 Vice Chair Fennell, if you'd like to do an audio and video check for me, please. Hi. Great. Thank you so much. Ms. Montoya, do we have enough board members that we could go ahead and start the meeting? Yes, we do. Okay. With that, if the board members could go ahead and turn the cameras on. Okay, I'd like to welcome all board members to the City of Santa Rosa Cultural Heritage Board September 1, 2021 meeting. I'd also like to welcome city staff and if there's any members of the public present as well. At this time, Ms. Montoya, could we call the meeting to order and have a roll call? Yes, thank you. Let the record reflect that all board members are present with the exception of board member Garrett and we have one vacancy. Okay, thank you very much. And I know board member Garrett will be joining us shortly. We had a little change in plans, as many of you know, the not meeting in the chamber today, so she didn't get the message. And so she's heading back home and she'll be signing in with us as soon as she gets there. So with that, I'd like to read a statement regarding our activities with due to COVID, due to the provisions of the governor's executive orders in June 25, 2020 and in 2920, which the spend certain requirements of the Brown Act and the order of the health officer of the county of Sonoma to shelter in place to minimize the spread of COVID-19. The cultural heritage board is conducting today's meeting in a virtual setting using zoom webinar board members and their staff are participating from remote locations and or practicing appropriate social distancing. Members of the public may view and listen to the meeting as noted on the city's website and as noted on the agenda. Members of the public wishing to speak during item three public comment or during our public hearing items will be able to do so by raising their hand and will be given the ability to address the board. Okay, moving on to item two approval of the minutes. I don't believe we have any published minutes to approve at this time. Am I correct for that, Miss Murray? I'm so sorry I was doing some logistics here. Can you re ask the question there? Well, I, yeah, I, I don't believe we have the minutes from our last meeting to approve. I just wanted to confirm that. That's correct. Okay, so moving on to public three public comments, item three public comments. We're now open public comment for any item not included in the meeting's agenda. If you wish to make a comment via zoom, please select the raise hand button. If you are dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. Each speaker has three minutes. The countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and viewers. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of the countdown. Miss Montoya, do we have any members of the public signed in and wishing to speak during public comment? We do not have any members of the public at this time. Okay, so with that, I'm going to close the public comment item. Item for board business. Let me first read our statement of purpose. The cultural heritage board shall consider the following matters standards guidelines and criteria to the extent applicable in determining whether to grant or deny a permit. The proposed change is consistent or incompatible with the architectural period of the building, whether post change is compatible with any adjacent or nearby landmark structures or preservation district structures, whether the color, textures, materials, concentrations, decorative features and details proposed are consistent with the period and or are compatible with the adjacent structures. Whether the proposed change destroys or adversely affects an important architectural feature or features. The secretary of the interior standards for rehabilitation and guidelines for rehabilitating historic buildings. Such other matters, criterion standards may be adopted by resolution of the cultural heritage board. Okay, with that being said, I'd like to ask if any of our board members have any board member reports that they'd like to make at this time and if so, if you could raise your hand. I just wanted to let y'all know that I met with Nick Abbott, who was representing 320 college Avenue. He just gave me a tour of the space and talked about the plans that are going to be coming up in front of the cultural heritage board he hopes in September or in the fall. So I'd like to ask if any of our board members have any questions or comments from the board members before us, board member Warren. I also met with Nick Abbott. I understood that it would that he will be going before the design review review board first. So I don't know if I misunderstood that or not. I'm going to go first and then it'll be coming before the cultural heritage board. And the goal is that both of those meetings take place by the end of the year. Thank you, board member Warren. Any other board member reports. Okay, not saying any move on to board member. I also met with Nick Abbott. Moving on then to item six, statement of abstentions. Do any board members have any statement of abstentions or the agenda today? Chair Muser, could we go back to item five department reports, please? Yeah, we sure could. I guess I skipped over item five. So item five Susie department reports. Okay, let's see. First, as Brian, I'm sorry, as Chair Muser, I got too casual here, mentioned early on in the meeting, we're back to our regular Zoom meetings. We were trying to get board members as well as staff into the chamber and get acclimated to the new environment for the upcoming hybrid meetings, but we're not there yet. So we ran into some little snafus today. So I want to say thank you for all the board members that did come down or planned to come down to the chamber. I appreciate your last minute flexibility very much. So yay. I also wanted to let you know that we have successfully started all the three boards, Planning Commission, Cultural Heritage Board, Design Review Board. We're all on the same 430 schedule, which it makes it so much easier for noticing and whatnot. So again, thank you board members for your flexibility. It's very much appreciated. I want to let you know too that our advanced planning team has been very, very active. You know, we've got our general plan underway. We have just started the process of integrating the climate action plan into the general plan update, which is very exciting. Also, we have the short-term rental policy going before the, it's an urgency ordinance going before the City Council in October. So I'm going to encourage people if you have an opportunity just to look at the City Council agendas. There's a lot of stuff that may be of interest to you guys. Certainly it is to me, but I have a vested interest in my job every day. So, but I would encourage you to just kind of stay tuned for some of the fun stuff coming up because it's really, really good, I think. And I think that probably concludes my board reports. So yeah, move on to item six. Okay, thank you, liaison Murray. Sorry for forgetting you. And I do want to welcome board member Garrett. Sorry for the confusion that caused your delay today, but glad you were able to rush home and join us. Okay. And I'll just jump back to item, we're on item six statement of abstentions. If anybody has any essential, oh, and board member Garrett, since we're on, we'll jump back actually to item number four, board business. In case you have any board member reports that you'd like to make at this time. I don't. Thank you, Chair Muser. Okay, very good. And so item six statement of abstentions, any statement? Okay, saying none. We're going to move on to kind of our items for today. And staff has requested that item 7.1 be moved to the end. So we're going to do I'm going to go ahead and do that I'm going to reorder the agenda and move 7.1 to the end. So with that, we're going to start at 7.1 was the study session the free part Fremont Park master plan. So we'll start with 7.2, which is the us getting a review of Rosenberg's rules and conflict training. So this is Ashley Crocker assistant city attorney is going to be making that presentation. So this time if I can I'm going to hand this over to Ashley. Okay. Thank you very much. I hope you can all hear me okay I was looking forward to meeting you in person that maybe at the next meeting I've met some of you. I'm Ashley Crocker assistant city attorney. I work with the planning and economic development department, and we'll sometimes be sitting with your board upon request so we're going to cover a very exciting topic today of Rosenberg rules and conflicts of interest. I think it's kind of hard on zoom but if you have a question and would like to get an address right then and there. Go ahead and raise your hand otherwise there are, there's an opportunity for questions at the end of each section. Some of this is going to be repeat so I'll try to, you know, move through it rather quickly I know you've had some prior trainings. Some of these, you know, if you've heard it before. Sorry, but it doesn't hurt to probably hear it again and this is going to be a summary overview to the extent you have, you know, if you want to go in more detail on any of these issues with me you're always free to contact me. You can email me you can always reach me through Susie as well so, and I think Susie is going to help me with the slides so if you can please advance the slide. All right. So when we talk about Rosenberg rules first. Basically these are just the rules of order for for your meeting to try to establish order and I think it's probably debatable whether these are user friendly but we're going to try and make them user friendly. We followed some of the Roberts rules in the past and I do think that the Rosenberg rules are a bit more straightforward so that's what all of the city boards and commissions use at this time. Next slide please. You have to have a quorum required to conduct your business. You do have to be present for the entire item I. One of the first meetings I went to a planning commission I recall a commissioner came in about halfway through the item and then was hoping to vote but that commissioner wasn't there to hear the item. She was not allowed to to vote on that. You can lose a quorum during the meeting if someone departs or leaves. So that doesn't happen if it does generally then the chair will just adjourn the meeting to the next scheduled meeting because no additional business can take place. So the chair can just move on and adjourn slightly. And this should be old hat to to most of you this is just the procedure that we're working through is the meeting today. I don't really called staff report applicant presentation if there is one we don't always have an applicant presentation. But if so you'll hear it then and then questions at this time, you can ask for clarifying questions of staff or the applicant. And then we would move into the chair opening public comment. And we typically have a three minute time limit for speakers although that can be adjusted at the chair's discretion. Next slide please. Then you'll have your motion we're going to go into motions a little bit more in detail but basically you'll make your motion to approve denier continue and then look for a second. The chair should at that point summarize the motion. So we had a motion to approve the resolution blah, blah, blah, made by board member so and so seconded by board member so and so. And then you can actively then you would make a. That's not on here. You would then read the resolution, and that would open the discussion. So I would move to adopt such and such resolution. And at that point that invites the discussion amongst your board members. That's also a time sometimes it comes up if if members of the public have asked questions you know you can't engage in a back and forth with them during the meeting but during the discussion time that can be a time. If someone from the public had posed an issue that you'd like to hear more about you could at that time ask staff for some clarification on that issue if you like. Then there would be a vote and the chair, then sometimes the secretary, but usually the chair then announces the result of the vote. Next slide please. We tend to live in a universe with not very many different types of motions I've just put some of the main ones on here. There are a host of additional motions that we usually just do the basic motion. I move to adopt the resolution to approve whatever project. And then you get a second. Sometimes we'll see motions to amend. And then certainly we'll see friendly amendments which I address on the next slide. I've not really had anyone try a substitute motion, but you can do that motion to continue. We'll be using that one quite a bit and that can happen either at the outset of the meeting if you might get a request from staff or from the applicant saying hey I'd really like to continue this. That may just be before you hear the item you would make a motion to continue, or it can also happen later on, you know, after you've had discussion you've had public comment and maybe you need some additional information or an issue that's come up. You just need to hear more about that. You can then make a motion to continue. If you continue to date certain, then we don't have to do additional noticing. You can't always come up with a date certain so that a date uncertain is also fine. And then the item would just be noticed again. Next slide please. Friendly amendments. These tend to be my favorite and ones that seem to be a favorite of most of our boards and commissions. In fact, I remember one time at the planning commission, I think we had four or five different friendly amendments going on at the same time and somebody was just kind of laughing that we're really friendly group so that tends to be the best way I think to to move to move along fairly would suggest a friendly amendment and then the maker of the original motion and the second would agree and then that becomes your new motion on the floor. Next slide please. You can also withdraw a motion at any time so discussion gets going and you think the better of the motion that you made. Just go ahead and and you can interrupt and withdraw your motion. Next slide please. You may have multiple motions if you've got your first motion and then maybe there's some discussion and you get a friendly amendment or a motion to amend. Then you may have multiple motions on the table if you will, then at that point what you do is you just start with the most recent second or third, the most recent motion on the table. You vote on that one first. And if that one passes, then that's your motion and you don't vote on the other initial or second motions. Next slide please. You have to have a majority of the entire body. I believe that also you guys have if for legislative items you have or variances. I don't. I don't know if you don't hear variances but for legislative items it requires four votes all other items, which generally you're seeing would just be a majority vote. If there's a tie the motion fails. Next slide please. Okay. And that's Rosenberg's rules in a nutshell. Next we're going to move on to conflicts of interest but if anyone wants to talk about Rosenberg's. It might be easier to do it now than to wait until the end. And if there are no questions that's fine. I know you guys have been doing these these meetings and moving through these fairly well so I don't see any hands. All right, Susie should we move on to conflicts. Well, am I allowed to ask a question. I guess so. I have a question what's the difference between a friendly amendment and a motion to amend. It's, it's really just a more informal procedure instead of having to then say I make a motion to amend and then to get a second. It's, it's basically achieves the same thing, but it's a little more casual and friendly. If you've got a friendly amendment. If you don't get the person who made the first or the second to agree, then typically what would happen is then you would say okay then I make a motion to amend. Then you make your new motion and then you just get a second for that. So, it's a way to just, I think, fiddle with or tweak the motion a little bit, if you will, and it's just more in the course of conversation that we're all on the same page and we just really want to make sure that we have the same adjustment, but it has the same effect. Thank you. All right, next slide please. All right, so conflicts of interest and this is really just going to be a pretty high level summary, I will say, like the FPC rules on the conflicts of interest are voluminous. And the case law is also very robust. This is just some highlights of things that I would like for you to be aware of as items come before you. And I think that these will be some of the more common issues that we deal with on board. That said, I'm available to assist with conflicts if anything comes up and you've got an item coming before you and you think even maybe you might have a conflict and you want to have a sounding board and run it by me. And also we can call or email me and at the end of this presentation, I'll also give you the contact information for the Fair Political Practices Commission. There are wonderful resources as well. So, next slide please. We're just going to touch on the political reform act, which is financial conflicts government code 1090, which is contractual conflicts, and then common law conflicts which is really just do I have a personal bias, or even an economic bias that would preclude me from providing a fair and reasonable vote on the matter so. Next slide please, we're going to go into those in detail that's just to highlight of what's coming. Basically, under the political reform act these are financial conflicts so you'll have a conflict if it's foreseeable that the decision will have a material impact on your financial interest. There are some limited exceptions. We don't generally see those although I will say for the CHP we've had a couple of occasions where we did have to explore the potential of going ahead with the legally required to participate exception so if you are not able to reach a quorum basically because too many people are conflicted out. We've got a random selection process where we basically put names in a hat and can draw you out so at that point a member who did have a conflict could still be legally required to participate. Hopefully that is not going to happen, but we do have a process in the event that it does. Next slide please. As I said the FPPC regulations really only apply to financial conflicts of interest, and I'm going to go into that in the next slide please. All right, so these are the questions that I get most often, you know, do I have a financial conflict do I have to recuse myself from the matter that's before my board. I basically have a financial interest if you receive $500 more from an individual entity within 12 months prior to the decision. So if that source of income is a party to or a subject of the decision, or if the source of income will be affected by the decision, then there's a conflict. Similarly business investments, if you've invested $2,000 or more into a business entity, that could be a conflict. So if that entity again is a party to or the subject of the decision before you, there's a financial conflict. Next slide please. This is probably the most common conflict that comes up. So if you basically, if you, it's usually comes up with if you own a home, and it is close to the subject property for the decision that you'll be making, then you may have a conflict. And the general rule is if you're located within 500 feet of the project at issue, then you're presumed to have a financial conflict within a 500 to 1000 feet, that gets a little, you know, more fuzzy there are additional factors to consider that we would go through and that would be a fact specific determination. If you're over 1000 feet, it's generally considered that you don't have a conflict. I mean, unless I believe the language is something like if a reasonably prudent person would believe that your decision would influence the market value of your property. But generally, 500, you're conflicted 500 to 1000 let's talk over 1000 generally good to go. So it does not apply to, if you're leasing a property a month to month lease but it can apply if you've got a long term lease. Financial conflicts can also arise from if you have received, or even if you've been promised a gift worth over $500 from an individual or entity within 12 months prior to the decision. So again, if the source of the gift is a party to a subject of the decision, or the source of the gift will be affected by the decision, then there's a conflict. And then just generally will your action on the decision affect your personal income or assets. Next slide please. And to this one comes up quite a bit as well I get a lot of questions on on the common law conflict of interest so this is basically premised on the right to a fair and unbiased hearing with unbiased decision makers. You don't want to have a personal interest in the decisions outcome, or perhaps there's an applicant that you just really feel that you can't give an impartial hearing. Maybe you receive some additional information that just you think precludes you from having an open mind. It can also even arise if there's an appearance of impropriety so you may feel that you know you don't have a bias but there are some instances where the public generally looking at the situation would feel strongly that you probably are bias in this in this matter. Next slide please. Again just recognizing if you have a personal interest or a bias. As I was just noting I'll give you a couple of examples. And these are not Santa Rosa examples these are just from some cases that I looked up. There was a city council member that was found to be biased against an applicant who proposed a residential project that would block the council members view from his rented apartment. His interest in protecting his view there was not a financial interest but he had a common law conflict that resulted in a denial of due process to the applicant in that case because he was more focused on protecting his view and was biased towards having a denial vote. Another one planning commissioner had anonymously authored an article that was very critical of a developers project. I think that one was like he was a part of a neighborhood committee or something and had authored this article and then later participated in the project review hearing and voted to deny. In that case authoring that article, the court found precluded the commissioner from serving as a reasonable and impartial reviewer as he had already basically predetermined how he felt about that project. Next slide please. There are lots of potential consequences so we always want to take this very seriously depending on the violation penalties fees prosecution loss of your appointment and having to also go back and set aside the decision. Next slide please. So when you do realize that you have a conflict of interest. Please let us know as soon as possible. And when you arrive at the hearing, you must publicly identify the financial interest and give, you know, as much detail as you can. It has to be a sufficient amount of detail to be understood by the public as to what the conflict is. There's been some recent updates to FBC rules on that is what they were finding was people were just, you know, basically saying I have a conflict and not disclosing what that might be so you would probably say something more along the lines of going to be recusing from this project because I own property that's within 500 feet of the proposed project that we're reviewing this evening. Next slide please. And at that point you will leave the usually you get up and exit the room I guess if we're in zoom you leave the zoom meeting until after that matter is concluded. So on zoom someone would let you know you could come back in when we used to be in chambers. You would go into the mayor's conference room where you could watch on the screen and come back when that matter had concluded. Here's where you can call me and or email me if you have anything that you think may be a conflict, and we can work through it these are all very fact specific. Aside from the 500, you know, foot rule I mean some of these things just. Sorry, I was just getting a text. They're definitely okay back to what I was doing. You can always call me Susan get in touch with me or I will give you my email is a crocker at srcity.org. And for fpbc advice, I can make the call for you if you like. Well, here's the number if you want to call. They're very helpful. They often just will give you the same day advice if you call I believe it has to be before 11 o'clock or one o'clock. You can run the question by them. Also, if that's not satisfactory, we can email the advice line and I do those, you know, quite often where we can then get an fpbc attorney to weigh in. The advice from the city attorney does not protect you from potential fpbc violations. So I do recommend that if, you know, if, if you don't feel comfortable, seek out the advice of the ppc. You know, if you're just not sure, probably the best course of action considering the severity of fines and penalties is to go ahead and recuse, but we can work through these things together and, and I'm happy to do that so. Next slide please. Government Code 1090. This basically you just can't have a financial interest in any contract made by your agency. And it invalidates the contract and has some very serious penalties. So make sure that's probably not coming your way, but just to keep that in mind. That's an absolute no no. Next slide please. And there's that dog again. That concludes the presentation on conflicts. Thanks. So that's nicer when I can see everybody. I can't see anybody when the slides are up. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This crowd. Well, if you think of something later, you know, please feel free to reach out. You can always find me and Susie always knows where I am. And so you're welcome to, to give me a call. So thank you for your time and for your service. And I hope to meet you all. In person soon. So I know when, when I came on the board and I disclosed properties that I owned in Santa Rosa, the city staff gave me a nice map with this big circle around it, which represented 500 feet from that property. it just kind of made it visually easier for me, especially living in well having properties in two historic neighborhoods to visually know based on that circle, you know, and I know that's not the only criteria, but at least proximity wise. So I'm just asking the new board members, have you received anything like that? You can just raise your hand. I know that map that you're speaking of, and it usually was as a part of the disclosure packet up front. We're asking for recusals and it would have the property identified with the circle and then typically there would be the applicant names and the names of the consultants and anyone working on the project to determine if you had a relationship with any of those persons that would rise to the level of a conflict. Susie, do they get those here? I know they're getting the the list of the disclosure form that has the list of anybody associated with the project. I'm not sure and I've just made a note to myself to follow up on whether or not that that 500 foot map is going out to or along with it and I will verify it. I may have an answer in just a couple of minutes actually. Thank you. Yeah, it may not be, you know, as it was, I thought it was beneficial. So, you know, I just wanted to bring bring that up. Any other any other comments or questions for Ms. Crocker? All right, I guess I'll sign off here, but I'll hang around for Susie's next item as well. Okay, well, again, I want to thank you, Ms. Crocker and and hope to see you again sometime in the future. At this time, I'd like to open public comment period. Ms. Montoya, do we do we have any members of the public that have signed in? I do not see any members of the public at this time. Okay, so for item 7.2, I will then close public comment and we'll go ahead and move on to item 7.3, which is a report item, introducing the proposed Cultural Heritage Board procedures, rules and regulations which will supersede the existing rules and regulations. And our staff liaison, staff liaison, Susie Murray will be making this presentation. So, take it away, Ms. Murray. So, I'm not quite sure what the easiest way is to go about this. We included in the packet a memo from staff explaining what the two attachments were. We have a proposed procedures, rules and regulations that's required by the zoning code chapter 2058. And then we have an old version that there were some you guys could have done a kind of a review. I don't think that side-by-side review is actually necessary. I think just making sure there's clarity on those the proposed procedures, regulations and rules, I guess it's called. And so, I'm happy to answer questions. There was one question that was presented to me and it had to do with the statement of purpose. And we're still researching that statement of purpose. There was a statement of purpose that rolled over from the last section or from the last version of the rules and regulations that we're not quite sure where that came from. So, before replacing it, want to understand where it came from. So, I don't know if that was at the council's direction or what. So, be patient and we are digging at this point. What I can say is that there are sections in both. Well, there's two sections in the city code, the chapter 2058. It's part of the zoning code as well as another chapter in our environmental. The title 17, which is the environmental title of the city code. And both of them have a statement of purpose for those sections, but they are not necessarily the statement of purpose for the procedures, regulations and rules. So, I know it sounds like perhaps a fine detail, but I will get back to you. I haven't let go of that yet. So, be patient. If we do need to change that, we can. This is a process. It's supposed to be updated annually. We're getting on track right now, and I think it's no harm done right now if we leave it as is and need to come back and resolve it. So, with that, if there are any other questions, and I'm happy to ask for some assistance from my partners down here in the chamber, if I need to pull the document up on the screen so we can review it together. Okay. Before I turn this over to the board members for questions, I'd like to open up public comment on this item. And Ms. Montoya, did we have any of the public sign in? I am still showing no members of the public or president. Okay. So, I'm going to close the public comment period. And board members, do you have any questions on this item for Ms. Murray or general discussion? I guess we can go ahead and just have any general discussion as well. Board member Pratt sell us. So, I did do the side by side just because either wise, I was like, I couldn't figure out what had changed between the two documents. And I guess one thing I noticed that changed, which I thought was a nice addition was the addition of an annual review study session. Maybe that was in the original one, but I don't think so. I think that's a new thing. So, well, that was a good addition. The other thing I was wondering about the statement of purpose. So, it sounds like the new version won't have a statement of purpose. And what you're saying is that if when we determine what the official statement of purpose is, we can go back and add it, or are we going to leave the statement of purpose as it's stated in the current document, which is from May? We are leaving it as is. So, it's kind of rolling over from the old version. I think it's verbatim. Because I didn't see it, but honestly, it was hard to do the side by side. But I didn't see the statement of purpose in the current, in the document that's dated September 1, 2021. I'm looking at it right now, and I'm going to agree that I am not seeing the statement of purpose. There were some edits done. We took out the section with the findings, because the findings are pretty clearly stated in the zoning code. I think, Ashley, I think I'm going to ask for some help here. You're still there. There you are. I don't have the rules right in front of me, but you're saying that the rules that are proposed for adoption this evening don't include the statement of purpose? The statement of purpose was eliminated through the most recent round of edits. I don't know where that statement of purpose came from, and I think that was erroneously eliminated. I don't want to eliminate it until I thought we agreed that we shouldn't eliminate it until we know where it came from and why it was there in the first place, even though it doesn't necessarily align entirely, it doesn't contradict, but it's not identical to what's in the city code. Well, when you're adopting this, when someone moves a resolution, they can move a resolution to adopt the rules, regulations, and procedures as amended to include the statement of purpose as it exists in the previous draft of the rules and regulations. If there's a date on that, that'd be even more official, but we don't probably need to be that official. And then when we go to print these, we will add in that statement of purpose. And then I believe then, Ms. Murray, you're saying is as we research this and if we come up with some additional, perhaps more appropriate statement of purpose, I'm not sure, you could amend the rules at a later time if you found a purpose that who thinks better suits your board. But we do need to get to the bottom of where those came from and to reconcile some of the discrepancies between Chapter 20 and Chapter 17. But I think that's an easy way to address this this evening is just when you read that resolution, go ahead and add that. And maybe if Ms. Murray, if you want to read that, you know, give them the language and then they can just say and make a motion for this resolution to adopt the rules and regulations as amended pursuant to Ms. Murray's revisions. Board Member Pritzels, thank you for your keen eye and I will read that for you when we get to that point. Yeah, it's funny. I swear I saw that somewhere because I noticed that color. Oh, that was something else I saw. Anyway, never mind. That was the statement of purpose. So I think we might have a solution to move forward then. Any other board members discussion or, okay, well, at this time, I think we're ready to call for a motion. Is there someone who'd like to make a motion for the resolution that's before us? And I'll give some maybe some additional direction and Ms. Murray, you can jump into. So what would happen is if you're in support of this and you're willing to make a motion, if you pull up the resolution, you could just read the first part of the resolution. And then Ms. Murray, so then we're going to amend it as well then to add to roll over the statement of purpose from the previous rules and regulations. So it might be a little bit clumsy, but if somebody's willing to do that, we'll all bear with you. We'll just treat it like a friendly amendment. I can try. I'm kind of muddle it, but I'll just read it. Go for it. All right. So I'm just reading the first line in the resolution. Yeah, you'd like to make a motion. Yeah. I make a motion to approve the resolution of the Cultural Heritage Board of the City of Santa Rosa, introducing the Cultural Heritage Board procedures, rules, and regulations, which will supersede the existing rules and regulations. And ways are very intense. With the what? Ah, I'm sorry. With the addition of moving over the existing statement of purpose from the rules and regulations document dated May 19, 2021. And then what? And wave the reading of the text. And wave the reading out the text. There you go. All right. And could we get a second? Board Member Garrett. I second the motion. Board Member Orrin. Okay. Okay. Let me do this. This Zoom is still clumsy, so Ms. Murray, could you review the motion that is on the table with the amendment? And then I'll open it up for final discussion. So the text that will be added in, which there is a statement of purpose that's in the proposed document, the September 1st, 2021 document, with the one that was, we kind of cut it short. So it currently reads, the Cultural Heritage Board shall consider the following matters, standards, guidelines and criteria to the extent applicable in determining whether to grant or deny a permit. And then we left those items off. Those items are whether the proposed change is consistent or incompatible with the architectural period of the building, whether the proposed change is compatible with any adjacent or nearby landmark structures or preservation district structures, whether the colors, textures, materials, fenestration, decorative features and details proposed are consistent with the period and or are compatible with the adjacent structures, whether the proposed change destroys or adversely affects an important architectural feature or features. The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation and Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings, the 1983 version, and such other matters, criteria and standards as may be adopted by the by resolution of the Cultural Heritage Board. And so now this is all coming back to me. Those are actually the findings or the criteria for decision. There's kind of a combo there. And so that section should have been eliminated out of the procedures, rules and regulations. Those findings are very clearly stated in the zoning code chapter 20. We also added into this procedures, rules and regulations right at the very beginning, the authority, which changes this, these procedures, rules and regulations of the Cultural Heritage Board of the City of Santa Rosa are adopted pursuant to title 20 chapter 2060 of the Santa Rosa City Code. To the extent these rules conflict with title 20, title 20 as may be amended from time to time shall control. So basically that just gives us the flexibility there. But the findings, required findings and review criteria are stated in the zoning code. So was statement of purpose was required findings with a different title. So I'm going to go back and say rather than adding those into this document, it was an intentional move to remove them from the document. I didn't realize they were under the heading of statement of purpose. So with that my recommendation to the board is that your friendly amendment be to remove the section under statement, under item five, board business, remove the section that provides a statement of purpose altogether. If the board agrees with that, we have the purpose of both sections of the city code that are aligned. And feel free to ask questions. I know that was a mouthful. If you unmute board member Garrett, you should be, yeah. Is there any reason why it would make a difference if we left that in? I don't think it ever hurts to keep that focus in front of us. The reason that we eliminated is because recently with the downtown station area plan or specific plan, we had revised those required findings. And actually, for example, the secretary of the interior standards, there's a much more current version of those standards now. And we corrected our zoning code not realizing that these findings lived in other areas, like the city code and like the procedures, regulations and rules. I think I'm just going to call them PRRs from this point forward if that's all right. But so again, it was just when you have a lot of these areas or a lot of the same thing referenced in several different areas, you have to be sure to update all those areas every time you update one. And in this case, by the authority of the board, we went ahead and kind of redirected back to that zoning code chapter for clarification. I will say that I would like to take, if it's all right, after we conclude our discussion, I'd like to take a very short recess so that I can verify that we do have the accurate zoning code chapter in there because I thought it was 2058, not 2060. But I want to verify that. Just to chime in, it feels a little odd to me to not have a statement of purpose in a document like this. I understand the reasoning, like the pragmatic why, but I mean, it's kind of fundamental to what we're doing in a document like this should be useful and guiding. And statement of purpose is pretty fundamental. So it doesn't feel like the right move. And the motion that's on the table now is to adopt the rules with incorporating the statement of purpose from the prior rules and regulations just to be, just to say that again. So, okay, so you could move forward with that unless there was a friendly amendment as suggested by Ms. Murray. And if there isn't one, then you can continue. And so if there's an additional discussion or if not, you can call for a vote. I think Chair Musor was trying to talk, but I can't hear you. Chair Musor, we still can't hear you. We can hear you loud and clear. Thanks. Okay, I've got technical problems. I was just saying that I'm also caught a little bit off guard in not having any statement of purpose. And I agree with Board Member Pretzelis that I feel that coming up front with our statement of purpose at meetings lets the public know what we're about and what we're doing and to not have it at all. And so my question to Ms. Murray is as the motion stands now, is there any reason why we couldn't move forward keeping the statement of purpose? No, I think the motion now is pulling the old statement of purpose in. And if you move forward with that, that's a condition on the resolution. I'll edit the document and get it in there and it shall be. Okay, so just maybe a straw poll from the fellow Board Member, your thoughts if you want to move forward or if you feel we should do something different. I think we should move forward. Vice Chair Fennel, you're showing me, there you go. I'm fine going forward. Board Member Wong. I also am fine going forward. And Board Member Bourne. I am also fine going forward. Thank you. Okay, any further discussion? I just, I do think that that statement of purpose was added when I was on the board a few years ago, not way back, but a few years ago. And mainly it was to let our audience know what our purpose is and why we turn down projects when they're not appropriate in an historic district and we can explain the reason. And it makes more sense at the board meetings if we have to reiterate that every time, I think. So, I mean, I just, I think it was Mark DeBacher who asked that we reinstate that on our, every time we read a resolution. So, I think, I do think it's really important and I'm glad that Board Member Pretzalis brought that up. Thank you. Okay, not seeing any further discussion. I think we're, we have a motion and we have a second. I think we're ready to call for a vote. Ms. Montoya, can we call for a vote on the resolution? Yes, thank you. Board Member Bourne. I vote yes. Board Member Garrett. Aye. Board Member Huynh. Aye. Board Member Pretzalis. Aye. Vice Chair Fennell. Aye. Chair Muser. Aye. Let the record reflect that this passes unanimously. Okay, wonderful. With that, again, I also want to thank Board Member Pretzalis. That's a nice, nice job and thanks for looking at that. I would also like to ask if, if in the future, and I know I talked with Ms. Murray before on this item and a lot of this, you know, I hate to blame everything on COVID, but you know, we're all work, working from home and we don't have all the same technologies and when you're trying to wordsmith a new document, you may not have the ability to go from word to a PDF or PDF to a word. But if at all possible, if we get things like this in the future to get red line versions would be much appreciated. That way we can very quickly, you know, determine what changes have been made and such. But anyway, hopefully when we get back to our normal life, things will be a lot easier that way. So with that, we're going to jump back then to 7.1, which is my screen went to sleep. I think our review, our study session, Fremont Park Master Plan. Our presenter is Jen Santos, who's the Park's Deputy Director. So Jen is still with us. I'm going to turn it over to her or turn it over to them. And Chair Muser, Vice-Chair Fennell, members of the Culture Heritage Board. Can you all hear me? I just want to make sure. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. As the Chair mentioned, I'm Jen Santos, the Park's Deputy Director for the City of Santa Rosa. And let me, this is the first time I'm sharing my screen like this. So just give me one minute so I can share. Please stop me if you can't see that, but I believe it's working. And so tonight, what I wanted to talk with you all about is Fremont Park Master Plan. We are in the Rec and Parks Department are going through a reimagining of Fremont Park, which is essentially called a master planning process. Let me show you what I mean by a master plan. Here's some examples of master plans. The one on the very top is a master plan for Kiwana Springs Community Park. And the one on the far bottom left is a place to play master plan. And the far bottom right is the master plan for Bear Neighborhood Park. So these are examples of what we need by a master plan. Essentially what we end up with is a graphic that is the site plan with the desired amenities the community would like to see in their park at some point. So for the one on the top, Kiwana Springs Community Park is a 20 acre park. It's estimated that between $7 and $15 million to build this park. So we are starting on little bits of it. We're starting with the community garden first. And as funding becomes available, we will implement these plans and interests for amenities that the community had at the time, which was in 2017. So very similarly, a place to play master plan. You can see soccer fields, a pond. There's a dog park and different things there. It's really just a representation of what the community desired to see in their park. And I would say about 75% of this park is built and we're looking to construct the remainder as funding becomes available. And Bear Neighborhood Park on the far bottom right, you can see the lawn. There's a community garden. There's play structures, a pavilion, all sorts of activities. And this one, we were fortunate to have grant funding. So we were able to implement the entire master plan at one time. And so that's what we're looking to do with Fremont Park. We are looking to engage the community and ask them what sort of features they would like to see in our existing Fremont Park as we move forward. And we're hoping to implement the requested features all at once. Or if there's features that can't be implemented all at once, then we'll implement it in phases. We'll see what the community desires. Typically, to get to this point, to get to a master plan, it's a three-year process. And so Fremont Park were the very, very beginning of launching the process for Fremont Park, which involves engaging the community, engaging stakeholders, discovering what sort of amenities they would like, developing a draft plan, revising it several times. Also, the recreation and parks staff report to the City Council's advisory board, the Board of Community Services. So we'll be bringing our master plan for their review. And then we'll finally go to Council. That usually takes about a year. And then we will look at bidding it for construction and going out to construction. So total between just thinking about what we'd like to do at Fremont Park and getting construction is about three years. We do everything we can to make it quicker. And so just to let you know, where is Fremont Park? So looking at a map of the park system in the city of Santa Rosa, the map shows in yellow Highway 101 going up and down on this map, and side to side is Highway 12. And the park system can be thought of as organized into four quadrants, the Northwest, Southwest, Northeast, Southeast. And Fremont Park is downtown, but the way the park system is organized, it falls into the Northeast quadrant where that star is shown. So let's see the next slide. Here's a little closer view zooming in to Fremont Park compared to downtown. So Fremont Park is outlined in yellow. And Fourth Street is highlighted in, it's highlighted in a green yellow color. And then you can see Courthouse Square outlined in purple, kind of a purple color, just for a reference on where Fremont Park is. Santa Rosa Middle School is across Fifth Street from Fremont Park. And then Doyle Community Park is less than a half mile from this park as well. And zooming in really close to Fremont Park, you can really get a sense. This is an aerial view of the actual park site. You can see Fifth Street up on the very northern part of the park and Fourth Street on the southern part of the park. And the park was designed in 1929 and it really does resemble the plan almost exactly from 1929. There's an elliptical pool in the middle. It's originally called a lily pool. There are no lilies in it right now, but it is, has been operational as a pool in the recent past. The water is fed into the pool from a tiered fountain with locally sourced stones. And then we also, you can see kind of a long rectangular area right where it says Fremont Park. That was planned to be a reflecting pool, which was, to my understanding, never installed. But what is there now is a Richard Annannette Block Cancer Survivor art piece. And they have these similar or almost identical art pieces throughout the nation to celebrate and provide art for cancer survivors. And so that is there on top of decomposed granite. And then on either side of that, what was meant to be the reflecting pool are 18 Irish youths, nine on each side. And those are original to 1929. So this park is just a little over five years out from being 100 years old. And those youths are at that age as well. And then on either side of the lily pool, you can't see it here in this image. It's grayed out where there's vines growing on top of arbors that were planted. The arbors are concrete posts. And we believe that it is wood arbors on the top of concrete posts. You can see it's generally a very pastoral design, very typical of architecture from that era. And originally, the pathways were designed to be in brick. And they've all been in place with asphalt to date. Otherwise, you can see there's lawns and lots of mature, mature trees on site. So the original designer is Howard Gilkey, and he is a well-known landscape architect. To me, he's a bit of a pioneer in the industry. He was born in 1890, and he has a pretty illustrious career. But after World War I, he began his own private practice where he worked on a variety of public projects in the North Bay area, including Fremont Park in 1929. He also created the Cleveland Cascade near Lake Merritt in Oakland, which features 20 cascading types of bowls. And they had little flowerettes on the side that had multicolored lights on them. And it was touted as, quote, one of the few things of this kind in the West by the San Francisco Chronicle in 1923. And Gilkey is really famous for his participation in garden and creation of garden exhibit shows. He was able to participate early on in his career in an international exhibition, which probably prompted his interest in creating garden shows locally. And after World War II, where he served in World War I and World War II, he was noted in the Saturday evening post issue in October 1950 with the subtitle, The Fellows Think Nothing of Rebuilding a Redwood Forest or Mountain Cataract in Reflection. This was in reflection of the exhibits that he was preparing. And it really became nationally recognized after that article. He's also responsible for the designs for Juilliard Park downtown, as well as Doyle Park. So he's put his stamp throughout the city of Santa Rosa. And although I know this board typically sees things before them about architecture, I thought we'd throw you a curveball and bring something regarding landscape architecture for your interest and really just looking to see what your feedback will be tonight. So I apologize in advance for the next slide. They are a little blurry, but we did have a copy of the original 1929 plan. So I'm just going to quickly go through it and highlight. And you'll see it is a little hard to see in the next few slides, but you'll see this layout that he has here is very similar to what, if not identical to what he had originally designed. Let's take a look at that. So here's the plan from 1929. It is really difficult to see. We did our best to try to get a really good image on here. The original PDF file is easier to read. So if any of you are interested, we could, of course, get that your way. But you can see in the upper part of this plan, the elliptical pool is very recognizable. You can also see the passive pathways and meandering plants throughout the site. And just to zoom in a little bit, we can see Howard Gilkey's stamp or not his stamp, but his identification on this plan set from Oakland. That's where he did a lot of his work. And this plan is dated June 10th, 1929. And trying to zoom in a little closer to the elliptical lily pool, you can see some of his original intent with the brick paving flower beds around. And the little circles with the lines through them are actually meant to be used. And then the squares in the plan on either side of the elliptical pond are the arches, the concrete arches with wood on top. And it was meant to have roses on them. Yeah, this is really difficult to see. But essentially, I'm trying to show you that these little circles here are these now very giant new trees. And in the middle was what was supposed to be a long pool or reflecting pool. And I hear from folks who understood what was happening back in those days that it actually never came to fruition. And so I'm trying to zoom in here to what's called the... I'm not going to do really well with this language, but Portala is de la rosa. And so that's essentially an arbor with roses he had on either side of the elliptical pool. And so here's what it looks like now. So here's some real current images of what was meant to be the reflecting pool, which is now the Block Foundation's Cancer Survivors Park art. It's bronze sculptures over decomposed granite. Those green things on the side are the Irish used. They are so big they have now grown together, which creates a very closed off feeling in the park. One of the things we'll be addressing as we move forward with a landscape architect in the coming months. And in the very back distance, the elliptical pool is visible as well as the fountain, and then the school is beyond that. There's a little closer view of the pool. It's not on right now because we were in a drought, but it does actually hold water and it still functions. And so does the fountain. There is original stone or locally sourced stonework on the terraced fountain. And when they were developing the art work, the monument sign for the artwork, they also tried to source the same local stone from my understanding. Here's another image of the fountain. I believe that's a ram's head at the top. I wasn't able to get very close that day, but it is a terraced fountain. It does usually work. It's just off right now because of our drought. And that is Santa Rosa Middle School on the background. And here's some of the arches, the portals, so to speak. Right now you can see Wisteria has really taken over the top of the archway. It was originally designed to be roses. And in the plan view, it was originally designed to be one arch. There's actually four arches there. And we believe there's wood across the top. And the arches are concrete. And so I'm just bringing it back to this image again, just to remind you what the park looks like. And again, we're going to embark on this re-imagining. I have no idea what the neighbors' interest is for this park to update it. We are interested as a city in activating this park because we recognize that and we know that there are somewhere between 600 and 900 units coming in the next five to 10 years in the downtown area. And we also have a housing unit coming diagonally across the street from this park very soon with about, I believe, 300 units. And these are multifamily units. And so while this 1929 design definitely represented the interests of the time period, it's not necessarily representative of interests for our park land now. We have a lot of folks who like to do active things like tennis. And obviously, some of the smaller things we're thinking of is just at least some play areas for children. Certainly we're not thinking of tennis courts or anything like that, but just as an example for something that's high activity, those are things that are really popular. They wouldn't fit in this park, but that's the idea is to get the neighbors in the community thinking about the park. This park is located in the downtown stationary priority plan. And so it has been elevated as a priority project in the parks department as well. While there's nothing technically historic in this park, because of the landscape architect at the time, he was one of the first landscape architects to join the American Society of Landscape Architects in the West. And because the features are still there, it's of real interest to myself as well as the community members, what your thoughts are. But it is about 800 feet away from the Cherry Street Historic Preservation District, but it's not within it. It's about 1,040 feet from the McDonald District. Again, it's not quite within these districts, but just so you know what's around it and what we're thinking of. So before we head out to the community with a landscape architect to gather feedback, we wanted to stop by the Cultural Heritage Board first and see what your thoughts might be and collect your feedback on how we move forward with this and what your thoughts are on the plan. So the next steps, we have gone through the request for proposal process and have identified a landscape architecture firm that we're going to recommend at council at a date soon, at council. After that agreement is put into place, we'll be engaging with the community and we'll go through the master planning process. So once the master plan is adopted at the at city council, we'll start the construction documents and of course complete all or portions of the master plan, whatever we have funding for as we move forward. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you all have. Thank you very much, Nesentos. Anybody have questions for Nesentos? I do. This is a probably a really important piece of open space for the downtown that, you know, the area that's now being developed for housing. It is also a place where I live in the McDonald's historic district and I frequently walk down there and walk through that park. Currently it's been a problem because of the homeless, but that park used to be extremely active with, you know, young families and children. It's adjacent to the middle school and the middle school kids use it, walk through it to go get food and drinks at the Mexican restaurant that's right next to it. I think it's, I think the original design is a classic design. It's been used for centuries all over the world and I would hate to see the main part of that design moved from that park. It's a forceful design and it could be simplified to some degree. It worries me a lot that you're talking about doing something with the yew trees because yew trees in England live to be a thousand years old and they're drought resistant, they're evergreen, all they need to be is pruned or hedged and they can be kept quite narrow. I think that the lark, I obviously have a whole lot of thoughts here, I'm sorry, but I'm also a gardener and really interested in plants and gardening. I think that this park has been designed by an important landscape architect and it's not like Olmsted or someone like that. I mean, he's not quite that category, but he's well known and I think it would be a shame to do away with that and make it, frankly, like the square, which is all concrete. It would be nice to have a bocce ball court or something that made people gather in the night that kept the homeless away. It would be nice to have some kind of opportunity for people to have lunch there for the people working downtown, maybe benches once Hughes Building gets up and is inhabited. It would be wonderful for those people to get out of their dingy little apartments and be able to go sit outside. It's a lovely little oasis for people in all the neighborhoods that walk the crisscross and go to the downtown. I used to walk to the post office all the time right now because of this injury. I'm not doing that, but I will be again. So I do think it needs to be opened and cleaned up so the homeless don't regroup there. I'm excited to see what the plans are for it. I've never particularly liked the sculpture, but the intent is wonderful and the fact that someone donated it to the city of Santa Rosa is quite lovely. I would hate to see things that the city accepts as generous donations get tossed in the trash for something else. So there, I'm sorry I took so much time, but I would love to stay involved in any way I can with this. I appreciate the feedback and we have met with the art and public places liaison with the city to try to get a little more information about the art and certainly if it doesn't stay and through my park it will be preserved and used as art within the city. But there's no, again, we're wanting to listen to you all and hear from you all as well as the community to see where we should go with this. So I appreciate. Can I comment? Absolutely. Has there been any thought of maybe restoring this to Gary's or Gilkey's vision, Howard Gilkey's vision? I think it would be a shame to, I mean listening to this Santos's description I think would be nice to maybe even have a plaque basically saying what you said because now I kind of want to go visit that park and it would be a shame to put in you know tennis courts or whatever and just make it look like another park in the community. I think you know if we featured and really talked about this landscape architect we could draw more people to the park and maybe more people to Santa Rosa. So I would like to see something maybe the park getting restored as opposed to completely redesigned. Great, I appreciate that. I jotted that down and it's great to hear all your thoughts and feedback because it's the first time I'm hearing anything from anybody so I really appreciate it. Oh also make comment you know it's I go by that park pretty much every day and it's really as parks go it's a pretty small space and I'm also very impressed by the designer of it and kind of and being a restore of old broken down things that's probably what what I would love to see. I agree with board member the previous board members that have spoke and seeing it reflecting pool restored and the yew trees maintained and the ponds and the fountain tuned up and then maybe with the addition of a few things that would reflect maybe some of the new housing that we have downtown. Again I like the idea of the bocce ball courts and things but I think you've got something very special there that just needs to be restored and rebuilt so anyway board member Warren I think you had your hand up. Yeah I also agree I spent a lot of time having worked downtown even eating lunch in that park and it's it's it's not great but it's convenient to meet if you're meeting someone also in the area but and I agree with board member Garrett about the sculptures so if if it has a place another place to go and not just be thrown out and again just perk up just really perk up the original the original plan it just has not been attended to so but I think having some some other inviting seating where would totally bring people in I think the sculpture as as amazing as it is it's a little daunting in that space. Thank you both for your comments I I have enjoyed again here. Board member Press Ellis. So I I definitely agree with what what many folks have said about you know maintaining this sort of original intent and design and sprucing it up and re-beautifying it but I also think the addition of some new activities for people to actively participate in and play in the park would be important if that's like play structures for kids maybe a dog park like something to draw people in so that they can actively engage with the space. I think we need to attract people to to go to the park and just just sprucing it up I don't think will be a driver in itself I think it needs some amenities that will drive people to it especially with the housing coming in across the street those people are going to need a place to hang out and play so but I'm really thank you so much for your presentation that was really interesting I super enjoyed it. I appreciate that and thank you I know it's a bit of a off topic but I appreciate the feedback. Vice Chair Fennel have I seen you want to speak? So yeah I also like really like the ideas that have been put forth I don't know with it being such a small park about you know playgrounds and play activity things I think that you know bringing people to sit and be I think that what that park just has always seemed like a reflecting place to me and a place of reflection and um and putting some bistro tables and and you know some kind of bachi would be nice that would bring things in but I think one of the most important things that I would love to see is taking away those lower sight lines taking away the bushes and the giving it more of an open sight um line plan so that you don't have people in tents that can kind of get in there and and I noticed that that was happening again just within the last week or two uh driving by that there were they were coming back in and they were putting tents against um some of the lower shrubs and bushes and I would love to see that be those those sight lines be taken care of so that there's no longer an issue um of people being able to come in so that would be all I'd have to offer thank you thanks thanks so much I I appreciate the feedback and yes if if if you haven't been to the park recently um uh do be careful and take caution when you go it it can be dangerous so we have a lot of activity there going on right now but it is it is worth stopping by maybe in pairs okay any other um comments um I'm going to take a just a quick and and let's open this up for public comment and uh Miss Montoya uh do we have any public sign in who'd like to comment we do not have any public attendance okay so with that I'm going to close public comment so any uh final suggestions for comments or thoughts or Miss Santos I just can I just mentioned um to Jen Santos um there are two of two pocket parks in um the mcdonald well in the junior college neighborhood um actually if you count the um rural cemetery there are three and and the rural cemetery is heavily used and really a wonderful place to walk um there's a pocket park on um Humboldt and um pacific and that has it's it's small it's about the same size as freemont park it has play structures um and it still gets homeless there there's also a park on north street with a lot of play structures the only times I've taken my grandkids there there have been people um that I actually was afraid of and there were needles there were a lot of unpleasant things to be found there and um the nice thing about freemont park is when it's clean it's clean and and if it's opened up it it is a it feels like a very tranquil area and I don't know are there parks in cherry on in this cherry street district I don't think so yeah so this would be close to that too for walking be great yes very close to those districts you easily walk there 800 feet thoughts or comments okay well with that Jenna Centos thank you so much great presentation I learned a lot I love seeing old blueprints and uh things of the past I I lived for a long time in the cherry street neighborhood and so was very close proximity I think it's a real jewel and I'm I'm just so happy that the city's got um at least its sights on it and uh you're going to be going through a process to hopefully um make it better than what it is today yes thank thank you all so much for your comments it's really great I will definitely share this as we move through the community engagement process appreciate it thank you chair muser I think you're muted oh sorry about that so with that um I don't believe we have any other board business so I like to thank all board members for their attendance all their great comments all their great research and thanks staff for all their assistance and help and uh call the meeting adjourned bye bye bye thank you