 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 glow. Once you join the Spanish Channel we recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the Spanish translation. Maria will you please restate this in Spanish. For those who just joined the meeting, interpretation live translation in Spanish is available and members of the public or staff wishing to listen in Spanish can join the channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the zoom toolbar. It looks like a glow. Once you join the Spanish Channel we recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the interpretation in Spanish. Welcome everyone to our December 12, 2023 Santa Rosa City Council meeting. It is now two o'clock and we will be starting our meeting. Seeing a quorum Madam City Clerk may you please call the roll. Thank you Mayor. Council Member Chris Rogers. Council Member O'Crepkey. Here. Council Member McDonnell. Here. Council Member Fleming. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor Step. Here. Mayor Rogers. Present. Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of council member Fleming. Thank you. We will now proceed to item 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 our closed session items for the day. Madam City Clerk can you please facilitate public comment on these items? Thank you. We're now taking public comments on item 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3. And Mayor there's no one in council chamber wishing to provide public comment on these items. Thank you. We will now recess into closed session. Hello. We will now be reconvening our December 12, 2023 meeting. It is 306 Madam City Clerk may you please call the roll. Thank you Council Member Rogers. Council Member O'Crepkey. Here. Council Member McDonnell. Here. Council Member Fleming. Here. Council Members Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor Step. Here. Mayor Rogers. Present. Let the record show all council members are present. Thank you. Moving on to item 3, our study session for today. Madam City Manager. Good afternoon Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of council. Item 3.2 is the draft economic development strategic action plan. Thank you Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the council. Gay Bosburn, Acting Director of Planning and Economic Development. And I'm here today with Jill Scott and Daryl Dunstan, our Assistant City Manager and our Real Properties Manager. And our topic of conversation today is our draft strategic plan for economic development. And I'll begin by providing just a brief overview on the goal of the SHRAP plan. Typically strategic plans are a five-year plan. They deal with overall goals and initiatives and strategies at a more high level. And they work their way down to all of a sudden an implementation strategy on how we implement those goals and strategies. So where we are today in the document that you'll see attached to this item is more of a skeleton for those main pillars and those objectives. As we move forward with adoption, we will be branding the document. We will be adding the aesthetic value to the document. So really what we're seeing now and what we're hoping to gain feedback on are simply the pillars and the strategies and any ideas you may have or ways that you would want to see those modified. And I'll talk a bit more about that at the end of the presentation. So really when we look at our economic development initiatives, we try to obviously create alignment with other goals and initiatives in the city. This one aligns with city council goal statement under economic and community vibrancy, sustain and develop a diverse and thriving economy that benefits Santa Rosa residents and businesses and contributes to communities' economic health while preserving historic and cultural integrity. It also aligns with our city of Santa Rosa mission statement, which is to provide high quality public services and cultivate a vibrant, resilient and livable city. One of the unique elements of where we are right now with the strategic plan is running in parallel with our general plan. Both the general plan and the strategic plan cover the same items. So as we move through this, we're trying to create alignment on both documents. What we really see with the emerging themes as the general plan moves forward and as the strategic plan are moving forward is really they're focusing on some of the main core elements of the city, which are really the livability, can I work here, the work aspect of it, and then also the play aspect of it or recreation, and that gets into tourism and some of the activities that our community members like. So we're seeing those same themes play out in both documents. So to talk a little bit about how we got to where we are today, there's been some effort that's been put in this document throughout the year. In July and August, we developed the pillars and the elements that went into the document, the vision, the goal statements. We also vetted this out through the Economic Development Subcommittee. In August and September, there was quite a bit of internal engagement and external engagement. As we got into September, we started developing drafts by staff. The draft was reviewed by the Economic Development Subcommittee. Obviously, through that process, we incorporate changes into Agnobar in November. There was a review of the final draft by staff and then the review of the draft by the Economic Development Subcommittee. That brings us to December. We're here today to gain feedback from the council on any changes to this document. We will be reviewing those and as we progress through budget hearings and goal setting this year, we'll set not to exceed target date of the end of the fiscal year to develop this document. At this point, we're anticipating adoption to occur prior to that, but that's looking at the worst case scenario for our timeline. Just a quick snapshot on where Santa Rosa is from an economy standpoint. Healthcare is the largest industry in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. We have two of the major hospitals in Santa Rosa that serve the greater region. A good number of our commercial development activity, permitting-wise, is in the healthcare industry. It's a big driver. We also have significant retail trade. It's the second largest industry and Santa Rosa is one of the biggest urban centers in the North Bay for that. We also have manufacturing, much for that in the area, is around agriculture. Relative to the county, Santa Rosa includes a relatively small share of that manufacturing. We also have some niche industries and their advanced technology, research and development. Those are medical tech. We're seeing more green tech or what's commonly referred to as clean tech in that area. We also have accommodation and food services. That's our tourism and our food industry. And I think it's important to note that Sonoma County's primary business, Sonoma County's primary business and financial hub is Santa Rosa. So we have approximately 41% of the county jobs in office-based industries. Professional and tech services are within Santa Rosa. So as we went down this journey of developing a strat plan, obviously a lot of community engagement that's involved in that. We'll talk a bit more about some of the surveys in detail in future slides. But we have conducted surveys with the community. We've worked very closely with other department and division surveys. We did a lot of community engagement as part of the general plan process. And economic development was always brought into the mix to discuss economic development related initiatives. We did in-person community engagement. Once again, much of that was through the initiatives on the general plan. Those involved tabling sessions, one-on-one discussions with stakeholders and targeted meetings with stakeholders. There is also interdepartmental engagement to understand what other departments see as economic development initiatives in the city of Santa Rosa. We focus on data studies and research. And of course, anytime we go down this path, we're also reviewing what other jurisdictions have done from an economic development strategic standpoint and getting tidbits from those documents that already exist. So one of the main surveys that we did was conducted in 2021 and it's centered around economic development. And hopefully this just gives a background of some of the demographics that participated in that survey. We had over 600 individuals respond, 59% identified as business owners. And the majority were long-term Santa Rosa residents. We had 12 years or more. The respondents identified as Asian, multiracial, and white. That population was actually overrepresented compared to the population. Respondents identifying as American Indian, Alaska Native, Black, African American, Hispanic, Latinx, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander were underrepresented compared to the population. The majority were 35 or older and more slightly recognized as female, more than male. And the top five zip codes are listed on the slide. Those came from downtown in the South Park area, Montgomery Village, Bennett Valley, Oakmont Skyhawk, the Northeast Coffee Park, excuse me, the Northwest Coffee Park, Mendocino area, Stony Point Road College. The survey focused on a few main questions. It dove into what are the most important issues for the future of Santa Rosa. It talked a little bit about economic development, what economic development issues were important to the respondents. It also got into the level of interaction that they have with staff and to understand what that level of interaction is. And we wanted to basically see if we could better understand what some of the challenges and barriers that those individuals were experiencing. And there were a few questions that focused on that. When we look at the survey results, we have a bit of a breakdown when we address the issue of what's most important for the future of Santa Rosa. We had the business owners and the non-business owners really aligned on the affordability issue and housing. That was the most common. When we got into the second tier, business owners leaned more towards business development as the priority, where non-business owners were leading more towards equity and inclusion as the priority. When we look at the challenges and barriers, we see about three or four that are aligning similar. And those are all about process. So city processes were difficult to navigate, individuals aligned with that, individuals aligned with unsure what city resources are available, city processes are time-consuming and unsure who to reach out to. And then we moved into unsure what required for certain activities. So just understanding process, difficult accessing capital, and then we had a variety of other in that mix. When we look at the next phase, which is more economic development driven, this focuses on economic issue areas of most importance for business owners. They focused mainly on business assistance, the next most common, moved to development projects. Then we moved into neighborhood programs and permitting. We saw a little bit of a different breakdown when we get into non-business owners. Neighborhood programs were the most common, development projects, then we moved into civic pride engagement and workforce development. We also did quite a few surveys as part of the general plan process. These were fairly standard questions that we asked with the interactions in the community. One of the most important changes you would like to see as a resident in the city. And we saw the top three really do align with economic development, focusing for all was very popular in that response. Enriching community public services and amenities was there as well and then promoting jobs and economic growth. When we asked the question, what excites you most about the future of Santa Rosa, we saw new jobs and economic opportunities coming in at 20%. So themes from the community engagement piece, one of the main themes was focusing on lack of affordable housing, high cost of living. Costs are high for businesses as employees alike. Access is a challenge to business retraction and retention. And it can be a critical limiting factor for workforce development. Employees cited the need for downtown entertainment, more of the play aspect of where you want to live and work. And one of the comments that we received focused on workforce development begins with equitable access to early education, which focuses a bit more on the upstream investments that we would put into workforce development. Another common theme was associated with an inclusive approach to economic development. And many times when we talk about economic development, it can be very pure business attraction and retention and it can be after very large businesses. And that can work its way down to very small business approaches. And the equity aspect that people were looking at is if you were a small business owner, understanding how the city is providing resources to small business owners and not big business and then vice versa if you were in the other situation. So this really focuses on more of that equity balance in business attraction and retention and figuring out creative ways to support small businesses but also go after the large business attraction. So when we developed the plan, we really focused on three main pillars. And this lists a summary of those pillars. The first was business climate and communication. And that really focuses on what is it like to work with the city. That's all about process, permitting in particular and the touch points in the city and how we engage with potential entrepreneurs or business owners. And then how effectively do we communicate with them through that process. The second pillar is economic vibrancy. And this is your traditional business retention, expansion and retraction. The core services of economic development from that standpoint. And that also includes economic accelerators and infrastructure. So what can we do to provide the infrastructure that developer, excuse me, businesses need and then what can we do to actually accelerate those businesses from coming in and expanding. The third pillar is resiliency and community investment. And that focuses on the area around business. So that's the general infrastructure resiliency is the appropriate sewer capacity there is the roadway network there for that business to survive. It also gets very heavily into the skilled workforce, which is critical to a business occupying a location. But there's a component to it too, which when we get into place making, that's just how do people want public space to be? Are they enjoyable in public space? So we look at elements such as parklets and outdoor seating that focuses on place making murals. The art concept. So it brings that into the mix. And then of course we have address poverty and increase economic opportunity through the upstream investments. So that how that breaks down and there is more detail obviously in the attached document. But really when we look at business, climate and communication, we're looking at our overall objective and we're looking at our strategies and we're looking at some implementation components with those strategies. And then that further goes down to actually an implementation plan for these. So really what we're looking for today are input on these categories. And the first is business climate and communication and that breaks down to really force subgroups. And the first is to enhance business friendly policies and processes. So that includes development services strategic plan. We're actually going through some of these processes now, even though the specific plan is going from 24 to 29. Much of these have started, they just have not been adopted. So the development services strategic plan looks at how we're holistically delivering development services as a city and how we do that on the business front. We need to identify and address concerns and opportunities. So that's really how do we collaborate with the community and how are we proactive about understanding their needs. Enhancing access points and access itself is really looking at how business and entrepreneurs are coming in, who are they talking to, do they feel like the city is welcoming from a communication front. The second is communication and collaboration. Really, some of these are self-explanatory. It's track and share opportunities and business needs and inquiries. So how when they come in is economic development working with the larger city to understand how we're going to support that specific request. Obviously, there's the outwardly facing service where we conduct business visits and facilitate direct idea sharing. So that's partnering with the business group, collaborate with the private sector on business forums, follows that same theme. And then, of course, support education and workforce investment. That's really the critical point of that upstream investment. We also have business satisfaction in marketing is another objective. And that's really business developer attract, retain, expand. Those are your marketing programs that we would put in place to be able to bring businesses in. You get into the digital marketing side of that. So it's building out that program. And then I think it also is really creating a feedback loop which is an important point. When we implement services, how do we know those services are hitting the need and being successful? And how are we nimble enough to change those based on the community's feedback? We also have equitable economic opportunities. So that's really looking at more district-based surveys to understand the need throughout the community in more of that district format. It also looks at opportunities for BIPOC business audits, support and collaborate, strengthen BIPOC and women-owned businesses, meet cultural language needs of the business. So more of the equity component. The third category is really economic vibrancy. But this, as I mentioned before, is your business retention expansion attraction. This is the main piece that many envision economic development has. And a lot of that, once again, it's breaking down to the four categories. So when we look at support business retention, that's really keeping the businesses that we have. So it's established a business retention program, which is to understand the needs of the business and to be able to react to what those needs are. It's understanding that markets change and the resources needed for those markets change. So we have to be dynamic. It's also developing industry-focused incentives. So when we understand the needs, how do we incentivize them staying in the community when all of a sudden they potentially maybe look at a relocation. And then we're implementing ARPA-funded business support. That's another one of the programs that is moving forward right now, and we'll be likely looking at completion here in 24-25. Our other category is to promote business expansion. So this is the expansion of that existing business. So it's looking at small business expansion funds. How would we be able to prop up a program that actually provided a financial support for that? It's also looking at incubator programs. So once again, how do we build that workforce development and how do we invest in bringing that skill set to the workforce that is needed by that industry? And then business development, technology, assistance, and funding. So what sort of assistance do they need and what sort of funding do they need to be successful in Santa Rosa? Attracting new businesses is all along the lines of attraction. Conduct industry-specific cluster analysis, council goal alignment, emerging tech, business recruitment and support. That's all really looking at the specific businesses that we want to bring into Santa Rosa and developing the policies and procedures for how we'll do that. So it's more of a specific industry cluster plan to attract that cluster. When we look at accelerators and infrastructure, that's looking at things like the EIFD or how do we invest in some of the infrastructure around where that business is needed. It also looks at how we can intensify land use. When we look at a general plan process, are we making sure that that has an economic development lens? We're looking all the components from an infrastructure standpoint that are needed to support our industry or our commercial areas. It can also look at one-time incentives to jumpstart specific land uses. So how do we get it going when we have vacant land that is underutilized? Supply chain analysis is important to understand with businesses, especially distribution or manufacturing if we're trying to encourage those. So that's identified in the plan. And then we have some of our small business home-based entrepreneur support. And then our final pillar is resiliency and community investment. This talks a bit about more about infrastructure. So how do we assess business infrastructure needs? And that can be at a very localized level, either small or big, and how do we respond to it? For example, it could be sidewalk connectivity, transit is the infrastructure there once again to support the use of that site. Economic fiscal impact study in downtown infill housing. Much of the discussion about how we develop housing in certain areas to bring about more economic development, how do we study that and show what sort of benefit that has long-term as we look at experiencing the increased density in our downtown. Infrastructure reinforcement plan is really just understanding how you maintain that infrastructure and it's not necessarily susceptible to natural disaster, looking at ways that you can keep everything in place needed for the businesses in that certain area. Climate action sustainability principles fall in line with that as well. Like as we move towards more green tech, we move towards more climate action goals, how do we incorporate that into this plan? Foster community investment, really. That's looking at community investment funds. That's looking at funds available that can go back to the community for various programs. Partnership with community development programs is more of a how do we ensure that when we're trying to get a certain development type or a certain to business, is there a way for a public-private partnership to make that happen and setting the stage for that. Community amenities and local assistance once again is really just the support network around that business. Building a skilled work and a resilient workforce is complicated. That's one of the more challenging, but it probably is one of the biggest issues of why people potentially locate to a certain area because the workforce is there. So really what we need to understand is what sort of industry are we trying to attract and what are the workforce needs for that industry and how do we close that gap in the workforce if it's there. So it's really identification and response. And it could where it will be on the tech side. It's incubator programs where you're investing and training people to be entrepreneurs for the food industry. It can take various forms, but the important point there is you understand the gap, you understand the need, and then you go after that specific classification in that workforce. But that falls into apprenticeship and learning. It's education. It's coaching. It's giving people the financial resources to build that skill set to be able to participate within that workforce. The other item is advanced place-making and place-keeping. This really falls in line of public art once again making those public spaces desirable for people to be in. It's events, it's activities. When we look at ARPA funding place-making and we're looking at facade improvements, parklets, murals, things of that nature. So this is really propping that up over that five-year period. Economic opportunity and upstream investments, advanced childcare support programs, capitalized on one-time funding opportunities to extend upstream investment programs, really getting into how we can provide those investments upstream to experience that benefit long-term. So that's really an overview of the three pillars. As we move forward to the implementation monitoring and valuation, implementation with a plan of this nature, as I mentioned before, there will be an implementation strategy and in many situations those are not attached to the actual strat plan and there's often a good reason for that. They do have to be nimble. They are responsive to what's happening in the community so they can change year to year. And I think when, in this particular case, when we look at implementation, what we're focusing on is the dynamic nature of what it needs to be. We're looking at some of the historic challenges. We're trying to repeat successes and then work an implementation plan on that. If the plan doesn't attach to the document, then what we do from a public transparency standpoint is we look for ways to provide updates to the council on a regular basis as to what implementation strategies look like. We developed data and dashboards showing how we're actually implementing that year to year. So those are some of the ideas that we'd be looking at for implementation. Obviously, we'll see as this progresses to adoption, all those will be fully fleshed out and that will be brought to the council for a decision. The Economic Development Subcommittee also plays a very critical role into this. Understanding prioritization, how we move forward with these programs, talking through concepts as we're being nimble and we're wanting to move. It's a really good opportunity to get feedback from council members in that setting through a public process. So obviously, we'll leverage that moving forward. And then, like I said before, it's just really the trick with this is adapting to changing economic conditions. And as we do that, the importance is that we have to make sure that the stakeholders are brought into the process and we're providing the appropriate feedback loop. So that brings me to the conclusion of the presentation. As I mentioned, the main items today, happy to answer any questions the council has, but the main items today is the skeleton that we've presented in the PowerPoint as well as the attachment. We're really trying to better understand is there an objective that we missed there? Are there strategies that the council would like to see incorporated? And are there any items that either need to be added or modified? Thanks for that thorough presentation, Gabe. And through the chair, for May, Dario Dunstan, Assistant City Manager, as you all are aware, Raisa de la Rosa, who has been instrumental in this work getting to where it is now. She's no longer with the city. We want to honor the work that she has done and we want to get it over to finish line. And so to that end, Jill Scott, who's our real property manager, there is a natural nexus between real property and economic development. And so in the short term, Jill will be stepping in an acting capacity economic development deputy director. She will be working closely with Gabe and myself to ensure that we get this economic development strategic plan over to finish line. So again, Gabe, thank you. And we look forward to hearing you all's feedback and making sure that we bake it into the next iteration of this draft. Thank you. And with that, I'll go to council to see if there are any questions. Council Member McDonald. Thank you, Mayor. I went through the strategic plan and I do have a couple questions and or maybe suggestions, but overall the presentation was really great as well as the strategic plan. There's so many factors in economic development in this city and so I appreciate your knowledge and what you brought forward for council today. So on page three, you talk about a one stop shop and I think that that's a critical component to opening a business. What doesn't seem to be clear sometimes to folks is what is the city responsible for? What is the state responsible for as far as permits? Could we develop flow charts or where to go videos on where to go next because it's such an overwhelming concept to start a new business. And so I'm just wondering if there's ways that we can use some social media to help folks kind of that starting point in the city of Santa Rosa and why it's a good place to own a business or start a business here. So particularly focused on small businesses which don't often have the capital and don't often have the facilities and so I think around those two areas when you're looking at rent being very high specifically in our downtown area what we can do to support that I think would be great. For social media when you're looking at how to communicate things I've said several times our website I think needs an overhaul but I think when you're looking at business development and economic development communications that's going to be a component as well as the social media concept of that. And that's on page four it says using digital marketing social media but I think there's other forms of social media and I know we have a full crew that does communications that can target perhaps a different era of folks that are ready to open businesses like TikTok and those types of things of just getting their interest and gaining their interest in that. I do like on page six that you said to make sure that it's developed in multiple languages specifically Spanish so I want to make sure that all of our documents specifically on the website are also done in Spanish and in English and I think they probably are now but I think it's from a Google where you drop down. I'd like to see it actually line by line if we could get to that eventually on where to go so that it's more user friendly around our marketing and our documents. Let's see. So my son who's a lot younger than me sent me recently and on page seven you talk about streamlined retail and restaurants in the downtown area I'm thinking specifically. It's a concept that's used in Europe and it's called the third place. We have a first place and a second place which is our house and our work but what we're missing I think specifically is the third place. Places that are open between maybe two and two. Two in the afternoon till two o'clock at night. We don't have those places where we can go in the downtown area for people to actually meet grab a quick bite to eat that isn't super expensive and so some of the things they've done is around parks in central areas where they offer free wifi places where you can reserve a table for people to meet in the downtown area and so it brings people together and I'm just wondering if there's some strategies that we can look at around developing the downtown area specific more I know I've heard the need for parking to be free for two to three hours so that it is more user friendly to our businesses and to people that are shopping in the downtown area. Some of the other concepts we can look at are we don't have tasting rooms downtown like they do in Hillsburg and other areas that draw people in and so I'm just wondering if there's any way we can look at maybe what other communities are doing that work really well that draw people into the downtown area housing I know is part of that strategy but those were things and it might be in here but when I read through the document I couldn't see it quite as much and then on page nine it didn't call out specifically but it talked about developing a workforce development program that includes apprenticeships and internships and retraining opportunities so I would hope that we'd reach out specifically to the building trades to the SRJC I know that's one of the components to talk with our local schools but they do have a full construction and a STEM building that just went in so I think that we have a lot of opportunities to reach out to our young folks on that and then on page ten finally under child care we know that that's a huge barrier for specifically women because they are often harnessed and shouldered with watching the children but one of the things that I've heard over and over specifically for child care is a lack of facilities so to retrofit a facility to make sure that it's child friendly all of those components I think if we could do more in that industry to support those going into the child care business but also those that are currently in it that need facilities or expansion working with four C's working with head start working with first five and those great groups that we already have here I think that there's probably more interest in support that we could probably do in those arenas but other than that I think that was all that I got thanks Vice Mayor stop for bringing this forward as well as to Rafael and Raisa for all the work that they've done on this it's hard to think of a subject that's more important right now than how we really continue to keep this area dynamic and in fact make it more dynamic so I'm glad that we'll be having these conversations in the months to come the report touched on almost any item that you could think of with respect to attracting businesses and maintaining a vibrant economy I was wondering if we could go a little bit deeper into a few of the items since I moved into the area I've been hearing apocryphal reports of large employers additional large employers coming into the area Google, Amazon, biotech to join the lights of Keysight and Medtronic or here already I was wondering if you could say a bit more about how we're thinking through the strategies or the infrastructure needs for larger employers as compared to some of the smaller firms that we're also looking to attract and I think that's an excellent point you have a bit of a break point when you're dealing with large businesses and small businesses because the strategies are very different on how you bring them in and how you sustain them so understanding the needs of a large business is critical and I think it's a communication channel so how do we open up that feedback chain to understand truly what the needs are so when you look at large businesses Amazon distribution centers get thrown out there quite often right there's very defined programs and jurisdictions to go after that type of business so it becomes first a land use issue so what do they need from an infrastructure standpoint do you have that land use from a zoning standpoint and if you don't you correct it and then what other incentives can you bring in to make it enticing for them to occupy Santa Rosa but you also have to understand are their business needs really going to work here so is it a proximity to 101 are they really already eyeing Sonoma County for something and if they are how do you make that work in Santa Rosa so what I've always said with the business attraction standpoint it's being dynamic it's understanding the needs it's then taking it back and working as a collaborative unit to understand how multiple departments then support that and economic development becomes the front end of that but where it becomes collaborative is on the back end so I think it's developing that structure to where the input comes the input channel comes in and it's able to communicate and build those relationships and then it's able to act on those and I know that's that's really sort of a high level but as we move forward with this and we start laying that out from an implementation standpoint I think the first strategy is actually working directly with those businesses understanding and go to where they are in some situations not being necessarily reactive to when you think they want to come in but it's a different strategy than the small businesses because I think you have to be more proactive and there's potentially more infrastructure needs in that particular case that's really helpful especially as it pertains to how the city needs to reorganize itself internally and our processes moving to not necessarily smaller businesses but another other class of industry that often gets talked about in this area tech and biotech we've been talking for years about how we get more firms to rotate up you know from Silicon Valley and from the southern or the bay area down south what is our what can we do to make ourselves more attractive to that class of industry I think that's understanding what workforce needs there are here I think we've seen a movement of populations since COVID and remote work is a more technical skill set coming this direction because in many situations businesses may need very technical management staff and they may be looking for that in a certain area or it may be a production oriented workforce so as they look for operations it's understanding what they're wanting to do here and what workforce needs are there and either how you attract or develop that workforce so the development is more of the long-range strategy the attraction becomes more of a housing issue it becomes more of do I want to live in Santa Rosa it becomes more of activating the downtown it becomes more of why do people just choose to live in a certain area and if those individuals are now commuting because those businesses are retaining themselves down in the southern portion of the state and they're now commuting or remote working how can we encourage that in a different way to say well here but I think it's understanding the movement of people and it's understanding that dynamics of how individuals have moved to Santa Rosa really since COVID and we started seeing more of the mass movement out of San Francisco and other jurisdictions that's helpful a few more here and speaking of San Francisco an issue that's very current there as well as in a lot of other coastal cities in a number of cities in the across the nation we've got a glut of commercial properties or commercial properties that are being underused and cities are trying to figure out what to do with them does Santa Rosa have issues in that area and are we thinking of more creative ways to use our commercial space we do have those issues in this area and I just came back from a conference not too long ago down in southern California where they've really been looking at ways to repurpose office space and industrial space that's open mostly office space so there are a lot of things that are already in action and being tested in southern California that we've been looking at and so as part of all of this and of course this is only my second day doing this so one of the strategies that we have going forward is working on a specific set of plans for repurposing that open office space and we have some great ideas interesting I'm sure we'll all look forward to hearing more just a couple of items that I really liked I like the fact that they were highlighted in the report objective 1.4 when there was a big focus in entrepreneurship and small business support we do want more large employers to come into the area but a lot of the jobs and a lot of the tax revenue and a lot of the vitality actually comes from those small businesses those startups and the more that we as a city can do to promote a small business and startups the better and I like the fact that the report highlighted the organizations with which we can partner the small business development center the North Bay Black Bay Black Chamber the Hispanic Chamber there's a number of organizations that are doing great work in the space and the city can be more involved that's fantastic and then objective 1.2 in a few places actually there was a focus on strengthening relationships with educational organizations I'm glad to report that our city manager has recently accepted a spot on Sonoma State's foundation so right there we've got a strengthened pipeline to the four-year university in our area but more broadly as Council Member McDonnell pointed out the more we can do with some of the educational whether it's SRJC, SSU K-12 the better and that is a final point on the subject of education that's obviously been in the news a lot this week in terms of how our police force and how the city is partnering with Santa Rosa City Schools that's not just what's been going on this week is not just an education issue it's an economic development issue if we want the larger employers to move here if we want people to stay we've got to find a way to make our school system better than it is right now it's very much an economic an economic development issue so I like the fact that it's highlighted in this report I like the fact that the city was active this week in working with the school district to see what we can do at a basic level to make our school system better thank you thank you we'll now go into comments Council Member Rogers you have a comment oh question thank you and I totally agree that it's an economic issue around our schools but it's also an economic issue I think that the more that we do to get our economy in a good place for people who are raising children the less trauma our children will have and the better they'll do in school so I think that we have this wonderful opportunity to approach it from both sides with an economic lens and I just want to say that teachers in schools certainly provide the greatest economic value to our society without them you know there's places in the world where they don't have schools and economies cannot function without effective educational systems my colleagues asked wonderful beautiful questions and you've done an excellent job getting this report to us I do have a question around there are some holdover prohibitions in the downtown around certain types of businesses some are old and some are new like we have a new one from our relatively new from our cannabis policy that I think was really well intentioned I wasn't, thank you to Council Member Rogers for all of his work on that there's no dig on anybody who worked you know tirelessly on that but we do have no cannabis retail in the downtown and I'm certainly not suggesting that we have tons and tons of cannabis retail or have a problem like some jurisdictions do with too many wine tasting rooms downtown but that we have a full on prohibition on that use I think is limiting to the vibrancy of our downtown where I do see a key you know economic generator in terms of place making and per square foot tax revenue as we all know and the other thing is around adult boutique stores they're not allowed in the downtown as far as I understand and so just want to make sure that we're not stuck you know in 1950 that we move forward in a way that's consistent with our values of an open and free society and one that's welcoming for people of all ages and sexual identities and lifestyles and one that certainly doesn't make families uncomfortable in any way you know I'm not talking about just having drugs and sex running crazy on the street at all but I am talking about you know just doing good business and many jurisdictions have classy stores in their downtowns that do make quite a bit of money so please consider taking so the question part of that is have you analyzed any of these older rules on the books for example there's nothing in the down like they used to have mud wrestling downtown now mud wrestling may not be what we want to have downtown but did you know that we don't allow mud wrestling downtown and so the question is have we looked through these things to make sure that all of the rules on the books are consistent with where we are today through the chair thank you for that question councilmember Fleming we have looked at some of those prohibitions but to your point I think we can do a more comprehensive investigation and really look at some of those prohibitive policies that are becoming barriers to our economic development goals downtown and we're happy to bring that back to you okay great thank you councilmember Alperas councilmember Fleming I appreciate those comments as it's very forward thinking and we're definitely thinking outside the box and really moving away from the word conservative and more progressive for myself if I can mention something and also being more forward and when you spoke of the word technology is the signages the signage requirements and code enforcement and and policies I know that since 1950 we have neon signs we have I'm sorry but definitely we need to come up to speed when it comes to the way that a business can advertise itself in regards to I do appreciate I want to highlight a couple things the high level look that we're looking at the policy currently as you stated came once we are able to implement the approaching businesses what do we have in mind because I definitely want to approach those businesses that are looking at their doors being closed currently if we're looking at what works and what doesn't those are the best people to be asking right opposed to sitting here opposed to those that are conducting business in downtown centers currently what do you have in mind that's an excellent question council member alvarez you know I think as I mentioned before when you when you look at especially with small businesses especially a small business that may be struggling it could be a variety of different reasons so when we talk about engagement and touch points you know often times it seems like it's we deal with you up front or done but I think when we're talking about small business engagement it's building relationships with the community and it's understanding what their needs are long term and it's being dynamic to address it and especially when it gets to the expansion from when a business may need to do a slight expansion and a sign ordinance gets in the way it becomes more of a prioritization based on economic development so when we look at zoning code amendments when we look at ways in which our policies are prohibitive how do we prioritize around economic development and that shifts it a little bit but I think creating that mechanism where it can bring that in and it could then work the problem and I think that's an important piece to develop a solution for that because I'm pretty sure if it's one business it's probably multiple they really share that but I think the starting point is setting up the infrastructure for those relationships it's committing to those relationships and then it's coordinating priorities behind that to make sure it isn't really just talk that it becomes action on fixing and addressing the needs and through the chair to councilman Alvarez I will also add that that is part of workforce development and I think we realized that during COVID when various businesses shut down we realized some of those businesses didn't have solid business plans so some of that goes you know talking with some of the businesses and helping them craft sustainable business plans and actually finding out what their workforce development needs are in order for them to sustain long term and I do appreciate you looking at those business specifically as we all recognize that the hospitality industry took a large hit and when we talk about downtown San Rosa it's definitely not the downtown of 2000 or even 2010 so I do appreciate that very much thank you councilmember Rogers thank you so much mayor and I really appreciate the comments from a number of my colleagues one of the things that we've heard pretty clearly from some of our business owners is while they appreciate the effort they don't have time to engage with us through our traditional methods and so I appreciate that staff went out and had those conversations Rafael I want to call you out specifically you and Raisa I know did a lot of work meeting with our business owners and making sure that their voices were reflected even if they weren't able to show up to our economic development subcommittee meetings and I think you see some of that play out in our plan I really do want to be following the assistant city managers comments very grateful for Raisa's work sad that she's she's not here but one of the things that we talked pretty extensively about throughout this entire process was tailoring a plan that made sense for each of the neighborhoods within our community and I think that that's what you see there is not just as I described it to folks when we've talked about the plan broadly not just a plan for more grocery stores but how do we create incentives for grocery stores and food deserts to make sure that we not just expand our economic base which to the vice mayor's point is going to be critical over the next couple of years especially as we see sales tax presumably reduced throughout a potential recession how do we expand that base but also leave amenities in each area to where we have this 15-minute city collaborative neighborhood concept that our general plan is seeking to do and I think that this is really the first time since I've been on council where we see our land use goals and our economic goals really intertwined to the way that they are so I want to thank you all for the work on that councilmember O'Cropkey yeah I don't have any questions because I think this is the fourth time I've seen this and so my colleagues chime in because all of my questions were exhausted in the previous iterations thank you so much for your work thank you Rafael thank you Raisa who I wouldn't doubt was probably watching this somewhere and I think it's great that to see this and the implementation process be honed in a way that is efficient just because as we see there are so many things involved in economic development whether it is education or childcare or housing it is really really easy to get sidetracked and fall off plan so I'm excited for the way this is going and to borrow a term being bold about what we do we've had conversations about things such as zoning in ways that would allow those larger employers to come in and maybe build their own employee housing so that they don't have to worry about their employees buying their own or renting their own housing and ways in which we can attract various existing and emerging technologies and industries to this area whether it be anything from biotech that currently exists to driverless taxis or something like that that may need a place to expand in more expensive areas or restricted areas so I just want to commend you for all the work that has gone in for everybody that has put work into this and I'm excited to see a play out and please don't be afraid to be bold in the way that we do things obviously I think everybody up here can agree that the way we have been doing things is not the way we should continue doing things it's evident in this strategic plan that we need to really take a hard look at how we do things and adjust going forward because times change year to year not just decade to decade so I really appreciate all the effort thank you I will not repeat anything that was said but I did want to point out some things but prior to doing that thank you Rafael for your hard work in this race up and also to you guys for the presentation but also because I'm going to be looking at you guys for some implementation when we get there thank you for your hard work one of the things I wanted to touch on was child care and although I was about to call you vice mayor although council member mcdonald I can't help it council member mcdonald talked about facilities right now I see that there is not so much a problem with facilities I believe there was money set aside to help out with child care facilities the problem is there are no workers to work in those facilities so we can build the facilities but if there are no workers then they won't get used so right now it's a matter of having workforce and how do we draw more people here into our workforce and then in addition to that but different I would like to say that it was not surprising but it was the county jobs here I was kind of disappointed to see that 9-5-4-0-7 was not really represented and that we're going to start doing district based surveys because then that shows that we're going out to the districts to make sure that everyone is represented and finding a way to make sure that everyone is represented I like seeing the upstream investments and you spoke about the business retention but expansion I think it's so important that we've had some wonderful businesses here and unfortunately during COVID some of them had to close but we don't want that to continue to happen we want people to stay here especially the businesses that have been here for a long time but also inviting new business here into our city because that is something that we want and with that we will go to public comment thank you mayor as a reminder as a respectful reminder to council staff presenters as well as public commenters we do have interpreters on the Zoom meeting interpreting into the Spanish feed and please be mindful of the delivery and pace of your comments so the interpreters can capture your statements accurately for the Spanish participants we are now taking public comment on item 3.2 draft economic development action plan if you'd like to provide a comment 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 good afternoon mayor rogers council members and staff just briefly I want to thank you first and foremost for all of your hard work on this product it's certainly going to take a village as they say to really get us to where we need to be and to move us forward in a sustainable manner so we can really realize all of our visions for a better and more prosperous Sonoma County I'd just like to briefly encourage prioritization of the project it's 3.1.B and 3.2.C those are really tremendous opportunities to ensure that we're placing a special emphasis on bringing more housing to our community while also supporting educational and child care opportunities thank you mayor rogers for calling out the child care component as we all know it took a bit of a blow during COVID-19 and it hasn't really recovered and it's pretty much kind of a a key element to bringing families to Sonoma County so I would encourage you obviously to support those efforts and then you know real briefly I'd just like to take in my work hat off I'd like to note that I'm especially grateful for City Manager Smith and Assistant City Manager Dunstan because we're really lucky to have their diversity of experience I believe City Manager Smith is one point was living and working in Minneapolis and Assistant City Manager Dunstan was in Tyson's corner Virginia I think that kind of experience is really what we need to leverage I think better policies better outcomes for our community so just wanted to say I'm grateful to have you guys here and looking forward to seeing what you can do to carry us forward and get us on a better path quite frankly so with that thank you all and have a wonderful evening thank you mayor I see no one else approaching the podium to speak on item 3.2 thank you and just as a reminder to everyone item 3.1 is being continued to a date that is uncertain so since it is now 4.01 we will move right into our regular meeting and have item 5 which is closed session and study session report outs thank you Madam Mayor Teresa Stryker City Attorney my minutes are up I'm all done so you just held a study session and it was here in public so there's no report out it happened on the closed session we had two items item 2.3 as noted on the agenda was moved to another day and so there was no closed session on that item as to items 2.1 and 2.2 there is no reportable action at this point and that's the end of my report out thank you we have no proclamations no staff briefings so we will now go to City Manager and City Attorney reports if they have any thank you Mayor so this Saturday December the 16th Neighborhood Services staff will be participating in winter celebration at Andy's Unity Park the event is being hosted by Sonoma County Regional Parks and Lampas so Neighborhood Services will have a boost and some activities for the families so we encourage you all to come out thank you I have a brief report on settlements and active litigation there have been no new settlements in the month of November there were no new settlements over 50,000 and no new claims filed the litigation report is attached to the agenda with status on each of those items our caseload remains fairly consistent with currently 27 litigation cases many of the cases are in the discovery phase most have trial dates assigned we do continue to try to resolve smaller cases with little to no cost to the city and that is the end of my report happy to answer whatever questions there may be city manager I apologize I have one more so the Santa Rosa Police Department was awarded $101,000 for the COPS micro grant to enhance homeless services for downtown so you know as we talk about building out downtown and economic development and how we provide resources for our businesses downtown I just want to let you all know that we were received that micro grant this week thank you are there any questions from council members council member mcdonald city manager I've been getting emails about the warming centers could you just announce when those are going to be open so that our community knows yes thank you warming centers will be open when the temperatures are 32 degrees for three consecutive days so we will make certain we have a team that watches the weather including our fire department our emergency management team so we're on it yet we realize it's cold and you know while the policy is not perfect we do want to make certain that we're taking care of our uncheltered population thank you no additional questions from council Madam city clerk can you please facilitate public comment thank you we are now taking public comments on item 8 if you'd like to make a comment please make your way to the podium you will have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period as you approach the podium please provide your name for public record if you choose to do so mayor mc no one approach the podium for public comment on item 8 thank you moving into item 9 the statements of abstention by council members and I am seeing none we will move right into item 10 which are mayor and council members reports council member okrappke thank you very much Madam Mayor on Thursday afternoon I attended the new hire and promotion ceremony for Santa Rosa police department again it is great to see the pipeline of employees coming into our fully staffed police department especially such a diverse group with so many women and so many other employees and so many other people as our police department strives to reflect the community they serve then Thursday evening I attended a safe campus alliance meeting which was obviously a solemn occasion considering the events of Thursday at Slater junior high I want to commend the parents and especially the students that attended that meeting and shared their thoughts the wide swath of ideas and solutions to secure campuses and to doing it in such a respectful and diplomatic manner and as well thank you to our violence prevention partnership team that was there to spread the information on what they actually do in terms of gang intervention and violence intervention which was sadly not well known and not known enough to our community so that is extremely important on Monday I was the stand-in council member Rogers for the SCTA and RCPA they did not let me chair for him unfortunately but I was able to sit there and actually vote on things but there's some good work that was done we saw the draft the gosanoma draft strategic plan came forward and was presented meeting the deadline the the the RCPA parcel the RCPA polling for possible countywide support for climate action measures came back and much like most polling bonds and taxes were not favorable but the idea of it was so climate action was a high priority the method of which we get there has to be determined at a different time but one thing that was really cool was we approved the a contract with Drop Mobility which is an electric bike share program to be launched in summer of 2024 they will prioritize the smart stations first and possibly spread out and it's great to know from an equity standpoint there are solutions for those that do not have smartphones and are available and those discussions are ongoing of how we can serve those communities especially as we try to find a solution for the first mile last mile efficient and environmentally friendly transportation councilmember flimmy I wanted to encourage everybody to check out the new Tilden-Daken Tilden-Daken program I wanted to share the information at the Sonoma County Museum and I was lucky enough to see that last week along with the vice mayor staff and also we welcome the city manager and both assistant city managers welcome to the programming and allocation delegation from the metropolitan transportation commission last week they had some city of Santa Rosa but the county at large so that we have a strong city county and a region so if you have any questions or interest in that I'm always excited to talk about regional planning. Are there any additional reports councilmember Alvarez? Thank you Madam Mayor for myself a little bit of a different report out over this week we've actually heard a lot of praise for the city of Santa Rosa in regards to the way that we've handled the sideshow issue that we were dealing with and actually a lot of praise came from our Board of Supervisors as well so I definitely want to commend Chief Cregan for his efforts in improving the safety of all Santa Rosa and especially especially district one who's been dealing with the sideshows for decades so definitely want to my hat to the gentleman as he proves that we continue to be the leaders of the North Bay. Thank you. Any additional reports from council members? Seeing none I just had two items the first is the new hire and promotional ceremony for SRPD I think that it is wonderful that we are seeing a diverse group of people that are joining that department and I also want to tip my hat to Chief Cregan for making that something a priority for him to diversify that department and then also I would like to thank our city manager for what she has done in order to try to ensure our student safety and thank the police department Chief Cregan and everyone else that is involved in the officers flexibility by being taken off of their current assignments to go into our schools to ensure that our children are safe I think that it is so important and also I would like to say city manager I would also like to say that you took charge when you saw that the policymakers couldn't get it together and to me that is exactly why we hired you and that is why you're here to get things done so really sincerely because it is so important that we keep our children safe thank you thank you thank you for everything that you have done and will continue to do because this is not over the SROs are there for for two weeks but the conversation needs to continue so with that I will hand it over to Madam City Clerk for public comment thank you mayor we are now taking public comments on item 10 if you'd like to make a comment please make your way to the podium you will have two minutes in a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period as you approach the podium please provide your name for public record if you choose to do so mayor MC no one approach the podiums for public comment on item 10 thank you we will now continue to item 11 which are approval of the minutes we have two sets of minutes in November 28th 2023 and December 5th 2023 council are there any corrections to the minutes councilmember mcdonnell yes on the December 5th minutes at the end when Mayor Rogers said happy birthday it's charlene griner gr E I NER just a spelling correction thank you so much are there any additional corrections seeing none madam city clerk can you please facilitate public comment thank you mayor we are now taking public comments on item 11 approval of minutes if you'd like to make a comment please make your way to the podium you will have two minutes in a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period as you approach the podium please provide your name for public record if you choose to do so mayor there's no one approaching the podiums for public comment on item 11 thank you we will adopt the minutes as presented moving on to our consent items madam city clerk may you please read the consent items thank you mayor item 12.1 has been continued to the January 9th 2024 regular meeting item 12.2 resolution first amendment to professional services agreement EBA engineering for limited phase one environmental site assessment services item 12.3 resolution professional services agreement with calendar associates landscape architects Inc. to provide landscape architectural design and engineering services to prepare a master plan amendment and construction documents for improvements to Martin Luther King jr. neighborhood park and adjacent pedestrian and bike trail item 12.4 resolution amendment to the city classification and salary plan to add 12 full-time equivalent firefighter positions to in the fire department per the FEMA safer grant award 12.5 ordinance adoption second reading reading ordinance of the council of the city of santa rosa adding chapter 9-13 to title 9 health and safety of the santa rosa city code pertaining to hazardous vegetation and fuels management thank you bringing it back to council are there any questions on the consent items seeing none we will now have public comment on the consent items we're now taking public comments on item 12 the consent calendar if you like to make a comment please make your way to the podium you will have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period as you approach the podium please provide your name for public record if you choose to do so mayor there's no one approaching the podiums for public comment on the consent calendar thank you vice mayor step can you please make a motion thank you mayor I'd like to make a motion to approve items to 12.2 through 12.5 and we're we've further reading the text second we have a motion made by vice mayor step and a second by councilmember o'crupe key I don't care madam deputy city clerk can you please no madam city clerk can you please call the vote thank you mayor councilmember Chris Rogers hi councilmember o'crupe key hi councilmember mcdonald hi councilmember Fleming yes councilmember alvarez hi vice mayor mc pardon me vice mayor step hi and mayor Rogers I let the record show that passes unanimously it's okay I'm glad to see I'm not the only person that still caught up on the transition with the vice mayor because it is not yet five o'clock we will go straight to item 14.1 madam city manager item 14.1 is report declaration of multiple city-owned parcels as exempt and non-exempt surplus good afternoon mayor and council I am Jill Scott the city's real property manager and with me today is Celeste Cranza associate real property manager and we're here today to talk about to bring forward to counsel several excess properties that we have to consider for surplus action so to start off in the beginning I wanted to mention again that the real property team has spent several years categorizing over 1,400 properties that the city owns there's right away properties and full fee properties that we own within this cataloging and the public and anyone else can find them at SRCity.org slash RE asset map and that has a full listing of the properties you can sort by district you can look at anything that's happening on the properties all of those documents are available for each one so once we spend a lot of years cataloging and trying to find all the properties that we owned once that was complete our goal was to start the review process of of these properties do we need all of these are we currently using all of these properties so we started this year with the first 50 properties which were analyzed using criteria such as that operational is there any operational use when and how was it acquired was it deeded for a specific purpose we did a partial detail review we talked to housing and community services if the to see if it was something they want to put housing on and if it was not buildable where there are adjacent property owners that might be interested so the California Department of Housing and Community Development requires that we categorize parcels into two categories so it's either exempt surplus or non-exempt surplus the exempt surplus land is usually land that is not suitable for building it's usually small right-away pieces or leftover pieces or pieces that we just can't build on the non-exempt surplus is land that's usually at least 5,000 square feet or more and it may be suitable for housing purposes so we 20 of the 50 properties were reviewed by staff and met the surplus criteria meaning that we didn't see any operational use or need for them within the city 13 were classified as exempt surplus and 7 classified as non-exempt surplus so the exempt surplus property these are the properties that are small and not buildable so the process was it is we bring them to council for for your consideration declare them surplus through resolution provide the resolution to hcd for approval determine the land value and now these are usually small little pieces so if council does approve this action tonight the termination of the land value would fall to our team to determine a land value on because they're so small then we would have to offer them by law to the adjacent property owners by a bid procedure so if there's one property owner we would just send them a letter and say this is the purchase price would you like to purchase the property the one thing that they would have to do is merge that parcel with their existing parcel if there are two or more property owners then a bid procedure would be set up a minimum bid amount would go out and then they would have to have a bid in by a certain time and whoever is the highest bid bidder would have the first chance of purchasing the property and then we would as it says dispose of land to the highest bidder and then ensure the parcels merged so i'm going to quickly go through these if you have any questions on them please let me know at the end we're happy to answer them we have this long stretch of these small little parcels on russell avenue this is a perfect example of parcels that we just the city doesn't have any use for we're not sure why we ever really they were deeded to us and we spend a lot of city funds you know mowing these every year keeping the grass down but there's no other use so we'd like to take these forward to the existing property owners and see if someone else has a use in merging these with the their parcels and this is one two three four three properties on russell avenue then we have a park trail drive which was basically deeded in the subdivision map back in 1974 as a landscape strip which the city doesn't have any need for and hopefully the joining property owner may a street is another one where we own what you're seeing on the parcel up there is just a small piece of it we actually own the sidewalks the road the parcel goes way into it so we'll be adjusting the map to take the street out which the city will keep and then hopefully sell off the remainder which is about a parcel about the size you're seeing in the blue strip san mcgill another subdivision dedication that seems like some of these subdivision dedications were it was just an error and accepting them then we probably shouldn't have so hopefully maybe the property owner can use those as part of their yard and then coffee this one on coffee lane this was deeded over to us a quick claim to us by caltrans back in the 70s it was part of a highway project that they had done it was left over not used there's no access to it and it's not really it's not really buildable because it has no access number one and then number two they'd be a lot of setbacks from the freeway maria let's court was an old well casing that was never used and not appropriate for a well and we just own this little piece of land sitting there and then as we go through these you're going to see a lot of stony point pieces there was a large stony point winding project you guys might remember a few years back and there was a lot of a right-of-way purchased for that widening and these are the remainder strips that were not needed in the end from that widening the first one is 1038 stony point road and then we have several others 1120 1136 that are all small pieces that are left over here's a few more same thing and then we move into the non-exempt surplus and these are parcels that may be able to be built on so we would bring them to you in a public meeting council would approve the resolutions to declare them surplus we would actually have these parcels appraised because they're bigger and their larger value and we need and they're buildable then as as council has seen before and we've done in the past and as the surplus lands act calls for we put them out on a notice of availability to all the interested cal hfa housing sponsors and local entities that's about 1500 people we found in the past when we did it although it adjusts a little bit depending on who signed up at the time and then we would review those responses determine affordability minimums and make a recommendation to council and that would come back to you in closed session for those because they're bigger pieces and then we would negotiate with those folks in good faith for 90 days now if no one comes forward from that list then council would have a decision at that point or staff if we want to put it out on an rfp or if we just want to put it out for sale like a normal purchase so the non-exempt surplus we have 752 oak street and although this would be likely a tough one to develop it is developable so we needed to call it non- exempt surplus it may end up moving to the exempt surplus category as we go through the process and there is a house just to the left of this that could add it to their property if they were interested but as of right now it is possible that could be developed this is another remainder on stony point road it's a little bit larger it could hold a either an adu or a mobile home and then this one is five pieces of remainder right away from the stony point widening that can be merged and put together to make a pretty a much larger than the rest of them um developable piece of land somewhere around eight units and then what density bonus could be even more housing and community services has looked at this it's a little small for the what they do so we all determined staff determined that the best course of action for this piece would be to put it out on an NOA to all the affordable developers and see if there's someone interested in a project that size um so under i just wanted to mention that under previous um council discussions when we've done surplus in the past um count council has uh told staff to bypass the city council surplus policy and to use the state law which is the surplus lands act and so that's what we'll be going forward with as well although we will follow the the bid procedure that i laid out earlier that is in our surplus policy um which is what i explained before want to joining landowner may be sold directly by negotiation or more than want to joining landowner proper it'll be sold by private bid auction and then the recommendation um from uh transportation and public works department that council by 16 resolutions declare certain city own parcels as exempt and non-exempt surplus authorize and direct the city manager or there doesn't need to submit notices of availability for non-exempt parcels convey exempt parcels to an adjacent property owner by bid procedure a set out in council policy 000-10 and take all necessary action to fully comply with the surplus lands act and that is the end of the presentation and if you have any questions last night are here to answer thank you for that presentation looking to council council member krepke thank you very much for that presentation um so for the exempt uh properties um you said that they would have to whoever the highest bidder was or if they acquired it through sale for the adjacent whatever it is they'll have to merge um their parcels is that correct yes that's correct great um how does the assessment of that property go forward so if they add 2000 square feet to their parcel does that get reassessed by the county in full or is it that just that portion gets added to it um it may not happen right away but it will get assessed in full as my understanding but i'm not an expert on tax assessment but that's my understanding okay so if they if if they haven't been assessed since 1985 and they take this over it would come up to 2023 or 24 levels or is that a question for the county it's probably a question for the counter county i can tell you that they're behind on that so um it may not trigger it or it may trigger it but it is a county question they should probably call and find out prior to purchase councilmember mcdonnell thank you for the presentation i may just have a clarifying question on all of these parcels who is responsible for maintaining those while we own them um department rise or just the city in general you mean yes it's a multiple of different departments for each of them some are parks and recs some are tpw but the city is maintaining all of these parcels and that's why we're systematically trying to go through everything and see what we really need and don't and then approximately how many more do we have that aren't brought to us tonight just so there's a point of reference on how many we're still maintaining i'm in favor of this i just want to kind of get a reference on how many we're going to review 400 more parcels i don't know how many of those will meet the criteria but that's the review number for us so we're responsible for 450 or so we're responsible for over 1400 but a lot of those are city facilities things we know that we're using um we think we're about have about 400 left that we're unsure if we need or not great thank you are there any additional questions from council members councilmember rogers yeah thank you mayor um congratulations first of all jill uh second looking at zero maple avenue i actually have talked with a number of residents for the bourbon gardens neighborhood association uh over the last seven years this has been one of the sites that they're particularly interested in and i know one of the neighbors actively does maintain it for the city uh because they're concerned about the the growth obviously there is there an opportunity either through the surplus process or after the surplus process for the neighbors to do something there such as a community garden some other form of amenity and and i guess that that extends to some of these other ones as well because i do know that they've asked in the past and have been told it's city on land so the first step would be declaring them surplus trying to sell them if none of the neighbors are interested in them then yes we can definitely talk about it i believe reckon parks has a program but we'll have to check into that but a community garden would be a beautiful use thank you seeing no additional questions from council members madame city clerk may you please facilitate public comment comment on this item thank you we are now taking public comment on item 14.1 if you'd like to make a comment please make your way to the podium you will have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period as you approach the podium please provide your name for public record if you choose to do so. thank you can you hear me good my name is tomas ells and of course i'm a civil and environmental engineer and so i think it was five or six years ago that we started a process of research on these parcels that the city had in the county with regard to homeless action and dealing with safe parking and camping sites so we analyzed almost all of those ones i didn't see the one i never saw before was the triangular piece at the end of hopper in particular i'm referencing the many parcels along stony point road of course i'm a civil engineer and was very observant of the construction and widening of of stony point and extensive time and issues that went into that but then there were the surplus properties and they were like they stand out to me like a big sore thumb with a big bandage on it not that anything's necessarily untoward about that that was what was going to happen but then we looked at that for a long time within homeless action as to using it for safe parking or for camping sites or for tiny home sites and i for the life of me i cannot understand what went wrong with them in the process of receiving the two million dollars because i specifically told them that property was available it would be free many times for many years i told them i don't know where their sensibilities went they held on to two million dollars for two years and had to surrender it because they could not find a spot they could not find a spot in roseland for for their tiny home village are you kidding me it's very upsetting but please do not either offer those properties separately thank you are there any other speakers on item 14.1 please go ahead and approach the podium my name is lauren dillaba i live on one of the adjacent properties which my apologies no problem which we have maintained for the last seven years so that we didn't have the homeless people starting fires and polluting our area i agree we need tiny homes for these homeless people but please go through with this so that we can be done with fighting trying to get our land thank you seeing no additional comments um we will now bring it back oh yes sir i live across the street from her yeah we've done the same we've my name is dana clark um we've been maintaining it and even during the fires because of the paper we got set pre-17 all that stuff but we've been maintaining it and even with the fires all calls from her and from my house went unanswered and none of the stuff got cut down or touched actually going to your comment about how the city's actually been maintaining them because they really haven't um we had a encampment next to us that when they left they said hey let it burn and they tried to torture our house down so i'd rather not have it developed at all but i mean at the same time i also disagree with your measurements on the parcel where the store used to be i think it's under five thousand feet but um i don't know what else to tell you guys it's like are there any additional public comments seeing no additional public comments we will bring it back to council any comments from council none i will just say that um it i'm very thrilled that we're offering the properties to adjacent property owners but i did want to know are those prices negotiable is it like a regular sale or how does that work so it's a it's a bid procedure so we'll set a minimum bid amount and they're usually very low um and then if there's more than one property owner they'll have to bid and the highest bidder will receive the first option for purchase um and that's just kind of how the bid procedure goes if no one wants to purchase it and we get no bids and someone wants to come back and negotiate we'll definitely um consider awesome all right seeing no additional questions council member alvarez thank you madam mayor i move uh resolution described as one through 16th of the i'm sorry one up through 16 of the council of the city of san rosa declaring pursuant to government code section five four two two one that real property owned by the city located within the city of san rosa california exempt surplus land and way further reading of the text we have a motion made by council member alvarez and a second by council member oak crepeki seeing no questions or comments from council members madame city clerk can you yes if i may i would just like to clarify the motion um some of the resolutions are for exempt property and some are for non-exempt so um if i may um council member alvarez i will suggest that his motion is to adopt each of the 16 resolutions in front of you again some are exempt and some are not that would be my recommendation i do accept the recommendation and council member oak crepeki we still have a second okay um madame city clerk may you please call the vote thank you council member uh chris rogers council member oak crepeki i council member mcdonald hi council member fleming hi council member alvarez a point of clarification please i've noticed that in one of the resolutions it also states directing staff to prepare and submit notices of availability therefore and authorizing the city manager to comply with the surplus land act should that also be included and i believe that was in resolution 16 if not mistaken it was i i think the resolutions have various parts your motion is to adopt the res each of the resolutions as presented so i think that the that the your motion as amended is clear um if you prefer to be more specific you could you could do that as well i appreciate that i won't be needed and i will be voting uh i on the on the resolution thank you vice mayor stop hi mayor rogers i let the record show that passes unanimously thank you we'll move right into item 14.2 madame city manager item 14.2 is a report arpa american rescue plan act act uh spending plan update good evening madame mayor mr vice mayor members of the council daryl dunstan assistant city manager the item before you is uh an update to the american rescue plan act better known as arpa spending plan and i will ask that you all allow me to to get through the presentation that you make a note of any questions that you may have i have colleagues in the chamber that will be able to provide specifics to programs that are pertinent to their respective departments so before you is a resolution that is recommending the approval of a change in the spending plan moving budget totaling two million from the sam jones hall capital projects program to the herring community hub project and we'll get into more of that in future slides and two to authorize the city manager to shift funding between programs as needed not to exceed 500 000 without returning to council to give us the flexibility that we need a staff to comply with federal regulations to ensure that all arpa funds are expended within the period of performance and just for context that 500 000 is uh it's about one percent of the total allocation which is 36 plus million as i stated this is an update explaining the expenditures to date as well as asking for your authorization to shift funds between programs and allowing staff to have that flexibility so we need to make an issue future shifts and so this table here on your left hand side are the programs themselves and then next to that is what was budgeted presented to this council and it is consistent with the update that was provided to this body during your goal setting session in march of this year and then next to the budget column are the expenditures to date so that are those are funds that have left the city's hands i will say that the majority of these funds have been obligated but that's not going to reflect actual expenditures because for many of these programs you can't show that it's been expended into that invoice has been paid and then in the next to that is the department that's associated with that program and then on your far right is the percentage that has been spent to date and so as you can see jumping down to the bottom we've spent almost a third of our arpa allocation and we intend on spending the remaining amount again during the period of performance that funds need to be obligated by december 31st 2024 and and then those funds need to actually have gone toward projects no later than 2026 and so over the next few slides i will be at a very high level reporting on outcomes and where those programs stand today and and as i noted before i have colleagues in the chamber that can answer any nuanced questions that that may come about and so beginning with our safe parking pilot program which has been a resounding success that program does provide up to 50 spaces for our neighbors that are living in recreational vehicles or passenger vehicles all 50 of those spaces are occupied and have been for some time there are 30 people that are currently on the wait list 170 total individuals have been sheltered since the inception of this pilot 65 of those participants have received case management services which includes developing a housing plan 19 of those participants have exited to temporary housing 33 of those participants have exited to permanent housing and as you can see approximately 64 percent of the safe parking pilot allocation has been expended to date again we are confident that all of these funds will be expended within the period of performance our secure family fund is a program that provides a path to citizenship for undocumented youths who are single under the age of 21 and have experienced either abuse neglect or have been abandoned by at least one parent and so this funding provides a full-time youth immigration attorney bilingual caseworker that assists those clients with attaining their citizenship and so to date these outcomes are reported quarterly there's been one community workshop for community events 17 screening appointments and two new cases were opened in in quarter one of this current fiscal year approximately 81 percent of the total secure family fund allocation has been expended to date and again we we we are confident that this allocation will be expended during the period of performance our homeless services outcomes which is a a partnership with many service providers and so at a very high level i am going to be working through quickly some of the more important outcomes and again if you all have specific questions i have colleagues in the chamber that that can address those sam jones hall as many of you all know is our adult shelter and in the last quarter 313 individuals were sheltered 38 of those participants exited to temporary housing and nine of those participants exited to permanent housing host who is our homeless outreach team um had 198 individual contacts 46 of those individuals were provided shelter or temporary housing and six of those individuals obtained permanent housing caritas family support center um welcomed 253 adults and children 37 of those families exited to temporary housing and 42 of those families exited to permanent housing and again that is just in the last quarter our homeless services center uh which is the drop-in center at caritas um it it provided services for 317 individuals um a little over 4500 showers were provided and a little over 1500 loads of laundry were washed um in totality 46 of the entire homeless services allocation has been expended to date and all of that allocation will be expended during the period of performance this slide uh highlights the the important partnerships that we have with the community action partnership of Sonoma County YWCA which provides shelter for our our neighbors that are experiencing domestic violence and our community housing assistance program better known as CHAP and for these partnerships specifically Santa Rosa's ARPA funding is not the only funding that is provided it's braided funding and it's more of a regional approach to address many of the the the issues that again that our neighbors are experiencing and so we're we're proud of the work that that has been done through these three partnerships but i do want to highlight these partnerships are not administered solely by the city of Santa Rosa looking at our child college savings accounts better known as baby bonds the city does partner with first five to administer this fund and there's $500 in seed funding that is provided and through the incentive program parents or guardians can take advantage of up to an additional $200 that for a total of 700 potentially these funds are invested into scholar share 529 which is the state of california's college savings plan and those funds are available by the beneficiaries for withdrawal after they graduate from high school and enroll in a college or trade program eligibility includes the child has to be between zero and five years of age they have to be a Santa Rosa resident and the the household adjusted gross income has to be $75,000 or less so to date 885 accounts have been opened including 172 accounts that were opened in the quarter one of fiscal year 2324 approximately half of the arpa allocation has been expended to date and we do anticipate that the other half will be expended during the period of performance the child care facility support fund and this speaks to the conversation we were having during the study session today and so this fund specifically is aimed at working with child care facilities and child care operators to make the renovations necessary to either increase their capacity to address some of the infrastructure issues that they may have with those facilities or to outright build a new child care facility and as you can see the city received 39 letters of intent that were at varying degrees of funding request and of those letters of intent you can see the breakdown there 26 were for minor renovations that does not increase the the facility's ability to to care for children four of those were to expand their ability to care for more children and nine of those were for major renovation or or actually new construction so about half of the arpa allocation toward child care facility support fund has been expended to date and as you can see our request for funding actually exceeds the the allocation that we have and so we are confident that the remaining allocation will be spent during the period of performance our small business tenant improvement program or what you all may know as facade improvements or parklets is is is is well underway there were a total of 47 applications that were received for funding we did have to cap awards at $40,000 because above that threshold it triggered additional reporting requirements to the federal government and so we continue to work closely with those applicants to track the progress of those projects this is a program where the the award it will go out after we can confirm that the the renovations have occurred and that we've checked those plans and so because of that we are still working through that process only nine percent of this allocation has been expended to date however we do anticipate a an increase in the the expenditures over the next two quarters significantly but we do intend to come back before this body prior to the end of this fiscal year with another update to give you a better idea of where we are in terms of the spend down for this program specifically and if we if if there is a need to shift those funds then we will bring that before this body our universal basic income pilot program which is also a partnership with first five of sonoma county has 305 households now it being a partnership there are residents outside of santa rosa that can take advantage of this program but one of the stipulations that for for santa rosa to contribute to this regional program was that at least 80 of the participants were santa rosa residents and the idea is that each participant received five receives five hundred dollars per month and that started in january of this year and they will continue to receive those disbursements through december of 2024 and we've already turned over our portion of of this allocation to first five and so in terms of arpa spend down all of these funds have already been expended many of you are aware of in response which is our alternative to behavioral health crises that we experience on our streets as our law enforcement officers engage with the community this is a program that also has a bit of braided funding and so the arpa allocation supplements additional funding for us to be able to provide the the level of behavioral health services in the community that is necessary and so because of that you do see only 21 percent of the total in response arpa allocation that has been expended to date but again part of that is because srpd wants to make sure that the other funding sources are expended within those funding sources period of performance we do anticipate that this number will ramp up significantly over the next six months but like some of the other programs should we see should we anticipate that all of these funds will not be expended during the period of performance we will bring that back to you all in enough time for you to help us decide where this allocation should be shifted to sam jones hall capital improvement so this is the project it had an original allocation of two million and it is my understanding that it will be difficult for us to spend down the two million that has been allocated within the period of performance and so staff is recommending that this two million dollars be shifted to the herring community hub which does currently have a funding gap and so this two million will help close that gap and it does not mean that the capital improvements that we feel will help us to provide better services to our clients at sam jones hall isn't still needed but again we are recommending that this that this allocation be shifted while we work through these specifics of what projects what capital capital improvement projects at sam jones hall is feasible over the next 12 to 24 months we spoke about earlier the economic development strategic plan and so there's an allocation here that would support standing up specific programs initiatives that is outlined within that plan so as you can imagine you all haven't adopted that plan yet and so none of these funds have been expended to date however that is part of the urgency for us to get a final draft in front of you all for you all to adopt a plan so we can quickly move into implementation and there's a 200 000 allocation our biolocation that will help with the implementation of those program services and initiatives and then finally the herring community hub capital project and we're looking at six acres that would include multiple community services such as a new fire station a new library branch and a multifaceted community and cultural center and as i stated earlier there is a funding gap and so that is why we're recommending that that two million from sam jones hall capital improvements be shifted to the herring community hub to help close that funding gap that two million will not close the funding gap completely but it gets us closer to where we need to be and so to date approximately eight percent of the herring community hubs our biolocation has been expended to date and so here is the spending plan that includes the shifting of the money and so the two cells that you see highlighted right it is showing you that we are we are asking for your approval to move two million from the sam sam jones hall capital project to the herring community hub capital project and so that would reduce the sam jones hall capital project budget to zero and that would increase the herring community hub capital project budget to 12 million but we are not recommending any other changes at this time and so with that it is the recommendation of the city manager's office and the finance department that the city council receive an update of the america rescue plan act spending plan and by resolution approve a change in the spending plan moving budget totaling two million from the sam jones hall capital projects program to the herring community hub project and two authorize the city manager to shift funding between programs as needed not to exceed 500 000 without returning to council to comply with federal regulations ensuring all opera funds are expended within the period of performance and with that i am happy to receive any questions that you all may have and thank you thank you assistant city manager dunstan and do we have any questions from council members councilmember mcdonnell thank you for the presentation and for the clarity of what you're looking for from council i do appreciate that um a couple of things i did notice that the small tenant improvement budget and i'm happy to hear that you have a plan for getting that um spending out the door and i'm wondering if the $40,000 cap i understand that there's other implications if that goes forward if it's higher than that but was that actually what was keeping small businesses from using those funds or we just need to maybe do a little bit better job to help them understand how to use those funds it's the latter thank you and then i'm i'm also happy that you're giving us enough time to come back and maybe reappropriate money one of the things that we don't have control over is how many baby bonds go out because that's dependent on how many children are born in santa rosa so i'm i'm happy to hear that we're tracking that we're working with first five so that we have a better understanding so that if we do need to reappropriate the money for another program either on this list or something else we could potentially have the the right to do that and and then the universal basic basic income i just want to make sure that we are communicating to the families that are receiving that that that's going to end in 2024 to make sure that they have enough time to prep um if that's something that they're counting on right now um i know part of the american rescue plan was also around the child tax credit we saw a huge reduction in child poverty and so my concern is that we're not maybe letting families know enough and i know that's not delivered by us but just want to make sure we're reaching out to our partners on that excellent point uh by um council member mcdonald excuse me mr vice mayor um and yes we we don't want folks to hit that benefits cliff without some type of preparation in advance of that thank you so much thanks for the presentation councilmember rogers yeah first of all thank you so much i know especially as we are implementing arpa there was a lot of questions from folks about what this might look like and how we could best use these dollars to lift up our community a couple of things that that really struck me from the data and i'm curious perhaps this is a question for for kelly or megan um it looks like our safe parking pilot has a higher rate of moving folks into temporary or permanent supportive housing and i'm wondering if we've found any insight on why that might be as effective as it has been uh and i i probably would say it hesitate to say more effective than some of the other things that we fund but certainly it might be instructive for us to have that conversation thanks for the question through the chair i see my colleagues that are approaching the table to answer that question i will state though that for the safe parking program specifically you were looking at cumulative totals versus for the outcomes for sam jones hall was the last quarter yeah i was looking specifically at the rate um which is what i was uh which i think is is an interesting question thank you councilmember rogers for the question and um it's something i've looked at too in comparing our programs and have discussed with catholic charities which operates um safe parking and this is anecdotal in terms of the clients that are served but we're seeing um a higher percentage of people in the safe parking program they're more stabilized um and have higher rates of employment um compared to some of our programs um like sam jones hall where we have people coming you know directly off the street or out of encampments um and have not quite stabilized as much um as some of our participants in the safe parking program which like likely contributes to a higher percentage of people exiting safe parking to housing compared to a program like sam jones hall okay that's really helpful thank you um and uh for the folks that are on the wait list uh are there any other services that that we know of that they're in or are these still folks that are just working with our housing navigators that are on the street right now waiting for placement so those on that wait list um you know i can't speak to the individual members but uh the outreach team is responsible for placing people into the safe parking program so homeless outreach services team um and they'll continue to work with uh people um where they're at whether if they're in another shelter or they're on the street um to get into that program so really providing case management um at the street level as they're waiting to get into the program right thank you so much and then uh assistant city manager i just wanted to clarify for the uh baby bonds which is still my favorite the 885 accounts that were started that since the inception of the program that is correct sir right and so the 172 was just so far in this fiscal year the the first two quarters that's correct right all right thank you so much thank you can you use your mic and ask a question council member our vice mayor apologies to the mayor um i wasn't sure whether conception was upon them we should be chair we should be chuckling or that whether that was an accident though you should generally assume that if i make a pun that it was intentional thank you maybe i shouldn't have let him use his mic um i have a question uh the small business tenant improvement program what are the means that we're using in order to actually reach the target businesses that we want to reach with that a portion of that program so that program is um dictated by qct's quality census tracks and so there was outreach that was provided to the businesses that were within those zip codes um and you saw my colleague rafael earlier um he was very involved in getting the word out about this program and helping businesses understand the opportunity that's at hand do we do we follow i just saw the amount of money that we've spent so do we follow up with those businesses i know sometimes um and i'll say this in public i'll get a mailer or someone will come tell me something and i'm like yeah yeah yeah i'm busy right and i never get back to it because life happens and people are really busy but are we following up with the businesses um because to me that that goes hand in hand with the presentation that we just had and we need to follow up with those businesses absolutely so we receive 47 applications and when you total all of the funding requests from those 47 applications it does exceed the amount of available funding um so it is not an um a an issue of the word isn't out there or that our businesses aren't aware of the opportunity that's available to them um but it is working with them on some of the the more nuanced elements of of their ask um and then running that through our planning economic development department to look at you know some of the plans they have for those tenant improvements or for that parklet to make sure it complies with code um and things of that nature and so yes this is a program that's at the top of our priority list there's constant communication and we'll continue to do that do we have uh applications that have come in that are ready to go we just haven't uh completed them and what is the anticipated completion date for these applications if we do have them yes we do when of that hundred thousand of the million plus that was allocated you saw that there was approximately approximately a hundred thousand that has been spent down um that hundred thousand went to many of those applicants and so yes we continue to work with the the balance of applicants um and with our our our colleagues in the city attorney's office to make sure that um we're executing these agreements um properly and and that we're getting the funds out of the door okay i just want to make sure that we're not behold up like if people have put in applications and they have fully done what they needed to do um that we get get the applications and the money out out to them i don't want the city to be the holdup i hear you loud and clear mayor thank you seeing no additional comments from our questions from council members madame city clerk can you please facilitate public comment thank you we are now taking public comment on item 14.2 if you'd like to make a comment please make your way to the podium you will have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period as you approach the podium please provide your name for public record if you choose to do so please go ahead tom of cells and um obviously you know the sam jones improvements and it's unfortunate if you will to switch out to the hub it's gonna benefit for that don't don't lose the funds you know um on that account but just to the issue of safe parking versus sam jones and efficacy or efficiency of that that was what we proposed from the beginning why we proposed safe parking was that it was going to be more effective and here you have the perfect uh evidence of that and the reason was because uh the federal government required uh the most vulnerable so hud required the most vulnerable to be put into the shelters immediately and that was changing because they weren't doing that before that and and when they so there were certain priorities that they did however they ran the shelters but then they were required to put the most vulnerable in there well putting the most vulnerable taking them off the street would mean that they would be there would be a big backlog in the shelter because they were not ready enough to get into either temporary or permanent housing that was what was happening and it's why we came forward with the with the proposals to do safe parking and unfortunately mere uh schwenholm as well as when he was on the sonoma county whatever you want to call it at the co c was that he kept saying we have to have proven items that have you know uh experience and provability of outcomes that we didn't have with safe parking and this city didn't we led with that and the county led with that at the at the fairgrounds through um through uh supervisor uh zane you know and that was very effective because now we have the evidence it's very important the evidence-based practices which we couldn't have we couldn't give to mayor schwenholm now we have it it's really wonderful thank you thank you mayor as you know and else approaching the podiums for public comment on item 14.2 thank you councilmember alvarez may you please make a motion thank you madam mayor i'd like to present resolution of the council of the city of san roza approving an updated spending plan for american rescue plan act also known as arpa funds and authorizing the city manager to shift such arpa funding between programs in an amount not to exceed 500 000 and waive further further reading of the text second we have a motion made by councilmember alvarez and a second made by councilmember phleming is there any more discussion from council councilmember alvarez thank you madam mayor uh comments allowed yes thank you i personally want to thank the different departments that have been involved in the hub project uh everyone from gen santos and and her team uh jason nut who just exited and where's he at raise your hand if you're still in the room thank you thank you sir and also rob sprinkle for all your work with the with with all that you're doing as well with the project i do thank you very much um and i also want to thank the past council and the current one as well for for maintaining steadfast to a commitment that we made to southwest san rosa and i know that this does take money away from another project that's that's that's definitely needed uh such as sam jones but i hope the community understands that we are definitely uplifting a community that historically has gone without so with that said i think each and everyone of the the individuals the teams they're involved and also our community members there's individuals such as pat cuda who's an absolute warrior when it comes to the library and our friends of the library salama county uh library folks as well so i thank each and every one of them for for really just the steadfast commitment to the the testament that we are here for the city of san rosa that equity means something in the city of san rosa thank you thank you is there any council member flimmy thank you mayor rogers um you know when we went into covet and had these um the you know we restarted the economic development ad hoc before it became the subcommittee um you know council member soyer was i want to call him and count and former mayor schwedhelm out as being really instrumental in setting forth a vision and along with you know some members of our current council and past councils um we we could not be at this place of setting our ship in a good direction had we not had the full support of the council and i don't recall any of these items going down on split votes um and a lot of that was due to the excellent work of the economic development team it's a great loss to us that we no longer have tara thompson or rise to delarosa with us and big congratulations to jill and ongoing appreciation to rafael it took a team across the city and at that point in time it wasn't you know we weren't siloed we were all talking in with the public with each other across platforms to make sure that the public and that the business community and that the people and staff in the city of santa rosa put forward a product that is still working for us and there's a lot of success and a lot to be gained from from this so thank you for carrying the mantle assistant city manager and thank you to our current city manager for supporting these ongoing investments are there any additional comments or discussion i do want to offer a bit of transparency so for order of priority what would be important even if i did make the adjustment of the half a million it would be the hern community hub and the small business tenant improvements so just if you're wondering where i might think to shift some money those would be my top two priorities thank you very much are there any additional comments or discussion seeing none madame city clerk may you please call a vote to the mayor can i please confirm who had the second we do have a second so the motion was made by councilmember alvarez and it was seconded by councilmember flaming to be fair mayor i didn't second it but i'm happy to do so oh councilmember mcdonnell thank you yeah one moment please uh councilmember rogers councilmember okrepke hi councilmember mcdonald hi councilmember flaming yes councilmember alvarez all right vice mayor step hi mayor rogers i let the record show that passes unanimously thank you uh we have no public hearings today uh and our written communication 16 point one we have one madame city clerk can you please conduct public comment on this item we are now taking public comment on item 16 point one if you'd like to make a comment please make your way to the podium you will have two minutes and a countdown time or will alert at the end of that period as you approach the podium please provide your name for public record if you choose to do so i'm seeing some moving at the top of the ball just confirming there are no speakers on item 16 point one thank you mayor there are no speakers on 16 point one thank you so with that normally we would go back up to item 13 but we are going to combine item 13 and 17 which is our public comment on non-agenda matters madame city clerk may you please facilitate public comment thank you mayor we are now taking public comments on item 13 and 17 non-agenda matters please make your way to the podiums line up respectfully and orderly in between the two podiums the western podium and the eastern podium and we will toggle back and forth from west to east until we've made our way through all the public commenters you will have two minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period as you approach the podium please provide your name for public record if you choose to do so we'll start on the west side please go ahead hi thank you my name is alan and i'm a lifelong resident of santa rosa i'm also a member of the international workers of the world jewish voice for peace and jews for a free palestine i'm speaking today to ask you a place of resolution on the calendar for your next city council meeting to call for a permanent and lasting ceasefire in gaza since the temporary ceasefire ended around 500 innocent civilians are dying each day in gaza and the total death toll is over 18 000 people i know that our little city council has no direct control over what another country does but that other country is being funded by the united states enough local governments adopting resolutions demanding ceasefires could put pressure on our federal government to actually put a stop to this which they absolutely could do ceasefire resolutions have been passed in oakland and richman are actively being considered in san francisco and berkeley the richman resolution included the statement the city of richman stands in solidarity with the palestinian people of gaza who are currently facing a campaign of ethnic cleansing and collective punishment by the state of israel please let santa rosa be included in the voices of local governments calling for what is right and i'll end my comment with a warning in an attempt to head something off if you put this on your calendar you will get a chorus of voices decrying it as being anti-semitic this is a dangerous falsehood being spread equating anti-zionism or any criticism of the state of israel with anti-semitism this itself is anti-semitism attempted erasure and silencing of anti-zionist jews like myself who have a history going back many hundreds of years thank you for your time and free palestine next speaker on the east lecturing can you hear me okay hi my name is vei i'm here to advocate for a ceasefire resolution to be adopted by the city council my community has been tirelessly trying to get our house senate and presidential representatives to hear our voices but as we have seen they continue to make us all complicit in war crimes using our tax dollars we are doing all that we can peacefully but these folks are not taking us seriously enough and they are not acting with the urgency that this moment calls for as we were just hearing about the arpa spending plans for so many social services i would like us to examine how the tax dollars that are being sent to aid in israel's war crimes could be spent if they were kept in our community according to research done through us campaign for palestinian rights santa rosa alone has sent approximately 2 million four hundred and seventy five thousand five hundred and four dollars intact in our tax dollars to arm israel this money could instead be used to fund either 294 households with public housing for a year 861 children could receive free or low-cost health care in santa rosa alone let me remind you we could hire 27 elementary school teachers we could provide 7,047 households with solar electricity produced for a year 65 students could have their loan debt canceled or we could provide 2,152,612 and 95 respirator masks for our community as we suffer through fires so as a jewish constituent i cannot explain how humiliating and disempowering and anti-semitic it is to have my relatives as experiences having endured genocide be co-opted by israel so they can justify and perpetuate the very same violence on to another people we are all complicit in this genocide as we allow our tax dollars to be sent outside of our community and into israel's pockets in november we remember thank you thank you speaker on the west podium go ahead hi my name is javi lopez we the constituents of santa rosa and sonoma county california are here to demand that the city of santa rosa join the cities of richmond and ogland to pass a resolution affirming the city of santa rosa's solidarity with the palestine people and a copper and immediate ceasefire to israeli violence we condemn the the violence occurring in the occupied territories of palestine where palestinians have and continue to endure the cruelty of punishment imposed by the israeli forces we condemn the mass murder of palestinian children families and generations of people we condemned with holding and limiting humanitarian aid we condemned the us ambassadors beatos to the united nations california ceasefire we condemned the complacency to our local statewide and federal leadership to call for an end to the cultural genocide and ethnic cleansing of the palestinian people we grieve that our tax dollars are funding the escalation of violence we grieve the potential of said funds that could be contributed to the development of our community's health care and education system we condemned the violence the silence to the matter we sonoma county constituents and residents of the city of santa rosa demand that our public officials take action thank you thank you on the east lectern please go ahead i'm i'm gary huntsman can you hear me all right yes thank you go ahead yes uh i too uh would like to uh have a ceasefire put on your calendar if you would do that when uh when one of us is faced with a situation where a decision can save lives of innocent people caught up in conditions not of their making it's imperative that we choose to support these less fortunate whether or not the action that we take is popular or is irrelevant the people concerned will die if we fail to act on their behalf we on the other hand will live on but with a tarnish character and what an opportunity we have thrown away we can help save some lives i'm surprised that the unnecessary killing of so many children has not pulled on everyone's heartstrings like it has mine leading to a ceasefire thank you thank you speaker on the west hi my name is test caldwell and i have been a resident of the city of santa rosa my entire life i am the granddaughter of a nazi holocaust survivor and it is because of the stories my grandmother and my grandfather taught me about his pain and his struggle his torture for saving and standing up for persecuted jewish peoples in denmark while it was occupied by the germans what i am seeing today in palestine is the same stories my grandmother shared with me and i am here speaking today to each of you because i have tried to speak to my representatives on the federal level the state level and we are here at the local level because too many are refusing to act today this afternoon while you were in this session the un general assembly voted 153 two in favor of a ceasefire the un has said that we must see a ceasefire but the bombardment continues so i am asking on you my local representatives here in the city of santa rosa to join the un and call for a ceasefire i would like to remind you that california knows genocide within the first 20 years after the state of california was founded roughly 9 000 to 16 000 indigenous peoples were systematically murdered by the state it is people who sat in seats like yours 200 years ago who okayed that systematic genocide of the indigenous peoples of this land i see on the wall over there there is a poster that says the valley of the moon this is a indigenous word sonoma is an indigenous word we live on indigenous land a land that has been massacred by the by the desires of white christians who wish who wish to eradicate the life ways of other people please call for a ceasefire thank you speaker on the east lectern please go ahead hi my name is jane lawon i want to appeal to you first as human beings in the first few days after the bombing of gaza began i felt as if i lived in france or belgium in the period when the nazis started exterminating jews and i was a bystander i was doing nothing to stop it but here the situation is even worse as far as our responsibility goes because we are paying for it we are financing the bombing of gaza and that i hope that like many people standing up here keeps you awake at night the pictures of the men and women holding their dead children they should not be dying it makes no sense um the i'm here speaking on behalf of the people of santa rosa who want desperately to stop this deliberate mass slaughter of palestinians we have tried which is paid for by our taxes we have tried to get our elected representatives to support a ceasefire to no avail we've made hundreds of calls we've sent hundreds of emails to congressional representatives to our two senators and to the white house all falling on deaf ears we are asking you to put a ceasefire resolution on your agenda as the local government entity that represents us and has also happened recently i'm sure you're aware in oakland and hayward they passed ceasefire resolutions also in seattle atlanta and detroit adopting a ceasefire resolution also would have a positive impact on the democratic process which this ongoing horrific war has put in such jeopardy right now there are places in the country where if you express a criticism of israel you receive death threats this is not the country we want this is not the city we want to live in please put a ceasefire resolution on your agenda thank you thank you next speaker on the west side hello my name is ronnie madlopes basan and i'll be reading a proposal for a resolution the city of santa rosa support for solidarity with palestine people to stop the genocide occurring in the occupied territories of the west bank in gaza whereas the city of santa rosa stands in solidarity with the palestinian people of gaza and the west bank who are currently facing a campaign of cultural genocide and ethnic cleansing enduring the violent collective punishment by the state of israel and whereas collective punishment is considered a war crime under international law and refers to a form of sanction imposed on persons or group of persons in response to a crime committed by one of them or a member of the group whereas the settler state of israel is engaging in collective punishment against the palestinian people in gaza and the west bank as a response to hamas attacks on israel and whereas sorry and whereas the collective punishment of the palestine people includes shutting off all axes of electricity drinking water food and humanitarian aid and whereas the un has stated that the palestinians in gaza are according to the world food program are at risk of starvation and famine while health care is collapsing whereas ethnic cleansing refers to the creation of ethnically homogenous geographic area throughout the elimination of unwanted ethnic groups by deportation force display force displacement or genocide whereas israel is now engaged in an entire ethnic cleansing campaign by explicitly require two million palestinians to leave occupied lands of palestine or suffer the cruelty of being bombed kidnapped or executed by the israeli occupation forces now therefore be resolved that the city of santa rosa takes seriously the entry of never again and that historical memory of the holocaust means fighting ethnic cleansing our apartheid everywhere and be it further resolved that the city of santa rosa vows to combat antisemitism ethno nationalism in in all of its forms finally it be resolved that the city of santa rosa advocates for the dignity and safety of residents in every community regardless of what crimes its leadership may commit and that peaceful the diplomacy is the only way to achieve this safety and dignity thank you thank you speaker on the east podium please go ahead hello my name is rachel marcus and i am a resident of santa rosa and i am jewish i am here today because of my jewish values and i am here today to say that never again means never again for anyone um we are a multiracial group of people called sonoma county for palestine and we are urging the santa rosa city council to adopt a resolution at the next city council meeting to call for an urgent ceasefire in gaza members of our group have helped to draft resolutions for other city councils in sonoma county and we would be happy to share this language with you and folks have shared kind of some similar language and other cities in our region and across the country we urge santa rosa to take a similar stance as cities such as richmond oakland and san francisco and affirm the city's values for supporting the sanctity of life urging humanitarian aid and uh standing up and asserting an end to the mass murder of innocent innocent people especially children as of today more than 18 000 palestinians have been killed over 7 000 of those are children 80 percent 80 percent of people in gaza have been displaced from their homes while we just deplore the loss of life as a result of hamasa's attack on october 7th israel's current and ongoing war on gaza is one of the most horrific extreme rates of death in our lifetimes furthermore israel has denied people in gaza the basic access to the most basic things such as health care food and water israel has destroyed hospitals in gaza and has severely restricted access uh to to basically everything necessary for life israel has bombed civilians as they've been fleeting their fleeing their homes our government and our tax dollars are complicit in this um as people have said think about the resources that could be going into our local communities so we we call on the city of santa rosa to stand on the side of life and peace and to stand on the right side of history thank you thank you speaker on the west lectern hello my name is marie v mendoza um i'm here to ask my city council members you right up there um to apply pressure on our congress people for a permanent ceasefire resolution or draft one up yourselves um i've been calling my congressman mike thompson um as so many of us here in this room and so many santa rosa residents um asking more so begging for support of a permanent ceasefire resolution and to ban further aid to israel i additionally want to say that history did not begin october 7th of 2023 there is the 1948 nebaka uh i don't have a lot of time to talk about it so you can look it up but 15 000 people palestinian people were killed and many were displaced um in 2023 alone um in gaza alone over 21 000 palestinians have been killed about 9 400 of those palestinians are children and those 9 400 palestinian children have been killed since october 7th that is nine weeks almost 10 000 children have been killed by israeli airstrikes additionally i want to say that i personally have seen a young girl carried by her father hit by an israeli airstrike her father was carrying her when he put her down i saw her intestines fall out of her stomach and i've seen a lot more on my social media timelines and it doesn't get media attention i'm sorry for getting emotional um i paid for the bomb that ma that maimed her i did my dad did he's worked his entire life and we paid for it with our tax money and it keeps me up at night i wanted to share a poem by the palestinian poet rafi alir but i don't have enough time please look up his work thank you speaker on the east lectern please go ahead greetings i um my name is in hilly and i'm a great mother over two i vote from district five and my city council member is mr chris rosas and i sometimes sends you email about our city you know poor bus service and um playgrounds and i can i appreciate the anomalies uh are getting less and outstreet and i'm from south korea and where there is sezu city and the sister city of santa rosa and i'm proud of that and i'm here today asking city council to make a uh resolution and stand with the people in palace palestinia and this this is how we can make santa rosa our village stands up because you stand up with our values that is peace living humanitarian and uh compassion you are in politics because you can hear you want to hear cries of the people in distress in trouble and you want to help them and this is time i want you all stand up help people in palestine they are crying they are dying and if this is not our city uh you know my loving village santa rosa who else will please stand up please make me proud proud santa rosa well by making resolution for ceasefire now in palestine please i beg of you free palestine thank you speaker on the west lectern please go ahead hi my name is Giovanni Contreras i was born and raised here in santa rosa i'm asking for the adoption of a ceasefire resolution we have been pressuring our congress representatives on all levels to push for a ceasefire but we have not been representative two-thirds of voters want a ceasefire and we are just asking for the bare minimum just a ceasefire please they are not listening to us we do not want to fund the violence and the killing of palestinian families with our tax dollars thank you thank you speaker on the east lectern please go ahead i'm just an average citizen an 87-year-old woman who has seen the folly of war war doesn't solve anything daily i watch tv and i see primarily women and children being killed if we need a ceasefire we need something that will benefit the jewish people and the palestinian people so i urge you to to have a ceasefire thank you thank you speaker on the west podium please go ahead hi my name is michael i'm asking you to support a resolution to stop continued genocide and occupation of gaza our legislators huffman thompson are either too cowardly or too callous to support such a resolution and we're seeing a campaign of silencing and demonization of those who are speaking the truth about what's happening there the deaths of palestinian children which number almost 8000 now mass majority displacement of palestinians and gaza from their home and we won't even support a ceasefire language that actually blames both sides for the violence we won't even support a ceasefire much less acknowledge apartheid or genocide in israel and the reason the other reason i come here is because i feel that there's a continuity between our everyday city life and the way that our foreign policy is handled and the atrocities that were complicit with we committed our own atrocities here in california atrocities that there haven't been reparations for we haven't given the land back we haven't owned up to anything we continue our business as usual and the business isn't pretty i do a lot with unsheltered folks as many of you know and to see you know a group of unsheltered folks that are disproportionately black and native being forced off of land and that land then which has just happened a few weeks ago that land then being filled with rocks to prevent them from coming back caltrans doesn't even need that land nobody needs that land they just don't want people to be there this is an attempt to push people out there's no placements available for people some people have been on a wait list and what they're getting is daily harassment by the police throwing away their belongings and putting them in a such a worse position than they already were that it thank you speaker from the east lectern please go ahead hi my name is sarah and i'm here in support for a proposal in resolution to cease fire i too am in support of safe parking to give you know people the opportunity to grow and to get themselves to the next position to where they're more functionable and able to be members of society thank you thank you speaker from the west lectern please go ahead hello and no disrespect but i you know a lot of you guys see more so i hope you give us the kind of focus that you were giving everyone earlier because it seems like some of you guys aren't with us i'm here because i'd like you guys to adopt a cease fire and put that on the bill for next time's meeting sorry i'm so nervous i've never honestly been so heartbroken my life to see so much pain suffering and unnecessary violence and remade sorry to made a part of that with my tax dollars to be forced to see people harmed maimed families displaced it is utterly barbaric and i'm hoping that in the future you guys will put more time and put more time and care into these issues i've reached out to my representative mike thompson not only has he had no such care to respond with any urgency but it seems like he doesn't care at all i hope that you guys do and that you can be the voice of the community that are coming for you coming forth for you today because we need help they need help what's happening in palestine is absolute atrocity it's already happened once before in history and the fact that we're letting it happen again is utterly atrocious we deserve better than this they deserve better than this and i don't want to be involved with deaths lives the murder of millions of children it makes me sick inside makes me sick inside to see that people here today and people who are out in the streets are pretending that nothing is wrong when there is nothing good in the world happening right now we're closing our eyes but our heads in the sand and that is not the way to live i hope that when you go home you have conversations with your loved ones and people you know that aren't caring about this that aren't putting themselves forward to feel that communal pain and trauma it's important that we all put ourselves out there to interwind in this community and become one when things are hitting an absolute low and that's where we are right now a complete psychogenicide we're living in war all over again and it doesn't make any sense this violence needs to stop we need to ceasefire with calisthenum we need the murders to end thank you thank you speaker on the east lectern please go ahead my name is tom lopena and i'm here to speak about the emails that the council has received in past months from the members of the santa rosa manufactured home association i know those emails expressed thanks for your past actions first the revising of the rent control audience and second the work that the council and staff had to do when it was pointed out that five parks were left out of the revised rco but you listened and you got the job done megan bassinger and her team and housing and community service did a great outstanding job updating the information on the city website in spanish and english and even added a rent increase calculator several emails to the council i'm sure were also asking for zoning overlay protection for our senior parks as well as a reduction in the in place transfer percentage i have spoken to you before on both of these issues in september and in november since last thursday i have spoken with three council members personally and have emailed all of you recently about the zoning overlay protection that is needed to keep all of our homes affordable at the last council meeting of the year i wanted to wish you all a merry christmas and a happy new year and let you know that the sr moa will continue to reach out to you and you all know my motto i will never give up the sr moa will come before you in the new year thank you speaker from the west lectern please go ahead hello my name is danielle d angelo um i am a small business owner in santa rosa in a lifetime californian um nothing has activated me more politically than witnessing from a distance the devastating loss of life in gaza it is for this reason i'm urging our county to adopt a permanent ceasefire resolution in response to the crisis in gaza our tax dollars should be put to work with our best interests in mind should be employed to make improvements on a local level our representatives have not responded appropriately or with any level of seriousness to our relentless calls for a permanent ceasefire i ask how many more innocent lives how many more children need to be killed and separated from their families before you take this matter with seriousness i have very little political activity under my belt i've i've been politically kind of unaware and i represent an entire community of people that have started to meet and talk about what we can do to impact change on our local government levels because we're seeing the apathy repeat itself with our city with our state with our federal representatives and i like my friend lee here feel physically ill um i wake up with a tight chest every morning thinking about wondering how many more people have been added to the death toll in gaza um i ask that as human beings you are are you make an effort to associate with your empathy to um put yourself in their shoes to imagine yourselves in their position this has been going on since long before october 7th and i hope that you do your due diligence and speak up on behalf of a permanent ceasefire resolution thank you speaker from the east lectern please go ahead hi my name is julie rachana chasin i didn't come prepared to speak today but i feel i must do so now i'm also jewish and i am involved in all three synagogues in our community and i know that there is a lot of support for a ceasefire within our jewish community here i also have really really high hopes about this city council i know a lot of your stories and i've watched a lot of you and i really believe that so many of you are really committed to social justice and are taking your role are on the city council now because you want to be of good in the world in our community and in our in our society and world so i am imploring you to take this step and put an agenda item calling for a ceasefire in the middle east i want to say um as a jewish person i've never felt like there was anything more important in my entire life to do than to advocate for a ceasefire and to do everything in my life in my possible capacity to stop this horrific horrific nightmare uh no genocide never again means never for anyone please please i also beg you to consider this and to put this on on an agenda item and let our community voice our care for the children and the people of palestine and israel it's not a us or a them issue it's a people issue it's a survival issue we will all be safer when there is less mass murder and atrocities please take our words seriously thank you thank you speaker from the west lectern please go ahead may i use the overhead please certainly dear council members in mere i rise in support of a resolution to end and to create a ceasefire and the war and create a ceasefire in gaza and i'm speaking about herna avenue as an environmental justice and gaza reference point my family i've mentioned before is is russia and my mother's side is rubinan i'm a historian and anthropologist the rubinan is rubin the lost tribe of israel rubin the russians covered it with the largest reservoir in the world called the ribbon sky reservoir five times larger than the three gorgeous dam i was told recently that i needed to present statistics to you to justify my claim that herna avenue needs a new design because it's gaza and these are the statistics that i showed you but i already showed you statistics the claim was a crash statistics were what was necessary crash statistics support traffic signal warrants not capacity design i showed you the capacity there's seven crossings stole three crossings of one-on-one these this road acts as a as a wall around gaza so there'd be if you do this 66 increase in lanes and 33 percent increase by this design of crossings and and um and lanes so i'm here to support the poignant statistics of rosalina's gaza but the relevant gaza statistics are 85 percent of the 2.3 million people have been displaced that's two million homeless the disaster is yet to come there's 20 000 dead that's over 500 a day we lost a million we lost a hundred that thank you speaker from the east lectern are there any more speakers on non-agenda matters may or i see no additional public comments on non-agenda matters thank you that is our last item um for this meeting but before we adjourn i would like to thank our wonderful employees volunteers and community members that make santa rosa such a beautiful place to live happy holidays to everyone from the city council and now all this meeting is adjourned