion in facilitating these meetings along with your other fellow council members. You have been a great listener and have provided some amazing ideas. These past several years have been very challenging, times for our city as well as for our downtown, but you have helped keep the torch lit with these meetings. You have demonstrated along with your 30 plus years of law enforcement experience, plus another tenant city government that the work must go on, that improvements are always encouraged and that creativity always needs to be discovered and that perseverance always pays off. So thank you, on behalf of the downtown subcommittee for being a true stewardship, providing the guidance and leadership to our downtown subcommittee and helping it thrive. Muchísimas gracias, Chair Olivares. You're very welcome, Rafael. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. This has been my favorite committee that I've been off with council because it's the core of our community, the downtown. And I think I also believe that it's one of those committees that truly, the ownership is of the downtown community, not the city, because it involves all of you, the downtown and businesses and those who live there. So that's why I've really enjoyed doing this, really working through a partnership. But yeah, I mean, this is, I think it'll be a total of, I'd be probably close to 42 years with the city, but you're not gonna see me go away. I'm sure there's gonna be other things that I'll be doing where else they connected with all of you because I will maintain an interest. Rita and I still have a dream of all this stuff going on downtown as far as housing, that that would be a great place for us to finally end up in the downtown core. So I look forward to that as well. So thank you for that. And I do want to mention too, as far as the agenda, some of the change, because we've always evolved and changed along the way to make things easier and more manageable for us and having our discussions. And one of the things that Rafael and the team recently did for us is that they've reordered a little bit of the agenda so that we can hear from our associations up front, hear from housing on issues, and then follow that up with public safety. Because oftentimes some issues come up related to public safety and I want to make sure that things kind of flow along the way there so that they kind of pick y'all, I guess, into one another and then follow through with other business so that you'll see that. And hopefully that will remain Rafael as part of your agenda and in the order. And also obviously always listening to our partners in the downtown to see if there's other improvements that we can make with this committee. Because like I said, it's a great committee and I hope that it continues on to thrive. So thank you. If I might Ernesto, before we move on, I also want to offer my thanks that it really shows how experience, not only in the city, but as unelected, but also as a former employee in a different capacity, especially with public safety, given that how important public safety is in our downtown, your experience has been really vital and your willingness to change how this committee functions and allowed it to move forward in a more inclusive way. And I really appreciate that your leadership and your manner will be missed. But I'm sure you're looking forward to doing new things on the horizon. Thank you very much. Thank you, John, I appreciate it. Okay, Ravel, we'll take it off with you and the Railroad Square Association committee benefit. Community benefit. And I'm actually gonna thank you for that. And I'm actually gonna turn it over to Chris Wilson in just a second of the Railroad Square Association. She's the new director. She was actually, she joined our meeting last month and she joined the association, I think maybe about six weeks ago. And my updates are basically having to do with a lighting project that we have at Depot Park. Apparently some of the lights are somewhat damaged and we're gonna be looking into the possibility of replacing those lights so we can again have a more of a festive Railroad Square very similar to the other side of downtown. And then the project related to the trash cans, those metal containers that we've had there for quite a few years. They need some TLC and I'm working with maintenance facilities and street maintenance and the Railroad Square Association to do some pressure washing of those trash cans as well as replace some of the canisters. And there could potentially be a not related component to decorate some of those trash cans as well. So I am now going to turn it over to Chris Wilson of the association. And I don't know if she's ready, but she has more updates for the downtown subcommittee. Thank you, Robin. Great, thank you, welcome Chris. Thank you so much. And I really wanna acknowledge all the help that Rafael is in all his time and support for the Railroad Square Association. It's very much appreciated. And also I wanna just do a quick thank you to Cadence again for supporting us able to take some of the swags that she had gotten for her merchants that we had enough to give to our merchants which was really well received. So we're really building relationships down there. Looking truly to get it feeling festive down there and if we can get lighting on Depot Park and some of the trees, that would really help things down there. The historic walking tour that we're the first phase of it will be probably up within the next two weeks. So you can come wander around and check out the photos and the copy about the history of some of those wonderful buildings down there. And new banners, we've been working on a banner replacement. Again, Rafael, thank you for your help and Eileen's help, Elaine, Eileen, Eileen. You had it correct, Eileen. I'm not correct, why did I doubt? To do replace our banners down there and we'll be adding some additional ones that will include by the Vineyard Creek, Hyatt and Marriott. So just bringing some more color and kind of refreshing down there. On the other side of our work, the homeless encampments have started again, you know, basically between under the underpasses on fifth and sixth street. So, you know, we've been working with the city and working with police to, you know, keep a handle on that. We do have security down at night. We have had some security issues. So we have right now security there during the night, all throughout the night, both patrolling and we've encouraged them to also be on foot in some of the areas where we've had some problems. And graffiti is, you know, still sort of an elusive problem down there also. So that's kind of it. We formed a new marketing committee that's gonna be meeting next week. So we've got a lot of positive things going on and I appreciate being a part of this group. So thank you. John, do you have any questions? Okay, thank you. Any questions from our attendees this morning? No, there are no hands raised at this time. Wonderful, thank you. Thank you, Chris. We appreciate that report. Let's move on to downtown, Caden's. Can you hear me? Yes, Caden. I think we were just tapping on my screen. Well, good morning, everyone. I want to start by piggybacking on Raphael's comments and just thank you, Cheryl Harris, for your leadership and guidance and support of downtown. I hope that we do see you living down here in a couple of years once we've got more housing in place. I also want to say thank you to all the city staff who have helped with our efforts in the courthouse square area recently. So Tara and Jessica have been hugely helpful in getting winter lights running. Mark helped with our lighting and electrical work that we were able to do. Sergeant Wolf and his team have been spending a lot of time downtown, which we really appreciate. Raphael and Eileen, of course, Eileen can answer any question you ever have. And I just, I'm so grateful for that, Eileen. So thank you. And then Margaret's been a huge help as well with getting all of our porklets permitted. So just really appreciate the ongoing support of our downtown and our small businesses as everyone's kind of really trying to survive the pandemic and likely heading toward another shelter-in-place order coming up soon. So all of this is all the city support. It's noticed by the DAO and it's noticed by our business owners and on behalf of all of them. Thank you very much. I also have to thank Kim, who has been really working just incredibly well with our business owners, taking into account what they're looking for in parking. She's made a lot of concessions to support them and their businesses and has been extremely supportive. So I just wanna say a special thank you to her, especially as she's getting ready to propose ongoing parking changes. DAO made a request and she was able to look into it and made it happen and we're just really appreciative of that partnership and support from her. So I bet you all thought I was done talking about open and out and I'm getting close, but we are basically wrapped up. We have a couple of art projects to go. Some of the last ones going in are some of the most exciting. If anyone's been downtown and noticed the black columns at B and fourth, those are no longer black. We are welcome columns that say Santa Rosa downtown now have a very cool abstract Sonoma County landscape painted on them. Those will also be on the pillars at E as well. I think that's getting wrapped up this week. And then we also have some mosaic installations going in the empty tree grates. So just about half a dozen of those are going to be replaced with some really cool local flora mosaic patterns that were put together by a local artist. So we're excited about those as well. Restaurants are still operating outdoors as everyone has seen. And I think getting ready for whatever might come next. The 500 block is the only block that is still closed to the public. They are, sorry, not the public, very much open to the public, closed to vehicles. And we are going to be meeting I think next week to talk through as a block with what they'd like to see. So likely I'll be sharing with you the next meeting what their feedback has been as far as what they, kind of how they envision their block operating moving forward. So it'll be hopefully a good discussion and get some good feedback from them. We are now officially in holiday season and winter lights. We kicked off last week, we're able to, as Chris said, hand out some evergreen hangings to our business owners. We also gave them some window decorations and as part of winter lights, kind of put all of our art installations in. I think we had four or five new art installations, one of which is a family scavenger hunt. Some are photo ops for people. The way that we've structured it really kind of enables it to stay open and available to the community, no matter what happens with the next shelter in place order. So it's all outdoors, it's no touch. So people can just come and experience it whenever they'd like. And it is meant to be kind of a family outing. So something to come do downtown for an hour. If you're comfortable shopping, if you're comfortable dining, of course we want you to patronize the small businesses if you're able to, but you can also just come and enjoy the art, do the little scavenger hunt, check out the winter wonderland in Jeju Way and kind of enjoy the ambiance there. We also, as part of our decorations, the engine is red created and donated some really great new banners that are up. Hopefully everyone has seen those. They've got, they're very custom. They feature downtown buildings and landscapes, which are just really, really cool. If you haven't seen them, look up and take a look on the polls. And then we have some other festive words in English and Spanish. I think we've got five different words. So it's a nice mix of banners for everyone to kind of take a look at as they're downtown. And then most excitingly, because I think I've probably been mentioning this in this meeting, I would guess for maybe 18 months, something like that. We finally got new lights and new festive lighting in downtown. So if you've been down and seen the redwood trees, they look really fantastic lit up in the evening and it lines all of 4th Street and we're hoping to be able to continue that to go beyond 4th Street next year, hopefully. So that's really fun. If you haven't checked that out, please do, because it does look, totally changes the dynamic down there. It's really nice. Gonna transition a little bit from the good news into some of the issues that we're dealing with. We do have two businesses that are closing. J Gallery and Caliber. Made Local Marketplace is relocating and they cited rent and security and parking as their reasons, specifically they wanted to be somewhere where they could offer free parking and in a location where they would have, not have to deal with the challenges presented by the homeless population quite as much. So that remains an ongoing issue for our business owners. We did though, and a little bit of good news have a store open last week. Amy Van Dyke opened the store next door, the next door to ER Sawyer, very cool little gift shop with local items and jewelry and definitely worth checking out if you haven't been down there yet. Our Street Plus team, pretty similar report to last month. They continue to dedicate most of their time to issues with the homeless population downtown, especially those struggling with mental health issues. They have a number of folks they regularly interact with. Some they try really hard to connect to but are just unable based on kind of where that person is. But the impact to our businesses has been really hard to combat. If there is someone suffering from a mental health issue, our team often spends hours with that person, whether it's just making sure that they stay safe or it's talking to them or it's trying to get them help. And that is part of the reason that they are downtown and they want to ensure that everyone gets what they need. But it also means that they get taken away from their regular work, which could either be managing requests for business owners or routine maintenance. And it has been detracting for how much they've been able to do the amount of time they've needed to dedicate to our homeless population recently. So it's something that they're very aware of, and are grateful that we can keep working with the city and Catholic Charities and Sergeant Wolf and his team to try to address these issues and really limit the impact to our businesses downtown. We had a couple of issues last weekend on the square when winter lights was happening and we had some craft vendors out as part of winter lights. And one of them was really quite upset about what she saw and the interaction that took place between members of the homeless population and Street Plus was not able to get there as quickly as we would have liked. So it's hard when you, trying to combat the perceptions that people have of downtown with that type of behavior and then repeatedly things keep happening that just reinforce those perceptions. So we really want our community to feel safe when they come down and working with Street Plus to kind of establish the fact that someone is always, no matter what requests come in, someone has to have eyes on Courthouse Square at all times really for it to be a safe place for people to come and visit. And that's a tough spot that they're in, but we wanna make sure that not only our business owners being supported, but our community feels safe coming down because when they come down, then it does support our businesses. So it's a really tough ongoing challenge, but Sergeant Wolf has been great about responding and asking his team to be present as much as possible. So we're great for that. But again, it is a huge ongoing issue that needs more resources and attention as we move forward. And I'll just give a really quick wrap up unless anyone has any questions, a brief update on the Asala Fountain. So we're still hoping to break ground soon with a few more pieces to iron out. So we don't have a firm date yet, but I do hope that I'll have that for you at the next couple of meetings. Thank you, Kase. We really appreciate that. Remind me again, how many Streets Plus team members you have down there? We currently have, the team is made up of five people or one short right now. We had one leave last week. Two are outfitted as security guards. So they work kind of the afternoon, evening shift. And then we have one manager and then two are more sanitation and maintenance based. Okay, Scott. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll ask this of Sergeant Wolf too when he gives his report too, but I wanted to learn a little bit more about the interaction between police and your Streets Plus team. You're talking about some of them managing or crying to handle some folks downtown with mental health issues. The question I would have, and you don't have to answer it now, Sergeant Wolf, you'll be on in a second, is do they understand at what point to make that transition? You know, they have limitations on what they can offer, but at what point would they call in police to take over that interaction to try to find some sort of solution? So we'll talk more about that later on. And then Rafael, just for you, for a future meeting, I would suggest to that, and again, dealing with our homeless population that are downtown throughout the city, is think about at what point we should invite the folks from Caritas Village to come in and give an update on that project and kind of maybe have a meeting in the future, focus just on homelessness. I know we've had some new reports out related to the homeless count. There's a lot of new information that's out there. I think it'd be worthwhile to have that discussion with this group because that will continue to be a topic of discussion, but I think annoying what's happening, what is being done, real time would be helpful for the group. John, do you have questions? And not a question, just a comment. I agree with your concern and cadence as well with when does an individual cross the line and move into the necessity of a second level of attention? And so I look forward to Sergeant Wolff's report and how we can perhaps more firmly delineate what that line is. If there seems to be a question about that, it would be, I think we need to be diligent when knowing when to make that second call. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any members of our, I mean, any of our attendees have questions or comments on this item? Yes, we do. We have Mr. Bernard Schwartz. I will allow him to speak just one moment. Thank you. Welcome, Bernie. Hi there, council member Oliveris. My thanks from the business community also for all of your years of work and hopefully you won't be a stranger downtown. Hi, cadence, I have a question for you. Do you have an update on the installation of the Homeland Security bollards in courthouse square? Bernie, are you asking me, cadence? Well, or yes, cadence, if unless anybody else happens to know, and I'm wondering if the installation of the bollards at all is interrupting the installation of the fountain? It should not. We've talked about potentially working together since we would be digging up pieces of courthouse square for both of those, but I believe the bollard project was delayed slightly. I don't know if, I don't have the details on it. I don't know, I don't wanna put you on the spot, Tara, but I don't know if Tara might know a little bit more or if there's someone else on the call who could provide an update on the timing of that. Yes, hi, this is Tara Thompson. I can provide a brief update. I've been involved in some of the planning meetings for that project and the latest, Tara, you want to hear? I'm sorry, I just got kicked off. I'm back, I believe. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay, great, sorry about that. I don't know what happened. So the latest that I believe is that the project is nearing the completion of its design phase for the bollards, the bollard installation. It's a project being managed out of public works and I believe the timeline that I last saw had the bollard installation beginning late January, potentially beginning of February with construction, demolition construction and then having the project completed by March. So we don't exactly know the timing for the fountain but the areas where the construction will be, obviously the north end won't have any impacts but the south end, there may be some overlap. So we will just be making sure that both projects are in communication with each other about the footprint of each construction zone that they'll be working within and that we were coordinating from that point of view. So. Thank you. Thank you. And from my recollection and Council Member Clerk, if I'm wrong, when we discussed the bollard council meeting we did talk about coordinating with a fountain when that installation was going to proceed. Is that correct? That was my recollection as well. Thank you. Good. Other questions? Yes, Mr. Frazier is on the line as well. And Mr. Frazier, I will, if you could let us know if we can, if he would unmute. Mr. Frazier, are you there? Mr. Frazier. We'll go ahead and go on. I'm having a post and if he gets back on we can have him address this item later on. All right, sounds good. Thank you. There are no additional hands. Thank you. Okay, so Kelly Hackendall could not join us this morning. So we're gonna have Jonathan, Sergeant Wolfe, I'm sorry. Sergeant Wolfe will go ahead and cover a little bit of the home's piece along with his public safety update. Sergeant Wolfe. Yes. So a few things to report on. I believe it was mentioned earlier but we are diverting our attention, some of our attention from the camps so that we can keep a better eye on the downtown area. I'm just taking into account the importance of the holiday season and the shoppers and whatnot. Cadence has been great and so have the members of Streets Plus as far as letting us know about the issues that are going on. In fact, some of the Streets Plus people have the direct phone numbers of my team and they'll call them directly. They're very good at recognizing when the situation is more than they may be able to handle. We had another thing we did recently. We went in and checked in with a number of business owners, both on the east side and in the railroad square area. We've had several direct meetings with them and identified some issues, some related to the underpasses which I'll get to in a minute. We've made progress with some issues that I mentioned at previous meetings. Comstock Mall, the area behind Max Deli, kind of that entryway from the parking garage, Max Deli and then the walkthrough that goes to Courthouse Square. We're still making daily passes there. 4th Street and D Street specifically has been better since the benches were removed or disappeared. I'm not sure which here makes things, but either way, since they have been removed, we've seen an improvement in that area. Courthouse Square, there is definitely a group of homeless people that loiter there and periodically one or two of them will cause issues. Streets Plus has done, as I said, a really good job and we have had to get involved at times. We have a handful of individuals who we know very well with mental health concerns. And unfortunately, it's kind of a cycle. We arrest them if they happen to be held, their medications and whatnot get regulated and then they're released and then it's a slow or sometimes rapid decline back to the behaviors that we're drawing our attention anyhow. Some of these people it's been kind of an ongoing cycle for years actually, but we'll keep doing what we can and addressing it as it's a problem. Our biggest areas of concern right now are the underpasses and the Prince Memorial Greenway. And we're getting some complaints now starting up related to the underpasses. I'll summarize that kind of, I can't really give a report on the underpasses right now simply because we're waiting on a decision from the federal court regarding a plaintiff's motion to modify some things in the injunction. And so I'm waiting till tomorrow to hear back on that as well as a bedtown for us. Despite our best efforts on the PM Prince Memorial Greenway and really extensive efforts and by that, I mean, we've been going out making multiple arrests, coordinated with city and county cleanup groups and done this day after day for periods of time off and on. Unfortunately, it's still worse than ever and the impacts from that are rolling into the Olive Park neighborhood. We will continue giving what attention we can but unfortunately I don't think our best efforts will have a significant impact on the Greenway. And then I was just gonna touch on the fact that the issues we're having underpasses, this population is one that has kind of moved to every large camp we've had. They remain in a larger camp environment no matter what. With COVID, I won't get into the complications because it would be really lengthy but as far as bed space changing with having to accommodate social distancing and the shelters and some other factors, we've been limited on bed space which impacts what we can or can't do. There is a sprung structure being assembled at Sam Jones Hall. However, what we've learned from our experience with this particular group, and this is a long experience now about three years and probably 10 or 12 camps. We've seen great success with the Finlay social distancing site and the few that we were able to coordinate with the county regarding the camp at Los Guilicos but unfortunately, I believe this population will probably only accept a camp type setting and that will probably impact the length of time it'll take to deal with the underpasses. And I'll leave it at that if... Thank you, Sergeant Wolff. The council member or Sawyer, any questions? No, no questions. I feel for your frustration, not only yours, Sergeant Wolff but those of the merchants and the citizens of Santa Rosa and you trying to do your job and just the gap in our ability to make inroads into the challenges that not only face this particular population but how they challenge the rest of our community and we're not alone but it doesn't make it feel any better and I appreciate your efforts and hopefully there will be some at least partial resolution once the injunction decision is made. Yes, Sergeant Wolff, thank you for your leadership and collaborating those efforts downtown and making that happen. I know it's a lot of work but we got to stick to it and I really appreciate to your coordination with the streets plus people to help them do their job more effectively as well. So thank you for that. Any questions for more attendees this morning? There are no raised hands at this time. Thank you. And I'll circle back now to Mr. Frazier if he wants to comment on the prior item he's welcome to do so now. Mr. Frazier, are you there? Mr. Frazier, you are on muted if people like to go ahead. Mr. Frazier. It sounds like Mr. Frazier is having some technical issues this morning but he did post on our chat room related to access through JJ Way indicating limited pedestrian access to Four Street. Talked about some of the restaurants maybe kind of crowding that area. So I don't know if somebody can kind of check that out from staff and or agency what that looks like. I don't, I haven't been there in probably a week and a half so I can't really speak to that. So we'll have somebody look into that. We have no other questions on this item. So Dean Hamlin, what's going on with our maintenance downtown? Well, first off, I need to congratulate you, sir. You have been an inspiration to those of us from inside the family and thank you for your time, energy and efforts. And this comes from somebody who was born and raised here. So thank you so much for everything. Thank you, Dean. Let's see, where do we go? I'd also like to thank Kaden's and the Street Plus team. We've been working closely with them on just some minor issues that don't need to run around and occupy others' time and energy. They've been great working back and forth collaborating on these issues. I appreciate that. Like to get back to Railroad Square for a minute. We've been going back and forth about the lights and so forth that are in the square. They are in bad shape. My recommendation on that is that the folks look into trying to figure out a route to put brand new lighting in. And that will also include TPW forces internally for the electrical and all of that good stuff that goes with it. Those lights that are there have been there for a long time. And they've been continually vandalized and so forth. I think it would be a serious waste of resources to try to rediscover those and get them back operational. The liners for the square, I had to order three dozen more. They should be showing up literally any day so that we can get on replacing those liners in and around Railroad Square. And then of course, like I've mentioned before we have an inventory we keep here at our warehouse because they're all matching on both sides of the freeway actually. So that is part of it. I've also directed our staff to schedule in the beginning of washing and sanitizing, cleaning and repairing those cans in Railroad Square like we had committed to when we met before, what if I'll remember this? So that will be coming up most likely next week. As you could imagine with the holidays and COVID we've been playing kind of this juggling game staffing why so, but that should be scheduled next week which gets me rather excited to get that taken care of. And I'd like to throw my two cents in about the projects in Courthouse Square. If those two projects between the fountain and the new barriers start up it could be quite a chaotic mess down there. And my suggestion would be is to try to come up with some sort of plan schedule-wise to have one begin before the other so that one can get out in front of the other. So our patrons and citizens can still enjoy the square as much as possible during that construction time. What else do I have to throw in there? We are dealing like Sergeant Wolf mentioned we're dealing with Principal Memorial Greenway on a daily basis, trying to keep things clean as much as we can and still live under the injunction rules. Olive Park comes into play with that as well. So that's kind of a challenging time for all of us of course. I think that's probably about it for me. Great, thank you. Thank you Dean for staying on top of things downtown and other areas including Riverville Square. John, questions for Dean? No questions, just thanks. Thank you Dean and your entire team because it's a big responsibility and lots of challenges and I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Questions or comments from our attendees this morning? There are no hands raised at this time. Thank you very much. Okay, we're gonna transition to our presentation for this morning. Again, I mentioned Nancy Adams from our Transportation Planner is gonna be sharing the shared mobility devices project that's coming before council again pretty soon. But we wanted her to have an opportunity to share this with our downtown group. So Nancy, if you're ready and I think you can be sharing a screen to run us through a PowerPoint presentation as well. I will. Just an audio check. Can everyone hear me? Perfectly, thank you. Thank you. So before I get started, I also want to add my really heartfelt appreciation for all your leadership. Council Member Oliveras through these many years and congratulations on new and great opportunities as you move forward. So with that, I will begin a short presentation as Council Member Oliveras mentioned, I made this presentation to the council during the study session in November. And I did receive some great feedback from the council during that study session. And one of the suggestions that came about was continuing my Zoom journey of this item. So I'm here today to share a little bit about this initiative that we're looking, looking towards occurring in Santa Rosa. And so I will have a presentation that we'll run through and then be happy to answer questions from any of the participants. And I'm always available outside this Zoom meeting if folks want to follow up with me individually. So with that, let's go to the next slide, please. So shared mobility devices. So kind of what that is, it could be scooters, it could be e-bikes, it could be technologies that we're not quite ready yet for in terms of robotics. So the kind of the landscape is ever changing and we expect to see a lot of variety in how we get around and witnessed over the last couple of years. Many cities in the United States and as well as abroad have experienced these devices coming into their community. So we are aware of it and what we're trying to do is figure out how these new devices will fit into the fabric of our communities and help people, whether they're residents, whether they're workers or tourists, get around and give folks other options to be mobile. So with that, of course, with opportunities, there's always challenges and I think probably one of the greatest challenges is how to make sure that these devices are used properly within our public right of way and that the safety protocol is best addressed within communities. So that's the landscape and one other item that I wanted the committee and the participants to know about is that the Sonoma County Transportation Authority and the Transportation Authority of Marin to county-wide funding agencies, they received a grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to actually launch a pilot bike share project. So it's on a different track, but in fact, we just had a call yesterday and they're still hoping to launch that project come early summer, late spring of 2021. So we're not too far off from getting that launch within Santa Rosa and for Santa Rosa it would be, they're looking at areas in the downtown around the junior college and then in the Redwood Square, associated with the two smart stations, the downtown station and then the north station there up by Gernville Road. So next slide please, thank you. So just in terms of policy context, we have our bicycle and pedestrian master plan which the council approved last year 2019 and there's a mode share aspirational goal that we're trying to reach there by 2025 and certainly this would help support that goal. It's also identified in the climate action plan and as a way to improve our transportation options, then that will help us to get people out of the signal occupied vehicles and then also help us to reduce our vehicle miles traveled within Santa Rosa. So next slide please, thank you. So at a statewide level, there's actually two bills and one actually was enrolled this year and I'll go over these very quickly. The first one, AB 1112, essentially that is a bill that tries to give folks the ability to move these devices out of a walkway or a sidewalk. It didn't really make a lot of traction so it's kind of still in a formative stage. The other one, 1286, that actually got a little bit more momentum and that really requires these vendors who have these devices to make sure that they have some type of an agreement with a city or a county wherever they deploy these devices. So I will ask for the next slide please. And just also more regulations that the California vehicle code and I'm not gonna get into much detail but they do have some code that is related to these devices. It has primarily to do with the speed and where they can properly be operated. And then Santa Rosa also actually has some code and existing ordinances. And essentially that language really addresses prohibiting these select scooters and things that are skateboard oriented within the downtown, specific areas of the downtown and there are some other areas within the city. And so if the council, eventually we get back to the council and we get the green light, we would certainly have to amend our existing municipal code to address these other shared mobility devices that I'm discussing today. So next slide please. So yeah, this is just something that actually the California vehicle code uses to define bikes and it's basically based on the types of bikes and whether they're a pedal assist or not and then the rate of speed and where they're permitted. So this is what the California vehicle code uses to help prescribe the rules and regulations related to the types of bikes. So next slide please. Thank you. So I think this was the kind of the framework that we're trying to structure if we're going to allow these shared mobility devices primarily scooters and e-bikes into the city, we would need to have some sort of a framework to have some regulation to ensure that we have safety within our right-of-way that we're having responsible operations not only of the vendor, but also the people that are using the devices. And we're again trying to advance our mobility goals and address climate change and just looking at opportunities to improve our sustainable community for Santa Rosa. And then lastly, to help us provide economic development and I think that's a big important part of the downtown area. We're trying to sustain and robust our community in the downtown area. So next slide please. So as part of this work, I've been looking at several California cities that actually have developed some ordinances related to shared mobility devices. And I think I looked at about 10 of them. And by the way, if anyone's interested, the complete presentation was something, part of the council study session. And if anyone wants more details, certainly give me a call. But in the Bay Area, I looked at, for example, Emeryville, Fremont, Mountain View, and Oakland and Palo Alto in San Francisco and San Jose. So I had a handful of cities within the Bay Area. And then went a little bit wider with a casted, a little wider net. I went to look at Sacramento and San Diego and Santa Barbara and Santa Monica. And those cities all have different ordinances that address the shared mobility devices. And what I found shown on this slide are some of the common elements that the ordinances in these communities included. Excuse me, they all included a regulatory framework and a permit system, right? With a fee schedule and a cost recovery that would help the city really make sure that, A, that the vendors are operating properly and that also helps the cities recover their costs, right? To staff and support these devices coming into their community. And then they also required the operators to hold insurance and indemnify the city. The ordinances described the type of enforcement and it established the administrative regulations that would govern their operations. And then it also looked at compliance with state, federal and local law ensuring that those things are addressed. And then lastly, a handful of them, excuse me, also looked at and included some language about designating parking areas. And so I would ask for the next slide, please. So yeah, this would be, there's two slides on this. There's these two slides talk about what type of permit regulations would be considered as a process is developed. So we would want the vendors to make sure that they, they describe and present the scope of their operations to the Santa Rosa. We wanna ensure that safe operations is addressed. And again, where these devices are parked and how they're redistributed would need to be included and operations and maintenance plan would need to be included. And the last three really have to do with how they interface with the community. So what's that community service model look like and what's their community engagement? And education, business model and really how do they address equity requirements and making sure that these devices are available and accessible to all populations within the community? Next slide, please. Some more. So the last few here are, has to do with the data sharing and reporting. And that's been something that's come up is if they have this data, we wanna ensure that the users are protected and that we are able to access the data from the vendors. And a lot of that's really good information because it helps us determine how successful these devices are. Where are people going with them? What's the use and are they using them to go for recreation or is it to get to work or is it to get to the smart station? So it's invaluable information, but we just need to ensure that the privacy of the users are being protected. And I think that it's been well demonstrated that it can occur with some of the cities that I've talked to. And again, compliance with our laws, looking at enforcement and then accessibility to people with disabilities. And then looking at what, if we're gonna establish as part of the permit, what would be deposits, what kind of fees and penalties if we would assess for being not in compliant with the regulations. And then lastly, again, having the insurance and indemnification pretty much included and spilled out in the permit regulation. So next slide, please. So let me see, this is the slide that actually included in the council study session. And it just gives you a flavor of some of the things that I wanted council to weigh in on there in November. And they did give me some guidance on the first one. There was a consensus that if launching this in a pilot mode would be desirable to see how it works and then go back and evaluate it. So I did get that guidance from them. I did get some interesting guidance on where they would be prohibited, not only from the council, but I also got some interesting feedback from this item was presented to our Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board in November. And it was also actually October and it was also presented to our Community Action Board, CAB, as well. And I got some really good ideas about, from them, about maybe we would wanna look at areas that are really highly pedestrian orient and focused and kind of ask about whether or not that would be a good place to have these devices. So for example, 4th Street, that came up with the CAB group. And then the bike and ped board, we're kind of looking at it in the same similar vein as around schools and areas, again, where there's a lot of high pedestrian activity, the ones do not market came up. So just some really good thoughts on where we might wanna consider on some prohibitions for the devices. And then the curb, right away in curb space management, that's also something that, where do we wanna really keep these devices? And there are different technologies, we can use technologies by geofencing. And these are the things that the vendor has some tools in their toolbox to help regulate the right-of-way and curb space management. And then just making sure that we are flexible to look at knowing, to know that this technology is gonna be changing. I mean, they're already, and I'm seeing they're like little cars that are self-driving cars and they actually, the industries are building these to actually deliver good. So it's not only moving people, but it's also really migrating into actually moving and looking at e-commerce and e-delivery of services or of goods to restaurants or to small businesses. So keeping that open mind that other things are on the horizon. And then let's see, we talked a little bit about the transit integration and got a lot of support from the council on making sure that that is something that we really make sure that getting access to smart and trying to interface with our city bus is pretty important. So next slide, please. So I had an ambitious slide when I went to the council I was thinking that we'd get back to them with introducing an ordinance early 2021. But I think this is gonna be an iterative process and I think that's totally a good mindset to be in. This is new for the city. And so I think we need to really do and give a lot of diligence to the process to walk through this journey. So I moved that out a little bit more and hoping that we could get to council with and we may come back to council any interim with maybe a permit process that we would have drafted up and get some feedback from them and then come back for an introduction to an ordinance late summer or late spring, early summer and then try to get a tentative regulation process in place by the end of 2021, which may fall into 2022. So just knowing that there's a lot of steps on this journey that we need to make sure that we touch on as we move forward. So next slide, please. So I guess the only thing I would add on my next steps is actually I did have a chance to talk to Cadence and she's on the call today and not only am I making this presentation to the Downtown Subcommittee this morning, but also have talked to Cadence about making a similar presentation to the Downtown Action Organization and I think that's targeting, we're targeting December 16th. So I will be making a stop there. And then I think as well, Cadence suggested that I might wanna also reach out to Chris Wilson from the Redwood Square area and see if I can somehow connect up with their group as well. So it's pretty exciting. It'll be a new thing for us for sure. And I guess I will stop there and I would be happy to answer any questions. And here's any feedback from this group or the participants on the call. So thank you. Thank you, Nancy. Appreciate that. And I could hear your excitement and enthusiasm with the project. I know this is your baby and it's gonna move along very well. Thank you for that. And again, we're still early on in the stages, but it's also exciting to see something coming our way that will be kind of one of those post COVID things that we have in our community, which is great. So we're planning now. So there's plenty of time still for input and tweaking of this project. But we wanted to start here by making sure that this group had an opportunity to get a peek at what's coming your way. So with that, Council Member, sorry, do you have any questions? I know we haven't said Council, but any other questions from your comments? We did. And I didn't have an opportunity to thank you, Nancy, for your presentation again. And I did not have the mind to ask and when we were first given the presentation, are there grant funds available for paying for the pilot program? What does that entail? Who's gonna be paying for the pilot? Yeah, and I think, yeah, I appreciate that question. So I think the vision would be whatever we set up, we're gonna, it would be a cost recovery. So as part of the permit, we would establish some permit for these vendors to operate in the city and we get, they're gonna, it's gonna be on them to set this up and then for us to administer it and support it for city staff, I think we're trying to, and a lot of San Jose, they've done a great job. In fact, they actually set their system up and they actually hired a planner to, that was covered in their fee structure. So I think John will, the intent is to, this is on them as a vendor, but then our permit system will establish a cost recovery to support this initiative within city. So, and by the way, I've already had three, I think at least three vendors who, in fact, we just set up a call with three of them to, so there is interest out there. So anyway, I hopefully that answers the question. It does, thank you, Nancy. Yep. Thank you. Questions or comments from more attendees this morning? I don't see any hands raised at this time. However, Mr. Frazier did want to speak. I'm going to go ahead and see if we can get him connected. Third time's a charm, Mr. Frazier. Errol, unfortunately, it does not appear that we are getting volume. Okay. Mr. Frazier, we apologize. And again, going back to the prior item, you did post that on the chat. I know staff received that as well. So they were looking for that for you. But again, my apologies for not being able to join us with your audio. Any other questions or comments from more attendees? No, there are no additional hands raised. Thank you very much. Okay, so thank you, Nancy, for that. And everyone, please watch this as it develops and moves along over the course of the next spring as well. So let's move to our permitted events in public art, Tara. Hi, thank you, everyone. Again, this is Tara Thompson, Arts and Culture Manager for the city of San Rosa. I have an update regarding special event permits as well as public art program updates. As I shared last time, special event permits remain suspended. And so the only exception to that are certain activities that are allowable under current COVID restrictions. So we continue to permit the open and out street closure use of Courthouse Square and other public spaces downtown for the open and out activities which are now transitioning into winter lights activities as Caden shared. So that permit currently extends through January 31st. The other permit we are currently able to issue is for a drive-through toy and food drive in Railroad Square, which is happening this Saturday. That is again, allowable under the current restrictions. Other than that, we kind of don't have an estimated timeline on when we can start reviewing special event permit applications. There's several events that have already submitted their applications for 2021 events. And our message out to them has consistently been we will be able to review this when we are able to consider permitting large gatherings again. And so it's kind of a unknown timeline, but we continue to monitor that and I'll continue to share as conditions change. For the public art program, last time I shared that we were getting closer to announcing the final artist for the Imagine Art in Old Courthouse Square project. I still can't make that announcement today. In fact, the selection panel is having their final meeting to make the final decision right after this meeting. And so that recommendation will go to the art and public places as soon as possible, but we will probably not make the deadlines for our regular scheduled meeting on Monday, December 7th. So for anyone interested, stay tuned for an agenda announcement for a special meeting for the APPC group, probably a little bit later in December to hear that item recommendation. The other things the public art program has been working on that I haven't shared much on and I hope to more in the future. Since last February, we've been working on a public art program strategic plan for the program and for the Art and Public Places Committee. And so we are getting to a draft phase of that where hopefully by early next year, we will have a plan to be approved and adopted by the Art and Public Places Committee and that we will also be sharing with the council. And then a new project, which was initially slated to start many months ago, if not potentially a year ago, is a small installation on the exterior of the Fifth Street parking garage. So we'll be working with our parking division with Kim Nado on that project. We also continue to do ongoing maintenance on several items in our collection. The latest one was tuberosity, which is a yellow tube-like sculpture and olive park was recently repainted and looks great. That's all I have for today, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Tara. Council Member Schleyer, no questions. Thank you. Any questions or comments from our attendees this morning? No, we have no raise hands at this time. Thank you. And any new attempts from Mr. Frazier? He is on the list. I will attempt to unmute him one more time. Eric, if you have, we'll give you another try here. Unfortunately, it does not appear to be working. Okay, thank you very much. We'll move on to 4.8 Kim, parking program. Good morning. I am really excited to tell you that we've issued the notice to proceed for the garage repair work that will be happening in four garages. The Third Street garage is not part of that, but the rest of the garages will be having repairs, crack ceiling, keeping water out of the facilities. But one of the things I'm most excited about that project is that we will be painting the stairwells in the Fifth Street garage, which really need it. So I think that's gonna be a major improvement to the aesthetics for that facility. The work will take several months, but it's not gonna impact use of the garages. So everybody will still be able to park in the facilities. I wanted to give you an update on the impacts from COVID on the parking program. This would be for the period of July through October of 2020. We are seeing transactions are down by about 50%. Our permits are down by about 30%. Our revenue is down by 50%. So we are seeing a pretty significant impact to the program, unfortunately. Our reserves as of July one were at 8 million and we're anticipating a hit to our reserves of about 1.5 million at this point from for this fiscal year. So it's of concern and we're certainly hoping that 2021 is going to start to see some lifting of the shelter in place and that we'll start to see some return to normal business activity. Having said all of that, we are proposing to extend the reductions that we have made for parking fees. The council approved those in June and were effective July 1st through December 31st. And we are going back to council on December 15th recommending that we extend the bulk of those fee waivers. So what we're proposing is, and this is with input from the DAO and the chamber having heard what merchants interests were, we're proposing to continue to have the garages free Monday through Friday after five o'clock to 6 a.m. We're continuing the recommendation to have the garages free on weekends. Continuing the first hour free at all of the garages would continue with the promotion we're doing on the mobile app. So users can get one free mobile parking session for the value up to $3.15. And continuing the waiver of the meter reservation fees for the temporary parklets. So all of that is in place now and we would extend. The one change is that we had also reduced the value zone to 75 cents an hour. And we would be lifting that back to a dollar an hour. And that was with input from the DAO and the chamber. I had recommended initially that we would eliminate the first hour free in three of the garages. The input from merchants was that they would rather keep that first hour free in the garages and raise the value zone rate. So that's what I'm recommending. And again, hoping that 2021 starts to look better in terms of the long-term sustainability of the parking fund. We've got over $20 million projects for the next 10 years. So as we're watching our reserves drop, it's of concern that we really need to find a way to get the program back into a sustainable place. We are really hoping for the best, as I'm sure everybody else out there is too. So that's all I've got. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Kim. Council Member Slerick, questions? No question, just a comment. Thank you, Kim. This is what reserves are for sometimes. And although it would be great to be able to use the vast majority of them for maintenance and operation and repairs, sometimes reserves get retargeted. And I'm just glad that the department was managed in such a way that the reserves were able to be built up. So thank you for your effort. And I'm glad to hear the repairs, maintenance going forward on the other garages, regardless of the financial situation we find ourselves in. So good luck. Hopefully, I think we'll start turning around in the near future. Thank you for your work. Thank you, John. Any other questions or comments from our attendees this morning? There are no comments at this time. Oh, I apologize. Mr. Schwartz would like to make a comment. Thank you. Where are you there? Mr. Schwartz? Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yep. I just, Kim, I just wanted to thank you on behalf of the merchants for your flexibility. I know that the department is facing tough times and we all are, but the fact that you made these concessions is very meaningful to us. And so thank you again. Any other questions? We have no additional hands raised at this time. Thank you very much. And we have no matters held in committee. Do we have any other department reports from staff? And it looks like we have none. So that will conclude our meeting for today. And again, I just want to thank all of you for the privilege to have worked with you over the years in our downtown. And again, I'm not going to be a stranger. I will be here to continue to support all those efforts that are happening downtown and in Redwood Square. So thank you all. And with that, our meeting is over.