 Good afternoon. I'd like to ask the interpreter currently on the Spanish Channel to commence translation of the meeting for those Just joining the meeting live translation in Spanish is available and members of the public or staff wishing to listen in Spanish Can join the Spanish Channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the zoom toolbar. It looks like a globe Once you join the Spanish Channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so that you only hear the Spanish translation Pablo, will you please restate this in Spanish? Interpretation Welcome everyone to our May March 5th 2024 City Council meeting the time is 301 and seeing a quorum will begin the meeting Madame Cindy clerk. Will you please call the roll? Thank You vice mayor councilmember Rogers Councilmember O'Crepkey here councilmember McDonald here councilmember Fleming here councilmember Alvarez Vice mayor step here and mayor Rogers is absent this evening Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of mayor Rogers and councilmember Chris Rogers Excellent one item 3.1 Our closed session item our conference with labor negotiators Madam city clerk, will you please conduct public comment on this item? Thank you. We are now taking public comments on item 3.1 conference with labor negotiators I Do have a public commenter from the council chamber, and I will go ahead and turn it over to mr. Dewitt at the podium Hello, my name is Dwayne Dewitt. I'm from Roseland in your negotiations with employees I'm hoping that you will make a point of giving the hard-working lower paid Employees in the parks and recreations department and the transportation and public works departments and the other areas Who are the I guess you'd say? Hands-on boots on the ground type employees keeping our city running Especially during these hazardous storms where many potholes are appearing everywhere these are hard-working people and It's really important that you're not just nickel and dime them to try to save on Expenses while you've been giving big raises to the upper management people They can see that and they're looking at it going wait a minute. It's us doing this hard work here And I really believe that what you could be doing is negotiating with them in good faith to make sure that they get a Comparable wage increase based on what you give to the management people I've actually seen where the management people are bringing in really large amounts of money now and These people down at the bottom who are doing the most of the work out there in our areas seem to be Basically considered second-class and that's not the way it should be It's especially important for maintenance and utility system operators those folks there They're keeping everything running while it's storming and power outages things of that nature So please keep all that in mind. It's not to detract from the work of the management people It's just to basically say that the people who they manage should also be perhaps considered on an equal footing in terms of Pay and benefit packages. Thank you very kindly look forward to seeing you later in the meeting. Bye now Vice Mayor I see no one else approaching the podiums for public comment on this item. Thank you And with that we will we will recess in the closed session Thank you. Thank you for your patience everyone and welcome to our March 5th 2024 city council meeting seeing a quorum. We will reconvene after our closed set them It's closed session rather mad at city clerk. Would you please call the roll? Thank you council member step or vice mayor step council member Rogers council member O'Crepkey here council member McDonald Here council member Fleming here council member Alvarez Vice mayor step here and mayor Rogers is absent So let the record show that all council members are present with the exception Vice or pardon me mayor Rogers and council member Rogers Thank you very much. All right. We have no study sessions today So we'll move on to item six report on closed sessions madam city attorney Thank You vice mayor There was a closed session as outlined in item 3.1 I believe and there is no reportable action from closed session Thank you madam city clerk. Would you please conduct public comment? As there was no reportable action we do not need to take public comment on this item never mind Thank you moving on moving on to item 7 our proclamations and presentations Starting with with item 7.1 Red Cross Month council member Alvarez Thank you. Vice mayor, and this is a proclamation for the Red Cross Whereas During American Red Cross Month in March We recognize the compassion of the people in San Rosa and reaffirm our commitment to care for one another in times of crisis And whereas this generous spirit is woven in the fabric of our community and advances the humanitarian Legacy of American Red Cross founder Clara Barton who know we dedicate herself to alleviating suffering and whereas Today kind-hearted individuals in our community Exemplify Barnes commitment as they step up through the Red Cross in the northern California coastal region to provide a beacon of hope for our neighbors in need Through their voluntary and selfless contributions They make a life-saving difference in people's darkest hours, whether it's delivering shelter food and comfort during disasters Providing critical blood donations for hospital patients Supporting military families veterans and caregivers through the unique challenge of service saving lives with first aid CPR and other skills Or delivering aid and reconnecting loved ones separated by a global crisis and whereas we heard hereby Recognize this month of March in honor of all those who lead with their hearts to serve people in need And we ask everyone to join in this commitment to strengthen our community now therefore our mayor Nali Rogers By virtue of the authority vested in her by the laws of the city of Santa Rosa and the state of California To hereby proclaim March 2024 as Red Cross Month I encourage all citizens of Santa Rosa to reach out and support its humanitarian mission and witness where of She here on to set by her hand this fifth day of March in the year 2024 in the city of Santa Rosa, California. Thank you Thank you very much and before going to our recipients madam city clerk. Would you mind facilitating public comment? Thank you We are now taking public comments on item 7.1 the proclamation for Red Cross if you were in the chamber and would like to Provide comment, but have not provided a speaker card or your name. Please make your way to the podium You will have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that podium Vice mayor. I'm seeing no one approached the podium for public comment on this item So well, he's the recipient of the proclamation. I was gonna Through the vice mayor. He was going to provide public comment. It looks like we have one individual Mr. Ells, would you like to speak on public comment for non-agenda or for 7.1? Yeah, the Red Cross has a tremendous history going back to The princes of Austria and before that to the Knights Hospital or from of Jerusalem and from Rhodes on Malta and So there were tremendous history of Of exactly that hospitality and helping and then through the the princesses of Austria they Created they became Nurses and that's the first nursing and and so on it was Essentially connected to I believe it's Joan of Arc, but at any rate They're wonderful and throughout the United States and do a lot of emergency help and I want to thank them Good afternoon. My name is Chivis Moore. I'm a resident of Santa Rosa and I would like to suggest that you add the Red Crescent to this Resolution honoring the Red Cross the Red Crescent is the equivalent of the Red Cross in Areas like the Middle East so so-called Palestine Gaza Today, so it would be appropriate in my opinion if you could add that. Thank you Is there anyone else wishing to provide public comment on 7.1 the Red Cross proclamation? I say we're seeing none. I'll turn it back to you Wonderful that I'd like to invite the recipients to make their way to the podium and then afterwards if you wouldn't mind coming down So we could take a photo together Good afternoon council. It's nice to be here. We appreciate the opportunity in response to the last lady. This is American Red Cross month We know that the Red Crescent does work in the Middle East and other parts and there are other international Red Cross Organizations that work around the world, but this is American Red Cross month The proclamation was first made over 80 years ago by Franklin Roosevelt every president since Franklin Roosevelt has declared March of every year to be Red Cross month. We're glad that the City of Santa Rosa is joining In that celebration Red Cross as you all know responds to disasters around the country not only like the wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma where many of our Red Cross volunteers from Sonoma County and California are right now working with the people who are victims of those fires But also home fires that occur in Santa Rosa and other parts of Sonoma County And people fire departments always call the Red Cross to come and offer assistance to the victims of those fires in addition We do Red Cross we do a blood collection Red Cross is the primary primary supplier of blood to hospitals for people who come in from accidents shootings Transfusions, whatever they need You'd like to help the American Red Cross you can donate blood at our office You can find out when those are by going Red Cross org You can volunteer your time or your money and we appreciate all of the assistance from the citizens of Santa Rosa I'd also like to introduce Steve Contra right us Otis who is a member of the Red Cross board for Napa Sonoma Solano and Marin counties Good evening city council. Thank you for the proclamation and I'd like to add To Andy Woodhomes comments that the American Red Cross Also provides services to the armed forces of the United States And that's 24 7 they support families have deployed service members Wherever they are stationed around the world And then one other thing I'd like to mention is when you see a Red Cross person on the news or Edit a disaster with a vest That that Red Cross volunteer is not paid 90% of the people that support the American Red Cross are not paid. They're volunteers I want to point that out and And thank you again for the proclamation Andy and Steve. Thank you so much for coming out tonight. Please come down to the front with any other members of Red Cross and let's take a photo We'll move on to item 7.2 our proclamation for Arbor week council member Fleming Thank You vice mayor This is for Arbor week whereas in 1872 a special day was set aside for the planting of trees and this holiday called Arbor day was First observed with the planting of more than one million trees Arbor day is now observed throughout the nation and the world Since 1909 the state of California officially declared March 7th Arbor day to commemorate the birthday of our very own Luther Burbank and Whereas in 2024 national Arbor day falls on Friday April 26th And the city celebrates Arbor day on March 9th with a tree planting event at Skyhawk Community Park as a Service to our community and local school programs and whereas trees protect our environmental resources reduce erosion of topsoil cut Heating and cooling costs moderate the temperature clean the air produce oxygen provide habitat for wildlife and Support our city's economic development by increasing property values beautifying our community and enhancing the vitality of business areas whereas the interests in Strengthening community image and sense of place through the preservation of and dedication to Santa Rosa's urban forests Have been a major goal and commitment since the city's founding Santa Rosa has been recognized as Tree City USA by the National Arbor Day Foundation for over 40 years And desires to continue its tree planting ways and whereas trees are terrific in all shapes and sizes. I love that So beer is all that the mayor of the city of Santa Rosa hereby proclaims March 3rd to March 9th of 2024 Arbor week. What say you? All right Thank you medicine clerk, would you please conduct a comment? Thank you. We are now taking public comments on item 7.2 if you are in the chamber and would like to comment But have not yet provided your speaker card or your name Please make your way to the podium. You will have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period We do have one name submitted so far and we'll start with that submitted name. Mr. Dewitt, please go ahead Certainly my name is Dwayne Dewitt. I'm from Roseland. Thank you to the city crews that help us with the trees This book right here is from over 32 years ago, and it basically pointed out that tree planting is a very important thing for communities. I really want to see us have even More employees in our parks and recreation departments and in our tree crews Basically, we need to do more as soon as possible to help get even more trees in I've been told that a lot of trees were knocked down in the recent storms and because of that We're behind an eight ball in a sense One of the things that happens when the tree especially a very large tree that's been around for a long time Helping to sequester carbon is knocked down. It's very difficult to replace It's helpfulness it takes years and years for trees to grow. So I'd like to see you folks there on the podium Take it upon yourself to help our Employees that are already with the city to do even more We used to have an actual arborist at the city and that position was not filled in the past It would really be a nice thing to do that again, perhaps, but if you can't Do more with the people that are already here Helping them to get more assistance There'd be a great way to do it with students from Sonoma State and Santa Rosa Junior College and Help them to work on our crews here and perhaps become interns to learn how they could get full-time positions Working with city and county government on this very important resource our trees I'll leave you with this a woman said over a Hundred and forty years ago. We all want quiet. We all want beauty. We all need space and it all goes better with trees She's one of the people that coined the term neighbor woods. Thank you kindly for your time today Thank you. We'll go to the next speaker at the podium on the east lecturing. I'm just made by how many Invasive non native trees are being planted recently the city is beautifying Santa Rosa Avenue and Planted along the entire strip of three blocks ginkgo's Ginkgo trees are terrible. They make a big mess. Their leaves are slippery and they're actually quite Dangerous when they do with with with apologies for interrupting Would you mind leaning just a little closer to the mics in your area now? Perfect. Thank you. So the problem I have is the lack of native trees if we're going to be planting trees They should be native trees native trees support habitat the strip along Santa Rosa Avenue are all ginkgo's and Ginkgo's are super problematic tree. So I would just like to see more native trees being planted. Thank you Thank you to the West Sector Mysterials. Go ahead Do forgive me I speak sometimes about things that are in the future and Things that are urgent now and some things from the past Do forgive me though in regard to the Arbor day, it's really great obviously to remember Luther Burbank as any time we can do that is fantastic. He was Just incredible But recent studies in Australia and and in South Africa and and places that are Desiccating what they're finding is that the removal of trees really really detrimental to the groundwater preserving the groundwater and So we can benefit the groundwater by having more trees. We should have more trees and the shade actually changes the whole micro Climate and so much better for the city and much better for really actually Changes a lot of things for the groundwater. So it'd be when you think of things with groundwater We should really be thinking of trees and one other aspect is that we have this demonstration forest I mentioned that on the day of the air-conditioning question for the library with the with the librarian the the Director of the library and I think they took some action on that But there's a demonstration forest over here that they have no idea what to do with that and it's a fully grown force So when Dwayne talks about the time for these trees these trees are fully grown They could be used here at this library. They could be used over at the Northwest library They could be used around town where they could be replanted and they're fully grown 60 foot tall trees They can be replanted and so if they were they really changed the microclimate around them and and really benefit The community was shade and so a lot of aspects of shade, but particularly the groundwater. Thank you. Thank you Vice mayor staff. I see no additional people approaching the podium for public comment on 7.2 Thank you, and are we welcoming the city's own gen Santos to the microphone? To receive to receive the proclamation and while she's making her way up there While she's making her while they're making the way down I'll just thank all the members of parks and record record came today. It's nice to see that we have a full squad Thanks for all that you do Thanks so much for this proclamation today. I'm chin Santos deputy director for recreation and parks And I have with me today our park superintendent who we want to definitely invite people out to our volunteer event This weekend. So I wanted to take this moment and talk about that. It's a really good event By the mayor staff council members. My name is James Castro. I'm the superintendent for parks as Jen said We are holding a Arbor Day event this Saturday March 9th from 9 to 12 at Skyhawk Community Park We're gonna be planting over 30 trees. We hope everybody can join us I'd also like to take a moment to recognize the park maintenance staff During this last storm that we had They responded to over 34 down trees in a 16-hour time frame without a tree crew. So Cheers to you guys. Thanks for all that you do and thank you guys Well, thank you very much. We want to invite everyone down and take a photo Please the whole team come on down you can hear me Pablo would you like to switch for a minute? And for our last proclamation of the evening item 7.3 national women's history month council member McDonald Thank You vice mayor. Thank you so much for the honor of reading this. I get to read the women's history month proclamation Whereas women have played a critical role in shaping the economic cultural and social fabric of our society through their participation in the labor force Working both inside and outside the home in leadership positions and through creative inspiration and whereas national women's history month provides an Opportunity for schools and communities to increase the knowledge held by our children and our community of women's roles in history and their Contributions to the development of this nation and Whereas the 2024 theme for national women's history month is women who advocate for equity diversity and inclusion Which directly recognizes the women throughout the country who understand that for a positive future We need to eliminate bias and discrimination entirely for our lives and institutions And whereas national women's history month is both a call to acknowledge Outstanding women we know by name and to pay homage to the nameless women who shared our collective past Now there now therefore be it resolved that our mayor Natalie Rogers of the city of Santa Rosa on behalf of the entire city council in Recognition of the significant role played by women whose courage and vision Inspire hope and possibility for today's women to make tomorrow's history Therefore proclaim the month of March 2024 as national women's history month in Santa Rosa Thank you very much. Madam city clerk, would you please conduct public comment? Thank you We are now taking public comment on item at seven point three if you were in the chamber I would like to make a comment, but I have not yet provided a speaker card or your name Please make your way to the podium. You will have two minutes and a countdown time are well alert at the end of that period I'm seeing no speaker. Please go ahead on seven point three at the West lectern Yes My name is chivis Moore. I'm a resident of Santa Rosa and I cannot help but Remember the women who are outside the United States as well And point out to you that the women in Gaza for instance are being killed by us weapons and With us money Please take that into consat sent to into consideration when you're honoring women. Thank you Thank you the next public comment Oh, there are no other members of the public wishing to provide public comment vice mayor. I'll turn it back to you Wonderful, and I think we have Melanie Jones Carter from the Commission on the status of women here tonight In this Melanie Jones Carter, and I'm the vice chair of the Commission of the status of women appointed by commissioner Sorry supervisor Chris Corsi and with me is Anna Diaz We would like to thank the council for taking this time to acknowledge the work done by sorry Lost my place We would like to thank the council for taking the time to acknowledge the work done by so many impactful women in Sonoma County, it's quite a coincidence that today is election day and So many women work so hard for the right to vote in 1920 The commissioners are advisors to the Sonoma County border supervisors and work to ensure that the issues impacting women and girls are given the necessary Visibility to affect positive changes in public policy This year we have ad hoc committees focusing on reproductive rights human trafficking community engagement and voter turnout Feel free to reach out to the Commission if you have need any assistance on issues that concern women and girls in Sonoma County Again, thank you so much to the council for this proclamation Thank you Thank you Melanie and Anna for being here tonight. Do you want to come down take a photo? Oh, Anna, but you did you have please go ahead? Hello, I just wanted to say one thing Additional to everything that vice chair Johns had just mentioned we would like to acknowledge the past women and founding sisters of The 19th amendment that actually gave us the right to vote here today since today is election day So I just wanted to honor all women here in Sonoma County and in America and in the whole nation Thank you, and then God and and in the whole world Thank you. Thank you very much. Come on down All right, we're moving along to item eight staff briefings Madam City Manager Thank you vice mayor this evening. We have no staff briefings That's incorrect. We do have a staff briefing We have the community empowerment plan update and we also have an introduction of one of our new team members Are two of our new team members? Hey Good afternoon mayor vice mayor And city council lawn Peterson director communications and I got relations. I'll be doing the Community empowerment plan update this evening So first it's my pleasure to introduce two talented team members that recently joined our team First on my right a newly appointed diversity equity inclusion and Equal employee opportunity officer Francesca Robertson She has a solid background in DEI management and has played a pivotal role Implementing strategic DEI plans in her previous position Her commitment to fostering inclusive workplaces is noteworthy. She has a certification in DEI program management And is a certified trainer Next on my left joining the zero team is newly appointed community engagement manager on a Horta As a bicultural and multilingual professional Anna has worked in diverse populations in both Latin America as well as the United States It's a proven track record Bringing paper together from various Socioeconomic cultural and ethnic backgrounds and she has expertise in community engagement as well as program management Moving forward and will be liaison to the community advisory board And so with that please join me in welcoming Francesca as well as Anna to the team One one real quick thing and I mentioned this previous but the police department is developing a strategic plan And it's seeking community feedback and input and guidance on that That first part of that is happening tomorrow March 6 6 p.m At 35 stony point road the chief will be hosted community meeting to get an input on public safety priorities In addition to that meeting the police department has launched a community partner survey That's available in English as well as Spanish seeking feedback on its community experience with the police department Engagement interactive opportunities as well as safety priorities and so the survey is open till March 18th And if you visit Santa Rosa pd.org You can participate or take the survey and that concludes the community empowerment update and Would you like to say something? City manager just well first certainly acknowledging Madam mayor in her absence vice mayor and madam Okay, hi, okay, certainly want to Acknowledge madam mayor in her absence vice mayor and Madam city manager and our esteemed Council members I am just super excited to be part of the team here at the city of Santa Rosa I look forward to moving the needle forward in the work that has already been started and thank you for this opportunity Good afternoon mayor vice mayor and council members and Madam city manager I'm very excited to be here and to be part of the city and to really continue to work on serving our diverse community Thank you With that that concludes the update Thanks to all of you and I'm sure I speak for my my fellow council members might say how fantastic it is that both both of our New staff members here. Thank you. Thank you for coming out tonight And with that Madam city clerk, would you please conduct public comment? Thank you We are now taking public comment on item 8.1 If you are in the chamber and would like to provide comment but have not provided a speaker card or your name Please make your way to the podium. You will have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period Vice mayor, I'm seeing no one approach the podiums for public comment on 8.1 Thank you move on to item 9 of the city managers and city attorney's reports. Madam city manager Thank you vice mayor. I have no updates this evening. Thank you I'm city attorney and I have no updates as well. Thank you Thank you All right move on to item 10 statements of abstention by council members. I'm looking at my colleagues Any statements of abstentions? No statements of abstentions this evening So then move on to item 11 the mayors and council members reports Any reports this evening for my for my colleagues? All right. We're not a chatty bunch tonight Moving along to item 12 approval of minutes Let's see Madam city clerk. Oh Sorry, I was I was distracted for a moment Were there any any changes to be made on the minutes Again, none now alternative at a city clerk Would you please connect public comment? Thank you, vice mayor We are now taking public comment on item 12.1 February 13th 2024 regular meeting minutes If you'd like to provide comment but have not yet provided a speaker card or your name Please make your way to the podium. You will have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period Vice mayor. I'm seeing no public comments or people approaching the podiums for public comments. Thank you So then I think I'm correct in just adopting the minutes as submitted. Is that correct? You are correct. Thank you All right moving along to item 13 the consent items Madam city clerk, would you please read the consent items certainly? Item 13.1 resolution extension of proclamation of homeless emergency item 13.2 Approval of professional services agreement with disability access consultants LLC item 13.3 Resolution authorizing submittal of a grant application to the wildlife conservation board for the lower Colgan Creek restoration project phase 3 And that concludes the consent calendarologies Looking to my colleagues All right, madam city clerk, would you please conduct public comment? Thank you vice mayor. We are now taking public comment on items 13.1 through 13.3 the consent calendar If you are in the chamber and would like to provide comment but have not provided a speaker card or your name Please make your way to the podiums now. You'll have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period Mr. Els, please go ahead Thank you. I just wanted to thank the council for continuing the Resolution of homelessness emergency There has been a reduction of homelessness in Sonoma County due to I think a lot to do with the governor's Since home key and There was another name for the other program But my point is is that many people have been in house through that that program. There's been a lot of help. I know that Supposedly spasible in is empty at this point. That's really Problematic, but hopefully maybe SA y people have gotten in there I think they have to have some construction or so. I don't know exactly what's going on with that But it's not a city issue But I just wanted to say that we're still in a homeless emergency and I appreciate the city council's effort in that regard Thank you. Thank you Vice mayor emcee no one else approached the podiums for public comment on the consent calendar Thank you council member of crepe key may I have a motion? Yeah, I'll move items 13.1 through 13.3 second All right, we have a motion by council member of crepe key and a second by council member Alvarez not a city clerk Would you please call the vote? Thank you council member Rogers is absent council member of crepe key. Hi Council member mcdonald. Hi council member Fleming Council member alvarez. Hi vice mayor step. Hi and mayor rogers is absent So I'll let the record show that this passes the five affirmative votes with Mayor rogers and council member rogers absent Thank you very much. All right. We seeing that it is not yet five o'clock We're gonna have to hold off on item 14 public comment on non-agenda matters instead We're gonna go we're gonna go right away to item 15 point or the item 15 report items Item 15.1 our report on the resolution to approve citywide integrated pest management policy madam city manager. I Think we're good to go staff come on down to the podium Item 15.1 resolution to approve citywide integrated pest pest management Policy and if you could just please introduce yourself for the record and council just so you know We have several team members in the audience to be able to answer questions Good afternoon. Good afternoon mayor vice mayor staff and members of the city council My name is Sean McNeil and I'm the deputy director of environmental services and I'm here today with Jen Santos and Paul Lowenthal to introduce to you the integrated pest management policy so the outline for today is Talk about the goals of integrated pest management, which we believe that this policy before you meets Go over some of the existing guidance guidelines Talk about the typical integrated pest management policy that ours was built off and then our staff recommendations Before we get started would like to start with some definitions just to make sure that we're as I'm saying these words That you're having this similar thoughts So a pesticide is any chemical that's used to eradicate pests includes herbicides insecticides fungicides and rodenticides glyphosate is in the active ingredient and Widely known commercial product called roundup. It's recognized as an effective herbicide The various trade names for glyphosate are based on the types of applications that they are approved for So there's many different compounds that are many different Formulations that are covered by our glyphosate ban as we identify in our Integrated pest management policy and then neonicotinoids are a broad spectrum group of pesticides Insecticides that kill more than the intended species and it has been shown to have dramatic effect on bee populations And that's why there's been a lot of movement Throughout the country to reduce the use of these insecticides Reasons to decrease pesticide use Pesticides and fertilizers were used to help launch the green revolution This is then used to increase crop yields preventing hundreds of millions of people from starving But then pesticide use began to have significant environmental impacts as they were overused in our environment They killed non-target species and were linked to human health impacts Specifically concerns with glyphosate is that the chemicals persist in the environment for days or months depending on the formulation and frequency of use and they're widely used in agriculture and landscape maintenance It has been listed as a Probable carcinogen by the international agency for research on cancer in lawsuits have been filed and won against the chemical manufacturer of Glyphosate and the health risks are most acute to the pesticide Applicator and I believe our policy covers Protection for our applicators as well So integrated pest management the goal is to Of this policy was to develop a city-wide integrated pest management policy which you have before you today is policy would provide guidance to staff and Contractors working for the city to ensure that the landscapes are designed and maintained in a manner that reduces the need for fossil fuel powered Equipment herbicides insecticides and other anthropomorphic inputs that have an ability to exacerbate climate change And also to ensure that the policy supports the city's ability to protect Against increased fire severity due to invasive species and climate change So I think the policy covers Threads the needle on on meeting those goals So our integrated pest management policy really starts with pest identification. You need to identify these pests research the least toxic methods to address the impacts of these pests and if action is needed apply the least toxic methods first And then evaluate and if further action is needed apply the next least toxic method So any integrated pest management policy is going to start with non-pesticide actions first planting spaces with dense plantings Talk a little bit more about that in a minute mechanical removal of weeds where possible or our other plant pathogens Avoid problematic species where possible and use pesticides as a last resort and following a least toxic approach first So pest management solutions for insects first you have to wonder can you tolerate this amount of insect? You know if it's a good example many plants can be fine with if it's on them You identify the disease. Is this a disease that's going to really kill this plant? Or is it just going to retard growth a little bit? Can mechanical removal of these pests work? If not, then you might need to spray with an appropriate pesticide to protect the plants And if that doesn't work replace that type of plant with pest resistant species Where this doesn't work is in Luther Burbank Gardens where we are growing specific heirloom varieties to be period specific with Luther Burbank's time in his plant development Pest management solutions for weeds Tolerate there's a certain amount of weeds that we can tolerate We can also make sure that our landscapes have high density plantings which out compete the space for the weeds Mulching areas that aren't as densely planted with three inches of mulch can help prevent weeds from growing then mechanical removal Where weed tolerance is is allowed And then in large open spaces looking towards grazing in other Removal and then herbicides as a last resort Also the pest management is the integrated pest management policy address plant pest management solutions up for plant diseases First again, it's very similar. Can you tolerate the damage? Can you identify the disease make sure that if you are going to try to eradicate the disease? You need to know what you're after So that you can get the right tools Mechanical removal of the disease probably one of the biggest diseases we have on on fruit trees and Any plants in the rose family is fire blight and the number one action for protecting those plants is to identify the disease Early and cut the material away and get it out of the garden space. So So that wouldn't require pesticides if you identified that and then if you do need to use sprays use appropriate pesticide and Use least toxic ones first like copper sulfate or sulfur and then replace any pest problematic species with pest resistant species and once again the landscapes in Luther Burbank Gardens would need to To wouldn't be able to use that As easily because they're trying to preserve those species The draft the policy before you has a complete ban of neonicotinoids in the city Minimize the use of all pesticides throughout the city using the the policy And requires staff to have a certified pesticide applicator to apply or supervise staff who are applying And then when spraying any pesticide staff will use goggles chemical resistant clothing and chemical resistant gloves and chemical resistant boots And these are above and beyond the minimum requirements For many pesticides, but we thought in the policy to err on the side of safety There is also in the policy of ban on glyphosate use in most sensitive areas That would be playgrounds public gathering spaces picnic areas in other areas with identified sensitive receptors So that no glyphosate would be used in those areas, but that we would have some specific exceptions should conditions Get out of control and we need to get them in in alignment Those exceptions to the glyphosate ban would be to allow in use in case of public health and safety Allow use on road medians in parking structures where the interaction with the The environment is a lot less Allow on ball fields that are closed for renovations. These are not active fields So people wouldn't be out recreating on them Allow for use on invasive plants. This would only be for non routine activities typically when Restoring doing an ecological restoration of an area you might need to use chemicals to get rid of the invasive plants So that the newly installed native plants can have a chance to compete and then In these cases once the objectives are met that we would decrease or Eliminate use of glyphosate in those areas completely and to make sure that we're following through on that The policy calls for Transparency of our pesticide use We would the policy requires that we create a website to highlight activities to one prevent Pesticide use and that would have the this exact policy Tips for managing pests without pesticides and then an annual report of our pesticide use on city properties So there would be an opportunity for the public and council to see how well the policy is doing to curtail our use of pesticides and that all pesticide applications will be posted prior to listed date of application and when planning to apply pesticides close to the area Close the area to the public and post signs about pesticide application So it is the recommendation by Santa Rosa water and record and the recreation and parks department that the city council The council of the city of Santa Rosa by resolution adopt the citywide integrated pest management policy That take any open for any questions Thank you very much. I'm turning to council for questions All right, really no questions. Well, let's go to public comment then medicine clerk. Thank you vice mayor We are now taking public comments on item 15 point one If you are in the chamber would like to make comment but have not provided a speaker card or your name Please make your way to the podium. You will have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period Please go ahead mr. Ells working now. Okay. Thank you very much I I cannot thank the city and the city council enough for beginning on a process like this is really terrific both glyphosate and and all these other pesticides neo nicotinoids and so on really terrible for the overall environment but particularly for For the the least of these we'll call them the smallest of the animals I've mentioned before that I'm an environmental engineer and I went through a postgraduate program in hazardous materials management of which it was all about toxics and so it was 1986 So it's high and glad to see this And particularly the approaches the least toxic approach first and then and replacing plants I assume native plants are usually more suited to the environment The question about tolerate disease You can weaken the plants and have significant problems with that I would I would ask that you amend the your Proposal or at least look at some things One of which is grandma putts methods use vinegar dish soap vegetable oil and peppers of various varieties black peppers red peppers green peppers and use The seeds from these peppers you put it and they kill They'll kill ants if you have problems. It's certainly any any Nats or other types of things like that's really terrific to get those they're very natural. They're not Pesticides, I mean, I mean, they're not Toxic from that standpoint need to use them very delicately. It's really but Also to have an emergency which I believe they're really considering which is in case something everything else doesn't work that you can Really take care of it and you need to thank you Thank you the next speaker, please at the West lectern. Please go ahead Hello, my name is test. I'm a lifelong Santa Rosa resident. I appreciate this proposed ban on certain chemical pesticides, but I very much dislike the page on exceptions, especially considering that I have Three brothers who have all played baseball I used to play softball and I would roll around in the grass if I knew that there were chemicals thrown on that grass even a year or two years before I was on it that would make me concerned. I'm a 24 year old who has Lifelong chemicals they call them forever chemicals because of the practices that our country has engaged in for putting pesticides in our Agriculture and in our recreation areas and this is not by my own choice This is you probably have forever chemicals and if you do not your children probably do So I think that there should be a further ban on these things and like Thomas said there are natural alternatives to take care of invasive species and Different plants that we don't want like I had the privilege Last year to engage in a cultural burn with the North Fork Mono of the Awanichi ban from Yosemite And I learned from them that the ways in which that we care for the earth is not how it has to be If we put human power onto it we can take care of these invasive species So I really would like to encourage you to look past all Pesticize not just these few that are here, but all of them like vinegar water peppers So please think about the children we have lives that we want to live and these pesticides all of them Even the ones that have limited vans affect us without us even choosing it. Thank you Thank you speaker on the next on the east lectern. Please go ahead Susan Lamont district, too. I also want to thank the council for or the department for Making this proposal on I assume the council is going to accept it I also want to Hold out the hope that you will eventually ban all pesticides. I'm a landscape designer permaculture certificate holder and There really are other ways to do this and you know I had to spend a lot of time with some of my clients explaining to them that we do not control the earth and we do not control nature and We need to get over the fact that everything must be perfect so Thank you for this, but I'd also like to take the opportunity at the beginning of this Presentation the city clerk mentioned the audience. We are not an audience an Audience sits and does nothing but be entertained and my clap We are the public So I am hoping that from now on the term audience will be banned and You will now refer to this gathering as the public. Thank you No one else approached the podium for public comment on item 15.1. I'll turn it back to you turning back to council for any final final comments Well, then just let me extend our thanks to to Shawn to Jen to Paul This is a very thoughtful proposal and there's a lot of work that went behind it Thank you also to our maintenance and parks and wreck teams I mean one of the implications of this proposal is that frankly there's a lot more physical work for the for the folks That we have in the community I'm I myself have weeded an outfield and it it's not easy So thank you. Thank you for being willing to take on this extra work and with that I'll turn it over to council member Fleming for a motion Thank you vice mayor I'll move a resolution of the city of the San Jose Adopting a city-wide integrated pest management policy and way further reading of the text Second All right, we have a motion from council member Fleming and a second from council member Krepke Madam city clerk, would you please call the roll? Thank you council member Rogers is absent council member Krepke. Hi council member McDonald. Hi council member Fleming Hi council member Alvarez. Hi vice mayor step. Hi and vice and mayor Rogers is absent So this passes with five affirmative votes with mayor Rogers and council member Rogers absent Thank you. All right. We're moving back up to item 14 public comment on non-agenda matters matter city clerk Thank You vice mayor. We are now taking public comments on item 14 non-agenda matters This is a time when any person may address the council on matters not listed on this agenda But which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council if you're in the chamber And would like to comment but have not yet provided a speaker card. Please provide your name to the Administrator at the top of the well We have already received 12 public comment cards for item 14 The remainder of those wishing to provide public comment on non-agenda matters will be afforded the opportunity to speak under item 18 non-agenda matters The first public comment will be from Luann followed by Roxy then Dwayne Lulu Lejoir, I feel that although I am a fairly new resident and beautiful Santa Rosa I get that what is most important here is peace The city of Santa Rosa proudly stands for diversity welcoming all and that inclusivity in That inclusivity there is tolerance in our hearts the heart of Santa Rosa is vast reaching and I know that its residents care about the world Care about the future Our city stands for peace We need to show the world that our caring doesn't stop at the city limits I urge a vote for the ceasefire Resolution this stands for peace on both sides It stands for an end to the killing of innocent lives We can make a difference and be an example to the youth in Santa Rosa and the world and We can show that we believe in a future of peace ceasefire now Thank you. The next speaker will be Roxy followed by Dwayne. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you My name is Roxy Schilling. I was born in Santa Rosa As a trans and queer person I have been seen this city become more accepting of the LGBT community than when I was growing up I know there has been progress and inclusivity and diversity in moving away from the racist past of this county Although there's much more work to be done. I Would hope that you as representatives of the city as political representatives of this country would take a stand for human rights Would to be able to say Palestinian lives matter like many have learned to say black lives matter Would take a stand against mass murder and ethnic cleansing would take a stand for peace justice and freedom I ask that you stand up for what is right to say Santa Rosa calls for a ceasefire and Gaza is not complicated To say Santa Rosa stands against genocide is not complicated to say Santa Rosa stands against anti-Semitism in Islamophobia is not complicated I ask you to do what is right Not what any powerful lobby or corporate entity or political machine or foreign government tells you to do But you do what you what you must know when your heart is right to say we are against this mass killing of tens of thousands of innocent Children women and men we are against the forced starvation of hundreds of thousands of civilians We want the hostages returned and we want the political prisoners returned We want peace for Palestine and Israel saying we demand a ceasefire is the minimal and most uncomplicated thing you could do You represent represent the city and this country call out this US funded genocide Please let us not be seen as complicit never again for anyone. Let us stand in on the right side of history It is not it is divisive to not call for a ceasefire. It is not anti-Semitic to securitize Israel It is just to say free Palestine must we all become Aaron Bush know to be heard Thank you for your time Thank you the next speaker will be Dwayne followed by Elizabeth then Susan coming up Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt. I'm from Roseland Earlier, I showed you a publication from 32 years ago about cooling communities And this is a page from it that talked about urban heat islands and the greenhouse effect 32 years ago then President Bush He put together an effort for Planting a billion trees is what he wanted to do here in the United States to try to counteract This greenhouse gas effect So I bring this back to you today because his effort was called America the beautiful Urban and community forestry assistance program Earlier you proclaimed Arbor week and I think you should have someone from the city staff Reach out to the National Tree Trust and work to get more trees for us here in the Santa Rosa Plain area Lots of development is going on and they're cutting trees down They're not replacing them in a timely manner either one of the dilemmas about all of this is that What's happening is The urban trees that have been cut down like right over here at courthouse square Those grew there for 40 to 50 years It's going to take that long to replace them and their benefits for carbon sequestration Many of these young people that are here now They want to make sure that they have a better environment in the future So we need to have some sort of effort on the part of our city officials To reach out to get these benefits from the federal government and the National Tree Trust You could do it It's not going to take that much effort and if you need volunteers There are those of us in Roseland who would put together the time and effort to try to get more trees With that in mind We're also doing an Earth Day event on April 20th, which is a Saturday and We invite you all out there at 10 in the morning Thank you. The next speaker will be Elizabeth followed by Susan then in Huy Is my microphone? Yeah, there it is. I have to get closer. Okay Um It's been nearly 75 years that I've lived in this country in third grade I lived and went to elementary school in Toronto, Canada both my parents grew up in Ontario Living in a supremacist country eventually has an extremely boring element to it Yeah, that's the way I'm starting it I've carried many supremacist sock signs for about 10 years The guns put proliferate the wars are grotesque and bizarre The current genocide in Gaza is a direct and obvious Consequence of endless war and endless money for more and more weapons. Thank you Thank you. The next speaker will be Susan followed by in Huy and then Shiva's Susan Lamont district 2 I recently saw the movie origin about Isabelle Wilkerson's journey writing her book cast The book and movie draw the similarities between enslaving black people in the United States the exploitation of untouchables in India and The genocide of Jews during the Holocaust in Germany All use the dehumanization of a group of people for the purposes of exploiting them and killing them It is no surprise that Israeli officials have called Palestinians cockroaches and lice All the scenes of these murderous policies are gut-wrenching But the ones most relevant to today are those of the Holocaust could not help but think How can people to whom this happened do this to others? There's a scene in the concentration camp in which a German soldier shoots a mother in the head for trying to protect her daughter Now picture desperate Palestinians being shot while trying to get food for their starving children I know teacher in California Jewish school born and raised in Israel She does not know about the Nakba Jews have a name for their catastrophe the Holocaust But in Israel it is illegal to teach about the Palestinian catastrophe or say its name the Nakba My sister is taught in three Jewish schools. She says if you're a student you wouldn't even know that Palestinians exist She says the history of the state of Israel is as slanted and as inaccurate as the teaching of slavery and run to Santa's, Florida Over the top propaganda is the order of the day We hear some speakers repeat totally debunked Israeli lies once we might have forgiven them their ignorance But it's there no longer that excuse Now it is that is is in far right, Florida a self-imposed ignorance, and it is deadly Only you can look inside yourselves to determine whether you are also acting or I should say not acting out of deadly ignorance Remember the silence of our representatives during the Holocaust if you want to know what you would have done during the Holocaust You're doing it right now ceasefire now Thank you, the next speaker will be in Hui followed by shivis then Diane Please go ahead ceasefire 100 years ago 75 years ago now and forever Today my city council member lost my vote My name is in here Lee greetings from very terribly sad angry grandmother love to Because I think of a Palestine. I think of a Palestine a collective a poem. I reside I Wake up thirsty and hungry. I think of a Palestine. I go to the doctor's office I think of a Palestine No bombs no snipers. No dead baby graves in the parking lot. I Think of a Palestine. I Think of a Palestine. I think of a Palestine when I see a rainbow I imagine rainbow over bombshell clouds in Palestine. I Think of a Palestine when I see children flying kites without the worrying about Bombs falling over their heads. I think of a Palestine when I enter this city hall the building Standing not in ruins. I Think of a Palestine when I see and hear people like in Santa Rosa City Council sitting on text dialogue payroll in silence and therefore complicit in Palestinian genocide by Nazi Israel. I Think of a Palestine She is of higher now and forever Thank you. The next speaker will be shivis followed by Diane then Gary shivis We'll circle back Diane Gary then Matt. Is this on? Oh, it is great So hi, my name is Diane and I live in Santa Rosa And I'm here to implore you to pass a ceasefire resolution. I Asked this as a Jewish person whose grandparents were fortunate to escape Europe with my mother on the eve of the holocaust While all but one of my extended family left behind perished My mother and my grandparents escaped because some people Literally risk their lives to get them out While at the same time others turned away and claimed they didn't know that anything was going on It is said in the Jewish religion that to save one life is to save the entire world Right now People are starving in Gaza Dying from Israeli bullets and bombs Over 300,000 people have died Children have died of starvation Right now there are things we can do to save lives One of them is to call for a ceasefire One does not need to know everything about the situation To know that something is terribly wrong All one needs is a heart Compassion and a bit of courage Calling for a ceasefire is actually a mainstream opinion Please call for a ceasefire now. Thank you Thank you. The next speaker will be Shiva's followed by Gary then Matt Shiva's then Gary then Matt He will circle back to Shiva's again Gary, please step to the podium and go ahead. I'm Gary Huntsman. I live in Santa Rosa and I've been troubled by the oppression of the People of Palestine for so many years and it's just incredible that the Savagery is going on now and it continues at our tax dollars and I Think it's pastime for a change Perhaps Aaron Bushnell did in action what we have been unable to do in words We've all been speaking and asking for help for these poor people I've gotten to know some of them. They're very gentle Humble generous very very nice people We could try to model after them a lot of us Americans Has Aaron Bushnell opened our eyes and reminded us reminded us of our shared humanity and of our responsibility to each other if he did this for us May we make a decision at this moment to call for a ceasefire and work for peace He will live on in us and we will be better people for it Madam city clerk if I could just jump in Folks if you wouldn't mind lining up at both podiums so that we can be as efficient as possible with time between comments So you could you could speak from both podiums? Thank you. The next public comment will be Matt followed by Janden then Thomas Matt go ahead Hello. Yeah Council members if you could look up from your computers right now, please Council members You asked for public comments people from the public come here to be heard and So look see you guys look down fumble through your notes as people are asking to be heard for you guys to make a statement That is so easy Cease fire Stop the violence and if you don't know turn on your computers look on your phone Maybe that's what you should be looking at right now Look at your phone and look at footage of Palestine and find out why we are here Asking you to make a statement You are our voice you serve no function to us unless you're going to speak for us And we are asking you to listen to us and say something for us And that is stop the killing and if you can't do that You have to live with your conscience because that is the statement that was made earlier What would you do during the Holocaust? You are doing it and your silence is simply unacceptable. Thank you Thank you the next speaker will Thank you Through the vice mayor I would like to make the announcement about the silent support please To maintain an orderly meeting and respect the opportunity for those wishing to speak after Each commenter we ask that rather than cheering and hand clapping that the show of support you use is a silent applause And if you can please this is the silent applause gesture We would appreciate it again to maintain an orderly meeting and respect the opportunities of those speaking after you The next speakers will be Janden followed by Thomas and Jason Well go ahead they spelled my name wrong so but I'm letting Maria speak in my turn and we're swapping things My name is Maria barricade. I'm a Lebanese American with family from Palestine My great aunt Renee was expelled during the Nakba and lived in UN and refugee camps in Lebanon with her family for years making falafel for them Because they only had lentils to live on my dad still talks about the taste of her falafel since the last time I was here before this body almost two thousand people have been killed murdered with us bombs and bullets since I saw you last There has been a flower massacre Over a hundred people were killed and seven hundred wounded trying to get food desperate and hungry with us bombs and bullets a Woman who tried to have children for ten years lost her twins and husband in a bombing I'm about to file my taxes and send my hard-earned money to Israel to kill my own people This body remains painfully and shamefully silent You cannot stand for peace and justice but remains silent in times like these to be silent is to uphold the system of violence Why are we here week after week? We love Justice when we call for an end to the killing we mean on all sides the release of all hostages. We mean justice We are not Antisemitic we care about all of the other us generated imperial atrocities occurring today in Yemen in Lebanon in Sudan and Haiti and DRC and more we in fact stand before this body and anybody who will hear us to denounce all forms of white supremacy and Imperial colonial violence we do not discriminate US support for the Israeli atrocities happening today is unprecedented The volume and speed of this genocide in Palestine a genocide by definition has rallied us to halt this violence Palestine needs us now The number of children killed in the first three months of this Genocide surpassed the number killed in Syria in 11 years. That is why we are here now do something Thank you. The next speaker will be Thomas followed by Jason Thomas. Please go ahead Thank you. Can you hear me? Thank you A one thing I want to do is go back to the Glyphosate issue Germany studied glyphosate and found it up to 10 miles from where it was applied So you really need to work with the county and Caltrans Please follow the International Court of Justice They are having hearings they had hearings you can see them on YouTube you can see South Africa and Namibia Give the arguments of in before the court It's very important. They previously ordered Israel to prevent civilian or to Prevent civilian dust as much possible create protection for them and to prevent genocide That's an order that came out of the court already The flower event Demonstrates that Israel did not follow this order They actually structured the the way the trucks would arrive with the food aid in order to be opposite The civilians with the trucks in between and that would be where the civilians would be running towards the food They could have a plausible deniability about how they fired the weapons 90% of the victims were hit in the head and the torso President Biden has written an executive order requiring proof of Following you and Rules an international law. He's just written this as of last week They just previously maybe a week and a half go two weeks ago They have to provide proof Israel has to provide proof within 45 days that they are following the orders of the UN They have not followed that now how we are going to resolve that it's going to depend on you. Thank you Thank you. The next speaker is Jason Sweeney. My name is Jason Sweeney. I'm a resident of Santa Rosa, California I'm here again to speak to you about the need for ceasefire resolution We are trying to build Critical mass around the radical notion that violence begets violence and that is why we want to use our Collective words to end the harm being done and end the cycle of violence itself For those of you who are still confused about this five months in This is a quote from Chris Hedges who is an author Journalists would Journalists author commentator and Presbyterian minister if you haven't heard of him Recent statement in he made in January genocide is not a political problem. It is a moral one It is the crime of all crimes the purest expression of evil Another quote in the same talk a politics of hatred creates a permanent instability one that is exploited by those seeking the destruction of civil society what he's saying there is What we're saying, which is basically we need to unite around these ideas that we can We can stand together and and and draw the line essentially I Want to call out a quote from a Movie called a road map to apartheid and in this scene they show a document from the from the Israeli Ministry of the Planning Department where they where the government calls for the maintenance of an ethnic balance 70 30 Jewish to Arab and and Those that policy would not stand here in the US that if we were if we were If we were saying that we had to limit an ethnicity to only 30% of the population So why is it not okay here, but okay in Israel? I just want to say that we are here because of the Zionist project We have no choice but to bring these issues the truth forward and tell these stories Of the innocent people that have been killed and it's the only choice that we have Thank you vice mayor that is 12 public comments on item 14 non-agenda matters Wonderful again, we'll have a second round of public comment or public comment on non-agenda matters Following our next item, but now we'll move on to item 16.1 our public hearing madam city manager Thank you item 16.1 is a public hearing development related cost of service fees update Good evening. My vice mayor members of the council Gabe Osborne director of planning and economic development As mentioned in an introduction the item before the council at this point in time is a development services fee update And this is really the next step in the process to adopt the fees And it really is our final step We presented this item to the council in a study session on January 30th And at that point the focus of the conversation was on a study that analyzed the full cost associated with providing development services MGT consulting group has performed that study and joining me today is Cindy sconce who will also be participating in the presentation Before we go into the background I just like to provide a reminder to the council and members of the public that the fees involved in the study today are Service fees those fees go into the time that it takes our staff to develop our excuse me implement services for development services Those are typical Plan review inspection services that go into the processing and private development applications This action is not infecting any impact fees in the city of Santa Rosa As far as a feedback around goes in 2004 the city council shifted the methodology associated with fees when service fees excuse me when financial strategies were adopted that attempted to achieve a hundred percent cost recovery on Development services fees prior to that point fees were heavily subsidized by the general fund Our most recent study was conducted for an overhaul of our fees in 2013 that resulted in fees being adopted in 2014 that affected our building and planning fees We also adjusted a small number of our engineering and planning fees in 2017 I would like to point out that the fee study is a longer process Then many of the things that we do it can go over multiple years So when we start this process and much of the data that is involved in the study was based on fiscal year 2223 and fees that existed a year and a half ago as part of the study we do quite a bit of Outreach to our stakeholder groups typically that involves residents that pull permits It's it's heavily involved in the development community that use our services quite often We produced a survey in August August and October of 2022 that involves 16 questions that were regarding restructuring options those that survey was launched in both English and Spanish You see 301 responses to that in May of 23 We also held a stakeholder meeting with the north coast builders exchange in November of 23 We held another meeting at the north coast builders exchange specifically with their board members in January of 24 we held a general community meeting and On as I mentioned earlier on in the presentation in January 30th. We held the council study session As far as the comments received they fell into a few different categories and we tried to incorporate all comments received into what you're seeing today One of the main threads was that fees need to be easy to understand That came through with members of the community and the development community And that isn't necessarily that you need more or less fees It just needs means that they it needs to be easy to navigate from a fee schedule standpoint So one people can understand up front what the fees are and it's a predictable process We also heard that fees should be based on efficient processes What you'll hear today is the fees are calculated on the average amount of time that it takes to perform a specific service So instead of having that be based on an actual service There was there was concern that we're actually putting those staff hours to something that's not efficient So what we did to address that is the averages that you'll see today are based on an efficient process and not necessarily the hours That are being performed today. It's when we actually can modify those programs and move forward in an efficient way It's based on that We also heard in understanding Excuse me on that point to another piece that I think is incredibly important to this Many jurisdictions as you'll see as part of this presentation are moving towards a hundred percent cost recovery through an invoicing process So essentially applicants pay as they go and they pay for the actual time The development community had some significant concerns about that based on the fact that that does not a breed efficiency So we've removed that from the process moving forward We also heard from the development community that there is an understanding that costs are raising We haven't adjusted the fees in ten years And many of the developers have seen cost raise on their side and understand that there is a need to raise the fees There was also a willingness to pay more for reduced turnaround times So there is an understanding that the fees go into services provided and developers benefit from those services and the more resources That are in place to provide those services the quicker development applications move through the system We also had concerns about fee increases applying to projects that are currently in the queue We have a slide dedicated later in the presentation to talk specifically about that We also heard that these fees the service fees are a very small percentage of the overall project cost in many situations for larger projects They're one to two percent on smaller projects. They're much less than that This chart was shown during the study session But I think it's very important because it's we have to understand the relationship between permit volumes revenue and expenditures So what we see on this chart the bars actually show the number of permits that we received from 2015 to today annually Those permits are shown blue in building yellow in engineering and green in planning They do not include any activity for the fire rebuild. So this is really our core services The red line shows our expenditures and the black line shows our revenue What we wanted to do in this particular case is really show the true cost associated with development services So we excluded costs associated with our economic development division and our code enforcement division and typically what we see on this chart is we see over time that permits will increase and decrease and Typically the expenditures will grow as permits increase and that's really the response to the immediate need of processing permits and We attempt to really achieve a certain percentage of cost recovery in that process And we would never achieve a hundred percent because development services is much more than just processing applications We provide customer service. We're there for the community in many ways So we typically try to focus on a cost recovery in the 70 to 75 percent range Very difficult to achieve year-to-year, but that typically is the goal and what we've seen with our Structure that we currently have over the last year as applications start to slow our revenue starts to slow in the gap between our revenue and our expenditures widens So really as we increase fees We're trying to close that gap and that's very important to providing services to the community because in the absence of increasing that revenue as Permits reduce or our revenue slightly reduces and generally our expenditures will reduce and that strips resources to the permitting process So our goal today is to try to achieve that 70 percent cost recovery and to bring those lines closer together In the next slides, we'll talk about the project objectives and the methodology used in the study and at this point I will hand the presentation over to Cindy Thank you so much One of our primary objectives as Gabe mentioned was to simplify or make the fee schedule much easier For your consumers to follow and understand what their fee would actually be so we did some significant restructuring Just to simplify those fees Making them a lot easier for everybody to understand We also wanted to define what it truly cost the city to provide those services So we looked at okay, so what does it take to process that permit? What does it actually cost? We determined whether there are any services where a fee could be collected. There's been a lot of changes recently So we identified if there were services that needed to be added to the fee schedule that the city would be providing and Then identify service areas where the city might adjust fees based on either full cost of service or other economic or policy considerations as Gabe mentioned Our methodology was really based on transparency. We built a fully burdened hourly rate and We took that average time to provide that service as Gabe mentioned. We took into account The efficiency factor you may be spending a little bit more time right now But the goal is to be as efficient as possible and that is how we costed those services out Product of the hourly rate times the time is basically what it is costing to provide those services There's a very clear nexus between the cost of that service by doing that None of the recommendations that we are making our taxes They are all in alignment with prop 26, which means you cannot Make a profit on those services or those fees that you collect this is a snapshot of Your current revenues versus what it's actually costing to provide those services now some of this Such as building being slightly over it. That is purely volume. It is not Due to fees being excessive. We were coming out of the peak Activity for building so basically where we're taking in a lot of of permits at the time And so we see a slight overage there The overall cost recovery you can see was about 77 percent Some areas were lower some areas higher Again, this is full cost recovery and this is not the target that Gabe had mentioned earlier Which he's going to discuss a little later in this Presentation so there is a gap right now. You're currently recurring about 77 percent overall Some of the fees need to be lowered some of the fees need to be raised to Come back into alignment Thank You Cindy and then a summary of what we're proposing today Obviously the the fee study is a fairly large document There are quite a few fees that are addressed in that study It's a very holistic approach to pretty much all of the building engineering planning fees that we have So I'll do my best to provide a summary of those Generally what we're seeing is the importance to set at a full cost recovery So that's really what we're proposing tonight is that all fees be set at a baseline full cost recovery moving forward And generally what we've seen with the fees is there's been an increase in operational costs over time And we have had certain fees in the department that have Natural annual escalators based on the consumer price index where they just go up every year But there's a very small number of fees and what we found is even in those situations with the three percent Increases that generally happen through that process is they're not necessarily keeping up with the general overall increasing costs So we've also seen additional cross-support hours come into our fees So this is actually including hours that are applied to a permit process from other departments Transportation public works fire are very active in our permit review process and this is capturing those hours So that's driving the cost up a bit We've also seen additional state requirements that are increasing staff hours So there's been quite a bit of housing legislation that's come down over the years That's creating unique processes increasing our review time and that ultimately is increasing cost We've we've had a big shift into the digital arena due to COVID We went from a paper process to a hundred percent a virtual and digital process And we found that that does have a technology cost to it We're seeing more software companies going to subscription services and more software packages being involved in the review process So we've seen an increase of cost on that front We're also seeing from our advanced planning standpoint. That's a very heavy consultant driven exercise our internal staff control that But we have a lot of those wrenching hours being performed by consultants and we've seen significant costs in that area as well So overall that is triggering the majority of the fees to increase What we're also proposing is some modifications to our existing fee classifications We are adding some new fees to cover time that is not currently recovered The example I provided of transportation and public work supporting processes They actually have their operations team for example in a new subdivision where new street lights are involved That team activates those street lights and that's a cost that's not covered So we've added certain light items to recover those costs We've also seen as I mentioned state housing legislation through SB 9 and SB 35 Those are distinctly different processes and as we've gone through that we now have fees that cover those We've also expanded a single fee into multiple categories and this is usually for clarity sake For example a fee could be based on construction costs, which is very difficult for a property owner to understand and calculate So instead of doing that we would have a line item of various costs that would go into that total And that might be for doing public Improvement work that a property owner can understand exactly what it takes to replace a sidewalk square in a driveway approach as well as a combination of those two We're also seeing certain fees decrease through this process And that is really a result of efficiencies that we put in over the years as we analyze those hours the hours Although the cost for the service and the hours has increased in number of hours have dropped down to those efficiencies So this these project examples were presented during the study session But we'll go over those very quickly because they highlight some of the changes So the first example is a residential subdivision project a larger one of a hundred lots or greater These are individual building permits for all of those hundred lots So what we've seen in this particular case is the building fee has increased Per lot we have seen increases on the planning side But we have seen a significant decrease with a new fee proposal on the engineering side So that has resulted in a net reduction in the overall fee for that project Our next example is a large multifamily project. This could be market rate or affordable We've seen a lot of those come through over the last five years. It's very similar situations We've seen a significant jump on the building side and we'll talk specifically about this Building permit application in a future slide when we look at our comparison analysis Regionally, we are very low in this area We have seen a jump in the planning side as well That is a lot of those cross support hours coming into the equation and we've also seen the reduction on the engineering side But in this particular case that reduction does not offset the increases on planning and building We also have an example of a standalone accessory dwelling unit. That's a fairly common form of development Very slight reduction on the building side, but we do see an increase on the engineering side typically with accessory dwelling units that may be sidewalk replacement It may be a driveway approach replacement or not and that's an important piece They don't always have an engineering element so that if that's added on because we're seeing increases on those minor encroachment permits It would increase the cost We also analyzed a commercial tenant improvement of 5,000 square feet We're seeing a reduction on the building side If we're seeing an increase on the planning side once again because of those cross support hours and we're slinging an increase on the engineering side as well Very important to note that in this particular case as well. It may not be all three This is really represents a worst-case scenario for a commercial tenant improvement So now this leads us to what we've been working on since the study session So much of the conversation the study session was to to give an overview of the fee study But also to talk about areas where the council may want to see a reduction in the fees So any reduction in the fee does increase the department's general fund burden So those are our two main revenue sources fees or general fund and then they balance out year-to-year to Based on the amount of revenue that we get in through fees So one of the fees that we have always historically subsidized have been permits that support health life safety and Sometimes when fees increase to the point where they cannot be digestible by the community We run into an avoidance situation where the permits not pull the triggers more code enforcement action We typically want to encourage those permits that provide safety to the structure and those are typically what we refer to as trade permits They're mechanical plumbing and electrical that goes into heating systems electrical panels We want to encourage people to pull those permits So we're proposing a 25% reduction in that permit fee what that 25% will do It will take the fee down to very close to where it currently exists with a slight reduction So that's generally going to be flat moving forward with that reduction We are also proposing a reduction of encouragement permits that replace residential sidewalks So this would typically encourage because residential sidewalks are property owners responsibility would encourage that individual to go through the Process to fix uplifted sections to restore that sidewalk for a safe path of travel So we're proposing a 50% reduction on that We're also proposing a reduction on our planning appeal fees which have historically always been reduced dramatically We've almost always seen a reduction to the tune of 90 to 95 percent on the appeal fees And these are very specific to the neighbor or non-applicant appeal So this would be somebody appealing a project not necessarily an applicant that's appealing a denial of a project That's a different appeal process So the council also expressed an interest to see development specific reductions So we did our best to put those into a few different categories And the first is grocery So we're defining grocery as defined in the chapter 20 of the city code So that includes both large and small from a community market all to a full-blown grocery store And we're looking at specific areas so a grocery in the downtown station area or a defined food desert So the food desert is defined by the US Department of Agriculture and it focuses really on two pieces It focuses on poverty rate and the distance people are within Existing grocery stores So the important piece with that calculation is there is a map and it's very easiest for for us to follow that and to ensure that The property is either inside or outside that boundary and what we're proposing is a 50% reduction on all associated building planning and Engineering fees so that's any fee that the department applies to that project will be applied at a full cost and reduced immediately by 50% for that reduction We're also proposing something similar for daycare facilities So we wanted to make this fairly wide So we're taking our full definition of daycare as defined in city code section chapter 20 And this includes child daycare facilities, which is your major standalone facility But it also includes the in home child care both large small and it includes adult daycare So that's an entire category in our zoning code of daycare facilities And once again, we're looking at a reduction of 50% across the board on all permit types We're also proposing a reduction on market rate housing within the downtown station area And I think this is important to really show the support that we've all shown for development in the downtown over the years to Encourage the market rate development, and we're really focusing on housing units that are four units are greater So those are your larger housing projects wouldn't necessarily include an ADU or a smaller single unit on the lot these are the bigger projects and We're focusing once again on the 50% reduction across the board on all fees But in this particular case, we're applying that to building and engineering. There's a very specific purpose for that We've actually made changes to the way in which Projects are processed in the downtown station area through reduced review authority Where a project may have been elevated to the planning commission it now goes down to the zoning administrator With very simple concept design review. So we change process and that process reduced the fee So we neck that down. So they already really reap the benefits of that and that fee is fairly low So with that we're tackling the bigger increases which are happening really on the building and engineering side So we also want to extend that same allowance and that same reduction to affordable housing projects It is very difficult to define affordable housing projects That means a lot of things to a lot of different people We work very closely with our housing department to figure out a definition for where we would apply a 50% reduction And really this would be a hundred percent affordable projects with an affordability level of 60% of less of AMI That would exclude on-site management units So those are allowed to fall under a different category and it must be with the housing agreement with the city And this would be city-wide it wouldn't be restricted to any geographic area within our boundary And they would receive a 50% reduction on all associated building and engineering specific fees In this particular case what we will be proposing moving forward to the council when we get into our resilient city development measures It was we will be proposing to extend the same right from a reduced review authority to the same housing category as we have for the downtown So that will give them the streamlined approach the fee will come down with that And that package will be brought to the plant of the excuse me the planning commission first But then also the city council prior to the end of the fiscal year So when we look at the impacts of those reductions It's always difficult to understand what it will look like because we don't always know the number of projects that will come through in a year So in this particular case what? MGT has analyzed is an average number of permits and then we looked at that average number of permits to try to better understand What type of subsidizer reduced permits would be in that total to understand the impacts that the reductions would have So what we see on the trade permits is generally? That's a small reduction about fifty five dollars per permit But it's across a high number of permits typically trade permits or highest volume building permit anywhere from four thousand to five thousand a Year is what we end up with so overall that reduction is anticipated to be almost two hundred and fifty thousand When we achieve those volumes when we get into the larger projects and and daycare is all encompassing So if we looked at a standalone daycare facility that is a new build from the ground up That's very similar to a multifamily project. It's in the same category That actually has a more significant reduction because of the fees are higher So we looked at that category and assumed that if we had five of those larger projects moving forward in a year The reduction per project would be about a hundred and twenty thousand so that would result in about a six hundred thousand dollar reduction In most years we don't experience that so this really is is very aggressive with the estimates on what the impacts will be and I truly do believe represents worst-case scenario When we looked at the encroachment permit in the appeal fields, they were very small We don't get a lot of those permits. So we've added in fifty thousand dollars Impact in that reduction. So really what we're looking at is around nine hundred thousand for what the financial impact would be to those reductions I think that's an important point to the whole conversation Cindy mentioned that overall if we adopt this fee schedule We're looking at an increase in our revenue under those specific permit volumes to the tune of twenty three percent So if we add these reductions into that that moves us down into closer to twenty percent So we're still looking at an increase in the fee. It's three percent less Now I think if we look out year to year when we aren't really able to project the total amount of permits that we see What we've analyzed is that generally year to year the reductions will have between seventeen to twenty percent We'll still be basically seeing that level of increase in revenue So if we analyze the same permit total under our current fee schedule and our new fee schedule Under most years that new fee schedule is going to achieve 17 17 to 20 percent increase in revenue So we discussed in the study session the comparison with other agencies to that's part of this process And I'll go through these fairly quickly because we did review them as part of the study session Anytime we do a comparison with other agencies. It's really important to note when the agency did their fees The comparison surveys don't really dig far into the fee itself because it's what is published on the the jurisdiction And we can't always understand what their true costs are So do salary and benefits match up to what salary and benefits are into the city of Santa Rosa? But the main catalyst and these are the the development types that are always compared through these studies are the development of single family dwellings in the Building fee and the development of multifamily units and the building fee So what we've seen the plan-checking inspection fee in Santa Rosa is around $4845 under the current fee schedule. We are slightly reducing that with the proposal And then what we're seeing from multifamily. That's where we're seeing the big jump is where it's going from 29,000 to 54,000 But when we compare that to the other agencies on the single family side You we can see that we're very close to the median actually under the median and under the average So we're still very competitive regionally and even with the increase on the multifamily. We're still very competitive regionally Being either at the median and under the average When we look at the planning side and this just points out a few pieces With planning and some of the trends that we're seeing with other jurisdictions SB 35 came out of state housing legislation and really required a ministerial process on something that was discretionary We applied a fee that we thought would cover the staff time and when we did the analysis it did not so the current fee is around $4,000 $3,569 for an SB 9 application when we truly proof that out as part of the study it jumped the fee up to 23,216 I think it is important to note that a lot of the projects that go through SB 35 potentially would also be eligible for the reductions if approved With the minor Projects we haven't seen the same fluctuation and actually on our subdivision maps. We've seen a reduction in our fee It reduced down on the planning side The important piece that we're seeing here is as many of the trends especially as we see the development cycle Start slowing down a little bit many of the jurisdictions are moving towards a full cost recovery and that that methodology typically involves a deposit and then billing until that deposit is drawn down and then collecting another deposit We are not proposing that but it's difficult to compare when that's actually used for other jurisdictions So the the last slide deals with the effective date At this point we are proposing that the fees go into effect on July 1st that will give our staff time our staff time to actually incorporate the fees into our permitting system and The applicability of these fees typically what happens when fees increase we do not apply those to projects that are currently under review So if a project comes in prior to the fee increase it locks into that previous fee schedule and that's what we're proposing to do today The interesting anomalies occur when the fees actually reduce Because then there's more of an incentive for a developer moving forward to take advantage of both fee schedules And we will allow that so a project pays fees at certain points throughout the process So when the fee payment is due we will allow the developer if it's after July 1 to either pay based on the old fee schedule If it's less or the new fee schedule The important point is we don't make the fees retroactive So we don't provide refunds for fees paid prior to July 1 if the fees do go down So that brings us to the conclusion the presentation and I'd like to just briefly go over the recommendations We are recommending that the council adopt fees based on the fee studies appendix a We're also recommending that the council adopt the development Reduction fee reductions that are proposed in the exhibit b And another important point which also came out in the study session is we're Recommending that the council grant authority to the director to update the fees annually based on the CPI That's an important piece to keeping the fees up to date with time and with that Now we're happy to answer any questions that the council may have Thank you both. I'm looking to counsel for questions All right, I'm gonna ask one just to just to break the trend here I'm doing some some back of the envelope math if the total cost recovery last year was around 10.9 million And we're gonna be able to Increase the cost recovery by 17 to 20% are we so we're looking at somewhere in that $2 million range for additional revenue each year That's correct What one of the important pieces to that is a total of volume on permits coming in so when our study was performed It was performed on a fairly high volume of permits We've seen some of the highest permits that the department has ever seen over the last five years So really the relationship of the increase is is based on the total amount of permits And if those permits reduce our revenue will reduce along with that So if our permits stay then absolutely yes Then if they fall within those five year totals then we're assuming around 2.4 is what we would anticipate Million and additional revenue if those permit volumes hold the only unknown is what they will look like the next fiscal and calendar year Understood. Thank you. And with that we'll go to public comment. Madam city clerk Thank you We are now taking public comment on item 16.1 If you are in the chamber and would like to comment but have not yet provided a speaker card or your name Please make your way to the podium. You will have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that podium I'd like to call the first speaker Callum Good evening. Call me send the policy director for generation housing and a Santa Rosa resident So we're in full support of the the staff recommendations for you tonight You know as we stated during the last city session on this item We understand human capital is really the greatest asset of any organization We want to ensure that the staff bringing pro housing policy to life are fully resourced It's also incredibly exciting to see the city advance feed reductions that can help further creation of essential services like child care grocery stores Things that we all know we need desperately in this community, especially in the downtown area And it's also really incredibly exciting to see you guys taking strong action To support desperately needed affordable housing as well These are really the bold solutions that will move Santa Rosa forward and and bring renewed vibrancy to this community So thank you so much for your work on this. We look forward to that other fee discussion Coming before you soon, and I just want to wish you a wonderful evening and make sure you get out and vote Vice mayor a quick correction I do want to note that the official opening of the public hearing that started at 603 Just for to note in the minutes. Oh Thank you for that correction And we'll go to the next speaker. Please go ahead Thomas Well, thank you for the opportunity to speak and It looked to me like The cost recovery was about 50% when I looked at that $8 million in revenue and close to $16 million of expenses. I'm not exactly sure Why that was there was a quite a diversion there in that last year we See with smart that freight does not pay for the maintenance of the way And so the passengers are subsidizing The freight because they're not paid. They don't pay for it And that's a typical situation and smart is Encountering a freight discussion at this time In the case of the development if the developer is subsidized by 25 to 50% that subsidy is a general fund tax increase So there is that effect of the tax increase And I would recommend to you that you subsequently recover the fee reductions From the developers after the occupancy So there was a period of time during the the fires and the recovery that that fees were reduced And there was an effort to recover some of that Afterwards where there was a discussion about that and I would recommend that for you is that you you give the developer the opportunity to have a Current fee reduction But when they have occupancy when they're past and they're in the development stage they're they're completed with the development stage and in effect and They're having occupancy that then they reimbursed those fee reductions because it's a very Significant amount it doesn't I mean, you know it looked like $900,000 there but Where it wasn't really expressed where the bulk of the fees are obtained then Where where do the fees come from? If those are the only reductions Thank you. Are there more public comments on items 16.1? Please go ahead Thanks again. I'm Roxie again. I'm just for one quick moment. I just Appreciate all your saying but I'd like I just feel like this a lot more needs to be done for affordable housing and like you say It's a broad category and you said one category is left out of there I guess that was more supportive housing maybe management on site But I see this 50% Reduction fees for market rate and 50% a reduction for affordable housing I feel there needs to be more incentive for affordable housing and that's A lot more and less We don't unless I know we need the market rate as well But we need a lot more affordable housing in this county all over. Thank you Vice mayor step I see no one else approaching the podium and chamber for the public hearing on 16.1 Thank you. Well, I think I can officially close public comment or public close the public hearing rather correct and Turn it back to council for additional comments final comments That's a number of crepti Yeah, I just want to say thank you so much. This has been a heavy lift for quite some time now And I really appreciate it especially now that we've seen we were subsidizing basically 3.2 million dollars average over the last three completed fiscal years That's that's massive And as you pointed out, this is Well, I guess it's it's illegal for us to to profit off of this but to make ourselves whole On our human capital that we have here is very important And then I I do want to point out that with the radius review authority we It's a double-edged sword of fast government, right? Everybody wants fat government to move faster when it's something they know about what it's something They don't know about they wanted to move slower because so I Think it's important to understand Going through this what we're trying to accomplish and why the authority the review authority has been reduced Is to fast-track these things that the council and as well as staff and the community have agreed upon are important such as Daycares groceries and food deserts and those sorts of things, but overall just thank you so much for the presentation all the work You put it over the past few years Any other comments from my colleagues? Then I'll just a second my council member crepti said another thoughtful presentation I like the emphasis on fee clarity fee fairness There were some there were smart fever smart and targeted fee reductions All with an eye to budget a nice job It's with the the revenue projections that you that you included as the as the city continues to watch the bottom line pretty closely So thank you very much And with that amount of city clerk, would you please call the vote? Oh, I'm sorry. I need to make a motion here I believe it was council member alvarez. Would you put a motion on the table? Thank you. Vice mayor I'd like to put forth the resolution of the council of the city of san rosa Adopting the full cost development service fees Authorizing the planning and economic development director to adjust all fees annually based On the consumer price index and adopting certain fee reductions to further city development goals and waive for the reading of the text Second all right. We have a motion from council member alvarez and a second from council member Oh my gosh, mcdonald. I'm sorry. It's been a long night Uh, madden city clerk, would you please call the vote? Thank you Council member rogers is absent council member oak repki. Hi council member mcdonald. Hi council member fleming council member alvarez Hi vice mayor step. Hi and mayor rogers is absent. This passes with five affirmative votes with mayor rogers and council member rogers absent All right, and with that we'll move on item 17 written communications in which there are none So we'll move on to our final public comment final public comment on non agenda matters for the evening item 18 Madam city clerk, would you please facilitate public comment? Thank you We are now taking public comment on item 18 non agenda matters If you have previous previously provided public comment on non agenda matters This is not a second opportunity to provide public comment If you have not submitted a speaker card or your name, please Line up at opposite podiums to provide public comment You will have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period The first speaker will be tess followed by holly than tammy So senator as a city council I understand that today You have acknowledged this month to honor the red cross That's so amazing because humanitarian aid and humanitarian workers Are some of the most crucial people meeting those who are underserved and I think right now There is a very large group of people who are being underserved and who need to be met They're the 1.9 million palestinians internally displaced within the gaza strip The largest concentration camp in the world or further They are the 5.9 million palestinians that have been Displaced across and around the occupied palestinian territories Through lebanon through jordan and many who even live here in our community today Who are still recognized by the united nations as refugees as you make this proclamation to Acknowledge march for the red cross It is important that you also make proclamations on behalf of your Constituents here in the city of sanarosa to pass a ceasefire resolution We have been in your chambers for months now Israel has not stopped murdering for months now And we have been asking you in this room and in other rooms wherever we can find you to do something And I understand that some of you may be super uncomfortable with this that this may not be a local issue But it is also important to remember that in 1867 The city of sanarosa was taken from the indigenous peoples and given in a land grant by the state of california To settler maria carillo. She was the first settler of our beautiful city And she did on behalf of the state the exact same thing that israel is doing is the indigenous palestinians Israel is american history 250 years later. We have a duty to act Pass a ceasefire resolution Thank you. The next speaker will be tam pardon me holly followed by tammy than maria Sis can hear me. I don't know how to use this Because I have something to show i'm putting it on now Thank you. Oh, thank you So my name is holly calica. I'm a resident of sanarosa. I really hadn't planned to speak today What you see before you are Our cranes that are in the tradition of the japanese people. I used to be a teacher in san francisco I taught for 26 years starting in high school And ending in elementary school In the in the early 80s. I taught a young girl named samia ayub and this this talk is in honor of her She was the first palestinian student that I had And she told me about her life and the nakba that her family went through I I commend our last speaker because it's true For those of us that are people of color and for those of us that have had our lands taken away I need to say that the united states of america was founded in violence As we could see in our own community. There's a lot of violence the city council members talked about that earlier We cannot forget our history And actually many of us are from the global majority And that's why you see the world itself Calling for an end to the genocide So you can decide what you want to do But the reality is the lands that we stand on has a lot of blood on it already and it's time to make repair It's time to make repair for the indigenous peoples of turtle island including all the california peoples here for their land back And I want you to think about that And it's also time for us to think about reparations for any of the enslaved People as well and that's going on in california But it's also time for everyone to know their history and we're in living history right now For those of you that ignore what's happening on instagram and on tiktok that we see every day I started folding these because I had high anxiety and i'm a clinical herbalist now And I work with a lot of people around healing. How do you heal oneself? How can we as a community heal ourselves when we're still not healed from what happened to andi lopez? The next speaker will be tammy followed by maria than summer half of a non An anti zionist jew Who resides in santa rosa? Here we are again another city council meeting where you have so many voices showing up again To ask you for the same thing that you keep ignoring More people show up weekly to talk about this issue than any other issue combined and have been for months now And you keep ignoring these voices Recently the sonoma county commission on human rights pastisees fire letter the town of fort bragg california pastisees fire letter amherst massachusetts Athens georgia durham north carolina have all recently passed these fire resolutions and yet you will have not have not introduced one This reminds me of how in the 80s and early 90s most states had adopted martin luther king day as a federal holiday arizona, however dug their heels in Even though it was made a federal holiday in 1983 arizona refused to permanently recognize it until almost 10 years later in 1993 And that was under threat of removing the hosting of the super bowl arizona will rightfully be remembered as being on the wrong side of history for this inaction The government of santa rosa What is your super bowl? What do we have to do in order for you to listen to the will of the people who are consistently showing up and pleading With you for action on this You've told the press democrat that the language wasn't neutral enough We have modified the language Twice now It's at sr ceasefire.com if you have yet to read it Are there other hoops that you'd like us to jump through? Or are you just determined to stay on the wrong side of history? ceasefire now It's time to do the right thing Thank you. The next speaker will be maria followed by summer than munby Me and maria switched places because they had to go back to work, but my name is jordan. I'm jewish I feel like we maybe haven't adequately dispelled some of the bs opposition talking points So I just wanted to read you guys the hamas charter Because that's been a big talking point amongst the opposition, which they have failed to Um Properly source what they've been referring to which is from the charter 40 years ago There's one from 2017 and it um explicitly states Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the zionist project Not with the jews because of their religion Hamas does not wage a struggle against the jews because they are jewish But wages a struggle against the zionists who occupy palestine Yet it is the zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the jews with their own colonial project in a legal entity Okay, second point Um, I did the stats. I sent it to you guys Of all the archives since we've been coming here since december and since all the email comments through then as well In person comments 91.2 percent have been in favor of the cease of a ceasefire resolution and over email It's over 83 percent So at this point, I'm just wondering if you're not willing to stand up against genocide And you're not willing to abide by the democratic process by which you were elected Then what are you doing here? Furthermore, if santa rosa is too small to make a difference Yet, we are the fifth largest economy in the world california and santa rosa is the largest city north of san francisco And you're still not willing to risk your puny santa rosa Elected official career to stand up against genocide. Which is it? Cease fire now The next speaker will be summer followed by manby than giovanni Hi, my name is summer abdel caliq. I live in district five I am a palestinian american and I am here Once again to make a comment in support of passing a ceasefire resolution I think um, I keep hearing that This is not within your jurisdiction or it's not a local issue But I would like to plead the case that it is And I think it's really important to send a message from santa rosa directly That we believe in peaceful diplomatic solutions and I believe that this impacts our community and our children and Just how the youth Are acting in schools like how many times I open the paper and I hear about a kid bringing a weapon to school like How can we not see the connection between what our federal government Is doing and what happens here in santa rosa? we have The power to say something and we need to utilize it And I hope that you will do that. Thank you Thank you the next speaker will be men be followed by giovanni than jacklyn Hello, my name is marie be could I have this thing on just in case certainly um, so I'm here again to ask for you to support a ceasefire resolution to be added to the agenda You're honoring the red cross The red cross their mission statement is to prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies By mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors Hence the power of the people hence we the people are here advocating for the red cross and their mission statement It is hypocritical for our city council to honor the red cross and refuse to support a ceasefire resolution and Refuse to do their part to take a stand for human rights and speak out against the immense human suffering. We are witnessing Another hypocrisy of our city council members who refuse to listen to their constituents arbor day We care so much about trees, right? Since 1967 more than 800 000 palestinian olive trees have been illegally uprooted by israeli authorities and settlers Many were centuries old which according to the human rights organizations is a violation of un humanitarian resolutions Why should you care because your constituents care? Proclamation for women's history month yet. None of you seem to care about women in palestine using tent Tent cloth for sanitary napkins or when thousands have been murdered Or when israeli forces pose with their underwear They've murdered them and they're posing with their underwear. There's hundreds of pictures to see I have them on my phone, but I want to keep talking So why should you care about the women in gaza because your constituents do? Lastly, I as a constituent do not assume that my vote or my taxpayer money goes to your personal public opinion It goes for you to do what your constituents want and last week 33 asked for a ceasefire resolution Oppose only three So your job is to do what we want if you do not do what we're asking Luckily people get fired. No ceasefire resolution. No vote november 2024. Thank you Thank you. The next speaker will be giovanni followed by jackland and sarah Hello, my name is giovanni. I was born and raised here in san erosa district three I'm here to show support for a ceasefire resolution We have been pushing our for representatives at all levels to Push for a ceasefire resolution and we're asking here locally for your support I work in the public school system with people who work tirelessly tirelessly for this community for this city who want to ceasefire resolution It's even if you don't think It is a local issue. We simply ask you to represent us The majority of voters want to ceasefire resolution Please add a ceasefire resolution to the agenda at this point. It is becoming an active effort not to add it. Thank you Thank you. The next speaker will be jackland followed by sarah vin lee Good evening. I live in the fifth district of san erosa. Thanks for giving me your attention Even though I know we're all tired and probably don't really want to be here right now We don't sure we all rather be at home Uh, it's day 150 of the genocide in gaza and still not one of you has been able to muster the moral fiber to bring A ceasefire resolution to the agenda. We've brought you a draft that calls for peace for all parties We've made countless rebuttals against your flaccid arguments that this is not a local issue And still you've chosen at best blissful ignorance or at worst outright malice Last week I emailed you a copy of a recent letter by the sonoma county commission on human rights I brought hard copies in case you haven't read it. I'll leave those with the clerk They're calling for an immediate ceasefire and release of all hostages the commission states Quote advocating for the protection of non-combatants as a shared responsibility transcending borders So right now i'm asking you sincerely. What are you doing to shoulder that shared responsibility? What are you doing? You haven't done anything On day 150 of the genocide the city of san erosa made a proclamation in honor of the red cross It encouraged citizens of san erosa to support humanitarian missions of the red cross the international red cross has Declared a dire humanitarian crisis in gaza where the health system is nearly completely collapsed There are dire shortages of food water fuel medical supplies 30,000 people have died 83 of them are women and children And now a million plus people are facing the real and grim reality of famine 16 confirmed cases of children starving to death. I'm going to leave you with these words of a parent who watched their child starve to death The canned food caused dryness and inflammation on his lips. He'd say boba, please get me something to eat I went to the market. I couldn't find anything only one pomegranate He ate that then his breathing changed his brother said boba, please hurry. He's suffocating. I tried CPR But it was too late. He died from lack of nutrition. He was like a skeleton. He had no me on him We don't know what to do. What do we worry more about the market's hygiene clinics? No medicine. He's gone now And what can I do? What can you do? The next speaker will be sarah followed by lee than bailey My name is sarah. I am a sonoma county resident. I was born and raised in sonoma county I'm also jewish and grew up in the local jewish community Earlier in the city council meeting we were asked to stop clapping and to keep decorum by using silent clapping In the name of respect and I want to ask Where is that same respect when half of you are looking down at your computers when we're talking about things like genocide I saw someone talking about her family Surviving the holocaust and half of you were looking down during that time Or when someone was talking about their family being expelled in the nakba You weren't even looking at her and where is the same respect when you have the majority of your constituents Asking for you to even talk about a ceasefire resolution and it won't even be put on the agenda So if you want us to respect you, please respect us as well ceasefire now folks folks Let's let's keep good order. Thank you very much Madam city clerk The next speaker will be lee followed by bailey than una I wonder how orderly anyone would be if their families were being destroyed Um as they are in palestine I stand in solidarity with my palestinian neighbors with my anti zionist jewish neighbors and ask you to respect your constituents Put a ceasefire on the agenda and make a ceasefire statement the majority of the country The majority of this city the majority of this county is in full support of a ceasefire and it is really it's incomprehensible at this point that That you refuse to do it. Um, I think it speaks to I think other speakers have have mentioned The relationship between not caring about palestine is very similar to not caring about our schools Not caring that our schools are falling apart and that I guess 60 teachers are going to get laid off because we defund our schools to fund military We fund the military We defund our schools. You don't protect us from billionaires who Who who destroy families by not paying living wages? We don't have roads You're you're honoring women and and and and you're looking at us and and we're telling you we're we're watching women give birth In palestine and you're talking about women And then you're talking about the red cross and we're watching our money The red crescent ambulances with innocent civilians There's there's no there's nothing More children have died in the last five months than in five years in germany This when when I hear my my anti-zionist jews friends say never again in our name I I know they mean it The next speaker will be bailey followed by una then shivis My name is bailey i'm resident of santa resa i've been here my whole life Um, but a question I have is what is santa resa actually doing to To support humanitarian efforts and lifesaving services One of the gravest most explicit human rights violations is occurring not only before our very eyes, but also on our dime i'm sorry to say but until you address The genocide it'll it'll overshadow any other work you do your hypocrisy glares in these empty proclamations If you can't stand up against genocide then your words and your leadership mean nothing Just be on the right side of history like that's all we're asking just cease fire now. I yield the rest of my time The next speaker will be una followed by shivis then arie Hello, santa rosa city council members. My name is una risling shul. I'm a lifelong resident of santa rosa and a district five voter Um, everyone here is pretty much said most of what I wanted to say I'll just very quickly add that i'm a member of the hupa yurok and kuduk tribes of california Um, and i'm very familiar with what genocide means and i'm devastated that my tax dollars are going to support this current genocide brought by israel You seem to have mistaken a ceasefire resolution for a political move rather than a simple statement of humanity Your job is to provide morale to your voters during dark times Including and especially those in marginalized communities Yet you continue to gaslight your voters and ignore the reality of local palestinians To illustrate my point. I'll tell you this last friday My friends and I held a fundraiser for a local palestinian family trying to keep their family alive in gaza From five to eight p.m. At a local small business We had a line of people out the door in the pouring rain wanting desperately to support this family I was told time and time again by guests that this was the first time since october 7th that they haven't felt alone That they felt that this city had been ignoring the horrors in palestine and they were increasingly scared and angry yet this event Organized by a bunch of broke artists did more in one night than any of you have done since october 7th Be the light in this darkness keep our votes adopt the ceasefire resolution Thank you. The next speaker will be shivis followed by arie than michael Okay, i'll move on to arie than michael Like why why are we still here? i'm a senator as a constituent district too It's The intransigence of this council is baffling baffling Look how many people are here You have other agenda items people come in their suits because this is business, right? And you hear them. Oh my god. You're people. You're engaged. You're curious. You have questions And then when we speak from our hearts When we speak about being represented Nothing Nothing Nothing are we going to vote for that? Absolutely not and but it's beyond that Right, it's so beyond that because we're people And folks in Gaza Deserve to live just as much as we do Palestinian people deserve to have their home just as much as we do You have this little bit of power, right? This little bit of power Why won't you use it? Why? And i've been thinking about this like you have all the information people have given you all of the information It's so handed to you. It's so kind Right and then It's election day and i'm thinking and i'm like what could possibly be getting in the way here Is it politics? I'm truly asking if it's politics. I want you each to look at yourselves and look at your lives Is that worth it is being silent and complicit any literal genocide? Is that worth politics to you? We all will remember the world will remember everyone who stayed silent. Thank you The next speaker will be michael followed by gary Hi there. Um, we've all heard dr. Martin Luther king's uh, quote famous quote that a riot is the language of the unheard and When people i remember during the you know the black lives matter protests around george floyd We were hearing a lot of people condemning what was going on in the streets Which really there wasn't any violence or anything going on in the streets But people didn't like that it was disorderly and And they thought we should be in these meetings more and we should try to go through the process and get things done And talk to our elected officials And we've been doing that for weeks And absolutely nothing has happened. So I'm brought back to feeling like Why aren't we out in the streets? So we should be we should be really, you know Making ourselves heard because this obviously doesn't work. And I've heard the statements that like, you know This isn't a local issue and we need to it would be a more effective strategy would be go to the federal officials Who aren't listening to us instead of asking our local officials to use their platform and voice to stand up to them? But I don't buy that I just don't buy that. Um, I feel like that's a cop out and I voted today for andrew engel because He showed up to these meetings He thought it was important enough To to try to get you all to pass a ceasefire resolution Um, I voted for him over mike thompson because mike thompson supports genocide and so To me that's the effect that people have when they bring this kind of stuff into the local sphere where People are where we can see them. So we know where they stand. So we know that something's going to get done So we know that change is going to happen. So we don't go out in the streets and have a riot The next speaker will be gary I had no intention of speaking tonight, but I was moved by my fellow citizens tonight who Have been very passionate in what they've said. I had no idea this was going on these last hundred and fifty days down here But I want to applaud our city council for staying on the sidelines of what is obviously a very emotional issue and a tragedy Because it does not affect the city of santa rosa, although it affects obviously the people in this room deeply And I agree with them that I would like to see an end to that conflict. I think it I think it absolutely is a tragedy But I also think that israel has a right to exist I think they have a right to defend themselves and the current crisis that's going on there is 100 percent At the hands of hamas who was elected by palestinians to lead them and their terrorists and on october 7th they kidnapped killed And raped and pillaged their way through israel and Israel has a right to defend themselves, but I don't think it's something that this council needs to Concern themselves with and so I think I think that you're doing the right thing And I appreciate what these folks have said here tonight and I I agree with them that we should Hopefully seek to end that conflict at some point, but the quickest way to end it would be For the palestinians to choose better leadership Um, perhaps Perhaps they could get leadership as good as our our council here in santa rosa. So thank you for your time All right, the next speaker will be The next speaker. Well, I'm going to circle back to see if uh shivas has joined the meeting And I'm going to ask if there's anyone else wishing to speak on item 18 non-agenda matters who has not previously spoke on non-agenda matters to approach the podium Please go ahead speaker My name is althea. I'm a lifelong sonoma county resident currently reside in council district two I am here asking for a ceasefire resolution to be put on the agenda and passed We are begging you to represent us in our call for a ceasefire the longer you go without doing so The more we lose faith in your integrity one of the core values you as a city council claim Your vision as a council is for there's for santa rosa to lead the north bay quote Embrace this vision of leadership Do this by listening to the plea of the people to take the step forward to add a ceasefire resolution to the agenda 61 of voters in the u.s. Are in favor of the ceasefire including 76 democrats 57 independent And 49 of republicans This is not a niche issue. We do not want our tax dollars going to this. We do not want more people to die This is within your jurisdiction the same way addressing climate trade climate change is Another one of your core issues. It takes many to address a global issue We deserve your respect recognition And representation we will advocate for ourselves and for those facing genocide ceasefire now. Thank you The next speaker at the west podium. Please go ahead Hi, my name is tamar. I'm from district one Uh, it was through local action Form the people that ended the vietnam war It was only through action like this That we were able to stop that because our government didn't want to it is up to us Please listen to our voices. We are telling you. This is not right Everything we learned in our lives. We know this is wrong. This is wrong and we all know it Cease fire now Erica is the next speaker Public speaking is not my favorite unless I am doing it as a scientific talk So I just want to say first of all, thank you to everyone who is in this room Who is actively participating and listening We appreciate you continuing to hear these comments And I just want to speak I feel super compelled to stand up because you really are our only hope right now It is really difficult to find hope in this situation And I've been writing my senators my representatives my partner and husband has been writing president biden And we don't find any responses That's why we're talking to you at the local level and that's why this is a local issue The only way this is going to make it to be a federal issue is if we start to pass ceasefire Resolutions in all of the towns Precedents for this san francisco has to has a ceasefire resolution many other towns in california have And santa rosa really matters like people have said it's the biggest town north of san francisco We really matter here and our voices really matter and how we engage whether it's on social media or in our communities With my palestinian friends who have met through this movement They're incredibly inspiring and if anything i've learned so much from the palestinian people as they are showing resilience and hope Through this atrocity um And more than anything my tax dollars. I am a constituent in santa rosa. My tax dollars are funding this genocide And truly I believe that you as city council members are our only hope and our only option right now. Thank you Thank you Speaker go ahead I want to thank city council for focusing on our city needs and not adopting resolutions that will divide our community I think many people gathered here will be happy to learn That your voice was heard Israel has suggested a ceasefire plan for the next 40 days with the release of 40 hostages Secretary blinkin said today It's up to hamas to accept an immediate ceasefire with israel ceasefire could start tomorrow You want ceasefire resolution? Hey, it's possible. Excuse me one second. All right folks. It's been a long night Let's be well behaved until the end. Please Please continue. Thank you Ceasefire could start tomorrow if the hostages are released. There are still six american hostages held by hamas Peace process can begin in any meaningful way until the hostages come home There is nothing clearer than the urgency of getting them home Every sunday we walk in downtown san rosa advocating for immediate hostage release They're held captive for the last hundred and fifty days Every pro ceasefire speaker here should call their hamas representative and demand Ceasefire and release of hostages instead of addressing the city council members that have no way to solve this problem Demand ceasefire from hamas Demand it now By not mentioning hamas in your speeches calling israel nazis using anti zionist rhetoric You we heard people today That they defend hamas charter You blame this conflict on israelis As we heard today and you demand ceasefire resolution from san rosa city council You just show a support of a terrorist organization Not trying to resolve a conflict Vice mayor i'm seeing no one else state folks again Folks again right at the end Madam madams city clerk I see no one else approaching the public or the podiums for public comment on item 18 All right, and with that that brings us to item 19 Adjournment. Thank you very much everyone