 All right so good morning everyone welcome to our 9 a.m. May 13 2020 special meeting of the city council I have a few announcements, and then we will move on to our regular meeting Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website cityofsanta crews.com All council members are participating in this meeting remotely I want to thank the public for staying home to view today's city council meeting If you wish to comment on a budget presentation today instructions are on your screen Please mute your television or streaming device once you call in and listen through the phone Please note there is a delay in streaming So if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device you may miss your opportunity to speak Call in at the beginning of the presentation you are wanting to comment on When it is time for public comment press star 9 on your phone to raise your hand When it is your time to speak during public comment You will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted The timer will then be set to two minutes And you may hang up once you've commented on your presentation of interest You may also send an email to city clerk at cityofsanta crews.com Your comment will be shared with the council members as they are received and will be entered into the public record And I would like to ask the clerk to please call the roll. Thank you mayor. Um council members buyers Muted here Matthews here brown Here holder Here blackened Here vice mayor mires Are you muted Donna? I'll note she's here, but her audio is not working And mayor comings Here on our agenda item number one our first presentation will be from public works Members of the public for a stimulus meeting if this is a presentation you would like to comment on That was a time to call any instructions on your screen The order will be a presentation by staff all about questions from the council Who will then take public comment and return to the council for any follow-up questions or comments With that I'd like to turn it over to our public works director mark dental Good morning, everyone. It's mark dental director public work I'm going to go ahead and share my screen For our presentation Yes, we can. Okay, perfect Our agenda for today is We're going to give you a quick department overview Our core services and top f y 2020 achievements by division and then a working status quo budget As far as the unavoid in addition to unavoidable non status quo aspects of our budget Um public works public works is the largest department in the city Uh with over 235 employees We have six divisions resource recovery wastewater operations transportation and parking Engineering and administration I'll take you on a short tour of each of the divisions the resource recovery division Basically have three sections collections resource recovery processing and waste production In collections, we collect refuse recycling greenways from residents and businesses To collect food waste and a pilot group of commercial kitchens Which will be expanding the commercial kitchens throughout the city and then the households hopefully In 2022 that's our our goal Three seats in city. Why we've been moved nearly Three last year from our streets And respond to the illegal dumping request For resource recovery resort process market and cell recyclable materials We have a hazardous household waste collection site up at the landfill run by the county and it's open on saturdays We also process construction debris to be reused and kept out of the landfill What we're not able to Does end up in the landfill. We manage that air fuel that airspace Very carefully to ensure the longest life of our landfill cell In addition, we collect methane gas from our our landfill cells and that is Pipe to two turbines that generates electricity Also reduces our greenhouse gases that a waste reduction section This is our education section it promotes Citywide to businesses and residents Encourages efforts to meet the city and state goals mandates Through our outreach and education programs. We also have events And education topics include wages, cost reduction, reduce recycling household hazardous waste Composting and pollution prevention. We have a lot of videos that are on our webpage That shows people how to recycle and how to properly Compost and waste reduction They also lead in policy development for issues such as restaurant to go food packaging as you recall and single use blasts And they provide waste reduction audits for the city screen Is a certification program Achievements from the resource recovery this past year Mastery cycle program was a huge success and actually One a it was recipient of a California resources recovery association's outstanding recycling program award It's a volunteer training program that increases awareness in the community of how to How to do a cycling and they are actually out there helping other people recycle use them at Earth Day They educate the public The second item is the construction of food waste processing line at the resource recovery facility We're very excited for this line to be complete. We're in that final shakeout period and we hope this to go live in the coming weeks This will help us meet our state mandatory organics collection law What's not status quo for resource recovery? Unfortunately, we did start with six months of operating reserves Um and That's going to help us bridge this gap But but before the covid impact We recycling markets continue to be significantly down We're still feeling the impact of that our paper and plastic recycling The markets are basically right up. They're starting to come back but we're We're having to pay to get rid of that material instead of getting revenue for it And our revenue estimates for the coming year are down about 50 per cent per recycling Which is about a million dollars of our overall 20 million dollar budget With the covid impacts, um, we think there the commercial usage and revenues are down somewhat the last two months Residential revenues may be delayed But we do not expect a significant long-term impact to resource recovery revenues at all And the reserves will help budget us over the buffer us over the short term We are looking for operational efficiencies And delaying and reducing expenses that can help us bridge the gap We're looking at delaying vehicle replacements a few months Delaying some capital projects and delaying filling of certain vacant vacant positions Our next division is wastewater division It's also divided into three Sections collections treatment facility and environmental compliance and lab The collections cleans, inspects and repairs over 150 miles of underground sewer pipes 26 sewer and stormwater lift stations Provide sewer and storm pipeline video inspections to assist engineering in selecting replacement projects Cleans and maintains Sewer storm drain networks provide flood control drainage Uh cleaning as well as weed abatement provides 24 seven emergency coverage Our on-call staff responding to sanitary spills to protect their waterways We maintain the leachate system from the resource recovery facility All the way to the wastewater treatment plant separate pipeline Then we respond to usa tickets for utility marking and locating To protect city infrastructure from construction damage The treatment facility treats over 7 million gallons of wastewater a day using an all-natural biological process It serves the city of sanitary's residents as well as Sanitary's county sanitation district communities of livo, aptos, capitol, and so cal Treatment facility generates in excess of 70 percent of the energy it uses through digester gas and solar panels Saving customers close to a million dollars in energy saving each year The reclaims treated wastewater for use inside the facility saving over 50 million gallons of potable water annually And produces class B biosolids for beneficial reuse in non food crops And it educates our customers about their service throughout outreach and facility tours Our environmental compliance and laboratory provides inspection Monitoring and guidance to local businesses regarding the discharge Into the sanitary sewer and strong rain system They issue discharge permits to industrial users and liquid waste haulers. They work to eliminate violations They can't let any fines and citations, but they'd rather work to educate the harsh customers Laboratory provides a wide array of an analytical and technical sampling monitoring wastewater treatment process in support of the city's stormwater Watershed and landfill programs and regulatory MPDES permits. It also provides mandatory monitoring of near shore bacteria and other indicators environmental health And provides analytical support to other city departments in the county Since we won't be able to do tours in the next few months. We do have a Video that we put together It's a it's a public service announcement. It's a three minute video I'd like to play it just to give you an overview of what we what we plan to show Every day people in Santa Cruz generate about 7 million gallons of wastewater from sinks, showers, toilets, wash machines, and dishwasher It flows from our homes and businesses to homes with our wastewater from here It's often misunderstood and taken for granted At the Santa Cruz wastewater treatment facility an all-natural treatment process helps to protect our environment While providing customers with an essential quality of life service The process includes the reuse of biosolids and reclaimed water plus energy recovery that saves customers money First the wastewater is collected through an expensive underground maze of pipes over 150 miles long Transporting it to the city's treatment facilities City crews maintain almost a million feet of city pipelines and 18 list stations Allowing the wastewater to travel effectively to the treatment facility Up to 5000 feet old pipe is replaced each year Upon arriving at the treatment facility the wastewater undergoes biological processes that are environmentally friendly It's clean much like a running stream purifies water using sophisticated engineering and all natural biological techniques Being through plastic media for bacteria and microorganisms transform organic waste Clarifiers further clean the liquid which is then disinfected by ultraviolet rays This is separated and reduced by an aerobic process that works much like the human stomach The digestible content is converted into fuel that generates electricity This plus our solar energy system allows us to produce 70 percent of the energy the facility uses Saving our customers a lot of money Center fusions remove water before the solids are transported to the central valley for use of the soil amendment On non food crops for the top cover for landfill The daily plants grow with over 7 million gallons is enough to fill the 11 olympic pools That's a process of three billion gallons annually About 60 million gallons of this water is further treated and recycled for use inside the facility Water that is not reused on site is released to an outfall location 110 feet below the ocean surface an approximately one mile offshore of natural bridges state beach It ensures that the water entering Monterey Bay is safe and clean for all life in our community Including energy efficiency the reuse of biosolids and reclaimed water has helped us win recognition as best in class facility in all of california The facility has won numerous other awards and is a u.s. Environmental Protection Agency top green power partners for on-site production of the energy that you do Our wastewater treatment facility helps to reduce the finished carbon footprint while providing quality of life service to the community and protecting the environment we live in so that video itself was produced um By our communications group and I didn't think it does a good job at educating the public of what's going on and what we do with the wastewater plant So we're we're actually working on a similar video for our resource recovery facility as well So wastewater top achievements for the come for the past year We've completed wastewater treatment risk assessment our infrastructure study We did a second evaluation to Look at critical assets as far as What's the high-risk asset and what are the what are the risks that we have on that? um identified two major projects the plant 21 kv power district power distribution system Is reaching the end of its life as well as? um emergency power generation systems and we've scheduled A we're on a preliminary design right now. We're we're working to replace that system um, that's a major project. It's probably on the order of 10 to 15 million dollars and we'll bond for that but that is a A major project that will be coming your way in uh in the coming year in addition We have an agreement a recent agreement with pure water. Soquel to provide them With the source water for their pure water project They'll be using a tertiary treated wastewater and then piping it to channel clear will they'll Provide advanced treatment to that water before they injected in their wells to stop the seawater intrusion that they're experiencing And then yesterday you awarded a contract for the replacement of the facility of aging UV system which will upgrade our UV treatment and reduce our energy costs There's one other item. I'd like to uh address It's the full implementation of our sewer lateral ordinance. That's been very successful. It's been in place for about a year And with the rebate that we provide for residents that replace their laterals We've had quite a few people take advantage of that and we're seeing a lot less Sewers lateral skills and that's something so it's been very effective program But what's not a status quo with wastewater treatment? Again, we started with six months of operating reserves with wastewater. So that really helps us out quite a bit We do not anticipate long-term impacts to revenue We have seen some short-term impacts Basically commercial and residential short-term We will be bonding for our major capital projects the electrical upgrades and UV replacement projects And you'll see an eye request for iBank coming to either next council meeting or in the first meeting in june and we're looking to delay capital outlay purchases until the fund stabilizes so that We don't stress the fund Our next operation our next division is operations division made up of three sections streets and traffic mechanical maintenance and facilities maintenance Streets and traffic, uh, they're small But mighty they have just nine filled positions and responsible for a large group of work Sidewalk curb gutter catch basin installations and repair Repairing and replacement street lights managing vegetation along our sidewalks Roadways bike lanes other areas to enhance traffic and public safety Vegetations sediment debris removal from our creeks and rivers to name flood control Basic assist police and parks departments on a camera cleanups and debris removal They provide critical project coordination and logistic supports for city projects including the unsheltered population response work And repairing and replacing installing street signs fencing guardrails producing in-house signage For other city departments as well and painting including street markings serve Curbs striping and crosswalks and critical logistical supports for special events such as new with new years halloween and street fairs a mechanical maintenance Provide the maintenance of the city's fleet Including police and refuse vehicles and heavy equipment The administer city the city fleet including vehicle replacement provide fueling for 24 No 24 hours a day seven days a week they work to replace vehicles with electric and alternative fuel vehicles whenever possible And they also oversee the city's handheld radios The facilities maintenance facilities provides routine maintenance and repair of 28 city-owned facilities they provide also 24 hour response for Facility emergencies and they provide janitorial and sanitation services at various facilities Facilities provides assistance to police city manager and other with other special projects including shelter set up and encampment removal And they provide safety inspections at all facilities They've also been a lead in the city's energy efficiency programs and retrofit projects as well as overseeing the solar pv operation The top achievements would be completed the city hall annex and the la viega golf lodge remodels They completed the ppa agreements with solar at three city facilities Uh as the la viega lodge facility the corp yard and the landfill will have an estimated a hundred thousand dollars a year savings They replaced six more gas fleet vehicles with electric and hybrid models and replaced four existing electrics with new longer-range models And facilities play a key role in keeping employees safe during the covid pandemic by providing responsive facility sanitation ppe supplies cleaning enhanced sanitary supplies What's not in the status quo? Well already very lean general fund revenue cuts Could increase decrease deferred maintenance and that's increasing future liabilities. That's a concern the section May further limit our focus to ascent to repairs and reduce or delay facility upgrades vegetation management or non mandatory services Deferred maintenance that is the big one in in facilities. Um In 2013 we had a consultant provide a comprehensive facility assessment It showed a deficiency of about 12 million dollar backlog of maintenance and repair needs We completed the safety items and addressed some of the energy items But there's other items that are still on that that list that still haven't been addressed because of lack of capital investment Uh, we were hoping this year would be a year for us to add to that But with the covid impacts, it looks like we may be unfortunately adding a little bit more towards deferred maintenance Um, our next area is transportation engineering division Uh, the three areas in transportation is the traffic engineering parking and education outreach Engineering designs our capital projects responds the citizens request the provide analysis of traffic patterns issues and solutions Modify the traffic signal system for better efficiency Prepare citywide active transportation plans implement improvements in crossings or bikeways They develop and implement plans for downtown parking via transportation demand management other and other parking analysis And most importantly, they've actively actively seek and secure grant funding for transportation improvements They've been very successful Since 2011 we've been awarded over 21 million dollars in grant funded projects And those we hope to deliver through 2024 10 million of those are under construction with another 5 million ready to go In parking we operate and maintain four city-owned parking garages 24 parking lots Maintain and provide collection for parking meter citywide provide parking enforcement For the city and provide parking services for the municipal work Operate and maintain two public restrooms Provide refuse pick up sidewalk scrubbing and other maintenance for the downtown district to keep our downtown looking clean and beautiful We operate many parking programs such as The special rent parking the downtown employee parking Um residents permit parking program You provide bike lockers at several locations in the city and provide parking citation review and collection Our education and outreach Creates and influence several education outreach programs in support of creating safer streets and encouraging alternative transportation Go Santa Cruz is one of such programs And through february has signed up over a thousand individuals and distributed it over 630 free transit passes for Participants and accounted for 50,000 miles of non single occupant driving The division also utilizes street smarts program to provide targeted education It's working on development of the city vision zero implementation plan And oversees the city's bike sharing programs Our top achievements are the ATP pedestrian enhanced pedestrian crossing improvements that go Santa Cruz program The construction starting a coastal rail trail segment segment seven games one in our bike Bike ridership ranking. It's we're second in the nation and we're rated gold rated Bike friendly community by the league of american cyclists. What's not the status quo with traffic engineering Um expected reductions will further reduce the ability to progress general funded project projects and programs um general funded design work will be reduced redesigned education outreach efforts And rethinking our TDM strategy based on what's going on with COVID. How does that affect transit? You know carpooling probably is not going to happen for a while. So we're having to rethink that strategy and use what we can to encourage people to still walk and bike and Get downtown without driving the vehicle. What's not the status quo? Three months ago. This was typical parking lots full Um, unfortunately the COVID has had an impact on our downtown parking That's probably the largest area of concern and most dependent on a vibrancy of downtown General fund and parking revenues are are already affected. We've lost two two months of revenue we do have reserve But we are we are generating You know, we are using a lot of it at this time We're probably going to burn through about two million dollars. What is what I expect? Maybe more Before the end of the fiscal year So we're going to have to balance, uh, we're going to have to re-look at our capital improvement project schedules Um, we may have to look at certain programs that we have and reevaluate our non-core services that are currently provided by parking But we're still watching and hope and doing everything we can to re encourage Uh, the business vitality back to the downtown The last area is Is the engineering division engineering designs and implements capital projects Which includes repair improvement projects programs associated with multimodal transportation street design And reconstruction slope stability utility undergrounding sanitary sewer collection and treatment stormwater collection refuse recycling facility city facilities improvements So the engineering arm consulting arm for the city Uh, engineering develops projects concepts secures grant funding for non enterprise projects They provide development review and inspection We issue permits for projects such as street opening utility utility installation concrete work We created planning environmental documents including sequence certification traffic impact these studies area plans End utility and facility plan they develop and implement the city stormwater management plan and programs in compliance with state and federal mandate Our sewer roads sewer and storm drains Really is our is our funding sources, uh energy Engineering manages the administration utilization of key funding sources, which pay for the repairs Of our improvements to our roads sewer system and storm drain system gas tax and measure d Measure h funding pays for street improvements and raises the city's pavement condition index Measure e provides funding for projects and programs intended to keep our rivers and beaches and oceans clean And lastly engineering seeks grant funding for certain projects where no dedicated funding otherwise exists In our capital investment program engineering develops and implements the department's annual capital investment plan Engineering insists assists others city departments with the implementation of their capital projects An example the two major long-term projects that are getting ready to start the engineers working now on improvements of intersection highway one and nine As well as the murray street bridge seismic retrofit and bike pedestrian lane project While engineering prudently sources use of grants and bonds partnerships And taxes to fund projects whenever possible The engineering the city still faces an a large unfunded list of capital projects in excess of 300 million dollars Coastal rail trail segment seven construction start of phase one We hope to have that finished actually by uh, September. We're excited about that The lidara street sewer and storm drain replacement And the river and water street real about rehabilitation projects that we just completed with the bike facility enhancements to make biking safer on those on those roadways What's not in status quo with engineering? We're going to have to repro reprior We prioritize the work on enterprise funded projects and grant funded projects until our general funding covers In overall an overall view of our budget Just a pie chart This is our resources by fund You can see that wastewater at 22 million in refuse at 21 million make up two thirds of our 66 million dollar revenue budget parking district revenue historically is the next highest at 7.3 million And then the net general fund component is about 4.6 million with gas tax equipment operations worth parking And measuring making up the rest We look at our our expenditures by fund They typically mirror the revenue as we keep our our funds and divisions working within their budgets um You will note that the expenditures in this year are about three million dollars higher than our revenue and that's Basically in the refuse area where we're building our next three million dollar cell And that's shown in the expenditure Although that will not be fully expended In the coming year, so we will have the money to obligate the contracts you And i'm here to answer any questions. I do have my division managers available also to answer questions if you have any If I can Show my screen great. Thanks for that presentation mark and Congrats on all the ongoing achievements that your partner is making You know i'll turn it back over to uh council members council member buyers You have your hand up followed by council member golder Good. Okay. Uh, thanks mark for that overview Amazing amazing department. Um, the one I didn't know what is vision zero? I've never heard that before Right. Um, that's a great question. Vision zero is a new concept that's being adapted for safety and it's Really it came in the from europe. It's In vision zero traffic fatalities And so it's a way to bring all city departments Not just public works, but pd fire um And to look at how we look at our traffic safety And with the focus on reducing Fatalities It's a total kind of a holistic approach Good, um, you know you're I don't know I have not heard but For a long time there was a difficulty with the odor coming up bay street I think in neary's, uh, I haven't heard that that's still going on and have you resolve that difficulty of the Carrival smell on bay street in neary. Yeah, that's that's also great that you haven't heard anything because I think we have We use it. We use actually an ozone system called a bay peck system That actually historically they would try to cover that scent with um, kind of a perfume type system This is an ozone system that actually knocked the odor out and it's basically eliminated odor complaints That the way sort of plan um, I think my last one um for a long time I kept hearing that It would begin or start putting a roundabout up at high and bay street near the university Is that still just a capital? Thing that's not happening Um, it we do have a plan for that. We have a uh preliminary design and we have been working with the university on it. So um Because it's a joint project It sometimes is a little more difficult to get projects like that implemented But that is still the goal to implement a roundabout up there Uh, okay, I think that's it. Thanks mark. Sure. Thank you number golden I wanted to thank mark for the comprehensive presentation and all the work that your department does and then while you were talking and you said You were thinking of ways to rethink the education and outreach that you do And I remember when we spoke before I told you how our kids love the field trip to the resource recovery center in the landfill It's one of their you know favorites one of the highlights along with the watershed field trip and so I I love the little pfa that you did and I was wondering if it would be possible To like combine that with like almost like avenger hunt type walk or something like that I mean looking forward I'm thinking The next year and and all the field trips that the kids have already missed this idea of a virtual field trip Where they could watch something and then have something they could take with them to look around would be a super cool idea and we've been working on this um Wireless Wednesday for today at bayhue and we put out different sites historical sites around tana cruse Where kids could go we stole it from the museum But I think in almost all the departments It would be really cool to do little videos like that where the kids could watch because we just walked through the other day My daughter and I and she's 14 and was like I've never been on a field trip here Like it just looks like ducks roller skating like why are they going in a circle and so anyway I just think it's a great video and I'd love to see more from your department and other department Great. Yeah, we'd be happy to work on things like that We have a communications person and um, we're going to have to be creative in sharing what we do because We won't be able to do tours for a little while. So that's a great idea. Happy to work with you on that. Thank you Yeah All right vice mayor mires Oh, you're muted donna. We'll come back to you councilmember matthews Again spectacular presentation. Thank you. It's just breathtaking. What your department does and Like Renee just congratulations both on the deeply technological All the reviews you have to go through and the public education is fantastic. I love the video Share it with us. We can Spread it around great It's just just great work and again in every one of your divisions what you're doing for Really progressive environmental protection energy conservation It's just spectacular. Good work. Thank you so much. Um, let's see Vice mayor mires, can we try to see if your audience working? Thank you. Uh, thank you for the presentation. I love the psa Um, and it's a great idea. I think councilmember golder's idea of trying to expand on that um I wanted to ask and also I want to say um, because we hear about city departments and projects winning these awards And it's kind of just kind of jammed in there with the, you know, overall Um in the overview where we get a, you know, a brief presentation at the council meetings But this is a really big deal and you know, I'm wondering about trying to um, I know that we advertise it But if there's a way that we can kind of keep that in the forefront of people's minds Um, it would be great if so just thinking about how to how to remind people that these awards take a lot of effort And a lot of decision making and this is um, it's a big deal And the question I have is about and you didn't call it out, but I'm It goes without saying that the measure d funds the local sales tax for transit and the gas tax gas tax funding is also We're looking at major reductions there. And so I'm wondering how projects funded with partially with those funds How you're thinking about that or is there anything that specifically that we're gonna that we're at risk of not being able to do um In the short term and and how do you plan to kind of work around that? Yeah, that's a good question. Um, we still haven't seen the revenue numbers from that. Um, the thing about projects like that um, they do take a longer time Um, and we have some flexibility usually we'll use some of that on paving So we can adjust paving projects to accommodate what the funding source is Um, we are lucky that we do have measure h, which is our own internal um sales tax program, which helps keep our streets Maintained as well. So but yeah, that's a concern I think we're all kind of waiting to see where these numbers are going to shake out with sales tax Um, and we're hoping that it's a short We're hoping it's a why instead of a you or whatever's we hope it's we hope it recovers fairly soon Um, but yeah, we'll have to adjust schedules. That's where that will be We'll just have to figure out what we can push out and try to prioritize Uh, the the critical ones first Thank you. Yeah And you guys hear me Can I ask a question or is there someone is? Is it okay, Justin? You're on mute Sorry It was a It's that malfunction mark. I just had a quick question and and also just want to add to um, just the the um Just the thanks that of all the things your department does and I think your department Along with parks, you know, you guys do so much visible work for everybody every day in Santa Cruz so Just very much appreciate What your department does and you have just wonderful and excellent people to work for you and They're just always Thinking about how to do things better. So our our enterprise Departments just really serve the city in such an exemplary way. So thank you I have one quick question. Which you probably wonder about is um, what's the status of the river mouth project? Oh, that's a good question. Um We're um We're probably going to maintain how we are this year. We're going to manage the river But then we helped to go out to bid for it. Um in the coming In the let's see it in the summer. We helped a bit we helped to bid it So we helped have it in place next season is really what the goal is so But yeah, everything with COVID-19 kind of threw us out on a lack. So But the but the state has kept the money and all that there's no reason for the money Yeah, we think we're still in contact with them on a weekly basis just to keep everybody informed on what's going on Great. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for all your work You're welcome All right, calcium and we're welcome Thank you, mayor and thank you for the presentation and I love the idea of expanding the Like the PSA and that and virtual opportunity Mark, I just kind of quick question in terms of how you will prioritize sort of projects given these limited times and constraints financially Yeah What's going to drive our our decision-making is always going to be safety So those will be the first projects we will take care of And then we'll look at um enhancements after that But it's going to be a safety driven decision You know parking is probably going to be the most challenging one just because of revenue and how do we Just the changing environment. We want to work with The housing efforts that are going on downtown. So we want to make sure we provide parking facilities for those And so that's a moving landscape as well. So working with the businesses working with the Constituent development that's going on downtown Trying to figure out how we can Still work with metro to get people back on the bus safely You know We're going to be very adaptive where we have a very creative group And we're going to continue to be creative and in problem solving and how we manage our funds I wish I could give you a more concrete answer, but that's I see what you do right now No, I appreciate that and I think safety is definitely essential Starting place And I just wonder is as we start to think about health and all policies how that could play a kind of a factor in um Sort of outlining priority areas and equity and such like that, but safety has to be fundamental. So thank you very much If there's no further uh questions And council members at this time I'll turn it over to the public to see if there's any members of the public Who have questions about the presentation from public works If you are on the line, please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand And when it's your time to speak you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted and the time will be set to two minutes And so we'll give folks a minute or two if they have it called in all in And then again, you'll want to press star nine on your phone if you'd like to Comment on the public works budget presentation. If there's no callers, I'll just bring it back to council Councilmember matthews This is a question for mark, but probably for martin brunel. So you've done a good job of laying out what you do Um, what's in the pipeline where you see some revenues coming down some difficulties on some projects And my question is when are we going to get the On that will that be for our final budget hearing for the coming I mean And I know it's also a moving project and martin talked yesterday about several mid-year check-ins Rather than maybe this one So when do we start seeing the the hard choices and decisions? Yes, so so the process will start with the budget committee, which uh, we've scheduled I believe we've already scheduled many for that and We will check in with you Probably early school will have a good amount of data will be in the September check-in Certainly by budget adoption Whatever we can provide an update to on we'll do that which will be the end of June and then Come back to you in december and then again at mid-year There's a lot of uh, obviously uh uncertainty and a lot of things that are in the works both on the Revenue and expenditure side Data will come into play but The the major impact of the fund is is general fund And so we'll have to really focus on that with respect to the parking fund That's another one. I think we'll have to really work really closely with mark and mark's group to Look at that They provide a wide variety of services as mark mentioned that have an impact on the Maintenance of our downtown like garbage collection and Sidewalk cleaning and restroom maintenance. So those will be things that we'll have to start really look closely, but Hopefully we'll be back to you by The september time frame And if not earlier if we if we can have something ready for you in june We will but it's probably gonna take a little bit of time to be able to get back to you with a complete set of options Is there any further questions or comments from calendar members? Seeing none Mark, thank you again for all the hard work the department's doing Made the presentation putting us kind of at the forefront Sanity with the forefront of a lot of sustainability measures and so very much appreciate the presentation of all the work you all have been doing Thank you On our agenda is item number two presentation from our water department So again for members of the public who are streaming at this meeting If this is a presentation you would like to comment on Now it's the time to call in using the instructions on your screen The order will be a presentation by staff followed by questions from the council We will then take public comment and return to the council for any follow-up questions or comments And with that i'll turn it over to our water director rosemary minard Welcome rosemary. Good morning council members Thank you for taking the time to hear from us all about our budget I'm going to share my screen now and hopefully that will happen There we go A miracle a technological miracle Um, so I wanted to spend just a few minutes this morning kind of rounding out mark gave you a really good overview of a lot of the utility and sort of capital intensive services that the The city is providing and to support the community and our quality of life here and I wanted to Sort of round that out by talking about the water department Work in this in this area and we have as you know a Both a robust operating budget and a capital program that we're going to talk about a little bit more today So with that I want to just start by talking about our core services Um, you know, basically our job is we make and deliver high quality water to 100,000 people and we You know, we have a lot of experience doing that. It's a complicated process it requires a lot of Ongoing adaptability does what weather conditions change as well as uh, you know hydrological conditions And I think that we're you know, we've got a great group of people who produce and deliver the water It involves science. It involves chemistry. It involves, you know engineering. It involves operating You know on christmas morning when we're all having other kinds of things going on in our lives Um, we also provide meter reading billing and prompt and courteous customer service to our customers This is a really big priority for us And I think our staff in the customer services group just do a yeoman's job of You know really being responsive and understanding customers working with customers And that too is a changing set of conditions both From the economic conditions that we've been experiencing recently You know individuals have their own sets of issues that they often Come forward when they've got a billing problem or a financial problem And our folks really work with folks to try to you know, keep the water flowing in their houses and make it Work for them to pay their bills Um, we operate maintain and when needed repair replace water system infrastructure valued at nearly a billion dollars You know, that's a number when somebody would say I had to get that number I I can only say that you know, we have a lot of infrastructure in place and what we're paying to a lot and a lot of our programs and projects that we're working on to um Look at the reinvestment in our system the price tag is pretty staggering And I think that is one thing that's really important for our customers and our community to understand This is a really really valuable, but also an expensive capital intensive infrastructure system in our community and it's in pretty Significant need of major reinvestment at this point So we've been working hard to talk to our customers about that One of the places where we get a lot of uh, really interesting feedback is I think cross our our community relations specialist Just does this great job in the schmoo review that comes out typically twice a year and she's got a really Great knack of being able to make the information About our infrastructure and the choices we're making really relatable. So if you um, get that that uh schmoo review Make sure to read it. She does a great job and then finally, uh We manage and plan for thousands of acres of land and many other valuable natural resources for long-term sustainability Unlike a lot of the other departments Our reach of uh, the facilities and the properties and the resources we're managing, you know extend large significantly outside the um, the city limits and so we end up dealing with, you know, things like, uh Uh mount herman june beetles or red-legged frogs in the projects that we're working on whether they're capital projects Or they're operational things like how we're managing, uh, lock loman. We uh, we do You know quality treatment for the lock loman reservoir involving all kinds of uh chemical and fisheries kinds of issues and so we are really Got that whole set of natural resources land use management kinds of skills that match the some of those that occur in the parks department and in other parts of the You know city infrastructure, but also for would match those of much larger systems like san francisco puc or east bay municipal utility district or contra costa water district where they have A significant set of resources outside just of their those in their service area um Oh All right start work chart Uh, we we have uh, basically You know a number of operating groups the largest one is the operations division chris coburn manages that for us And it has water production distribution watershed compliance, which includes water resources management and water quality These are the ones that when you uh, sorry When you're looking at the things that we need to be managing on a day-to-day basis and the sort of critical activities of the during the cobin time frame This is where the main action was there particularly in production and water quality We have a lot of ongoing regulatory responsibilities for demonstrating that the water is safe and So between the production of the water itself and the um, sorry Figure out how not to have that happen Um Between the production of the water itself and the monitoring and testing of it Those were ones that we really really prioritized making You know continuous under the cobin situation. We have an engineering section that's got quite a large group of folks involved in the capital planning, but also in An environmental planning for the capital projects, obviously finance and administration We have a new section called utility wide planning that includes now conservation and utility wide planning This is a section I sort of reconfigured when toby gotter retired a few months ago And then we have that customer service section. So apart from the operation sections. I mentioned earlier We have the customer service group who's also been a priority project for us or function for us to maintain during the Coven response and I think um, kyle peterson who's the manager there has done a really great job of You know figuring out how to make things happen with his staff and a remote work situation and also Figuring out how to utilize his resources in a way that is safe in the field That's the meter shop group. So that's that's a really good group of people. This is about 115 people altogether Um Next we have um, let's talk a little bit about key accomplishments in fiscal year 20 So it's obvious the cova thing has made it clear that now more than ever Safe and reliable water is a critical piece of our being able to maintain public health and the history of water systems as we know them today the public water systems community water system Is has a public health at its basis and this the coven situation is a really great example of why this infrastructure Is so important to our our community's health and safety and also why reliability of this infrastructure And resiliency of this infrastructure as we face conditions that are changing over time Really is important. In addition, we are building a 21st century water system Provides reliable service ready for uncertain future. This is a new creek inlet outlet project Replacement project that you have recently approved and that we are getting ready to mobilize on right now it's a huge project involving literally millions of dollars invested in and putting a brand new intake in the structure in the around the dam at Noel Creek dam and Putting a new intake in Loch Lomond that will give us a reliable system For accessing water from this really important critically important facility Under every condition imaginable as we go forward. So this is a big project for us. That's really getting underway now and The last thing is planning for an adapting to climate change We've we've really experienced in the time I've been here seven winters now What I would describe is whiplash weather that someone else described it that way first But the bottom line is we go from these really dry conditions such as we've experienced to some degree this year To the really wet situations that we experienced in 2017 that involved a lot of damage to our facilities Whether there are our transmission raw water transmission pipelines or our critically important coast pump station These were situations that were every single day. We were operating in an emergency manner During 2017 trying to understand where the water was going to come from to make water for people to use tomorrow and that kind of situation is really As I said at the time kind of brought the chickens home to roost with respect to the work that we need to do Um our operating budget for fiscal 21 is about 36 million dollars It's kind of evenly divided between personnel services, which is this big chunk here And uh the services and supplies There's uh, we are doing debt financing for substantial pieces of our infrastructure Reinvestment. So this is a debt service that we've got planned for next year and then a relatively small piece of this pie, which is capital outlay and in this terminology capital outlay means vehicles and You know those kinds of heavy equipment that kind of thing as opposed to You know capital project. So really, uh, this is the cap. This is the operating part of the budget We're going to talk about the capital budget a little bit further along in the presentation Um and then broken down by function This is water administration and debt. So this is a where you would find that money coming from the debt service I mentioned before in the administration the administration budget includes our inner governmental Contributions to the city's services internal services that you heard about yesterday finance it hr We make our contributions to supporting those that also includes, you know rent for the building that we have at 212 locusts customer service meter shop conservation is here water engineering relatively small amount of Money here because most of the money for the engineering projects is in the capital budget And then the vast majority in the operating budget one thing I think to just mention here that Is important is to recognize that Most of these costs are fixed And they don't change very much whether we sell a lot more water or sell a lot less water that are are sort of general Differentiation between what's variable and what's fixed of our cost only about eight percent of our total cost is variable associated with mainly chemical and power use So for example, we're we're not even though we're seeing a decline in the water use in the In the commercial sector as a result of the covid shutdown We're not having lower costs as a result of selling less water So I think that's an important concept to keep in your mind, especially as we start talking about You know rate making on for the going forward time frame and then So what's not status quo about our budget and this is where the capital Program is really anything but status quo for us Over a number of years. We've been working off very hard on figuring out how to Really take some positive steps forward on our capital program and we're on the cusp of doing that We know that the conditions of the Economy have a fact, you know an influence on this, but we're proceeding with the big projects that we've got underway Uh, the work that we're doing on investing in water supply reliability and phase of climate change Groundwater storage is one of the big elements of that for us and we're looking at that both in the Santa Cruz mid-county groundwater basin as well as the Santa margarita groundwater basin completed a major study in the Mid-county basin this last year that gives us a groundwater sustainability plan for that basin that we're Really working along with so Cal Creek and the county and the central water district in implementing And I think that gives us some great guidelines for how to proceed with You know some kind of a strategy that would improve our ability to store a water that's available in the winter time That we currently have no place to put So that it can be available for us during drought conditions when we don't have enough water in the system And then also increasing resiliency by replacing agent infrastructure This is a little schematic of the project that's getting underway right now to replace the critical pipeline under the San Lorenzo River That's that's using the former 1220 river street campsite On the west side and we'll create another sort of receiving shaft as described here over on the east side Kind of at the foot of crossing street And this this project is also getting underway at the moment and is a really important project for us to improve the Our ability to reliably take water from the river intake and from the coast sources Pump it under the river and up to the treatment plant so that we can make potable water from our sources of supply and That these two projects are just the sort of the first things that are getting underway We've got some things going on behind that that we're going to talk about relative. I'm going to go through this chart with you Very quickly here So Water supply augmentation strategy. This is mostly in the study pilot testing kind of phase right now So for this is 62 million dollar capital budget for us for next year So the small relatively small piece of it because we're still Finalizing the direction we're moving with that and doing some pilot testing important pilot testing particularly in the In the mid county groundwater basin The this big pie right pieces of the pie right here This is the no creek inlet outlet replacement project and As you may recall the bid for this came in and the 60 plus million dollars the construction part of it so this this piece is Moving forward has a couple year timeline for Construction and this project is being funded by a low interest loan from the state revolving loan fund Which will give us probably 1.2 to 1.4 percent interest rate on a long-term borrowing for this project to To be completed Raw water diversions to ground water raw water diversions and diversions to groundwater. This is our laguna Um diversions and some work on groundwater systems that will upgrade or Make the existing groundwater systems more viable over time Raw water transmission this this far right here the this golden goldy color is That's our work on pipelines the really critical pipelines that bring water from the north coast sources and bring water from lock loman to the to the treatment plant and so We know from history and you know day-to-day operation that this is these are vulnerable and we need to be doing some upgrades That so that's a studying and getting some work underway A little bit on those work on those projects surface water treatment. This is continuing work involving The the grandpale water treatment plant we're getting underway in this next Uh section looking at the concrete tanks project, which I think you had you had an action item a while ago to Certify the environmental piece of that project Um distribution and metering system These are important components that we're also moving forward to you know make that part of our system reliable and then We have this big thing here, which is called water program administration and contingency This number is big, but it's it's way it's really an administrative way for us to handle The cost of supporting the program and at the end of each fiscal year that that number gets distributed out to the project So it's not It's not in fact, you know just a bunch of money that's sitting there that is has no purpose so That's the kind of overview of what the capital budget Is for us and I'd be happy to take your questions I thank you rosemary for that presentation and call the Hard worker department does to ensure that we have clean drinking water Um, I'll turn it over to council members to see if you'll have any questions And it looks like council member Byers has a question Rosemary this is a thank you very much for that overview and uh, it's such a difficult time But I occurred to me years ago And maybe I've been out of it. It's been more recent Did harvesting of trees Generated quite a bunch of money now Don't get me wrong. I'm not promoting we harvest trees But but it really is an income and done done right and now everyone knows how you harvest Carefully and you know anyway, so I don't know whether that's come up, but thinking money and revenue My question Yeah, so Interesting you should ask that question and timely as well. We we have initiated a kind of fire ecology study Looking at our the our lands in the watersheds Holden the San Lorenzo the zianti watersheds on some land and then the lands that we own More in the north coast areas And the goal of that really was to try to get a understanding of the condition of those watersheds particularly related to wildfire And what things might need to be done to more sustainably manage those those those lands Against the kind of threat of the devastation that would really result from a wildfire in our watershed For example, the San Lorenzo of the nil Creek watershed The the water quality implications of a watershed fire would be literally devastating And we might be in a situation where we didn't have our storage for multiple years following the water A wildfire in that area So we have initiated that work to try to get our hands around what the What the needs might be and what the strategies might be and then of course out of that would be There is some kind of a plan for you know Sustainable harvest or what have you then would understand the financial opportunities there And thank you. Right. That's my only question Good luck. Mayor Myers Rosemary, I just have a thank you for the presentation and your the work you guys do is It's great to have a department that is so enmeshed in engineering and science and producing, you know Our most precious resource which is our drinking water. So Um Your department is very diverse in the way that it's approaching managing that resource But also the resources That create that clean water including our watershed. So, thank you Um, I just had a question about the debt service Is that tied to our current rate structure and do you see any issues with that with COVID with regards to Some in some families not being able to for example, you know, make some of their utility payments I'm just curious if you have comments around that Yeah, so so we've been looking at Every day yet in terms of trying to really understand the potential implications of the COVID shutdown on our finances But we have initiated A Sort of a look at what we're calling account aging So we know what amount is billed every month and we're trying to Assess how much is being paid every month and you know macro levels as opposed to on a we're not reporting it out on a Individual customer basis, but we've seen some impacts for example And we've divvied this up into residential. So that's multi-family single family business and then the quote other and we've seen some Impacts particularly in the business category. So we have we have accounts that are called business general. We have accounts that are called Business hotel and business restaurant. So that those those three are all bundled. So we haven't sort of pulled that apart But I guess what I would say is And mark made a couple of comments in his Comments particularly related to the solid waste and to the wastewater how their fund balances and reserves are Helping them would help them to absorb some of those impacts We certainly are in that situation as well. And in fact during the 2016 development of the Long-term financial plan the council authorized us to set up of what's called the rate stabilization reserve In addition to financial reserves That are designed to give us 180 days of operating cash and a three million dollar Emergency reserve So we have funded those things, but I will tell you that You know We don't really know for sure what's going to happen with that and then with respect to the first question you asked about the debt service We we are in a position during 20 21 fiscal 21 to you know be able to service that debt and and we need to be Obviously looking out for the next sort of five or six years on the Long-term financial planning that work has sort of got underway and we're looking at some timing issues now But but fundamentally we're looking very carefully in not just to the impacts on us but sort of more broadly on the utility bill impacts because You know, we're we're billing in the city for water wastewater Refuse and then the franchise fees and the utility tax portion which goes to the general fund So all of that is being kind of We're trying to get our arms around what those impacts are Okay, great. Thank you I can just follow up with that because I had a similar question Because I think it would be good to also understand, you know, you have on one hand Your businesses for example that aren't using water and so then you're not paying me So you see a reduction in revenue from that then you also people who are at home who've lost their jobs were using water And then but they're on every okay their bills. So I think having a good understanding of What do you see reductions from non-operation versus reductions from Payment will be interesting. The other thing that I was curious about is whether or not there's a way to understand how the Lack of operations that you see Santa Cruz is impacting not only revenue In tax generation, but also the water supply in general since, you know, we now think right now there's only about 2,500 people out of the roughly 1,900 And so I don't know if you can speak to that or Or if that's something to speak to again Yeah, yeah, and again in a kind of you know preliminary because Things bill and then you know, you have 28 days to pay so to speak And so you don't really see the impact of whatever was going on for a little ways out But we're starting to monitor that What we're seeing I think overall is a slight Modest modest but not very huge impact Increase in residential use And a decrease in business use I'm I don't know that anybody has to look sort of More in a more expansive way at UCSC in particular and sort of more bundled in the quote unquote other category What I will tell you though is While the impact might be big the portion of their total use of the water in the system is relatively small So if you take those two factors and you put them together You know the cumulative impact of those things might not be as big as you might think just from thinking Oh, there's only instead of you know, 20,000 people up there. There's only however many So I think that that is certainly one of the things we're looking at As I mentioned, we're starting to do some work on a we brought a contract to you a few months ago on the Looking at cost of service and next wave financial planning and That work will result in a lot of disaggregation and kind of analysis most, you know, really deep analysis of How water is being used in the system and who's using what and it will it It's work that needs to be done to establish the cost of service basis But then also following that is, you know, rate structure work that has a whole different set of priorities and goals So, um, I mean they'd link together, but you know, one builds off the other and they're not a direct thing So that's one of the big things that we're we're definitely talking about and There's a lot of really sophisticated analysis going into our planning our financial planning in particular We do have a what's called a pro forma that is that takes our operating costs takes our capital costs takes our debt service and Projects out how all those pieces sit together with respect to what kind of revenue increases we want and what kind of how we're meeting our financial metrics that were established in the in the financial plan and That's a very sophisticated product that we work with the water commission on and we'll be working with them on Both before the fiscal 21 budget and then in the future as we start doing the next wave of financial planning great um, I had um Two other questions One was it was great to hear that the 1220 river shoot project was moving forward Just wondering if you could speak to the timeline on that because I know that was pretty controversial for a while regarding You know, the campus there is right here kind of Yeah, right So I believe mobilization is happening right now and I think that it was uh the notice to proceed was issued maybe a couple of months ago in sometime early march maybe And the the covet thing, you know created a certain amount of delay But the goal is to get that project In the ground and finish before it gets into the next rainy season Because that there are these huge pits as the the little graphic I showed Showed you the pit on the west side where the river street camp is is going to be You know 70 feet deep and it's 40 to 60 Foot diameter or you know conditions at the top and on the other side of the river because it's lower. Obviously it'll be about 20 50 feet deep So the concern was finishing that project in the time where you minimize the potential for those things to become Huge pools of water, uh during the rainy season. So we're hoping that will be, you know, finished with that project before Winter just coming winter and one that will check a huge box for us in terms of providing reliability To the system, but also will allow us to you know, have that button that before rainy season Assuming we have rain, right? And then my last question um Is around I know in the past there's been a position that's more or less like a river Coordinated and I know that that I mean, I'm not sure that that I would assume that given the impacts of covid that That position might be on hold But can you speak to kind of what has been happening over time as it relates to that position? Sure so there was a There was a request a few years ago to put in a to add a new position a river coordinator and so I think in order to um To find a place for it that didn't have a general fund impact It got the position got stuck got put into my budget. Um, because Theoretically if it was going to exist in the budgeting way as opposed to an actual way It would be, um, you know all funded by enterprise funds at that point There was an assumption that was built into that it was just a way to keep it from becoming an issue on the general fund discussions that were happening that year um For a variety of reasons it didn't get filled that first year in the second year We started to talk about it Further cuts were happening in the general fund then and we started to talk about how to To really ask ourselves a question. What do we want this position to do and where does it need to be? What level does it need to be? both administratively housed and also Functionally, you know, what are we trying to accomplish with this? So how do we match up the What the position needs to do with the level of the position so that it's that it can be effective And that work happened. We did some of that work about a year ago Trying to understand what the needs were there was a lot of at that time. You may recall about a year ago there's quite a bit of The homeless issue was really heating up here And a lot of the issues related to some of the goals of the river From the community of you know, river activation those kinds of things The conclusion from the work we did internally was that can't be successful until the homelessness issue got better organized and so at that point we sort of put that on pause and we we've tried to Initiate this back into the hands of now. I think the city manager's kind of taken over But again, the covet thing and the ongoing set of issues resulting from that have caused the pause in that The position still is in the water department's budget You know in terms of budgeting it's funded, but uh, I don't know for sure whether or not If it were ever filled it would be, uh, I don't know that there would be a 100 percent, uh enterprise funded You know mechanism for doing that, but it's an open question at this point Thank you Uh, looks like councilmember walkins has their hand raised Thank you rose mary and thank you for the questions That were asked earlier. I think my question is uh, you know I definitely kind of piggybacking on vice mayor meyer's comments around this being sort of the ultimate critical infrastructure in terms of Our society, right? Um, and then thinking about how You know under these covet circumstances Um filling some really critical positions and ensuring that we have the right workforce trains to fill these positions Um, given that there could be you know potential For some of our really critical folks doing this work to get ill So i'm wondering how you know, you're thinking about that or How we can be thinking about that in terms of building that pipeline of workforce for you Yeah, so the the workforce issue has been a really an interesting one as we've Gone through the covet thing the strategy that we've used and I know it was used in a couple of other places particularly in our water quality lab and our In our water treatment facility Was to sort of separate the groups into two teams And have them not overlap at all so Um scale the the work so that a half of a team could do whatever work that needed to be done While the other half was working from home or you know on some kind of leave at the point that point Um, I think what we've done what we've managed to do is to maintain that isolation of the teams But also we really shut down the facilities We we got ourselves to a place where you know, you couldn't go to the water treatment plant unless you work there On a daily basis because we were trying to avoid the cross contamination and the opportunity for anybody to be ill That would result in you know, damaging the our ability to do the the work we needed to do Um, I I think that on a going forward basis. We know we have a number of issues related to key um key Kind of skill sets electricians instrumentation people Mechanics, these are positions that are very difficult to fill here locally Because of lack of the industries that would feed us into that area. We've done some work on growing our own We need to do some more of that and we also need to be thinking more strategically in the future It's definitely on our list and I think it's one of the areas that we um, we're beginning to talk about Particularly as it relates to some of the work that we're doing on the capital side Great, and I I guess I would just add that, you know with some of the um Career technical education programs and apprentice programs I really just want to echo how important it would be to see how we could fill and build that pipeline here on our own So happy to work on that moving forward. Thank you A couple of years ago. We did create what's called the utility maintenance tech Trainee that is a kind of a combination of On-the-job training and book learning that the the people in that position go through and some testing at various steps along the way That was a good model And it and it meets the needs very specifically for a particular facility But I think there's some bigger picture things that we could start doing Great. Thank you. It looks like we Don't have any further questions from council members So if there's any member of the public who is watching and would like to comment on the water budget presentation um, there should be Some phone numbers on your screen that you can call into Once you've called in press star nine on your phone to raise your hand And when it's your time to speak you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted and the time will be set to two minutes So there's any members of the public now it's the time to call in On the water budget presentation We'll give folks a couple minutes to see if anybody Wants to call in Jason. Are we on channel 25? today Yes Thank you. I thought so, but yeah All right seeing that there's no members of the public who wants to comment on this item I'll bring it back to council to see if there's any further questions or comments I'll turn them around Yeah, thank you. I um, thank you rose mary for the presentation um, you know, my my big question is how in the world are you gonna Continue to function and be successful in this uh environment, but I think that I'll save that You know, I know you'll you'll work very hard to figure it out and we'll we'll get through I my questions have been answered asked and answered so I appreciate all the questions from my colleagues You know mine were kind of around the debt service question and And labor workforce issues. So I mean, thank you councilmember Watkins for Making that suggestion about rop And so yeah, I just wanted to say thank you for all everything you all do. It's pretty amazing I'm sorry. We can't do those tours this year But because it's pretty amazing for those who haven't been on it But um, look forward to hearing how you How you manage as we proceed. Thank you. We're in good hands. So thank you Thank you so much We have a great team and I really want to acknowledge all the work that they've done And I what I would say to sort of echo something mark said is There's a lot of creative problem solving going on in in our city and certainly in my organization And I think that that is Really a sign of a strong organization that we have all have a every right to be really proud of I I just can't let you go off screen without thanking you and your team Thank you spectacular report it never failed to impress and Your combination of customer service on the micro level and very long-term very big Thank you so much With that, uh, thank you again rosemary for the presentation and all the hard work you do everybody is obviously very appreciative and With that, I think we'll move on to our next presentation. Thank you Okay, next item on our agenda is item number three our third presentation of the morning It's going to be from parks and recreation So as members of the public court streaming this meeting if this is a presentation You would like to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen The order will be a presentation by staff followed by questions from the council You will then take public comment and then return to council for any follow-up questions or comments I just want to let uh council members know and staff and members and members of the public know that Roughly around uh noon We're gonna likely take a break for so folks can have lunch But we will Revisit that as we get close to time just want to give a heads up for folks who might be wanting to have a lunch break around now and with that, um, I will turn it over to Our parks and rec director tony elliot to provide the budget presentation today Welcome tony All right. Thank you mayor and city council members. This is tony elliot parks and recreation director I'm here with lindsay bass our principal management analyst And together we'll walk through our fiscal year 2021 budget summary. So I'd like to introduce lindsay to start us off Great. Thank you so much tony and just to get us started. Good morning council members I wanted to give you a quick snapshot of what we'll be what we will be covering today. So I'll run you through um, a very quick department overview I'll cover the core services that the department provides along with some annual numbers around the impact that we have each and every year Then i'm going to pass it off to tony and he's going to walk you through a few of our key fiscal year 2020 key achievements Um, he'll talk through the working status quo budget that we put forward As well as some of the challenges that we see around that budget, especially given the current atmosphere So with that we'll get going The city of santa cruz parks and recreation system is world class and unique. We have much to be proud of Beyond the facts that you see up on the screen I'm just going to emphasize a few of these And then we'll let you guys In greater detail later, but um as a starting point Combined our park beaches and open spaces cover over 1700 acres That's about 17 of the land area of the city of santa cruz It's triple the national average of park land per capita Which means we're managing about 26 acres of park land per thousand residents Given that massive and impressive system We also attract Through that world class system nearly three million people who are here to visit our places enjoy our programs And attend a wide variety of really unique creative events that we put forward And then down at the bottom of the graphic, uh, you know, we also With that large um an impressive system You know try to be very careful stewards of The natural resources that are embodied within that so within our park system and the irrigated Areas within that system The volumetric water budget that we're assigned every year. We only use 43 of that You know, so we try to be very very careful with how we use our water across our system And that translates into a water savings of over 2500 olympic size swimming pools. So Really trying to Provide great recreation but also be stewards of those 1700 acres I'm going to run you through some of the core services of our department and you'll see here that We are organized into two major or three major groups apologies the first being our recreation department and This is the department that brings really creative core service programming for youth teams adults and seniors in the community. So summer camps junior guards Sports and beaches programming, you know, this is the type of programming that's happening in our facilities But also within our park system They also put forward over 125 unique events every year Um and right now in the current environment the team is also Really, you know, bringing a new level of creativity to what we do and figuring out how we provide recreation and programming in a virtual capacity For both those different service groups, but also through our events Um in addition to the types of programming that they do in our places and in our parks We're also beginning to look at how they can help the community in a cobit 19 environment Enjoy those spaces in a safe manner, right? So we have a group that is serving as west cliff hosts and beach hosts To help folks understand how they can be in those places right now in a safe and socially distant manner They're also in many respects our key and connection to lots of community groups So we really see community partnership as critical to our ability to get our work done These involve connections with the Vista the natural history museum The coastal watershed council Engagements with the surfing museum In addition, we also work with our friends and parks and recreation group To put forward scholarships each year so that we're trying to create opportunities for underserved Folks to have access equitable access to the often programming and events that we host every year And finally, uh, this is the group that also promotes Sponsorship and does a wide variety of outreach and communications and marketing around The work that our department does Moving right along to this center group our parks department There at the might fox beat park, which was one of our big projects this year to improve the coping there And this group is one of our larger groups in the department They're responsible for refuse and green waste removal from all of our parks beaches and open spaces And that's a wide bath system. They also take care of all of the amenities That are included within that 1,700 acres of park system. That includes bathrooms ball fields pools Our hardy west pool the disc golf courses that we operate. Um, the day lobby of the golf course the wharf Which is the longest wooden wharf in the u.s. Um, our skate parks playgrounds Various sports courts over 35 miles of hiking trails and pathways Uh, they also do a wide variety of plants turf and small tree care They issue tree permits and inspections and do Variety of system planning environmental compliance as well as our large project management And then to bring it home the administration department Is kind of the public connection to the community. So um, our main line provides service assistant We take in permit requests registrations For events and programs And also help facilitate things like responses to public information requests We do budgetary planning revenue fiscal processing As well as advisory body support And a wide variety of um Permitting as well recently bringing on board the city special events Um happening within the department Within those three areas you'll see a bit more here with our org chart how we are organized and some of the different functional areas Within those three different divisions Um as we move into fiscal year 21, um our organization is staying largely the same With the exception of a cost-neutral reorganization that will take effect in fiscal year 21 in our parks divisions You can see that outlined in the shaded box there on the right side of the screen Who could argue with this statement? Especially right now, um COVID-19 has really underscored how much our community And our visitors love the environments experiences and programs that our department offers And the following a few slides are just a snapshot of the impact that we have on the community each and every year So we take in about um 7 000 annual reservations for people to uh Have fun and play in our spaces That equals or translates into about 335 000 experiences of folks across our park system This past year we also completed over 300 000 um dollars in capital improvement projects and just to give you a sense of Some of the the major features of Those projects that included um new bike park ramps At our it also included a new playground at harvey west which you're looking at on the screen We replaced the skate park coping at the mike fox Skate park proved and put in a new retaining wall on the cliff street walkway. It's beautiful Have really improved that as a transportation pedestrian corridor in the city And then finally um The city of santa cruz on some gymnasium updates for the natural bridges gymnasium. So again That component of partnerships being really critical to our ability to serve the community I mentioned the role of the park team in stewarding Those 1700 acres so every year that team on average Removes more than 200 tons of refuse and about 126 tons of green waste from that system This is one of our trucks on west cliff drive and on west cliff drive alone We have 32 waste receptacles that need to be serviced regularly So a massive job But wanting to make sure that that experience for those three million visitors That that play in our system every year um have um An enjoyable experience um without any refuse In addition over 137,000 folks participate in our events classes and programs You can see here Some hula happening out on the wharf during the aloha Polynesian festival So that's just um a quick snapshot Of some of our annual impact and now i'm going to pass it off to tony So he can take you through um a few of our key accomplishments from fiscal year 20 All right, thank you lindy and yeah, thank you council members Just wanted to really build upon what lindy described is really our day-to-day a lot of what was described as Operationally what we do day in and day out, but a couple of the achievements I'm on top of the daily operations That we wanted to highlight the first one is a result of a cal fire grant that we Received in completed planting of 500 trees this year through that We also did a tree inventory across the city of 25 000 trees Engaged 10 different organizations and over 250 volunteers engaged through tree planting across the city In light of the cova 19 public health emergency, we have also created a virtual recreation Platform and program That really kind of led the way in the central coast area really led the way across the state In terms of how to provide recreation during this really unique An unprecedented time during the public health emergency So this I think is a testament to the creativity and innovation and adaptability Of our parks recreation staff and coming up with this virtual recreation platform at a very short time We have served thousands of people through our virtual recreation offerings In the first six weeks we served over a thousand seniors in particular Which is great through a variety of Of classes and opportunities And we continue to provide opportunities through virtual recreation and add new content Weekly and some of those include you may have seen on social media in different places Walking tours around the community with our city arborist Leslie Keady Doing a tree walk to a variety of classes and exercise opportunities. So this is something that's been so successful And really created in a very short amount of time But something that we'll plan to keep Into the future and in fact some of the programs that we will work on this summer for example junior guards Unfortunately, we won't be able to run junior guards this summer In a way that we've done in the past, but we will have opportunities virtually For people still to think about junior guards and train Learn water safety and prepare for upcoming years Through things like junior guards. So this is a platform Really, I think that's not even just necessarily specific to parks and rec But as mark dottel mentioned earlier with opportunities for tours at other city facilities or Through tours or engagement with our partners the museum of natural history Or others. This is really an open gateway for our community to experience Recreation and learn moving forward. So we're really excited about that achievement this year So covering our budget getting into the numbers here as we look at fiscal year 2021 Our 21 status quo budget is a little over 17 million and you can see how that's broken out Pretty simply in the graph here on the screen about 11 million of the 17 Is for personnel services our revenue target. So trending over the past few years We typically bring in about 5.4 million dollars in revenue per year against The 17 million In expenditures What we're looking at heading into fiscal year 20 The current fiscal year and then heading into the new fiscal year is likely a reduction In that revenue a decreased number in that revenue target And that's due to the COVID-19 health emergency hitting in quarter four of the current fiscal year and quarter one of the upcoming fiscal year Which are really typically Strong revenue quarters the really the strongest revenue quarters for the department. So we will see some decreased revenue What i'll mention though in context Is that in fiscal year 20? Our fiscal year 20 budget was approximately 17.1 million And through salary savings and water savings as lindsay mentioned earlier And just great a great deal of efficiency across the department We're actually giving back about 1.3 million dollars of our budget Back to the general fund in the current fiscal year. So while our budget was 17.1 Our estimated year end expenditure will be about 15.8 million at the end of this year So just wanted to put that in a little bit of context as we head into the new fiscal year I'm also wanted to mention though the second bullet point on the screen here is that our cost recovery as a department Trends around 38 percent annually Compared to the national average, which is about 27 percent in cost recovery This is an area actually that we think we can improve we're working on a revenue policy and a variety of strategies as we move in To fiscal year 21 and beyond to find ways where we can generate additional revenue In areas where we haven't necessarily generated generated revenue in the past And but but in the meantime in the meantime making sure that our rates and fees are very low For our community members In making as many free offerings as we can to the public So being very thoughtful and strategic about where we can generate revenue Without uh impacting our community members This is especially critical Heading into the new fiscal year In light of the COVID-19 emergency We recognize the critical nature of parks I think we've all seen photos of how empty our beaches have been recently In comparison to what they are typically this time of year So this emergent public health emergency has just highlighted the importance of our trails and our parks and our beaches But we want to make sure that we head into the new fiscal year that we're providing those services To the best extent we can and at very low If no cost To our community members to make sure they can get out for their physical and mental health And in an affordable way The greatest asset that we have in the parks recreation department and in our system are our people our staff So as you saw in the budget the vast majority of our annual budget is for our people We have in a status quo environment 87.25 full-time employees Or FTEs I should say I feel like with this as part of our savings in the current fiscal year A lot of that is due to vacant positions that we have and so we're going to continue To keep many positions vacant as we move into the new fiscal year as a result of the hiring freeze That presents some certain challenges and pretty specific challenges for us as we head into the new fiscal year And really our ability to get work done and that's our ability to maintain parks and keep parks open Our ability to provide Core services in terms of serving youth and teens adults and teenagers so With reduced staff it will Be a challenge for us as we head into this new year But again that creativity And that innovative spirit of the parks recreation team that can do spirit in the department will will carry us through Into the new year, but this will be really critical for us to continue to work with the city council and the city manager's office To define help define how we prioritize with fewer staff and fewer resources into the future And with ongoing changes to our operations as a result of kovat 19 There's a lot that we'll have to work together on to prioritize and how we serve the community Improvement briefly here. We this year spent about $300,000 on capital improvement projects that lindsay highlighted a little while ago And big picture though. I wanted to mention that we although we're investing about $300,000 per year through dedicated sources of revenue For parks and recreation capital through our quimby fund and park facilities tax That 300,000 really is a pretty minimal amount as you can see on the chart here. We have approximately 12 million dollars in unfunded and deferred maintenance across the park system The lights on the ball field in the image here are one of our deferred maintenance items. These lights are 30 years old and are not very efficient lighting fixtures and Are something critical that we need to fix among many other things This number doesn't include big ticket items That may result from the sanikers wharf master plan big ticket items associated with the civic auditorium Considering a future renovation of the civic auditorium Those are big dollar items As the as you all know, so this is really just deferred maintenance in the Within the park system I've hit on these a little bit but deferred maintenance and unfunded cip similarly to what public works Mentioned as well again with at least 12 million dollars of deferred maintenance And limited opportunity through quimby and park tax to fund those that will be an ongoing challenge Related to everything from ADA accessibility to public safety And efficiency of our facilities and so forth We continue to have new demands from the public through our parks and recreation master plan and the different master plans We have for properties across the city We we continue to have goals and new demands from the public. So in the image here is pickleball The idea of a dedicated pickleball court somewhere in the community Is is highly desired by By many in our community. So we we continue to have new demands. And so how we fund those in the future Is an ongoing question Staff safety Has been a major priority and consideration for us in the past year We unfortunately have had Some challenging situations with our staff in the in the field with With with frankly some some assault Issues or threats in the field. And so staff safety Is a huge priority for us and we're working with the parks and recreation commission as a subcommittee on staff safety And we're doing a lot more tracking And collecting data more than we ever have before but staff safety Making sure we have the appropriate equipment And making sure we have communication tools are going to be really critical moving into the future And as I mentioned staff vacancies Are issued for us and not having our full staff is going to be a challenge as we move into the full year So again, I just wanted to kind of frame some of these key things that we'll be looking at into the new year and Just hope and look forward to working with the city council to be really creative On how we address these how we prioritize the needs and allocate resources to Continue to provide services to our community So with that said, we're happy to answer any questions that you all might have. Thank you Thank you, tony for the presentation and for all the great work your department continues to do Are there any questions from council members at this time? Council member fires Thanks, tony. What a wonderful overview and it's always fun looking at pictures too of our our town De la viega golf course, I believe open maybe just a week. Do you have any feedback on how that's going? Yeah, thank you. A great question. It's been going really well. We have virtually sold out the t-sheets Over the past week. There's been a lot of pent up demands the golf course We have we've been somewhat limited based on the most recent county public health order We're limited to groups of two at the moment And aren't able to use golf carts at the moment. So we're working with the county health officer to hopefully be able to get groups of four Playing up at the golf course. It's a really exciting time at the golf course. It's the 50th anniversary this year of the golf course and the restaurant Is really completed and ready to open anytime We also Last year as a result of the budget meeting completed a golf course operations plan where we identified strategic steps on increasing Our fees at the golf course and finding some efficiencies To get as close as we can to a break-even point at the golf course. So we've got a lot in the works that's really been on hold As a result of the public health emergency, but so far it's been going really well very Very busy and we look forward to opening up full scale Great. Thanks. Next question. Um, the trust for public land or a nationwide environmental sustainable open space group, um I know it's doing a nationwide project where they have come out that uh, every child should live within a 10 minute walk of a park And so they're moving into communities accepting that and I believe They might be doing lots of them. I don't whether you've heard of it It's not pay attention to that Because it would be wonderful if they would target us and just you know, what they do is just Analyze it and give you advice or just tell you the facts. So I guess my question. I don't whether you've heard of it or they contacted us We've heard of it. Yeah, thank you. That's a great point and as lindsay mentioned earlier we have, um About three times the the park acreage per capita of the the national average and um um, and I think overall we've got, uh Pretty pretty good accessibility for parks across the city. The 10 minute, um Walk challenge is something that our trade organization and national recreation and parks association They're a big advocate of that program as well. So yeah, this is something very much on our radar And if we can connect with the trust for public land, um, certainly for resources or just kind of working together to, uh To help define what we have and where it is and communicate that to our community So they're aware of all the assets and amenities we have um, we love that idea and um, and uh, we'll be happy to champion that forward That statistic you just gave out about acreage, uh, thanks to our green belts And all the past councils who helped Purchase those green belts That's all my question Yeah, one one detail that i'm just seeing here in my notes is um, we do, uh, I guess we do have this assessment in place Already in 96 of our residents are within a 10 minute walk of a park. Oh, wow Great, thank you. I'm moving on council member brown I thank you. Um, thank you, Lindsay and tony for the presentation. Thank you for all the work you've been doing to Try to make, uh, the parks and rec experience, uh, accessible to people through, uh, virtual activities Um, it's uh the virtual, uh page and all the opportunities are really amazing So if folks haven't looked at it, I really highly recommend you do fun at home Have some fun at home while we're all sheltered in place You know the photo challenge all of these things are, you know, really awesome And so I want to applaud you for those I do have a question about how you're approaching Because we know that there are people in our community of these young kids in our community who don't have access to You know, they don't have stable access to the virtual world And so I'm wondering and I know that those programs are really important for a long-term family for some long-term families out here in the open and And others, but I'm just wondering about the the folks who are kind of not As plugged in to the virtual world. Have you thought about how you're Going to try to make opportunities available for them And then and the other question that I have well, I have a couple other questions, but I'm Start with that one Yeah, that's a great question and If I understand your question So one thing I want to hit on is that we've been providing a daycare I think as the council knows through the cobit emergency for essential city personnel So again, something we sort of adapted to provide But I'd like to I think rachel kaufman our recreation superintendent is out there. I'd like to connect with rachel And this I feel is pretty well in line with what our team at the loud Nelson community center what they Tend to do. I'm not sure if we have specific plans on that just yet I'd like to connect with rachel here for any feedback Yes, thank you. Tony Council members. I hope you can hear me. It's recreation superintendent rachel kaufman And this was certainly Something that we looked at with our seniors when we moved all of our senior classes online and we have Staff dedicated to helping seniors even if it's one on one To access, you know, our online programs and we've been so successful with that in the effort and dedication that we've devoted to that As tony mentioned that's been highly successful and we hit that 1000th mark of participation in those online programs And we do see those programs as something that will continue. It has been One of our kind of shining programs that we really see we've always um Wanted to delve into that online world for our seniors and you know, while this is forced us to do so We have really seen the benefits of that For people who are unable to access the center for various reasons that they have really tapped into our program. So We're happy with that and then as far as with our youth programs and access Our recreation team is working collaboratively with the whole county of santa cruz on programs for youth because we do see That there is this huge change in our services and need and so we're all working to Help one another to both create programming that fits within the public health order as well as Find grants and look for grant opportunities To increase access for youth. So this will continue to be work that we Will or that will continue and that we do meet regularly Weekly with county santa cruz Watsonville parks and recreation capitol scott's valley to Both, you know, create programming and kind of see what others are doing or what resources are out there So it definitely feels like a teen spirit and collaborative atmosphere because what we all see and what we all hear from parents Is that child care has become a huge issue and need within the community? And so we are looking at ways that we can help parents with that Thank you. Uh, so my other question Is about the golf course i've been Tracking this for a while now as you know I'm just wondering if in terms of how I know we were trying to move towards, uh, you know cost-neutral On the golf course operation and we have quite a long way to go I imagine some of that water budget savings was related to the brownouts that we You all uh Proposed and we approve and so i'm just wondering like are we still moving closer to that now? Do you see that? Taking more time. Um, I know it's probably too early to tell how you know, what exactly how we're going to proceed But i'm just wondering what you're thinking about that and in terms of how we move forward To not because it does cost the city quite, you know the taxpayers quite a bit of money And I know it's a valuable resource and i'm just hoping that we can kind of keep moving in that direction We don't get derailed Yeah, I think that's a great point and uh We continue as I mentioned, uh with operations plan continue to take steps forward in accordance with that plan And so I think with the new restaurant coming online with the increased rates that we really hadn't increased We've just seen more demand as well. So before covid Spring was outstanding. We were on a just kind of a different trajectory to start the year, which was great And for what it's worth even when we close the golf course we We had hundreds of people playing a day at the golf course even when it was closed We didn't want that to last exactly but the demand is there And I think the amenities are there. We continue to invest in those so with the new restaurant and so forth It is expensive to operate as you mentioned But it is our highest one of our highest cost recovery I'll call it an enterprise within the department. So we cost recover at the golf course About 75 percent and I do think that we've got A lot of opportunity to get that much closer to to 100 percent in the coming years But it's a matter of getting the golf course back open increasing rates keeping our water usage really low And you know that balance of revenues and And decreasing expenditures beyond that we could have a long discussion about the De la viega as a whole but the disc golf course Um, we host about 40 to 50 thousand rounds of disc golf at the park per year And that's an area of our operation that um, I think we have a lot of opportunity and we're working closely with the disc golf Uh club and association here in Santa Cruz to figure out how we can better manage that and potentially bring in some revenue There as well So with with the variety of offerings that we have at the golf course and the park as a whole I think there are opportunities for us to be much closer to cost neutral Thank you and um, I'll save my questions on the pool for another time, but I'd love to talk with you about how we're going to move forward on that Under the circumstances like we made a great start and you know, it's a goal to get the hardy west pool reopened when we for longer hours and public access and so I'll check in with you about that to you and hopefully Thank you Thank you bumper golder Hi, um, sorry. I went outside to see the f16s. I'm still waiting. We haven't arrived yet My question is regarding the seven vacancies. I was wondering if those are full fte positions or are those some of the, um summer Camp coordinators that kind of thing or are those positions going to impact your day-to-day operations if less vacant? That's a great question. Those are full-time employees those seven vacancies We have about a 13 vacancy rate on our park maintenance team right now Which which may have an impact on how we operate moving into this new fiscal year The type of things that we're working on And I don't have great detail on on this at this point But what we're working through again in the spirit of just being creative is we recognize that Some of our recreation team for example at the civic auditorium The civic will be will be quiet likely for a while with the the direction from county and state health on mass gatherings and events So we're working to move our civic auditorium staff over to parks to fill in some of those roles To help temporarily on park maintenance and so In terms of temp staff or seasonal staff We hire over a hundred temp staff or seasonal staff per year for things like summer camps junior guards And for park maintenance as well. And so right now we have We're on a essentially a furlough of our temp and seasonal staff So we have not hired Virtually any of them or hardly any of them We may hire a few temp or seasonal staff coming into the summer help support with The summer camp the summer day camp that we plan to offer but that hundred plus staff that we typically hire So that will be a tiny fraction of what we hire moving into the summer Thank you and thank you for the presentation and thanks to everyone in your department for all their hard work with over two vice-mayors I'm mute. I'm always on mute Sorry about that. Yeah, Tony and Lindsay. Thank you so much for the presentation I had just a couple of quick questions You mentioned the Quimby fund and the park improvement fund and I believe those could you just give me a little background on Are those allocations from the state or where where are we getting those revenues from? Just curious about Your future with regards to any kind of capital smaller capital improvements for next year That's a good question the Quimby fund and the park facilities tax are essentially impact fees That are tied in with building permits development that occurs around the city So those are our local funds That again come through the the building permit process and so Um, we have We do have some funds available and we have a number of smaller projects that Based on those funds Including things like investments in in trails and investments in we've got a small Appropriation for pickleball courts. I'm about $50,000 And then we do reserve those funds as well. We hold a percentage of those in the spirit of Pursuing grant opportunities as well So we hold a portion of those back In the case that we apply for a large state grant and we need to provide a 20% match for example That's a pool that we could draw from in pursuing large grants But those are really local funds from development That occurs across the city as part of an impact fee that we can invest For renovations or new park amenities across the park system And um, Tony the other question I had okay, so and then are you guys um Are you able to sustain any grant writing during this time where you're just you know Which is a bad time. Um, is there any I just don't know if that's if that's available to your department in terms of internally using any of Of your staff for that kind of work. I do know that You know some of the infrastructure improvements in the state, you know, at least getting people construction of trails and other things um I think will continue to be somewhat of a priority in terms of the bond funds from prop 68 But i'm just curious if you have that capability, um, or if we're going to lose that capability during this period That's a great question. Uh, we we have that capability And and really expertise, uh, lindsay bass. We've been fortunate to bring on this year And uh, lindsay has that expertise And bandwidth over the past year. We yeah, we applied for prop 68 funds. Unfortunately. We didn't receive prop 68 funds this year But lindsay um in her short time here less than a year has already in partnership with public works secured About a quarter million dollar recycle To do clean up work and waste management waste management work across the park system So we do have that capability and capacity And again just from a match standpoint the quimby and park tax facility funds Are a source for a match and then also through our OPTS our other professional technical services within our operating budget That's also a source of funds that we can utilize to for contractual support and grant writing or You know application Support for fees and so forth Okay, that's good to hear and I'm really glad you're on board lindsay and it's um Fines like these where You know having the ability to potentially pull in some additional funding. I guess my last question is um Uh status um of wanting just to confirm that the state funding for poganip is secure in terms of the cleanup It doesn't sound like that's changed I know in the last in the last issue When we in oa The state actually the fact some of those funds are froze those is that work? I know you can't probably do the work because of the covet 19 issue But are those um funds for the cleanup that poganip still secure for the homeless garden project? Yes, they're still secure and we're moving forward on that assessment right now with the state department of toxic substance control To assess the property at poganip and then this summer we should have An idea of nature of the property at poganip and then we can decide In partnership with homeless garden project what it's going to take to remediate the property Their goal is to get in To the property really start doing infrastructure work this year with the goal of beginning farming by spring of 2021 So we continue to move forward in partnership with homeless garden project on that effort Okay, great. Well, thank you for your All your work in your department and um, I'm I'm I'm worried about the safety of our part folks and I think that that is one of the hard things that we we need to really keep track of your Your employees have been Frankly, they've been at great risk in some situations this past year and You know, I I I find that to be very hard to Um to acknowledge and um, I think we need to really understand What uh, you know, what what what what kinds of exposure your staff are having and I'm very appreciative of the planning of the parks commission taking that up Um, it's something that we really need to pay attention to and we need to keep our parks folks folks safe So thank you for your presentation. Appreciate it Thank you Great. Thank you. I'll just echo um our appreciation for The presentation and just the work that your team does and Um your rounds and parks definitely makes life better. So I will echo that that comment Um, I said a few a few comments in one brief question The first is that I think as we look at the budgets and I know um We had some follow-up to do in terms of the children's fund But there's opportunity there to see how we could use that resource to really prioritize equity and access for not only child care and Getting the needs of our essential workers Child care needs met but also access for those who are struggling to access our our services during this time And um, so I just sort of want to offer that I also just want to applaud your department and the city for seeing the first in our In our in our county to create a pop-up child care facility for our essential workers and just really recognizing that critical need I I have like a partial like grieving a little bit in that I am so many of these wonderful programs that we just Define our community in terms of like the junior guards and stuff like that. It's uh, it's really it's it's a hard it's a hard hit for sure and Just really recognizing how great you've been at being able to pivot during this time the one brief question I want to I want to ask well before I ask the question I also just want to offer one resource is that the child development resource center Is really working hard to try to connect people to existing child care facilities that are operating at this time Some places are still in operation with uh, not enough Enrollment and so they're really looking at how to connect those looking for child care To existing child care facilities So I just sort of want to offer that resource to those who may be listening that are needing child care at this time And it's the child development resource center And then the brief question I had um is one I do want to follow up in regards to the pool and then to um How what is the timeline in associated with the disc called the course reopening? I have some folks who've been wanting to track that a little bit Yeah, thank you very much for all those points and Gosh, yeah, I'd like to address all those but I know in the interest of time I'll move on from those but I just want to acknowledge one really quickly the children's fund Is held by nation and I think that's a really great point in terms of utilizing those funds for Some of the points that we've discussed especially helping kids who may not have access to virtual programming helping to get them access And get those resources in the in the right place Uh, we have that that's been very much on our radar in terms of what do we do with those funds? Those have been appropriated as scholarship funds as was directed by the council last year But with fewer programs this summer Really, there are fewer scholarships overall that we're offering. So That may be something that we can come back to the council on to To reappropriate those funds in a different way to serve at risk or low-income kids in particular So thank you for mentioning that In terms of the pool We had a harvey west pool subcommittee that met and really the goal of our of the pool Is to find a way to to open a year round And really invest in the pool in a way so that it's modernized and sustainable And so moving into the summer. Unfortunately, we We won't be operating harvey west pool as a result of the cova 19 emergency However, we do continue to make investments in the pool in terms of replacement of heating equipment And and so forth. So we're taking some iterative steps to keep it functioning, but longer term what we need to do is We do have funding coming into this year for a harvey west pool Essentially strategic plan and what is needed In a potentially new pool. So if we can come up with Really good direction Should the pool be in the future that's our goal for this year and then on top of that Moving into fiscal year 22 and beyond have or maybe work with the philanthropic community Or grants Possibly to to fund a new harvey west pool. So that would be the long-term goal Great. Thank you. I think I missed another question. No disc golf disc golf. We are working closely with the disc golf club On how we can open Safely and so we've got a good plan that we just confirmed yesterday with the disc golf club I don't have the date off hand of when we're going to open that but I expect that it will be This week That will reopen disc golf until our vehicle Thank you Remember Matthews Yeah, Tony as usual Your reports look how your department the big project planning gets very grounded in reality and Also has a wonderful vision of everything that's being he was and it's been so impressive to see how you Adapted almost overnight to the online news and changing world I think of the Sandy mentioned how to reach out to schools or young people who may not have access to online Services or resources and I believe Renee and martin you may know more about this that I believe the school has been making sure that every student has a computer So, yeah, she's given some so That's right. They're making a Certainly school age kids that they all have access and so it may be possible Maybe you're already I don't know but working with the school to make sure that schools help publicize all those other things because schoolwork That are available to kids and families in a way at the heart of resources and rachel I was really interested to hear that you're not surprised but interested to recreation professionals are meeting we've been sharing all your resources And they're again working with our community partners to publicize because What you're doing online a calculator And I can think of other campaigns that I've worked with where the gray bears have put wires in their food bags And that's a great way to reach people Low-income residents of 16 years countywide with the offerings You may very well be doing this already, but I think we do have such strong partnerships And some of our nonprofits serve large large members of the community to promote the recreation service through them Yeah, that's it. Thank you Sorry to jump back in but I I did have one Additional question. I will say thank you to vice mayor mires for raising the personal safety issue. I think we need to take that very seriously and so please do Get back with us about anything that we can do however we can kind of help ensure safety of our Parks crew who sometimes are out in more remote places In particular and my question is It reminded me Councilmember Watkins mentioned the disc golf course, but constituents also want to know about the skate park So do you have a timeline on that? We got an email that it would probably be sometime this week And I haven't heard anything since Yeah, that's correct. We're working again with the skate community and we've done this really across the city with the surfing community disc golf skate park Skate parks archery really wanted to work with them once we open these amenities We want to make sure that it's as safe and sustainable as possible So that we don't open amenities and they become overcrowded and we get direction to close them again So you're exactly right. We plan to open the skate parks Likely later this week in partnership with the the skate community who's been great and really receptive to a variety of ideas to help self-manage And and just help us kind of keep the place safe and sustainable Councilmember golden I just was going to touch on the the question that councilmember brown had and councilmember matthews brought up is that that one of the Positives of the copin 19 is that we have been able to in Santa Cruz city schools Bring families up to the digital age like we never have before And we've given out almost all of our chromebooks and most of the schools are letting the students keep those through the summer and They're allowed to have One device for child. So there's many devices in the houses. We've also given out these T-mobile hotspots for families that couldn't afford or couldn't get wi-fi wherever they live and so There's Most of the schools that i'm involved in there's maybe one student that is not online So it's been really really fantastic seeing everybody being brought into the digital digital age together and you know Making it a more equitable experience for our Santa Cruz city schools school age children at least I think so that comment Seeing uh, no further comments from council members. I'm going to turn it over to members of the public if anyone Would like to comment on the presentation It's been provided by parks and rec now it's time to call in and after you have called in You can press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and when it's your time to speak If you're in an outfit that you've been unmuted and your time will be set in two minutes To see if anybody wants to call in Nobody missed anything with the jets. You couldn't see them. You could only hear them I think there's no members of the public who are calling in Um, I just like to bring it back to council or any final questions or comments hearing none Tony, I just like to thank you again for all the work that you've been doing and I'd also like to um Kind of piggyback on what vice very marz has said But extend it a little bit further, which is that not only do we need to ensure the safety of our Parks employees, but the parks are open for our members of our community and I think that We really need to continue to ensure that parks are places that people can go and feel safe Whether they're in Pogona or whether they're in the neighborhood the parks are vital to our mental and physical health and Whatever we can do to ensure that parks are safe and accessible for everyone in our community I think that we should continue to make that happen So thank you again for your presentation and uh, we'll see you soon. Thank you. Thank you very much um, right now given that it's uh It's about 11 30 And what I was thinking is that if there's no, um Opposition maybe we can take a break from now Until noon and restarted noon or we could continue Um, just knowing that we'll possibly be going A little past noon and we're about next presentation I'll remember brown Yeah, um, I is economic development next. I think they are Um, I think it would be great if we could um, because I see that um, Bonnie has been on Um, maybe we could do that one and then take a break, but I'm open either way. It's fine Oh, I was going to vote for a break because I think economic development may be longer I don't think it's going to probably take some time. So Um, I think a quick half hour break and we'll reconvene it noon And then we'll start back up with the economic development and go To continue through the presentation Okay, thank you I was just on My video won't work. It says The host hasn't Opened it or something like that Yeah, it says you cannot start your video because the host has disabled it That's where I'll see Can you try now Um, I'm going to push okay There you are. That's okay. Thanks. I'm going to text Cynthia. I have to let her know we're going to get started again And can you let me know if you can hear me? Yep, we can hear you Okay, good. Thanks. Good afternoon, mayor and members of the council. Is my volume okay? Yes, good. This is flight echo, but yeah, I think you're okay right now Okay Well, I'm pleased to present to you our fiscal year 2021 budget And um, it actually is a fairly short presentation. Um, we're presenting a status quo budget So I'm happy to answer any questions at the end, but I'm not showing The depth or breadth of what our department covers at this time Okay, so this is our team. We have 14 full-time Uh FTE, um, we currently do have three vacant which makes for a challenging time in our department at this time I like to think of our team as a small but mighty team here in economic development We're divided up into four areas And that's business development with our business liaison rebecca Unit leading that area infrastructure property development Um with dave mccormick Leading that area arts and culture development and housing development with jessica de witt Leading that area and I'll briefly just go into the core services. I just have One or two slides for each area to talk about But before I get there, I briefly just wanted to mention You know, because it's not always intuitive why we have these four areas are part of our department I mean what we see is that these areas from arts to infrastructure property development housing and business That they all interrelate and have profound effects on the local economy community and enhanced quality of life So that's one of the reasons we have them in our department. We think they work really well together Briefly our business support team we work as you see on the left in the downtown We manage two assessment districts And are the fiscal agent for the downtown Association as well as the cooperative retail management district in the downtown managed by the downtown management corporation So we have two downtown assessments that we manage here in economic development And we care a lot about the downtown and working directly with businesses and providing business support we also Manage a growth center cruise loan program in addition to the resilience micro loan program that you've recently heard about And I'll give you some highlights of that program in a few minutes Um, we welcome about two to three hundred new businesses a year to Santa Cruz and that includes, you know Connecting to them to the chamber with ribbon cutting. We send out a new welcome business letter Telling them about city resources and doing follow-up to see how they're doing We manage a facade and sign improvement program and average anywhere of the life of the program over 178 Facade grants additionally lately We've been doing additional signage grants a lot of those in the downtown and our commercial areas on the east side and a long mission We have a trolley program and just in the last year secured a major grant for electric trolley Program that you're familiar with We do marketing programs and then we have a lot of collaborations And I think a lot of the work that you do is about the collaborations that we do whether it's in the downtown With the alliance for women entrepreneurs Or with Santa Cruz's work some new tech meet-up or with the university for a number of the university initiatives We have like the current get virtual program. So we won't go into a lot of those today In consideration of time, but happy to answer any specific questions that you have the photo You see on the right is a photo Of one of our pop-ups where we're featuring new and growing businesses in Santa Cruz Um another pillar that we have an economic development is the infrastructure and property development and property management So this is just a a few photos of some of these Course services that we provide We bring into the general fund over 2.5 million in general fund annual revenues through properties that we manage At the city we have over a hundred sites and management, you know across from the war to retail spaces and our Parking garages downtown form a redevelopment agency property like the delmar theater Um, and then we manage 22 cafe extensions and parklets that you see in in the downtown area So we have a lot of infrastructure development in addition We do projects like the tamari art center and Work with art space and work with the arts council and our major tenants there including the jewel theater at the colligan theater for the art Uh projects like the marine sanctuary exploration center Uh the warriors arena and current projects like the metro pacific mixed youth station that you heard about a little bit yesterday in closed sessions And then finally we also have our wayfinding project. We've been working on this year Which is replacing all of the purple and teal science to be around town Um on the arts and culture development side We have approximately five programs and in addition to that we work with the arts With the arts commission and approving public art and our percent for art program That we have In at the city and of course, this is the wonderful So park murals called jump in by sarah bianca Who is also an artist that's at who lives at the tamari? We have our sculpture program And you can see that evidence by some of the amazing sculptures that you'll see downtown Those are all managed through our public art program the scrap program, which is actually reusing materials from the resource recovery center and creating some incredible art for our community and we have that annual Exhibit every year graphic traffic, which are cover all of our traffic boxes in town with some just stunning murals The rail trail master plan for the arts, which has some pretty incredible designs and art projects And then of course our mural matching grants like this one and then i'll hire Highlight a couple of others of course earlier today During the public works presentation. You saw the amazing mural by elijah vote and how are Of the giant whale on the water treatment plant. That's also through our public art program So we're really proud of The impact that the arts have on the community and the economic impact It's really part of Santa Cruz vibrancy and part of our culture that makes Santa Cruz unique and and part of the reason What we want to live here And finally our housing development activities Obviously, this is very detailed. This is just a snapshot to the you can see Of the diversity and depth of the number of housing activities of development From working with our cdbg and our home program at the state through different policies working with our planning division on inclusionary fee waivers affordable housing agreement And then cross the community engagement. This you know, this is affordable housing months actually this month working with our affordable housing trust fund And the monitoring that we do on affordable housing units across the city We have an interactive housing webpage if you're curious Go to our housing page as part of our Site at the city our housing webpage as part of the two Santa Cruz And you can actually look up any of our affordable housing projects and click This is a little snapshot of jesse street to get a little more info On individual projects and backgrounds And then i'm going to highlight just three of our 2020 accomplishments and achievements and respective of time And just from a couple of these areas So the first is our water street apartment and this is one that We're really proud of that was approved in late 2019. This is 41 units On water street 33 of those are project-based vouchers working with the housing authority and What does that mean? This was completed last year. The developer is for the future housing The architect is ten over studio And we have five sources of funding that go into this project about 4.5 million in city funding across our community development block grant program Across show you another picture from the grand opening community development block grant program Our home funds feed referrals Contribution from our affordable housing trust fund and our former rda So all of those funding sources went in this project to close that gap and make this 41 unit project affordable And so the question always is so what does that mean as far as affordable? Well with the project-based vouchers from the housing authority in that project 33 of those 41 are paying at 30 percent of their income or less utility allowances So that is truly affordable the balance of those units and other seven are paying between 50 or 60 percent Of area median income. So these are deep affordability units that that are being Made available to members of the community and it is a really lovely project Highlight this year is a very recent one. This is our Santa Cruz resilience microloan program This was actually funded through our economic development trust fund We counsel. Thank you authorized half a million In loan funding that we could provide for the community We partnered with Santa Cruz community credit union and they have been just incredible in addition to them Being and working through providing paycheck protection program loans They partnered with us and our servicing our loan program for us. So we deposited our 500 thousand in their bank And we approved on our end and economic development the loan recipients and then Santa Cruz community credit union is actually going to provide them with their monthly monthly statements and fund their loans on our behalf So this is a really great partnership in less than two weeks. We awarded 51 loans Out to our business community and you can see the breakdown there These are the four areas that we prioritized for these loans based on the feedback that we were getting From businesses in the community and the majority of those I would say had applied for Paycheck protection loans and EIDL, you know emergency economic assistance loans And they just hadn't been funded or they were deemed ineligible. So we're really pleased that we've been able to Provide this influx of capital into our businesses to help keep them afloat across the entertainment restaurant retail and service oriented industries We were also really conscious of where these loans were going in our community. We wanted to make sure they were going Geographically across we do have loans from the west side east side downtown I'd also say we have some loans in the sash mill Harvey West and along mission street as well 59 of the loan recipients are went to women owned businesses and 25 percent overall were minority owned So this is a program. We'll come back a little bit later with more detail But I wanted to give you a snapshot Right now and so appreciation to staff. We have two staff members Working on this over the last, you know, three weeks And I will say to pull off from beginning to end the loan program and to get a half a million out to the community It feels like a miracle looking at it, but I really want to acknowledge Rebecca unit and Kathy mince on our staff for making this program possible Um, this is our clean oceans mural and I think this is near to be and dear to many people's heart in the community Obviously, this is a 600 foot wall on bay and mission street. You can see from the top photo Um, it's been an eye sore and a source of graffiti in town and just to highlight our mural program Just for a second, uh, that's really what we do try to prioritize our areas in town that have a lot of Uh view from the community that get also get tagged a lot with graffiti and what we found is by putting Artwork and murals um in large public spaces, particularly in commercial areas It really reduces the graffiti overall and of course it doesn't hurt to have an amazing artist That we have on this project this collaboration that we have uh with taylor Uh, rindbould on this project. What's incredible about this 600 feet wall is how quickly it went up You know, this is obviously next to bayview elementary school Um, but this is a collaboration, um between santa christ city art santa christ city schools The timbrach foundation and of course taylor rindhold Who created this mural Here's another close-up of just some of the detail Um that you can see on this mural taylor is now working with tangia seed a hawaii-based internationally engaged non-profit organization acting at the intersection of culture and environmentalism To further the conservation of our ocean And what you'll see here's just another close-up In the next year we had and it was actually planned for this june, but we're postponing it a year We're really proud to be a sponsor of seawall santa cruise A community-based public art project to help raise environmental awareness and public engagement and issues related to conservation Of santa cruises marine resources the bay area and the world's ocean So we'll be uh one of the international sites for this program And we're postponing it to next year so that we can have the whole community collaboration and fully experience it the way that it should be So this is our statistical budget. Um, and you can see sort of the breakdown across our areas. I will say, um Overall so this includes, you know project support and admin that 10 percent at the top includes legal fees planning services Financial analysis property sales tax, etc Is within that 10 percent our overall budget is 5.5 million that does not include adjustment That i'll talk about briefly for grants And um cdbg and home that have just that has just been awarded at the time of us submitting our budget We didn't know what those um cdbg and home funds So this actually changes our status quo budget slightly it reduces our personnel down to 30 percent And it takes our 68 percent Of the general fund down to 60 percent and our housing and community development increases to 35 percent of our overall budget That's outside funded outside of the general fund I will say arts and culture looks a little skewed here That's because this is only representing the general fund expenditures of arts and culture doesn't include the 1 percent for public art funding Let's see what's not status quo in our budget. Um, again, I just mentioned this our HUD annual action plan We have new revenues and labor offsets and so of course this includes the um COVID-19 CARES Act funding that we have as well So that additional 282 That you received the presentation from tiffany lake on our housing team yesterday as well as an additional staff housing costs offset a personal labor of credit of a total of 134 thousand New grant funding as well that wasn't in our budget. Um, and that's the cannabis equity grant So this was approved by the council on april 28th So we have new grant funding coming in new resources to our budget of 147 thousand and we have a related personnel savings Of 112 thousand and this actually goes across Multiple departments. Um, there's a savings to economic development of approximately 64 thousand planning 42 thousand and the police department about 6 thousand Overall, um, I would say our general fund personnel savings From across the cdbg cannabis affordable housing Trust fund and housing successor credit Is about 200,000 More than than what was originally in the budget What else is not status quo the poster on the right is actually the pangea seed Looking specifically at the arts initiative that we hope to have be able to that i mentioned a few minutes ago Move forward with lec next year as one of the international sites But what is not status quo in our budget? Um, obviously our microloan program Wasn't something that we had budgeted for this year. Um, that you approved that came out of our economic development trust fund I will briefly mention that we can go over this in more detail if you have questions are any trust fund Um, is a source of revenue for economic development activities. Um, it was created after the Redevelopment agency was terminated at the time. Um, when we took the measure to the voters For increasing the transiting occupancy tax with the understanding that 1% of that fund would go towards economic development activity. So We do have a fund balance on this. We're proposing as part of the overall Deficit picture to use a portion of the edi trust fund To address the deficit My hope is that we'll still have some funding available to be able to apply towards additional longer-term recovery efforts in our community But we'll have to revisit that as that picture unfolds over the over the months ahead Additionally what's not in your budget What's not status quo is that you authorized? Actually back in december an environmental is the site characterization for sky park and some of you who were on the council last year We recall that we had a purchase sale agreement for the sky park development that fell out Due to Roughly due for a variety of reasons, but one of the stated reasons was related to the unknown environmental characterization on the site and with stricter state regulations coming in For cleanup requirements We needed to further characterize the site so that we could say what is the true value Less the cleanup that we need to do there to to know what we could actually sell the site for So that will be a credit adjustment to our budget to pay for that Against the future sale proceeds for the sky park, which is roughly estimated in around the eight million dollar range um again and something else that's not status quo in our budget would be the Potential downtown property based improvement district I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation That we have two assessment districts that we manage one on behalf of the downtown association Which is a business assessment and the second one, which is a smaller property based improvement district We've been working with kuma and um a consultant that does property Property based improvement districts around the country and the downtown association to create a merged larger downtown districts With a larger budget with a focus on downtown support revitalization Cleanliness safety all of the top issues that really resonated with our property and business community and business visitors coming to the downtown The impact to the city is not insignificant It's roughly about 160 000 if that is approved by council This will come before you both to accept the petitions from the property owners As well as a contribution from the general fund or from a city fund To pay as property owners the city owns quite a bit of property in the downtown area about 15 percent Um in the district so 160 000 would be the city's share of the contribution So that discussion will come before you in the next month And then finally what's not status quo would be the rent for some of our city-owned properties and to include Uh former rda property is now city properties the del mar Rent on the del mar our nyak building. Um that tenant has left that is site is slated for redevelopment as part of specific station But we've received some pretty healthy rents in the past for that So we do have some changing rent um related to covet 19 We are tracking those we're also tracking those for the larger city For our properties on the wharf and our other tenants and our commercial tenants in our parking garages So that'll be something that will bring to you um coming up in the next months ahead as we're revising On a month by month basis what those revenues look like what's coming in So that we can help um with the overall revenue budget picture for the city And then I will mention as far as the cafe extension and the kiosk As looking towards recovery and reopening looking at how can we safely Work with our restaurants and our businesses across the city in the downtown. How can we work with our restaurants? And looking at cafe extensions looking at our parklet program that we have in the downtown which You know for the last two years it's been more of a pilot But looking at social distancing and and reduced capacity in restaurants We need to think about how can we actually provide that additional capacity safely? Expanding into the parklets might be one area to do that. Obviously, there's some revenue Impacts from that. So these are some ideas. We're talking to now as we're looking at long-term recovery that will come before you in the months ahead And thank you that concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have All right, thank you Bonnie for that presentation and for sharing all those achievements of this this year Are there any council members who have questions at this time? Council member buyers um Regarding the downtown and I think you call them parklets Is that those extensions like in front of I can't remember In front of the outdoor cafes outdoor cafes. Yes Yeah, we have both the parklets that are in the parklets are actually in that taking over a parking space and yeah Oh, okay, and the cafe extension would be Like in front of the Del Marat You know, I get this question for years. Why do we make it so I don't know complicated to put a couple tables out in front of the restaurant I mean, they're all over the world. It's full of outdoor restaurants and And you know, you kind of walk around them or you see them. They're so inviting Anyway, I I don't know whether the merchants are finding it difficult to do or it's expensive But it just seems that uh, we're just terribly I don't know conservative regarding that Yeah, you raise a really good question I think as part of the recovery efforts We're really going to have to focus on how we support our businesses and our restaurants adapt to Making people feel as they can, you know, come as customers come as Patrons to their restaurants coming forward and I think activating Our sidewalks safely so that you can still walk through And really probably creating more parklets for those restaurants that want to participate in that program So that people can really come down and enjoy our public spaces If I could just add to that, I think I'm Maybe I did maybe the 11 o'clock news last night because we were still all About to go to bed. Um, I think it was specific groove and one thing there. I'm not really sure where it was But it was showing how because of the situation They were all putting stuff out On the sidewalk to sell or to serve It's very interesting and and the commentator talked about how this is just putting all this out for people to enjoy Because they can't go inside a restaurant So it's kind of hand in hand And so I'm glad you're you're looking at it because I really think we're such an outdoor community and people love their You know coffee outdoors and You know whether it's never an issue. So anyway, I'm glad you're looking at that because I think there's a world We could really improve on Great. Thank you. Yeah, just to briefly follow up on that. We've been receiving some emails from folks discussing you know shutting down Pacific Avenue and putting all the allowing for people to eat outside and Um, I think you know, we'll just have to be creative as we move forward I think we're thinking about how we can reopen and restructure our downtown Next is councilmember matthews Good one. I love the report. Um on the oceans mural. I thought I saw in the slide to show just a couple of Little graffitis popping up and Did you ever get enough money to put the graffitis coating on that? I don't know Accounts member Matthews. That's a good question and I'm not entirely sure I remember asking that before she took off and it was still hanging out there as a unfunded last step, but You know, it's a beautiful long mural and you want to protect it as long as possible Yes, I agree. I'll follow up on that way Thanks, Bonnie and for the presentation and for all the different aspects your department does Um, I I was just going to follow up. Could you mention something about the parklets being uh, sort of a cost neutral approach to As a change and I I kind of wanted to see if you could speak a little bit more to that Sure. So councilmember Watkins, I think that It really depends on how we approach it. So I think we can we can have it be a cost neutral. We could have It be something as a recovery effort that we Present a variety of options for consideration. For example Our pilot program does have a cost that the business takes Into consideration and actually pays for the cost of the parking meter if there's a parking meter in front of that space As part of the cost of the program. So what we could Going forward in order to encourage And really encourage both the social distancing and the activation of the space We could cover that cost On behalf of the businesses that wanted to do that going forward So I think there's going to be some options for you to consider when we look at reopening and trying to support our businesses going forward Great and the only other thing I would say um and and I agree with councilmember buyers and that um You know, there's so much opportunity for outdoor experience and downtown having a place for in this is sort of post COVID and we can actually have our kids interact with other kids But you know little parklets for kids to play and have open sort of just a closed off space And you see those little Similar to how we have the parklets for restaurants to sort of play areas too So as we're thinking kind of holistically about that I'll just make a quick plug for that as part of the kind of thought process Yeah, I would say we actually had a working with the downtown association and Had been in discussion of activating a number of our public spaces including uh frazier louis lane So we are hoping to be able to get back to that We're looking at the whole downtown holistically as far as what's the public property versus private and how can we work together To activate some of those spaces. So I think for long-term recovery That's going to be a key area as well to really support people coming back down Downtown and to you know, really engaging in our community Great, thank you Thanks barney for the presentation and all your amazing work You guys are truly the the little the little department that that that does so much I have a just a quick question Just being a patron of many of the of the businesses over on the west side I just i'm wondering um, I know since we have you know actual obligations on a lot of the downtown in terms of You know our roles and responsibilities as a city, but i'm just curious about Um outreach to the west side and the east side I was very pleased to see that um the funding was able to be kind of you know Moved around with different businesses throughout town, but just curious about um You know the resources that you have to actually engage You know with these other parts of town that have These small business districts that are um, you know really becoming part of you know These neighborhoods are east side west side neighborhoods and things like that. So just curious about um your resource base on that and whether that's something that We need to be aware of um in terms of next year's you know budget and resources and things like that Um, yeah a couple of them are mine. That's a that's a great question You know, I will say we were really sensitive to that as we were looking at the microloan program And um one of the things we've done and it's not specific geographically, but um in looking at Recovery efforts in particular is that we've developed a survey It's on our website choose Santa Cruz when you click on covid and it's by industry sector across Santa Cruz And so when you think of you know, west side or think of certain areas There are more types of certain types of businesses geographically dispersed around our around our community and We have a very specific by industry sector. I think we have nine different ones That we're trying to get feedback on on what those needs are versus, you know, if you're in the hospitality industry the hotel Specifically versus someone in manufacturing retail Of you know across some of these areas restaurant We're trying to get specific feedback so that we know how we can help them and what their needs are specific to recovery and long term Um, so that's something that we're doing right now in addition to having a survey on our site We're actually Doing one-on-one calls with the survey to make sure that we have a certain number of responses from each category And working with some industry partners to make sure that we get a good response across across Across each of those areas One of the things we have done geographically over the years and what we really focus on And we're going to need going forward is focusing on our banner program We've looked at the infrastructure development to be able to support Sort of that place making by area So when you look at you know, sort of swiss street and that swiss street courtyard area and that sort of burgeoning retail restaurant area Of being able to create a sense of place and support by that infrastructure So through banners through banners on the east side when you get to the midtown areas How can we help them and help the east by business association really feel supported by our community? So those are two programs looking at beautification areas We obviously have a lot of that for the downtown but looking at those both on the east side and on the west side Or some areas that were that that we're working on through some of the work that we do I will also mention lastly because I didn't mention the presentation Um as part of our resources, which you can access on our business page We are developing business kits for All businesses. They are on a first come first serve basis We are sending those out information about them out to all the business licenses In in our community as well as through our ed newsletter and that includes Their business reopen restart kits so includes hand sanitizer includes social distancing floor markers posters to post on the doors Includes face covering through our volunteer-led effort 10,000 mask projects and shout out to Amanda ratella on our team Who did an incredible job? So we still have a few rolling in But 200 sellers in the community creating 10,000 masks Is quite an accomplishment and some of those are now going to our critical businesses across Santa Cruz So each business can have up to 25 face coverings to go in their special kits so We definitely Look at each of our geographic areas and what those needs are Generally some of the infrastructure Needs on the east side. We've looked at a tree program in addition to the banner program or different things that we think Outside the downtown or things that are needed thank you I Yeah, I think that that's it. Yeah, I was just curious about that geographic coverage and really really excited to hear about all that work So thank you again, and please thank your staff for all their work. They're doing we know it's a hard time Thank you I just had a couple comments and then I had one question For the comments just given this discussion made me think about, you know, we Seen our farmers markets model being successful at being able to operate and function And and we haven't really seen any transmission of covid through those kinds of markets So it'd be interesting to think about, you know, whether or not we could have a similar market for some of our retail Businesses downtown or even sidewalk sales that might be able to beat the function With social distancing implemented since retail is now something that's Been approved for curbside and how we might be able to take that further. So we just thought I'd put that out there um In addition to that, I did have a question about the micro loan program Because it sounded like there's 700,000 requested 500,000 funds kind of the limit of our budget But one of the questions I had with that remaining 200,000 is whether all those applications were Eligible because I know I'm My thought is that my sense is that there were probably some folks from the county who applied for city funds And obviously they're not to be eligible because they're outside of the city's boundary But I'm just kind of curious if but what would what would it take if there were You know eligible grants that weren't able to get funded how much more it would take to kind of support those businesses as well Now mayor that's a really good question We had of those we actually had in the first two days We had to close our portal because we received in the first two days of opening over 90 completed applications And recognizing that we only had 500,000. We didn't want We were concerned about expectations and didn't want people to go through the process of completing a loan application When we knew we didn't have sufficient funding We did prioritize and set up and this was communicated also on The guidelines for our loan program. We were focused towards those four areas. So specifically, you know restaurants that are a cash-based business primarily and without having patrons And that number of you know, folks customers that usually come in were Incredibly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic also service oriented businesses And some entertainment businesses We additionally prioritize those with storefronts recognizing that vacancy and being able to make sure that when It's time to reopen that we have been supporting Those retail and those businesses with a street and storefront presence in Santa Cruz As far as the number of percentage that weren't eligible. There were a handful We had a lot of disclaimers that they're, you know right at the beginning But there were a handful of people who applied who were out of the city And so we did send all of those that weren't eligible That didn't meet our criteria that were outside. We had a few a couple manufacturing That applied that weren't part of our ranking criteria. I think if we had a few hundred thousand extra we Could definitely award those no problem I think just sort of weighing Our overall deficit and our budget from the city. We really felt like we needed to prioritize initially with you know a fairly modest program, but I think that the Software that we used and slide room was really effective in being able to Look at the program applications fairly quickly And to be able to rank those based on the criteria and then our partnership with Santa Cruz community credit union I think we could If there was an interest by the city council, there's definitely an interest by the community to expand the loan program So if there, you know, we didn't include in the first round nonprofits for example, and there were a number of nonprofits that had applied so Um, so could we fund more? We absolutely could if there is an interest to do so Great. Thanks I thank you Bonnie and everyone on the ed team you all do great work small and mighty is a good way to put it I'm always amazed by the work that you all do um, how extensive it is how deep in the community and So I just want to say thank you for that I'm I'm glad that you brought up the 10 000 masks and I'm and thank you Amanda for Spearheading that it's just such a great thing. Um, and I'm glad to hear they're going to be going out to businesses I'm wondering if because I just did recently a little mini tour of some of the homeless shelter expansions that have happened um, and I'm just wondering like the vets all and the armory and Just the armory kind of connected because of the salvation army with the um, laurel the front the laurel street Uh space, but I'm wondering if because they all said that's a huge need for them I'm wondering if it might be possible to or if you maybe already talked about this To channel some small number of them to the for the workers in those places I mean, they do have masks, but they're they're saying that it's kind of a constant need because they're They're really needing to change their mask all the time Yes, councilmember brown. Um, we had we made the masks available to through our EOC Um, so I think 6 000 of them went directly to the EOC for distribution to anyone in our Uncheltered community and also workers working at through housing matters and through you know, that's all they're all available through through that project Yay, thank you councilmember, I'll also let you know that um And to the rest of the council members that in partnership with Bella canvas and the You the U. S. Conference of mayors. We received 120 masks um For distribution and I also gave those to Our homeless coordinators to distribute to folks in our homeless communities and at the different haunts across locations So that's an additional source of masks and there's no further questions from council members I'm going to turn over the members of the public So if you're interested in commenting on the economic development budget presentation that was presented today Now's the time to call in if you haven't already And after you call in, please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand And then when it is your time to speak you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted And so we'll give folks a couple minutes to fit you like calling in Comment on the economic development budget presentations Please call in at this time Seeing no members of the public calling in are there any further comments from Council members on this item? saying none Bonnie thank you again for all the work that you do and and your staff For all the amazing work and please listen how we can continue to support your efforts Thank you mayor. I'll let my team know as well Item our fifth presentation of the day is from our planning and community development department And again for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is a presentation You want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen The order will be a presentation by staff follow-up questions from the council And we will then take a public comment and then return to the council for any follow-up questions or comments And over to our planning and community development director lee bubbler Are you muted? Good afternoon mayor and council members I am going to share my screen here And so I'm going to jump right in The mission for our department is to enhance the quality of life safety and civic pride for our community By providing land use and development services In a responsive respectful and efficient manner We have five divisions that Comprides our 37 and a half full-time employees In code compliance. We've got two divisions rental inspection ensures the health and safety of our rental housing stock Our code enforcement division is mostly reactive to a wide range of complaints everything from Unpermitted Unpermitted construction to inoperable vehicles on private property to people having roosters in their neighborhood You know, it spans a quite a range In current planning they review permits and applications for new construction on private property consistent with general plans owning ordinance local coastal program and other regulations Our advanced planning team Maintains and updates many of those programs and policies And then our administration division provides support for staff and all the other divisions as well as Our public hearing bodies of which we have three that we manage the zoning administrator the historic preservation commission and the planning commission And then finally our largest division building and safety they Review plans for consistency when plumbing electrical mechanical and structural as well as green building requirements And then we have an inspection division that makes sure that out in the field The construction is consistent with the plans and applicable regulations Once you are biggest accomplishments the new permit center the public counter area was completed this year many years in the making And you can see the before and after here. We've got Um Nearly double the amount of space both at the counter and for the public in in the Front-facing area. So we're really happy that we were able to get that up and running. Thanks to our public works team and to Our it team and also to sarah daly on who managed that project on our end Um, moving on to some other additional accomplishments. We Last year, uh, actually, uh, these numbers are for the calendar year of 2019 Because we we do the annual reports and so, uh, we'll uh, we're pulling from those annual reports 117 Uh units approved 15 of those were affordable This is a one that we're, uh, excited to see the tally of, um, we had 158 permits issued 83% of those permits were for affordable most of those were, um, accessory dwelling units but we did have some additional affordable units, um, with the Um, 350 ocean street project which had about 64 units and then when we look at, um The building permits finaled again a huge percentage 71 percent of our new housing stocks that was occupied was, um, affordable to, um, moderate incomes or below and again the reason for this, um, was In large part due to our accessory dwelling units We have also worked really hard this year at improving our, um, technology use to be more environmentally friendly and to better serve our customers We had two of our, um, commissions mostly paperless Before and we've now transitioned to the third our historic preservation commission To paperless so that's saving money for applicants and being more environmentally friendly We've updated our code case tracking systems and automatic status update emails to complaining parties So that's saving time for our team and better serving our customers We've implemented online commenting features for our advisory body meetings Our ad web page has been updated and has tons of great information to save Our staff time and the community time and researching what they can do out on their properties And then we're finalizing the rental inspection payment system So that we can get online, uh, payments in coordination with it We, um, post covid we fast tracked our electronic plans to middle and digital review of applications We've moved to online community meetings and public hearings with our hearing bodies and, um, We have, uh, conducted virtual inspections. So we're using zoom and Face time for our inspectors to remain safe but still complete their work We've done a lot of things remotely to comply with permit Streamlining act regulations as well as meeting internal deadlines And a big thanks to it for helping us out on working on a lot of these projects When we talk about the core services that we provide The heart of what we really do is strategic visioning Providing health and safety Promoting community well-being and providing customer service and each one of our divisions Really does each one of these things from strategic visioning A lot of that happens in our advanced planning division with general plan and zoning ordinance and local coastal program updates But our building division is contributing to changes at the state level for building codes and many of our sustainability efforts fall into our strategic visioning category When it comes to health and safety our building division building and safety is front and center They're plumbing and electrical. They're making sure those are safe. They're making sure that buildings are Safe in an earthquake and that fire escape and rescue standards are met But we do that in our other divisions as well planning is looking at promoting eyes on the street to encourage safety and Encouraging an active community because our built environment really influences daily activities and health And then our green building program rental inspection program and co-compliance services All help support healthy living environments as well On the community well-being ends We conduct environmental review for all of our projects to promote decisions that support our natural environment And we're planning for open spaces and aesthetically pleasing community When it comes to customer service we Directly serve a lot of customers Just in our administration division. They are expected to handle over 12,000 phone calls this year We are expecting to help about 8,000 people in person this year just in planning and building And that is with basically a stop of in-service Or sorry in-person service beginning in March We're On scheduled to complete over 12,000 inspections between building code and rental We're expected to close over 300 code cases issue over 1600 building permits and complete over 3000 building plan checks And then of course our community engagement efforts where we're going out on projects and policies That's an important part of our customer service as well and something that we regularly do Jumping into our budget We have uh, approximately 7.5 million dollars in expenses the vast majority of that is in our personnel We do have a Small chunk of that in services And those are primarily in our building plan check and inspection services that supplements our staff The only thing that we have that is not status quo this year is in prior years We have funded some of our code enforcement efforts actually proactive code enforcement efforts with cdbg funds and That this past year was $70,000 That has shifted to other general fund projects So there's no net general fund impact from that change but we uh, we are calling that out as Non-status quo item because that has shifted in terms of the reimbursements Um, finally, I just want to thank you all for listening here and also want to thank our team for the great work that they do um, not only throughout the year, but also in particular during this pandemic time And we are available for any questions. Thank you very much for that presentation and Really great to hear all those about all those affordable housing permits that are coming through Are there any questions from council members at this time? Okay saying none, I will Turn it over to the community so If you're tuning in today and if you're interested in commenting on the planning and community development budget presentation Now is the time to call in You can find a list of phone numbers on your screen. The first number doesn't work You can try the next number And once you're able to get through you'll want to press star nine on your phone To raise your hand And when it's your time to speak you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted You will then have two minutes to address the council Seeing that uh, there are no members of the public calling in i'll bring it back to council For any questions or further comments Council member buyers. Oh, thanks. Um Let's see. What was my oh, I know on the org charter when you started you had a few vacancies Maybe not many but I saw I think maybe two Um Oh, there they are. Yeah one And a half oh and four Are those frozen or are you aggressively recruiting or? What's up with them Thanks for inquiring about that So we are holding off on the recruitment in both Current planning and advanced planning Really, we are in a a wait and see mode for that to understand what the implications of the COVID pandemic are going to be on Development and planning applications and entitlements as well as building requests um, so We've Heard from a lot of individuals that they're going to be continuing their projects And if that If that workload continues, we may look at Filling those at some point, but at this point we're holding off on those We're holding off on some of our building and safety Vacancies as well, but this has been a continual Challenge for us and it's not just here. It's also In other jurisdictions, um, you know, there are a lot of Systemic issues that are contributing to that the the giant downturn in construction Back with the great recession in 2008 Have a lot of people leaving the industry as well as you know, the private sector being able to get a lot more Um Higher wages than what often happens in the public sector. And so that's a challenge We are moving forward with a couple of those Intensively We're seeing if we get a superstar candidate then we may Look to bring some of those folks on board for for that particular For those positions we get work that has to be done. We've got to do the plan checks We've got to do the inspections. And so what we end up doing And in fact just recently You had a budget adjustment in front of you whereby we had to transition some of our salary savings from our vacancies into our Our consultant services budget. And so we end up paying our plan check and inspection consultants if we do not have the in-house staff So we are trying to see if there's a great candidate out there for a couple of the building and safety vacancies right now And really we're we're looking to see what happens with the Development activity across the board, but we are hopeful We're optimistic based on what we've heard from a lot of the folks that we've been talking to about the continuation of projects And even new projects that are are coming in and inquiring nice Of course Thank you. Thanks for the presentation lee um in regards to the affordability kind of components that you were suggesting in terms of the permits And you mentioned I just for clarity. So you suggested that a good portion were ad use that were Falling into that into that category. Yes Is that is that accurate and do you know because I know we've done so many things in terms of adu policy Do you have an understanding of what it is that has now led to this sort of incentivizing around? um more affordability and ad use So, uh, thanks for that question counts member walkins. Um There's sort of two parts there. Um, I'll tackle the first one. Uh, which is Yes, a big chunk of these are ad use and There were 64 units on this one that are the 350 ocean. This is building permit issued And a big chunk of them were ad used when we did a survey This past summer we inquired about rent levels and what we were able to do is um extrapolate based on square footages of the ad use they were falling into Different affordability levels. So not all of these. I do want to be clear not all of these are de-restricted You know the 64 units at 350 ocean are de-restricted for example But the the majority of these are ad use and those are not de-restricted But they are more affordable by design by nature of their sharing space and by nature of their size And so based on their size, we've we've lumped them into these categories Whether they're low or moderate income and then in terms of The incentives I think you know the state has been doing a lot of things And and I'll note that some of the things the state has done have Basically stolen from things that we did the year before and so I think that shows that we're doing some really good things with our adu ordinances And it's good to see that those are getting rolled out on a statewide level But all the things that the state is doing to promote affordable or excuse me promote accessory dwelling units as well as What we are doing locally to go above and beyond the state are encouraging homeowners to come in There's certainly a big incentive over the next five years Which is the ability of new accessory dwelling units to not have an owner occupancy requirement That is something that we required up until january 1st of this year and through The next five years or four and a half years at this point The state has said you cannot have an owner occupancy requirement. So I I know that that has motivated some folks to Get the ball rolling on their adus and I expect that some of the adu production is related to that And some of these But that said these numbers are are 2019 numbers So these are before that restriction Or that allowance came into effect So We're going to continue tracking this and see how these numbers change in response to those new regulations, but we are Providing a lot of detailed information on our website now, and I think that's helping the community understand how The restrictions have been loosened significantly over the past five to six years and many people who weren't able to or didn't find it convenient to to Develop an adu previously are now reconsidering that That's great. Thank you Hey, I just wanted to follow up on that question real quick. So When we talk about like this level of portability as it relates to adus, but do you have any sense of What that looks like because I know in addition to that when we were discussing our rena numbers last year There were a fair amount of adus that went from moderate into some of those higher Categories in terms of how affordable they were So could you speak to like What percentage of these women are saying that there's 83 of the housing Permissory issue more affordable what Well, we'll see if I can I will pull that up quickly and I'll share that screen with you Just to give you an idea and in fact what I'll do is I will share the screen so that you all can see where you get to it. This is actually coming directly from our Our annual Housing element report that all of these numbers are pulled from there And I'm going to stop my screen sharing and then restart it Well Since I'm having that technical difficulty, let's see if this is yeah, it's not letting me let me try this Oh, there we go. It's on my other screen. So I'll have to share there And start this one Okay Sorry about that on community development web page And if you scroll down to the documents link on the right hand side here, you can get the housing element and your report And as you scroll down, um, this is page five of 16. You can see the actual categories for Above moderate income income de-restricted moderate income Um, non de-restricted and so forth. So here's the 64 units from 350 ocean and then we actually had 51 that that qualified as low income and that's based on those size thresholds and I can follow up with you those size thresholds Um, we're in the housing element and your report, but I don't think that they're Um, yeah, they're not captured in this table And so I don't recall those size thresholds off the top of my head But this is where you can um go and reference all of those Um individual projects and how we came to those numbers Great thank you. You're welcome. I'll tell some of them Matthews referencing the question about vacancies on the org chart that was in our budget finders. There were Or eight pink spaces other pink spaces vacancies Reference back It looked like even more vacancies than Then showed up on the org chart if that's what they are didn't say what pink meant Oh, Sarah there you're muted Sarah. There we go. Can you hear me now? Yeah, okay great Thank you for catching that so that was an older org chart pre some of the Vacancies we filled so we no longer have any vacancies in admin for example So what you saw on Lee's chart is most updated. Okay. Thank you That's very much Lee. Thank you for your presentation Because you're doing just chugging along. It's great. It's great. Um, and I'm glad to see the the new remodeled You know plan encounter up and operating but nobody can be there right now, but it looks beautiful So I'm glad that that we did get that done and people will be there to use it soon I had a little bit of I've been having a little problem with my my cell phone And so going in and out a little bit one question ahead for you is are we Do we have are we required to update our housing element starting this year? Or is that or count? Is that a calendar year? so, um, I mean It's the the current cycle is um 2015 to 2023 and interesting that you ask because At your next council meeting we will be presenting you with Request for authorization to apply for a grant to complete our housing element and so That is One of the items that would provide us the guaranteed grant funding and that's $300,000 that would be Contributed towards our housing elements. So we are required to update our housing element before december of 2023 and that will be a significant effort and that $300,000 will will certainly go towards A big chunk of the work that we'll need to do in that And do you see any risk? That's great that there's grant funding available. Have you heard? Through the state or anything that any of that those grants that grant funding may be jeopardized I'm just curious. It's such an important thing. You know, this is an important time and period for us to be doing that work and I'm just trying to forecast a little bit in terms of Running into issues without being able to And and not being able to unfortunately update that element. So I'm just curious if you have your ear to the ground on that I have not heard anything about that funding disappearing Um, I believe that specific funding was a part of a bill package that was passed. You know, we've got the Objective standards grant that we're working on right now And this is a leader phase of that and so I think that all of that is is in place and I'm not hearing anything Otherwise and so fingers crossed that it will still remain for us We're bound to update the housing element one way or the other. So hopefully we've got that grant funding to assist Okay, great. That was my only question. Thank you You're welcome. Are there any further questions? Um, for lia the time Seeing none Lee, thanks again for your presentation and for all the hard work that you and your staff are doing Thank you I have to take care of a great day Next up on our agenda is our sixth presentation of the day, which is the city council city attorneys city managers clerks and community programs presentation And so for members of the public who are streaming this meeting If this is a presentation that you want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen The order will be a presentation by staff followed by questions from the council We will then take public comment and then return to council for any follow-up questions or comments And with that, uh, I will turn this presentation over to laura schmidt assistant city manager Thank you, mayor. Are you all able to see my screen? So as mayor Cummings said, I'll be covering the city manager's office Then the city council budget and then I'll hand it over to tony pendota to speak briefly about the city attorney's office budget The agenda is as everybody else has been doing so i'm going to breeze right through that just as lee did The city manager's office is comprised of 14 and a half full-time equivalents As the assistant city manager, I pretty much act as the city manager's department head for our area We have a funded but Unfilled communication manager vacancy right now And then um an assistant to the city manager homelessness sustainability and climate action and principal management analyst Ralph who does communications and other analytical work in our office And then we have susan as our executive assistant to the city manager and then bonnie leads up our clerks functions when I step back and look at the various Components and functions of our office that our 14 and a half staff execute We have the city's clerks function, which is quite distinct and Intuitive to understand and then administration and communication and strategy Comprised our overall administrative overhead human resources work And then the strategic work that we do with the council And then on the other side of it. I look at it as ongoing programs and Existing work that has come to our office that is usually city-wide in nature And we do on a continuous basis And then we do a lot of ad hoc project work where we're helping idea Develop through their process We're staffing ad hoc committees that come up like the budget committee that was formed on at the april 28th meetings like the Revenue committee that proceeded it So a little bit about our functions our city clerks Not only do they do all of the documentation And work behind the scenes for any of our council meetings But they are also the ones that staff our main public counter and our phones So Anna sherry and rosemary do an amazing job Fielding calls and have to know enough about our entire city to be able to route Our community members with questions either answering the questions directly themselves or getting them in touch with the right department Our person within our organization that can help them They act as our official city record keeper They handle all of our public records requests So any public records request goes through the city clerk's office to then be Sold out to the respective departments or departments that actually can help answer the question They staffed the city council meetings They pretty much take care of the council chambers in conjunction with information technology And they manage our community tv relationship as well as all of our elections And as uh just that acknowledged in a proclamation earlier, it's a professional municipal clerk's week. So many thanks to Bonnie and julia and the rest of the clerk staff for all the work that they do On the administration communication and strategy side. We oversee the city budget and the top department And we help support the city council with Email correspondence and any other administrative support that they need We also have recently really beefed up our communication function within the city manager's office And then this has been critical in the kovat 19 response And then we just do the day-to-day administration of all the human resources and personnel all the contracts and purchasing And to that tizana's an amazing job of handling hundreds of contracts and invoices Anything else that comes across across our desk We also staff joint powers authority and um, we represent for instance at our santa clues regional 911 Board and I sit on the animal shelter board. So we do staff's various joint powers authority And then overall we are the hub of the strategic planning that crosses the city and then we work In lockstep with the city council to be able to put the strategic plan together that we can then execute for you On our programs in standing community work, um, we have an amazing climate action and sustainability manager Uh, tiffani wise west. She's probably one of the leaders in this space in california And I would even say possibly the nation so she does an amazing job Putting santa crews on the map and keeping us on the leading edge Of climate action and our all of our sustainability and environmental work We recently hired brook newman as our new homeless response manager She just started a month ago in the middle of the pandemic, but uh, she's jumped right in and is doing an amazing job already We have the independent independent police auditor function and we also Uh, lead the legislative program for the city We do a lot of contract administration and that includes the santa cruz county core programs And then the other social services grants that we coordinate with the county and then we staff of various standing committees The commission for the prevention of violence against women community programs committee and then the public safety committee So those are the types of things that we do on an ongoing basis and then on any given day week month year We will also get assigned special projects Usually if there's a project that comes up and there is a Department that has a subject matter expertise that can act as a lead department They may end up taking that special project and running with it But in the case if the project crosses multiple departments or is more city-wide Then that will come to the city manager's office and we'll staff and um have somebody on point to read that special project Same thing happens with other ad hoc requests that may come up from the departments the community or the council members We may take an idea that initially comes up as a request Uh, do a little research see if it's going to be seated and sponsored and if it'll turn into something else Or won't be pursued. We'll do a lot of research now on those types of ad hoc requests The other types of work that we do if there are ad hoc committees that come up like the community advisory committee on homelessness And the budget committee the revenue committee will staff those During the duration of that ad hoc work and then it'll sunset and we'll move on to another committee that gets formed So what have we been doing in fiscal year 2020? So I just tried to highlight a few of the achievements for our office on the homelessness front We have staffed and facilitated the community advisory committee on homelessness Ron Prince who is here as a special projects manager Helped build the bridge to the national guard so that we were able to occupy the armory for the first time in several years and get that in place As a winter location that was covered and then We developed the homelessness response position with the help of hr and then we recruited and hired book newman last month We've also worked with the city council to do an off-site and translate That work from the off-site into a six month work plan And then we started our strategic plan With nicole young and we'll be picking that up later on once the pandemic settles down. Hopefully and then Last but not least we have developed a council member onboarding manual that we were able to use with council member buyers And council member golder. They were the beneficiary of over a hundred page document, which I'm sure they've read end to end The other thing we've done this year is develop the robust communication function Ross americot came to us from the city of san San Diego and it's done an amazing job help us helping us Eat this up and without this communication function we wouldn't wouldn't have been able to do the public service announcements and Keep you and our community up to date during this covid pandemic. So that's been some amazing work My being Technical person, you know in my heart of hearts as your former it director. I went and did some Statistics running as far as a council meeting and the city council meeting that the city clerk staff Staff and and does all the work It's not just the meeting itself behind the scenes They touch every agenda report. They have to plan the meeting and figure out the timing of it Respond to and attach all the public correspondence to agenda reports They have to deal with all the in meeting logistics both The normal day-to-day and the emergencies that happen when a mic breaks or something like that They do action summaries and minutes They scan information They do all the budget adjustments that come out of the city council meeting and the resolutions and proclamations and everything So there's a lot of work that goes to standing at the council meeting I counted and we've had 22 meetings including special ones through april 28th meeting That equivalent that was about 176 hours and on average you guys were in Your regular meetings for 9.6 hours the longest meeting took 12 hours and 47 minutes This last fiscal year And I pondered in my mind what takes about 13 hours and so I went out to google And it said on average that the average person Spends about 13 hours in their email in one week So you did that in one night in one council meeting and then I recalled I don't take 13 hours that sounds vaguely familiar. How long was I in labor with my kids? So on average apparently the average baby takes six to 12 hours to deliver So you guys went beyond the average of delivering a baby in just one council meeting And I think in total you had maybe even four council meetings that were 12 hours or more so Justin if I I doubt you'll deliver a baby, but you've gone through a longer Council meeting than it takes on average to deliver one Our city manager's office budget is 6.2 million dollars and covers multiple activities From this section the city manager's office budget with personnel and services and supplies is about 33 percent The commission for the prevention of violence against women is one percent as well as the police auditor function And then city clerk takes up 16 percent with Climate action and our membership induced at three percent of peace Our animal shelter contribution to that joint powers authority is 10 percent of our budget And then between our two social services buckets one for core and the fed-aside Program that we run every year and community programs and services and the coordination of programs with the county Those take up 33 percent in total as well Our non-scat status quo highlights for fiscal year 21 in the city manager's office activity Under city planned events We are have requested an additional news service to be able to find out when The city of Santa Cruz is mentioned out in any press or internet service as well as a little bit bump in our advertising budget Uh, we've moved health and all policies as an ongoing funding from the city council to the city manager's office It was previously its first time in city council budget at 20 000 And then you guys requested that be bumped to 25 000 so that is in the city manager's budget And we also increased the police auditor budget slightly. It hadn't been increased in quite a few years on the clerk side, we are Finding that the election budget is has not been sufficient. And then for the community television budget We have added closed captioning, which is a requirement by law And we've met with ctv the service that they offer and we've received the estimate and included that in our budget As well as the advertising that the clerk's office needs to do for various resolutions and changes to our Just the noticing requirements that we have to do our current advertising budget is not sufficient The other status quo items in our budget memberships and dues are things that increase that we don't really have Control over so the league of california cities, for instance increases their dues We just include the increase in our budget on the community programs and services side We know that our downtown outreach worker and our mental health liaison programs That the county helps us with they received Cost of living adjustments and those cost of living adjustments have been passed on to us So there's an increase in those two programs Additionally, the point in time count is coming up again. That's an every two year function So that has been added to this budget And there are looming adjustments that we don't know enough of yet But as a for instance for the homelessness front We went from a winter shelter only model and that's what was budgeted last fiscal year And as you now know, we have gone to a year round model So that is going to inherently increase our budget substantially Just that aspect of the community programs piece Moving on to the city council budget the city council budget is around $466,000 it's split between 70 percent in personnel and 30 percent in supplies and services The brunt of your budget in those areas are in a couple of accounts and I emailed you all And we have available later for discussion if you'd like to go through it the non-status quo aspects of your Professional services and your most miscellaneous service and supplies accounts And we can go into that if you would like to later The city attorney's office. I'd like to hand it over to tony kandadi at this point if you could jump in Tony Yes Thank you. Thank you Good afternoon, mayor Cummings members of the city council My pleasure to present the city attorney's portion of this presentation today Our mission is to provide the city Legal council and to advocate on behalf of the city and to support municipal operations and programs and community policies Pardon me We're proud of the fact that as a private law firm that we are public servants in the community We live in and we strive to work with the city council city manager and city departments in making Santa Cruz a healthier safer and more equitable Place to live for all members of the community In our to accomplish our mission We strive to support the city council in the accomplishment of its critical and top priorities Uh to provide objective accurate and timely legal advice that facilitates informed decision making And effective policy development by the council And its implementation by the city manager and staff And to provide the council boards commissions and city departments with high quality Efficient and effective legal services advice and opinions And to represent the city's interests in litigation contractual agreements negotiations In land use water and planning and building issues Uh in law enforcement issues and to serve the community and the interests of justice with effective prosecution of municipal code violations and code enforcement Uh to those whose familiarity with our office is limited to the observation of council meetings It's seen it may seem like we're primarily there to provide advice on the brown act and rules of meeting decorum But in fact, we are a dedicated team of nine lawyers Six full time and three part time Two full time paralegals an office manager and two administrative staff The agenda packet that you are provided We have carefully reviewed or participated in the preparation of Most or all of the items on the agenda Whether it's presented by the city manager's office the public works department water parks parks and rec planning or finance Uh, this of course includes your ordinances resolutions and every one of the contracts that are typically approved Without comment on your consent agenda We're also deeply involved in a myriad of issues that generally don't come come before the council at all from Day-to-day advice to representing the city and civil litigation and criminal and administrative code enforcement and collections matters In terms of achievement that's a little bit tricky for me because Uh of the nature of our function Uh, and I feel like we share somewhat in the achievements that have been reached by the city as a whole Uh over the course of the past year A couple of things that I am particularly proud of however I'm proud of the way that my office has handled The city's response to homelessness over the past year Uh, particularly in the wake of the martin versus boysy decision, which continues to reverberate throughout Uh the ninth circuit and the united states In general following the supreme court's rejection of a petition for writ of cert in that matter Uh, that of course is still a work in progress And it has been since I joined the city in 1993 But we work closely with the city manager's office the police department and departments In addressing both the nuisance conditions associated with homeless encampments And nuisance behaviors, but also ensuring that our actions are implemented in a thoughtful way That respects the rights of the community as a whole as well as those Experiencing homelessness and that protects the city from potential liability under the careful scrutiny of homeless activists advocates And activists And civil rights groups like the aclu and the national law center on homelessness and poverty I think it's significant that under the very tense situations that we've Experienced with regard to homelessness over the last year the city has not been sued By any of those organizations and we've tried to maintain effective relationships with Those those entities as well I'm proud of the way that we've maintained effective and constructive working relationships with seven individual council members over the over the years Who's views on a variety of issues have often been very different and And This past year has been particularly one a difficult one in terms of the issues that have come before the council And and council interrelations to be frank And then thirdly I want to give a shout out to my litigation team led by cassie bronson, but also Tori Thompson and barbara choy And stephanie duck We've successfully resolved a number of litigation matters favorably for the city In this past year and by favorably i mean That we've settled cases In an amount that was substantially less than our assessment of the potential liability exposure And thereby avoided significant litigation costs and potential liability In addition, we've prevailed outright in a number of matters including Going back to the end of last fiscal year the kintero matter in which the city initiated a process to Close down the ross encampment behind the ross dress for less in the gate We applaud the shopping center and the plaintiffs File a lawsuit in the united states district court seeking to enjoin the city's closure of that encampment on constitutional grounds In this fiscal year, we were successful in obtaining the outright dismissal of the case And also thwarted the plaintiff's attempt to appeal the dismissal to the ninth circuit u.s. Court of Appeals A more recent example is Uh, just goes back to last friday In which the united states district court for the northern district of california Granted the city's motion to dismiss in David my bird versus the city of santa Cruz Which is a lawsuit that was first filed in february of 2019 And at the time included 32 separate legal causes of action against the city And against 12 city employees in police planning and parks and rector departments In this case the plaintiff's broadly a lead or the plaintiff's broadly alleged a citywide conspiracy Related to the enforcement of the city's surf school ordinance and a separate code enforcement matter series of liability include the federal sherman act which Uh relates to antitrust violations unfair competition laws First amendment retaliation claims and a civil rights cause of action Alleging an illegal search of the mybergs. Mr. Myberg's property The plaintiff sought Well over 150 thousand dollars in damages in that case plus plus attorney's season costs Which should have easily been over 150 thousand dollars I would add that it was resolved at the pleading stage, which means that the city did not file an answer. There was no discovery And so the Litigation was very inexpensive for the city relative to the potential exposure and the issues in the case On january 20th. We obtained dismissal of the case of chase mason versus the city of santa criss A federal civil rights lawsuit against the city which alleged that the santa criss police department improperly An inadequately investigated traffic incident where he was injured The plaintiff sought over 100 thousand dollars in damages plus attorney's fees, which could have easily been well over another 100 thousand dollars So significant savings on that case And then the gomez case involved a police pursuit of a suspect who drove in the wrong direction Approaching traffic on the highway 17 and crashed into the plaintiff's car The plaintiff filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and the police department and our office Excuse me our office settled the case for no money out of pocket In exchange for a waiver of a 7500 dollar discovery sanction award that our office obtained against the plaintiff's counsel plaintiffs had Previously attempted to negotiate a settlement In the multiple ten thousand dollar range In terms of budget This is a budget estimate prepared by the finance department in consultation with my office It's a little tricky because the cost the city incurs for legal services are dependent on the demand For legal services to meet the needs of the city which fluctuates You can see just over two-thirds is allocated to general legal services providing advice Preparing or reviewing ordinances resolutions and contracts and attending city council Meetings and other meetings on requests and working with staff on a daily basis General legal services are provided on a flat rate basis for the first 275 hours per month And a discounted blended hourly rate thereafter I would note that in 2018 We voluntarily increased the numbers of the number of hours provided on a flat rate basis From 260 to 275 hours with no increase in cost to the city Which effectively resulted in a four and a half percent decrease in the cost of general legal services that are blended hourly rate And our blended hourly rate has not increased since 2017 The rest of the pie is primarily litigation and code enforcement and that again The cost incurred by the city is heavily dependent on factors that are only partially within our control Are rates for special legal services likewise have not been adjusted since 2017 and we are not Proposing any changes for the upcoming fiscal year in some It has been my pleasure to serve as your city attorney for the past five years and to serve the city In some capacity since 1993 when I joined this law office And i'm blessed to have a dedicated team of lawyers and staff All of whom are proud of the work we do and its impact on the city and its residents And i'm happy to answer any questions Thank you Tony for that presentation and for all the work that your staff does and thank you laura as well um and for all the hard work that We have happening in the city manager's office and city clerk's office Uh, are there any questions from council members at this time? Council member walkins I just have a quick question. Um, yes. Thank you for your presentation Thank you laura for reminding us of these really long meetings we had I think I remember that meeting And I remember having to present at one of my daughter's school the day after and Tell the students that we started one day and ended the night so anyways, um I um My question actually is for you tony in regards to sort of the status quo Did you feel like last year was sort of an outlying year given all the kind of the legal Stuff we had going on or do you anticipate that same level of demand this this year as well? So, um, I I do think it was an outlying year in in one respect in particular. Um Well in two respects really That the first is that the issue of homelessness in light of the martin case was front and center with our office um In a way that it's never been before and it and it generated a lot of of work not just on the cantero matter but on uh, managing issues that that that the parks department and the police department and city manager's office have been dealing with Um, we've been much more involved in the day-to-day response to homelessness I think as has city staff in general in the past year And the second is with respect to the demand for services, uh from the city council I think last year was probably Um, let me take a step back. We only started tracking The the time that we spend on the city manager's On city matters by department a couple of years ago So it's really hard for me to provide an accurate assessment in terms of the hours that we've spent on Directly responding to request for the city council. I think that was significantly higher as well Thank you All right council member buyers Oh Laura first for you. I You're right. I have not sat down and read the whole onboarding manual However I do pick it up, you know every once in a while. It's a reference guide and Because I you know things have changed a little bit and uh Department heads have changed. So it's been helpful. Thank you No questions that this and Suzanne has been outstanding because I'm always needing something It's interesting having to sort of set up a home office So she's been so helpful, you know with my ipad and now I got stanford instead of propping it up with pillows And it's just constantly one thing after another but you've been outstanding and for you tony. Oh, I'm running out of battery um It's nice to be back and it's nice working with you again And I'm you're very generous whenever I call or something and I appreciate that because it's usually a last minute You know question and thank you well, I say uh And not a very well-known secret is I generally clear my calendars on the monday and tuesday for council meetings for that purpose Exactly. So happy to do it All right by senator miers Yeah, laura and tony. Thank you for the presentations and um Yeah, tony, especially some of the things that you noted We're really helpful to hear about the work that you're doing in your office With regards to litigation and and other matters sometimes sometimes those are things that Community doesn't realize that you know along with everything else. We we also are having to do that kind of work as well I just wanted to recognize The city manager's department and the staff there. I know the homeless response and the You know the just the difficulty of facing our communities with the in-house populations And people and the folks that we haven't here um, you guys do an amazing job and You know you you act in a very respectful way and I think that You know, you just need to be recognized for the work that you do do and the way that you've integrated You know both national and state models and standards to really try to address, you know Crisis that we have not just in Santa Cruz, but throughout the west western united states So just wanted to recognize you guys for that. Um, and I know it's a really difficult public policy issue and I think you do it with with great Great dignity and I just want to just point out that work that you do for our community So thank you for that work I appreciate that and even though we just hired brook newman Sooby and Megan and the city manager's office have been holding down before and doing amazing work for the last One to two years in this space So They they need to be acknowledged as well for all the hard work that they've done before we were able to Develop and fund this position Thank you Let's see martin burnall. I have the pan raise Thank you, mayor and council. I just wanted to also just thank the staff in our office to do amazing work and We're able to really quickly pivot to responding to the the covid virus which was instrumental in us being able to to get ahead and be responsive to the community and If you just think about everything that we put in place to respond, it's been really incredible and amazing work and The team in our office as well as the whole department head team really deserves a lot of credit for that And I want to thank them And uh, lastly, I I've attended council means for like what 23 years I think they've been probably hundreds of thousands of kids born Well, I was the council means I guess Yeah, thank you, uh, laura and tony for the presentations and Definitely a big thank you to all of the staff in the city managers and the clerks office Um, I won't I'll just echo all the comments that have been made so far without repeating And then and tony I wanted to also thank you for uh, this time around really highlighting the behind the scenes work that that Goes on and and laying that out for us because I think it is something that Um, the the public isn't probably not so much aware of And even for ourselves because you know, we have interactions with you during the council meetings and closed sessions And also of course when we call you usually last minute and you know Your office and you and your office are always very very accessible and Reachable and you get back to us quickly and it's just so helpful to know that we can get that kind of advice good advice kind of on the spot so Yeah, just send send a thanks as well to everybody in your office and um Keep on keeping on For some reason, I think everybody in my office has been watching the whole budget presentation to that And what am I surprised? Uh, councillor matthews and this is their 15 minutes of Thank you. Thank you both for your your presentations and again, um the ability to Grapple professionally with very high profile emerging issues And you know at the same time The remarks about all the work that goes into the relentless every two weeks meetings, I mean everything All the different reports hands on the reports eyeballs, etc That has to sink in apparently seamlessly But it's not I mean it's it's not without a whole lot of work. So it's just so appreciated week in week out Thank you all the time. Hey at this time, uh, I'm going to turn it over to The public to provide comments Or anyone from the public has questions So if you're interested in commenting on the city council City attorney city managers clerks community programs budget presentation Now's the time when you can call in And after you have followed the instructions To join the meeting you'll want to press star nine on your phone to raise your hand And when it's your time to speak you'll hear it announced that you've been unmuted and you will have two minutes to speak And then there's no members of the public who are wishing to join to comment on this item Uh, I'm going to bring it back to council for any further comments council member weapons Thank you, mayor. I just had one last question, but really want to echo my colleagues sense of appreciation for our entire city manager's department and staff the city attorney staff and We get to see first hand just your stellar team working on an ongoing basis and just really high caliber groups So, um, thank you to everybody. I can't wait to see you again. Hopefully soon. I'm missing them in the office But I had a quick question in regards to the to the core funding. I forgot to um, ask earlier Is that what's the um, sort of the thoughts around that in terms of the cycle and next step because I think I remember it being extended the year So if you could or if you have any idea of what that's looking like, um, it's going to get a sense of that So the budget that we put in for fiscal year 21 per county directive It's the status quo from the previous year They were in the process of going through a new strategic planning and coordination process to create a new rfp And develop a new methodology for the next round after next year but that was um smack down in the middle of of ramping up in January, February, March and then the pandemic hit. So from what I understand at this point is We're probably going to add on another year of Of carrying forward the existing allegations But they may be able to squeeze in some covet related applicability to Where the funding disbursement goes but that's still to be determined So at this point we carried forward from fiscal year 20 the same program to 21 And then the county will let us know as they get back into things if they're going to change the allocation methodology at all Great. Thank you All right, cool. Tony. Thank you again and thanks. Thank all your staff for all the hard work they do and um, I'd also like to just echo the Special thanks to the city manager's office, especially for um, how rapid they were to respond to Even when we were just beginning to hear about COVID-19 coming into our area I think that it's because of those efforts to really Kind of shut things down really quickly and shelter in place really quickly That have aided in our ability to have a very low Transmission rate and a low occurrence of COVID-19 within our community. And so, um, Thank you all for your hard work and great decision making Leadership. Thanks. We appreciate that feedback and as martin said, it's been a huge team effort So all the departments have banded together. So it's been a wonderful fight to see everything everybody working so well together Thank you All right, we will move on to our next presentation for the day which is for our police department And so for members of the public who are streaming this meeting If this is a presentation you want comment on now it's time to call in Using the instructions on your screen The order will be a presentation by staff followed by questions from the council We will then take public comment and then return to council for any all questions or comments And so at this time if chief annie mills is on the line We can move on to your presentation Uh, good morning. Good afternoon, mr. Mayor. We're having some public getting the Video portion because the host has stopped it. So maybe morrick and open it for us or somebody else can Well, uh, first of all, thank you so much for the opportunity to share what the Santa Cruz police department has been doing And and on behalf of all the men and women who work as officers detectives Rangers Cfos our professional staff We couldn't be more thrilled with the team environment that we have and pressing forward with some Fantastic initiatives that we believe can really make a significant difference here in the city of Santa Cruz You know, it's interesting that as we press forward during the year um You come up and you wind up with a worldwide pandemic That throws everything off the kilter But the response from the men and women who are the essential servants of our community They switched to 12 art shifts immediately. They worked around the clock They did everything they could possibly do to make this community safe in spite of the uh apparent risk to themselves And what was interesting to me as the chief and having done this for 42 years Uh, I did not hear one ounce of complaining or hesitation But just charging full speed ahead making sure that we did everything we could possibly do I had to work with the community and make sure that some people were safe So my undying gratitude goes to the men and women Of the Santa Cruz police department and all sides of the department both sworn in civilian You know, we started off with the mission statement You can see on the screen is that we're committed to self serve selflessly and compassionately Through collaboration and innovation And I think that really sparks before me what we have tried to deal with the last couple of years here in Santa Cruz police department Think about how we work with the community To collaborate with them and then to innovate and find ways to target specific problems and deal with those problems as opposed to randomly Doing enforcement where it doesn't make sense And so as a result, I think what you've seen is our folks very heavily focused on solving problems in our community And pursuing criminals absolutely where it's where it's needed and necessary And doing so in a way that's transparent responsive to our community needs So as we go through this presentation, I'm going to have Deputy Chief Estalane start off with talking about What he sees from his position as the administrative deputy chief and then our budget analyst Patricia Dodge will give you the information on our budget and what that takes a little looks like So we'll break this into a few areas. Uh, we'll be bouncing back between the three of us And uh to make sure you can hear us will be unmasked during our talk and the rest of the time We'll have masks on and uh keeping our social distance. So first up will be Deputy Chief Estalane And uh to give you a department overview our achievements top of our court services and then Patricia will talk about the Working budget in the status quo budget and then some of the unavoidable costs that we're going to incur this upcoming year And then obviously certainly handle any questions you might have So first up is Deputy Chief Estalane Oh, never mind. I'm taking the uh, I've been corrected by uh by my staff This is our organizational chart that you see in front of you. We have two significant divisions One is administrative straight up that handle investigations recruitment Uh, our management analyst our record section and uh, they're a pretty darn busy unit As part of this, uh, we were authorized to hire up to 102 people We've actually uh, our 94 budgeted positions And we are currently at 91 sworn positions with 20 people in backgrounds. There's no doubt reminded. We could Well go well over the budgeted positions. However, we've obviously put a Put the brakes on because of the COVID-19 crisis And we're going to wait and see how this shakes out Over the upcoming uh, a little bit We have 12 cso's 12 rangers and 18 professional staff their budgeted positions also On the operation side is headed by Deputy Chief Lebow And he has all the uniformed personnel in our department Uh, this last year we screened 1100 applicants We put 433 applicants through the investigation process Excuse me, uh screening process And then 45 people went through backgrounds. We hired 20 So we're almost at completely full staffing And for the first time in many many years and that's a due to the hard work of a lot of staff members including west morey Scott Garner Dan flippo burning up galani And a lot of other officers who did the screening of these folks as well as our background investigators, which have done a great job So, uh, this is the structure of the department and uh, now we're moving forward And uh, we'll have to adapt and move and overcome the challenges that lye had but we're ready to go and make sure that we have Bernie Good afternoon, mayor Cummings and council members So As the chief was mentioning related to our staffing one of the Many achievements that we're very proud of here Is we were able to put together two specialty teams Due to our staffing levels. We were able to Pull some folks out of our patrol division Um, and have them focus on special Neighborhood problems that we try to apply different strategies to this and find some solutions Uh, the hero team which stands for the homeless engagement resource officer That team brings a different type of strategy They do very little if any enforcement, but they work closely and collaboratively with other city departments and and the county To find resources for people that have found themselves living in the On the streets of the city of Santa Cruz And and try to find Solutions for them and get to the root of the problem of why they are born living homeless so Then the second team the neighborhood enforcement Neighborhood policing team They apply a different strategy. They uh, they go out and do you know strict enforcement They're using the law enforcement tools and the laws and ordinances given to us to As a different type of strategy to solve problems within a neighborhood They also work very closely with other city departments To find solutions to the problems so both these teams Were a luxury for us in the sense of once we were able to get our staffing levels up We were able to raise our level of service to the community in solving solving problems We are extremely proud of the strides that we've made over the year of 2019 related to threat assessment and de-escalation Our staff has gone through a tremendous amount of de-escalation training crisis intervention training We were able to purchase Tools to make our officers more effective in the field Related to de-escalating very dangerous situations That ultimately ended ended safely instead of tragically. So we're very proud of that One of the things we also did if you remember 2019 we Hosted the pop conference the problem-oriented policing Conference here in the city of Santa Cruz first time ever and had hundreds of representatives from law enforcement You know scientists from all over the the world that came here to the city of Santa Cruz to really study the profession of policing And lastly was a threat assessment we We also established our own threat assessment protocol that is currently being used across the country And what that does is really gives us a tool to assess Mass casualty threats that we oftentimes see over the internet or social media or something To really give us an idea of what the problem is that we're dealing with The volunteer program we are extremely proud of the amount of women of this program. They have brought so much to our organization The program has built up to over 40 volunteers In 2019 Uh, I got some stats here that are really amazing as a folks in 2019 They put in over 400. I'm sorry 4,500 hours of service for our organization and for the community of Santa Cruz And that's compared to just over 1100 hours in 2018 so The 40 plus numbers that we have as our volunteer in our volunteer program have done a tremendous job Again thinking of different ways to provide a high level of service to to the city And these folks have done a great job for us And last but not least of course one of our main functions is to Prevent or reduce crime and so These numbers will show you a trend of the last four years of Accomplishing exactly that In all of these categories you will see from 2016 to 2019 The men and women of this organization have worked extremely hard and have Really produced great results For the for the community is in relation to the prevention or reduction of crime I believe at this point Patricia will now take over related to the specific budget conversation Oh, no, I'm sorry one more our core services um You know enforcement is one of the ones that's out front and center all the time every day every night investigations In in 2019 the detectives in our investigations section Addressed over 1600 cases throughout the year All the way from, you know major violent crimes to property crimes Our community involvement or also I'd like to refer to it as community relations We over the last couple of years have built such a great relationship with The stakeholders in our community through social media the volunteer program that we already mentioned And just all of the continuous outreach has created such a great trusting relationship An inclusive relationship with our community that has really built Itself over the last couple years to a lot of hard work with choice flasky in our community relations Um unit and then lastly uh records our record section They really do all the important work behind the scenes that nobody really gets to see But just an outstanding number i'd like to share in 2019 they processed over 15 000 police reports And 6 500 citations On top of that they managed to work through on average 54 public records requests every month for the year of 2019 so that group of men and women to be commended Just as much as the men and women out in the outfield every day for their hard work behind the scenes Next i'm going to talk about our budget In terms of our data full budget i'm zooming way out here so you can see a big picture The other two slices of the pie are professional services and then basically everything else So this is the big picture and now i'm going to take you into a deep dive of our professional services contacts So again, this is only nine percent of our total budget And the vast majority of this nine percent is um dedicated to our 911 call center contribution In in addition to that the little small pieces of our professional service contract budget Organitorial services are three percent Special assault nurse examiner program which will now be in the county and sanitary about three percent We spend three percent of this nine percent of our budget on background investigations and that's something we do before hiring folks onto our workforce And then the next biggest category is ocean street private security So you'll see there are a few other items that take up one percent and a lot of much smaller professional service contracts Items that are less than one percent of this Nine percent of our budget In terms of the other slices of the pie another nine percent of our total budget 24 percent is dedicated to Shirdi bonds. This is a category that we actually don't have control over You'll see that 11 percent is spent on small poop and equipment And that's a little bit bigger this year than last year because we need to upgrade our mobile communication units that are in all of our vehicles And that's an upgrade that needs to happen as a piggyback to the r&s system upgrade that we're involved with Our vehicle work order charges are shifting as more of our vehicles are being Procured through the enterprise Program which seems to be saving us a good chunk of money which allows us to expand the small tools and equip that budget To accommodate those new in-car computers Aside from that Closing and equipment that's only four percent of this nine percent of our budget And four percent health communication services four percent on our building and facility of a plane And then we included a whole lot of details on the far right side in terms of our other smaller costs That are dedicated to this part of terms of what's not status quo this year We actually were able to do a pretty amazing job of accommodating all of the other cost increases within our budget Mostly because of savings on vehicle lease costs One area that we were not able to accommodate into a status quo budget was the cost increase of the 9-1-1 call center So our bill goes up It's coming year by 30 $30,000 and that's what we aren't able to absorb So historically over time it does not Factor into a status quo budget for the police department is sort of something that is assumed to go up every year And with that, uh, do you have any questions? All right. Thank you for that presentation and thank you for all the hard work you all have been doing especially Given the constraints of COVID-19 and and all the concerns with it You all continue to do a great job for our community and we appreciate everything you do I'll turn it over to council member brown for the first question I thank you for the presentation Lots of good information in there and thank you for all the work you're doing Everybody on the force right now. I know it's a very challenging time and uh, you're Willingness to kind of step forward and and find a way to continue to provide critical public safety services for our community is is very much appreciated Um, I have a couple of questions to her relatively small and then I have a bigger picture. Um, so, um When you're talking about expenses, um, the sexual assault nurse moving to the county I think I've kind of vaguely tracked this but um, does that mean that there would be a budget reduction? As part of that, um, I'm I'm wondering if we then would be supporting The the program and through a contribution to the county Or what's happening there and then just kind of a small one and maybe I've heard this before and I just don't Remember, but what is pepper ball maintenance? It's I just it made me curious It's probably a very small amount, but what is that? um, and then the The final question is kind of the bigger question, uh related to Uh, you know everything's in flux. I know but uh given the challenges That we're kind of we're faced with now and probably into the future How are you thinking about? Are you thinking about maintaining the the organizational structure and Kind of policing the regional or neighborhood policing teams and the hero's team or is there any reorganization that is going to need to happen? um, just what's You know, what are you thinking along those lines? On your first two questions, the sexual assault nurse program moving to the county will increase costs for our department However, those were costs we were able to absorb in our budget. So they're not beyond the status quo pepper ball Is five hundred dollar a year cost and that is one of our de-escalation pools all right thanks All right. Yeah, there's an expiration date on the on the gas that's in the ball. So yeah every place of that The verbal service As far as what the organizational structure will look like Once we get through this, I'm not sure yet We're waiting to kind of find out what the Negotiation looked like with the city manager's office council and and the Associations And so depending on what that looks like. They're very well in the effort. You have to be a restructuring of some kind um And reducing the level of service that we're able to give to the community But we'll see what that looks like and if there's a way to work around it We're committed to neighborhood policing no matter what's formed at the end Uh, and that is the strategy that we're using as a community and I think that the crime data is showing a slide from 2016 Is indicative of Of us being on the right track Um, but uh, we're adaptable We'll we'll move and uh as general with crystal said you have to Uh, you have to make sure that uh, you're changing for the environment. So we're changing Thank you Council member fires Thank you Hello, Andy. Uh, I think of your arrival And uh, it was like double whammy. We're brand new but right then the Boise Homeless case came out Which I think had a huge impact on the way we do things in our homeless population and uh, tony certainly talked about it But uh, because right off the bat, we had to take a look at the homeless a little bit differently And I just want to commend you because I knew it could not have What I want to say, I'm sure it wasn't easy. We've had long time Protocols that we've been doing in Santa Cruz and this sort of made that a little topsy-turvy So I just want to thank you for your work on that and and how you How you managed it. I'm sure it's not quite over yet Uh adapting to that. Um, but I appreciate it and I would only run into you And we're always talking about the homeless because that's what I was so involved in so now it's nice to get a wider view of the department And what you're all doing So good job and Call me, you know, I'll I'll call you but if you've got any questions or want to seek my advice I wish you would do that I think that was the only question. I not really a question. Oh, and then the third whammy is now we have the pandemic so all three of those have been a really unusual time I think no other questions Well, thank you for that, uh council member and we appreciate your support our entire department does It's the men and women who are on the field taking care of business that are actually getting the stuff done And we appreciate their efforts, you know, uh going back to uh, mr. Kandadi's presentation I really do appreciate the expert council that I've gotten from him and that rolled early on when We he and I collaborated and made sure that we were on the same page because we were pretty sure this Supreme important decision was coming which it did and it put us in a place to avoid significant litigation because of I think what was a good decision made at the at the head of the city, so We're in a good spot right now. And but we need to deal with some of these magnanimous problems Council member Matthews I was glad to hear that you're uh, almost fully hired to the budgeted number. I'm curious. Um compared to sometimes in the past, uh, how many What do I want to say not in active service because of interiors or we were something like that so are those all on the street or what's the Kind of temporality out of commission number there Yeah, so thank you for that. Um at one point we had uh, I believe was 18 people In our department Right now we're down to two. Oh my god. We're still working with the human resources and working with Um, helping people that need to be retired because they're injuries. They were not going to be able to come back from Uh, as well as transitioning people out in terms of retirement. We've been able to hire and get us almost full staffing We do have, uh, I think, uh, seven people in the academy right now And uh, and I think a couple of people in field training But everybody else is deployed in the field other than two people who are currently Injured and one was off to the injury. The other one was a non-duty injury. So We really feel positive. We're doing the work, you know, in a good space and doing, uh, doing well Thank you if I had a question, um, regarding just the Like how well your the performance of the department's been kind of seeing these downward trends in crime statistics and I kind of the questions kind of related to the structure of the department. So is there any I mean given that it seems like a lot of engagement that police officers have Are with people who are homeless or experiencing mental health issues within our community Is there any sense of kind of expanding if we continue to see these downward trends and crime statistics expanding more of those homeless engagement resource officer teams Versus kind of the neighborhood policing like how do you kind of foresee and I know that, you know, we're all kind of um It's a black box right now with regards to covid, but she's kind of, you know, as we're seeing these trends go down What are your thoughts on, um, kind of having Bigger homeless engagement teams versus neighborhood policing Yeah, so thank you for that mr. Mayor. I think that uh, there's a couple of things that are uh salient points here Uh, the hero team has been very instrumental in helping us achieve some goals some important goals One of which is they got numerous people into housing They've been going out contacting people helping them Uh, I know that just before covid started they'd already gotten I think seven or eight people Uh, that's into into housing permanently So that's the value of having a team out there like that and making sure that they're taking care of that kind of business On the other hand the neighborhood policing team, uh, is very important also Because we do have a lot of higher-end drug trafficking in our city We have a lot of problems that uh, very well could be caused by Narcotics in terms of mental health. So we do need someone to do that side of the Of the uh, of the investigations that proactive work In addition to when we get problems such as burglaries or a robbery series I need someone who can go out there and really Shake the bushes and see what we can get And so that team has been very instrumental in doing those things So as you know, we get lots of emails from people to city council to be city manager Someone has to be the enforcement arm to handle that. So Our hope and our goal is That if as we can keep the amount of staffing that we need To continue to raise both of those teams to a point Where we are as effective as possible and then look at other teams other teams that we have considered for instance is Is helping probation and parole control some of the people that are currently out probation and parole We see the same people that we arrest all the time. Somebody's got to hold them accountable And and the absence of a different organization. We're willing to do that And so we arrested a guy last night currently on on release from a different burglary case Well, somebody has gotten to do that and so our neighborhood placing team is an important enforcement tool but Just as critical as the hero team Our goal though is to get the county Mental health services to work with us as part of that team to maximize our best to maximize our team to make sure Excuse me that the people with the resources are actually out in the field helping us accomplish this path And so if we need to leverage the resources and others as well. Thank you Vice mayor Myers. Yeah, andy and And your team. I just want to thank you for that presentation. I'll just make it brief I just wanted to compliment you and just kind of encourage this kind of thinking in terms of the way that you have Structured some of these community inputs in terms of you know, neighborhood and And you know downtown and other things, especially I think about the police volunteer program and some other innovative things You know your walk around town last year Um, I think the one thing I hear a lot of is and I know this is a time intensive effort, but you know the the ability to actually got, you know Um our officers and our police leadership, um, you know integrated in the community as well as You know having Having not just an officer show up, but a volunteer or a trained person that's dealing. You know, it has been trained to deal with certain issues Um, I think it just sort of spread your presence around the community in a very positive way So and I'm especially um, thankful for the creation of the hero hero team so, uh, I congratulate you guys on a good year and um And uh, hopefully we'll get through this covet thing in hopefully in one piece But thanks for your work and please let your department know of my thanks Appreciate it a number of walk-ins and actually um, oh there we go Sorry, I apologize. I got kicked off a couple of times. I think I'm good um, but I do want to just also echo the appreciation and things that's been said and um Want to just also suggest or just share if there's anything that we as the council can do to encourage your partnership with the county in regards to social workers or mental health liaisons Please let us know. I think that's a critical part of being able to holistically reach kind of that population that definitely needs um those skill sets and uh, hopefully will lead to um more uh Long term changes for some of the repeat Folks that you have to encounter so if moving forward, there's something the council can do to support that relationship going forward Please, um, please let us know Okay at this time members of the public are interested in commenting on police budget presentations Uh, there should be a list of phone numbers on your screen And if you could please follow the instructions to call in Once you've called in you'll need to press star nine on your phone To raise your hand and when it's your time to speak you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted and the time will be set to two minutes And so we'll just pause for a few minutes to see if anybody wants to call in on this item Mr. Mayor while we're waiting if I could just make a comment um, the hero team was not my idea um as much as important as it is it was actually uh burning a salante and is Implemented and how's they are see it's running it And I just think it's important to show that some of other leaders have really stepped up to be innovative and thoughtful about what they're doing And as far as community engagement is concerned, that is so vitally important And uh, we were actually set to have three community meetings to support covid yet To discuss the quality of life Or this is I know that you and others are interested in And hopefully as soon as this is left in or also find a different way to do We'll make sure that engagement is there Chief and thank you thank you for uh Upload it for all the work that you all have done to get this program up and running Given that uh, there are no members of the public who um Wish to call in I saw that counter brown had her hand up. I think I accidentally lowered it, but uh Do you have any comments? I just wanted to say one more thing. I feel like maybe I should just Wait till the end of the questions because I always come up with something more But I thought it would be that you know, I just felt really compelled to highlight again the Hero's team and the work that you all are doing. Um, and thank you bernie and hosé For you know coming up with this Because I think we you know we hear most of the communications we get about police activity You know is negative either they didn't you know people the police didn't respond they feel unsafe or interactions with uh Are unhoused community members and so I just wanted to say that um for All of those there are so many more positive Interactions and I've seen some of those uh and ride-alongs. Um, you know knowing that the the Hero's team the people on that team, you know really understand what is what resources are available No get to know people in unhoused community members and and what their needs are and so I just feel like That it's just really worth highlighting again and saying thank you for everything you do and Keep on keeping on I'll follow up with that because having Going up in a neighborhood that did not have uh where The police were not as as positive and weren't as nice to mediate myself from Uh, I definitely since I moved to Santa Cruz and just over the years I've had really pleasant engagements with the police In our community and I've been really have felt safe in this community with our police officers And I think that as councillor brown said, you know, we on the national level We hear a lot of negative things about police officers But I think our community has really done a fantastic job and our department's a really fantastic job of trying to Be positive at any rate with the community and so to the extent that we can kind of celebrate Um, how positive our police force is I think we should continue to do so because we do a lot of really good work to um to You know really protect and serve the community. So thank you all for your all your efforts Councilmember buyers This is rather a self-serving question But um Because I was on the council when the building got built. How is the how is the building working out? I mean it's old now. Well, it's not old old, but um Is it holding up do you need more space? Is it already? You know to something or other Well, thank you for that question, but uh, it is fantastic. So whoever designed it build it I know he belcher was uh, heavily involved and uh, probably leading the path But this is a phenomenal building. We're Bursting the seams, but we're good for now and we appreciate your thought on that. Yeah Oh, good. Thank you. Good to hear. I do still have the uh, I mean it was very slightly controversial because it was going to add a lot to the budget The shooting range or the practice range We do And uh, and our officers use it to make sure that uh, We get what we aim at. Yeah, because you said I think had a drive to selenus or something Watsonville's practice. Okay. Good. Thank you Sorry about that. I just wanted to say thanks again for being here and for providing that presentation on our police department And with that, I think we'll move on to our next presentation. So at this time We have our eighth presentation of the day and so everyone knows This is our second to last presentation. So hang in there everyone But our next presentation is from our fire department And uh, our presenter will be our fire chief Jason. Hi, dude The members of the public members of the public which came this meeting If this is a presentation you want to comment on now at the time To call in using the instructions on your screen The order will be a presentation by staff followed by questions from the council We will lift a public comment and then return to the council for any follow-up questions And with that, I'll turn it over to Jason. I do our fire chief Good afternoon, uh, mayor and city council Jason. I do fire department Joining me today will be paul for that our oes manager and pma along with division chief rob od And they'll be taking over some slides as we get into it and i'm going to start off by giving a uh the agenda which is the same as all of our other Departments that have been presenting And i'll get into the structure of our department, uh, which is uh has not manifestly changed in a long time We have a fire chief principal management analyst who is our oes Runs our office of emergency services We have one division chief that's in charge of fire prevention One division chief who's in charge of operations and as a 24 hour operation We always have someone here. Um, and we respond every day and every night to calls for service We are primarily a response-based agency. However, within our fire prevention and our oes We do a lot of planning and mitigating and trying to minimize risk so that we don't have to respond However, we do respond on a very frequent basis Going on to the next slide The major divisions within our fire department are operations and that's what you can think of of a fire department when you call 9 1 1 When you have a medical emergency when you have Uh an accident when you have a fire, uh, that's what we call operations And there are engines. There's trucks. There's battalion chiefs But those are the folks who respond out for a call for service within fire prevention We have Many activities that fall that support operations But those are the people who are making sure the building standards are adhered to that any complaints or life safety issues are followed up on And just as importantly when we do have a fire, they are the ones who are doing the fire investigation And ultimately if it is a criminal act Ensuring that we are able to prosecute and remove those people from harming the community Within marine safety, uh, we have uh full-time staff as well as seasonal staff And uh, they run the gamut from what people think of is a typical lifeguard operations Someone in a tower contacting people letting them know of dangers. Um, all the well all All the way over to 24 hour response for um people who Are uh in the water at night and for that rescue Um and underpinning all of this is ongoing training Many of the skill sets that we have are perishable skills that you have to maintain And we have standards for OSHA. We have standards for the fire service that we have to maintain In making sure that uh when called upon the men and women of our department are able to provide that service In a safe efficient and and competent manner Um, and and our skill set is is pretty broad. We are not just a fire department We are an all hazard agency We will go from a structure fire to a vehicle accident to a cardiac arrest to a diabetic emergency Um, and and having all those different skill sets, uh, you know readily available is the goal of training Within OES our office of emergency services They are the ones who are making plans for what you make what might come And then enacting them when it does happen and right now we're in the middle of An example of that as far as our response to COVID-19 And activating our emergency operation center and coordinating our response within the city Ensuring that we have the proper supplies that we have the proper communication And just as importantly that we have the proper documentation so that when time for reimbursement and federal and state aid Comes due that we have that documentation that allows us as a city To minimize the financial impact of what COVID-19 has been doing to All of us and then lastly we have administration, uh, which Supports all of these other functions and make sure that we're doing what we need to be doing on a daily basis Next slide Inside the department, um, I gave you an overview of our different functions And internally we have what we call our three fillers and those are our personnel our response in our community And almost everything we do is run through these three things. Um, this is how we filter Our response and our engagement And the engines the stations, uh, those are that's equipment nothing happens without our people There are most valuable commodity and so really we want to make sure that they're safe Um and very unsafe environments that they're prepared And that they're effective and and confident and that really drives most of what we do And then as a response agency, we have to be available Most of our calls for service are very time dependent whether it's a fire a medical vehicle accident or rescue um, and so our response is Getting the right equipment with the right people with the right training To that problem to resolve it and minimize the impact of the best of our ability And then looking at the community what the impact is, uh for Uh the different events that occur within our community what we can do proactively To to minimize that and later on you'll hear uh, Paul Horvath And rob oady talk about some of the things that we've done within the community as far as engaging the community for being prepared Uh for both wild land for earthquake Disaster management and making sure that um That we're minimizing and giving people the tools apps in our response to take care of themselves Next within response These are kind of our broad categories for what we respond to on on a daily nightly basis and obviously we're a fire department and for fires, uh, whether it's a wild land fire a structure fire a vehicle fire Um, those occur and most of them occur at times of the day when most people aren't aware of them Last year we responded to almost 9 000 emergency calls for service And now those 147 were fire related, uh, whether they were a structure fire a wild land fire or a vehicle fire Uh, just this afternoon. We had a fire on the east side on epi street. Uh, second story bedroom um, and so those do occur and that's our That's one of our primary functions, even though it's one of our Not as our frequent as some of our other calls for service. However, they can be incredibly impactful Um, ems and medical calls. Uh, we are advanced life support agency. We provide paramedic local service And that does take up the bulk of our overall call volume And last year we've responded to nearly 5 000 calls for service for medical aid Then rescue Is an all hazard agency and is an agency that has the city that's really varied We have everything from a harbor to a university to redwood forest a river an ocean a wharf And so rescue comes in a lot of different, uh, categories for us and we provide Both water rescue as well as vehicle extrication cliff rescue, which entails technical rope rescue and last year we responded to 57, uh, cliff rescues water rescues And and then kind of rounding out that is what we kind of term as a public service And that can be everything from a vehicle that is sheared off a water hydrant to a broken sprinkler to an odor investigation Um, and then lastly, we are also part of the master mutual aid system within the state of california with cal oes and You see that every summer where there's a wild land of fire, uh, in northern california or in southern california And we respond to support that during that time period with the understanding that when we need that support It will be available to us And that's something that happens on an ongoing basis. Uh, and where we do get reimbursed for that Uh, the state has a plan for reimbursement so that we're made whole at the end of the day But it is uh, so that when an area has a unmanageable disaster or event that the right resources are able to be available to mitigate those those, um disasters So next, um I'm going to have uh, chief odie, uh, discuss some of the next slides for marine safety And uh, he'll give you an overview a little bit more in-depth about what that division does Hello Marine safety Division that we have Um, provides uh, pretty comprehensive level of services Primarily, uh, it's our beach lifeguard service that we do during the summer season. Um, which stretches Um, part-time from uh, Easter through Memorial Day and then full-time service from Memorial Day to Labor Day Then reverting back to a part-time schedule Weekends only until Halloween. Um, and that that beach lifeguard service obviously entails staffing towers on the beach and the wharf As well as patrolling other, um Areas along west coast that can be hazardous um of the Attendance that we recorded at the beach over the last year. We had a 1 million over 1 million Visitors at the beach that these lifeguards are responsible for Um, in addition to the lifeguard service they provide during normal business hours Which is usually about nine in the morning till seven in the night We have on-call core of marine rescue personnel that work in conjunction with our marine safety or our rescue Summers that are on fire and do as well. They team up After hours are on-call to respond to water rescues within the city actually within the county if needed Of the on-call marine rescue and the lifeguards that we have for the summer They performed over 300 to 369 rescues That was both in the Santa Cruz city area and in the beaches of Capitola where we were contracts to provide service Um We also provide Pwc, which is personal watercraft or rescue craft. We have four of those units available And not only are they available for rescue, but we will be proactive controls when conditions require it we've also Again after for seven years been providing a contract of lifeguard services for the city of Capitola Recently been suspended due to a covid and budgetary constraints for the city of Capitola, but that's something that we have done and done well Additionally, we hosted the 2019 California Surf Life-Saving Association Board of Directors meeting here in Santa Cruz That association is an arm of the United States Life-Saving Association comprised of about 30 different chapters within the state They all came up here and discussed issues And policies that direct the actions of lifeguard agencies throughout the country also participated in a 2019 NorCal shark safety workshop which They utilized actually to update a shark safety SOP or matrix that we have in place which was actually fortunately utilized Over this last weekend to ensure safety of all people in the water and on the beaches Um See they also assisted Santa Cruz police department in enforcing or advising and educating beachgoers of the beachclosure during the shelter in place recently and Next slide So our training division our training division is uh Again, it's sort of the The backbone or foundation for keeping us all up to speed on the required training that's necessary to stay safe and remain effective Um for everybody out there um We just completed uh where we completed the regional Santa Cruz county fire academy Uh, we that's in conjunction with multiple departments within the county that includes washingtonville aptos and um central fire Where we all put a new uh personnel through a pretty rigorous 16 week training, uh, which includes the number of technical certifications that are required And as of today, we've put um four people through that in the last year that are on the line and uh and work Um, so that's another great partnership. We have with other agencies within the county Well, the training division also hosted the Santa Cruz county fire investigation series Which was required to have us to allow us to be much more effective in that in investigating and potentially prosecuting arson events within the city It also allowed us to implement. Um, not only on call but shift investigators within our department and we've actually read instituted a Fire investigation task force within the county that allows it all to help each other For large-scale events if they occur Another thing that the training division did over the last year was implement a new uh technique or approach to the structural firefighting It's a b e s event inter-search Really allows a safer more effective coordinated approach to fire control rescue and overall suppression And so once we have that all trained we actually were instrumental in instituting this throughout our county Um, so it's something that all departments are on board for since a lot of what happens if there's a large Fire event in any of our agencies. We all are there to assist and so we want to make sure we're on the same page Um, we also fulfilled a grant that we received for our new self-contained breathing apparatus the sdba Um, they allowed us to get new bottles and equipment that are safer for us Also allow for the old bottle for 30 minutes Uh, and now we have 45 minute bottles which allow this obviously to be safer for the user but also more effective in firefighting Next slide fire prevention Um, again very supportive arm of the department to assist everybody else in what we achieve We do obviously inspections and over the last year we did 530 total inspections 127 of them were like during construction phase and 103 of those were life safety or fires specific inspection along with the inspection program we do fire investigation and we did 56 fire investigations over the last year um, and Along with investigation and inspections We have a pretty robust vegetation management program in partnership with our parks and rec identifying areas neighborhoods that are at risk For any type of wildland event that may occur um, we've uh, let's see as in 2019 we completed 24.5 acres of tree Within the open spaces in the city and this year by the end of this year will be in tap to complete another 21 acres for a total Of 45 and a half acres and these include the upper and lower parts of the la viega, uh, royal saco and In addition to vegetation management We also are very proactive with the national fire protection association's fire-wise program It's a partnership with local neighborhoods to arm them and educate them to be better prepared for a wildland event Should if they occur We formally recognize our first neighborhood in the county, which is the prospect heights neighborhood and we're currently working with Uh, the neighborhoods of highlands and western drive To complete their process to have them formally recognized and of course prepared should a wildland event occur We also do a lot of work with the city manager's office a report homeless resource coordination We have been part of the homeless assessment team Prior to covet but most recently with the covet event We have been instrumental in inspecting and approving and assisting with Setting up the site up at the the armory as well as the oral suite um When we have high fire danger air In the city based on winds And fire weather We actually are doing active management of the open spaces by actually patrolling these areas In a partnership with janitor's police department and their rangers And we've been making contact and handing out reading materials to many people both People that may be using them For housing and also those that are just using it for recreation to make them a little bit more aware of the dangers in these And lastly prevention's also This year we adopted our 2019 fire code and with that we also instituted the wildland urban interface code adoption Which applies to New or remodeled construction in identified areas so that people's homes will be much more protected Should a wildland fire occur in those areas Next slide And again required prevention one of the another big major component is community risk reduction I know paul barba will talk a little bit more about some of the events that we've hosted But I just wanted to highlight our most recent fuel reduction program um again These grants that we receive required that we engage with the local neighborhoods where the work is being done Will we provide information education? So this is uh one of the signs of the area that we're currently working on which is uh pogo nip and a royal staco And with that i'll turn it over to paul barba. Thank you, ross. Um, maybe Try not to meet you again. Maybe there was some feedback happening thank Yeah, I just wanted to give you a brief overview of the office of emergency Emergency operations center, which is our coordination center Where we uh respond to disasters and emergencies And we get key personnel from the city of santa cruz together and other agency representatives So that we can make quick effective decisions that will reduce the loss of life and uh damage to property and the environment Most recently our emergency operations center activation has been in relation to cova 19 response We did something a little bit different where we've had a virtual eoc Where we're using zoom meetings and other methods of communicating so that we can maintain our social distancing protocol One of the things that we are doing is developing management objectives which started about uh two months ago when the virus uh first uh became present here in the united states and uh Based on those management objectives We try to make sure that we provide our employees with a safe work environment and That we provide a safe in this environment as possible for the community We're working with our county public health partners In addition to that a big uh part of the cova 19 response is tracking all costs related To our response in terms of equipment other supplies And uh overtime that our employees have been working In the essential functions So that's a big area that we have been involved with recently as you are all probably aware Other functions within the office of emergency services is To manage and train our community emergency response team members Uh, that is a group of citizens. Um, we've had about 500 trained here in the city of sand crews but we teach them some basic first aid techniques and uh triaging injured victims putting out small fires and uh rescuing individuals Who may be trapped in a classical unit of play It's a program that's been uh up and running for about the last 20 years And these members also help us out with a lot of other Functions on a regular basis such as tabling to to help keep them engaged As the oes manager i'm also the fire safe council president for the county santa Cruz Our fire safe council Has been developed to try to reduce the wildland fire risk here in the county of santa Cruz As well as our urban wildland fire interface in the city of santa Cruz um In addition to that we are really active in coordinating uh acquiring coordinating grants for vegetation management As your your council is aware we've we've been involved in a lot of projects in that Wildland urban face inner area to try to create a safer environment and slow the potential spread of a fire From the wildland area into the city of santa Cruz um We train uh and uh exercise our emergency operations center We train our city staff to be prepared to respond to incidents such as uh the kovat 19 response I keep getting the moves with the lights back on um And uh next slide please Hello Okay, thank you As uh chief odi had mentioned, um, we are quite active in our uh disaster preparedness events um We held uh an event last year at the beginning of wildland fire season To engage our community to be more prepared For our wildland fires and how that may impact us here in the city of santa Cruz Um, we have also Worked closely with santa Cruz pd to table and present some of their community events Uh other special events where we will This is uh chief. I do if you want we'll go ahead and I'll take over for paul His his audio is failing. Yeah What he was talking about is we've had a number of disaster preparedness events both for wildland as well as earthquake Uh within the community. We've developed uh brochures to hand out to people so that they know what they can do In advance of any type of event We did not predict kovat 19 12 months ago. We were more focused on wildland and earth place But uh, we we are Trying to make sure that we threw everything in advance for the community so that they have the resources they need And we don't have to respond Let's go to the next slide So at the end of the day the services that we provide as a fire department are an all hazard all risk You know as you can see here fire is obviously on the side of our engine Um, but if you look in the top right Here we have our group members doing a technical uh cliff rescue next to a body of water for someone who fell in that They need to break them up. Um, and that's our primary, uh, you know, our function is emergency response um But we've we've we've really tried to lean into those things that we can Minimize or prevent in the first place and you've seen that in the last few years with our vegetation management and wildland in response to global warming And climate change and the impacts that historically we've not really felt here in santa cruz I think are going to become more of an issue And so we're beginning those steps to make sure that our community is going to be safe from Those events next slide So our status quo budget Really like every other department and I think maybe more so than others The bulk of our budget is tied up within personnel costs having those people who are readily available To respond to an emergency in a time-dependent manner And as a 24-hour operation, uh, most of our costs are associated with that A small percentage of our budget is for supplies and services We too have a netcom contract so that 911 works and then The other part of our budget is For revenue and that's a little different than most public safety agencies Besides the cal oes response that we get reimbursed for we also have a contract for service for UCSC And currently we do not have any cip for the next coming fiscal year And at some point that will become a problem for us But we are going to maintain our budget going forward next slide So what's not status quo? It's po-bed that is the biggest singular impact that I think any any any department in the city is dealing with And for us what has not been status quo is us responding to The need for coordination for additional work for sourcing supplies cleaning supplies Getting the right PPE And then against the backdrop of changing standards for our employees may feature that they have the best information Not only for us, but also the other departments in the city And maintaining our capability and in our response readiness within our workforce and as well as within our city And the other and paul alluded to this but our eoc has been activated since march in a virtual manner And that has been not a status quo because it's this event has not been a one week or two week event This has been going on for months. And we're still at the very beginning of this. And so that non status quo Is that that disaster response that's going to be going on for the foreseeable futures? And that's all I have for you and I'm more than happy to answer any questions that you may have Thank you all for that presentation And uh, thank you for all the hard work you all have been doing to keep our community safe I'll turn it over to council members to see if anyone has any questions I have a question. Um with regards to, uh, covid And uh, the fire department's response. I know you were mentioning That Calls are up higher for ems and medical. Have we seen any Change in the call volume since, uh, we know more people are sheltered in place People are on the street Has there been a reduction in call volume for those kinds of services? So our overall call volume has increased However, within that call volume, uh, and we've been tracking this as far as universal precautions And that's for screening that we put in place through our 911 center For the fire service as well as law enforcement And right now, um Our universal precautions are covid type symptoms within those calls that we're running We're anywhere from 5% to 30% of our overall calls Have positive covid symptoms. However, testing has not allowed us to actually definitively decide whether or not that person has covid What that means for us is that any medical call that we go on We've had to approach it as if they have covid and the use of ppe for our folks has Gone up dramatically You know before this if somebody had symptoms, we would use the appropriate ppe But because we have people who are asymptomatic because we don't know what we're walking into We we've the use of ppe For us has gone up and it's on all calls Just for example today, we had a structure fire on the east side And as part of the 911 Screening process the person who lived there Had they had gotten out of the house before our arrival But they had positive covid symptoms So our folks showing up for a structure fire were told to use universal precautions if they were going to treat that person So our overall call line has gone down It's starting to creep back up and we're starting to see an increase Both within our 911 system as well as in our hospital systems, but overall we are lower than we were four months ago Thanks Remires Thank you And you did talk Highlight several times the interface between The trees and the forest and the urban Particularly i'm talking about orana. I remember doing a management plan for our greenville orana and the fire Someone from the fire department participated. I learned more about How wide a road absolutely has to be in our green bell or a pogonep and I learned a great deal And a lot of design came out of that understanding. So I I never hear much about orana I always hear about pogonep because I know So there and et cetera et cetera and then we've got more three. I think those are three green belts So I do have any comment about orana and how it's gone. Has that been a problem or difficulty It's um, it's one of our identified wildland urban interface areas However, it's not because of the size of it and because of the fuel that's there. It's not as high a risk to some other over other areas We have put in some shaded fuel breaks along the edges there so that if we did have a fire in that area Said it would stop before it got to the houses We do uh, we we have had a number of smaller events down there But the fuel source that interconnected fuel source We don't have miles and miles of force that are connected. It's a relatively small fuel source And it's a the majority of it is grass. It's not brush and and timber So it is one of our identified brewing areas. Um, we have done some vegetation management there And we do have good access there Yeah, for sure. How about more creek any comments about more creek? More creek is probably one of the more challenging wildland areas that we have just because of the topography as well as the number of Species and types of plants that are in there and our ability to actually get into that And do vegetation management is limited because of that riparian corridor And then just also just how steep it is and so our efforts there really been on The people who live adjacent to it at the top What they can do for their building construction and more importantly the maintenance they can do on an ongoing basis To minimize that the risk of that ember cast or that fire transmitting for more creek up to the top Thanks, thanks. I don't think of any other questions. Thank you All right, thank you Thank you for that presentation. Um, I just have one question for you chief. Um I know lifeguard headquarters was on your I believe your cip Has been on your cip for a number of years and I can't recall if you had a chance If you guys have done improvements to the building or I just curious about You know thinking about cip types of items you've mentioned you didn't have any cip items, but I just curious about your comments on that so we don't lose track of that of that need I know I've I've been in the building and uh, I know it It's been in need of your of your departments for a while. So maybe just a quick comment on that Yeah, so the the reality is is that building is decades past its useful lifespan and it's definitely grown past what its use was um in 1960 1980 today So what we did last year is we um, we used some risk funds to uh, really address the most critical components of that building Uh, and that where it was electrical that was leaking roughs that was mold Uh, we didn't change the footprint of the building or increase the size We just really addressed those issues within it so that to make it more functional. Um, but the building itself is You know it houses 70 seasonal lifeguards On a on a normal year as well as housing the parks and rec junior lifeguard instructors And so we're kind of bursting at the seams there as far as just a capacity and size issue But we did address the life safety issues that needed to be done within that building Okay, okay. So so we keep it on the list for better days Um, you also did not mention the most important outcome of of your year Which was a first place finish in the 27th annual aloha outrigger races. So That's that's that's a highlight for sure. So Congratulations. So far i'm batting 100 it's my first time in an outrigger canoe and it seemed like it went pretty well It's where everything your department does and uh, it's always a pleasure to see you guys around. Thank you. Thank you All right, are there any other council members with questions at this time? Councilor Brown, uh, yeah, thank you. Uh, thanks for the presentation and all of the work you're doing I know that in these very uncertain times. It's hard to think about Kind of planning for some of those those projects and um since uh vice mayor meyers mentioned the lifeguard headquarters on the wharf. I guess i'm just wondering given that we're um Not likely to be able to fund that anytime soon and there has been so much discussion about the potential for um This coming through the larger repairs that we're going to do on the with the work master plan. Um, so but all of that seems to be uh, kind of It's likely that it'll be delayed. So um, i'm just wondering if you uh, the kind of band-aids that you've Put for um, for safe critical safety um measures that you've taken you feel like that will um kind of Get you through Uh, the the tough times. I mean, we don't know how long that will last But i'm just wondering if there are any other ways that we could think about and i'm creatively trying to Help make that project happen because you know, we've been talking about it for a long I mean, I've been talking about it for a long time the whole time I've been on the council and for many years before that Um, so, uh, you know, I just like to find a way to to help make that happen And so if if you're uh, if you've got anything on that I I'd love to hear it And really really, um Just just want to appreciate the work y'all are doing. Um, I know that it's um Kind of where we don't know what this fire season is going to look like But it's definitely uh on everyone's minds and I appreciate all of the thought you've put into kind of how to address that at the The you know urban interface, um Wildland urban interface it's it's um Scary, but we also feel uh, or I feel uh assured that you know, you all are doing everything you can so thank you For everything. Thank you There are no further questions or comments. Um I'm gonna open up to the public So if anyone is watching or is called in and is interested in commenting on the fire budget presentation Please Dial in now if you're just watching And if you've already called in, please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand Once it is your time to speak Go ahead and answer that you've been unmuted and time will be set to two minutes pause for a second to see if um Those of the public would like to call in Actually while we're waiting for folks to call in uh councilmember Block it looks like you have a question I didn't have a question. I just had a comment. I just wanted to share the appreciation that has been echoed You know just to echo the comments made earlier about your department You know that's why I've been showing all of your staff just being first at these really critical instances where you know You're so yourself the selflessness associated with that. Just you know, I just want to echo our appreciation for you um, and I to realize and recognize that the capital improvement project keeps coming up and being delayed and delayed and delayed and and um, Unfortunately, here we are again and um, how we can keep that on the radar and appreciate your sustainability kind of thinking around The band-aid approach against until then And then I just wanted to remind vice mayor meyers. Who else is on that operator? And that was a good time. All right. Thank you great Okay, well, um, just probably give the community another Minute to 30 seconds and show to see if anybody will call in On this item before we move on to our next one. Okay hearing none Thank you all again for the presentation and for being here today and we look forward to working with you in the future Thank you Next up is our last presentation of the day Item number nine on our presentations, which is a presentation of our library's budget And so for members of the public who are streaming this meeting If this is a presentation you'd like to comment on Now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen The order will be a presentation by staff all by questions from the council We will then take public comment and return to the council for any follow-up questions or comments And with that I'll turn it over to our library director Susan Mennon Hi, I just want to make sure you can hear me Yes, we can hear you. Good afternoon Thank you for giving me the privilege to speak to you about the Santa Cruz public libraries Like everyone else it's first I want to say it's nice to go laugh Bear with me Like everyone else it's actually was a great year prior to the COVID-19 Crisis I think we've made some major accomplishments You know that we received 67 million dollars in measure s funds I'm starting three years ago Over the last year. We've been able to open the Felton branch, which you can see in the picture in front of you And it's nature discovery park We have capitola and la selva beach under construction We're bidding boulder creek and aptos We're developing the construction documents and giving the appropriate permits for garfield park branch of 40 and live oath And we continue to work on approach for downtown I am hoping that will come to some resolution this summer Um, I also just want to do a shout out to the friends of the library So far they've raised 3.6 million for the 10 projects and i'm really proud of their amazing accomplishments I think we've also made some major project in terms of k-12 partnerships One of the things we did last year is uh Stop all fines for children And so we're going to get to be able to see the results of that, but I think it really improves access for kids Um, we're trying to make sure that all kids have library cards We've created an educators library card So teachers can come in and check out materials for their classroom And since COVID-19 we've created a concierge service for teachers Where we help teachers find digital materials as they try to teach online In terms of digital access, I'm really proud of some of the things we've accomplished I don't think people realize that we offer 150,000 personal computer sessions a year for the public And 500,000 wi-fi sessions So COVID-19 has been really hard on our library users in terms of their digital access This year we introduced the laptop checkout process We offered a lot of digital literacy classes often going to nursing homes to do so And one of the product achievements is you can see in this photo was our partnership with the city Where we did a virtual reality program on fee level rise that has been very popular with kids and adults alike Through COVID-19 one of the things we've been trying to do is boost our wi-fi outside our buildings So people can sit in the parking lots and use wi-fi We've also donated digital devices To shelters because they have Very limited access to the internet In terms of equity We're really proud that we've made a concertive effort to hire bilingual staff and offer more bilingual programs And we're super proud of the digital literate or the life literacy center that we opened at the downtown library We're providing a downtown social worker there legal assistance tax assistance and immigration help Of course those things are closed right now through the COVID process. We've been Instead of doing our weekly deliveries to the jails. We have put deposit collections in all the jails and Continue to try to figure out how to serve some of our at-risk population so The governance of the Santa Cruz public library is complex on a good day um, I actually am hired and Managed by a joint powers board that considers that that consists of the chief administrative officer of the city county The city of capitol and scott valley Our board does not include Watsonville Our board pretty much requires unanimity and all decisions which can be difficult across those four jurisdictions In addition to that there's layers of complexity. So For example the measure S funds go to each of the four jurisdictions not to the jpa And the door jurisdictions can decide how the buildings for libraries are built Overhead for the jpa both in terms of finances and hr are provided by the city of Santa Cruz And the staff Are employees of the city of Santa Cruz So sometimes that makes for some complexity complexity in policy and decision making our traditional org chart shows the library reporting through the joint powers board Um shows the friends of the Santa Cruz public library as an important part of the success of our organization It really shows that the 10 branches are divided into three regions The downtown branch garfield branch and branch supporting branches Are part of the west region So just to give an overview of our budget Over the last year we had about a 16.2 million dollar budget My board has pushed heavily to increase our reserves and right now i'm very thankful to them for that We have a 2.9 million dollar reserve And we're projecting a fund balance of 1.8 million beyond that I think the big thing we've just uh struggled with historically with our budget has been staffing You can see by this chart in 2007 We had 138 FTE This past year we were just shy of 100 And so we have never recovered from the great recession We consistently serve um 10 communities with 10 physical sites And we expect our services to grow remarkably Um as the buildings get redone Now the city pays a subset of that budget They pay 1.75 million Each year This is property tax funds That go to the jpa There is a five-year agreement. This is the third year payment Now this is the fourth year payment And then the the five-year agreement will have to be renegotiated at the end of next year or hopefully before In addition the jpa pays the city $482,000 for overhead That's really for the financial services and the human resources office and services This year we're projecting a 1.2 million dollar deficit. We've already gone to the jpa instituted a hiring freeze Suspended the use of all our aids and on-call These are a temporary job classification We suspended using them it consisted of 62 people who no longer have work after april 10th in the budget For this year for fees that we will not use those temporary staff At least through july 1st 2020 We cut non-personnel spending and we're expecting to use a fund balance of about a million dollars And the overall jpa deficit for f y 2021 Is 3.8 million And we are beginning to have conversations about how to resolve that Looking closely at both what the city of santa cruz does And primarily the county i'm going to leave it at that you've had a long day I hope I can answer any questions you have Thank you, susan And thanks to all the librarians and folks who Have been doing such great work Engaging folks with all the great materials we have and educational resources Thank you. I have to say that The mayor participated in a series. We're doing where we're bringing face leaders together I know that almost 100 people showed up for your session And we've just gotten a lot of really positive feedback About those sessions. Thanks again for the invitation to that as well Turn it over to uh council member walkins Questions I you know, I don't really even have a question But it's just a comment that I just want to show My appreciation to you susan and your team, but also for how you've been able to really pivot And provide a lot of virtual uh resources for our community and tools for parents as they're navigating Distant learning and and just still continuing to provide this, you know, these incredible resources amongst these challenging times So thank you for the presentation Thank you council member buyers Oh, you're on mute You're right. I wasn't thank you. I started to say You gave me great joy in your I don't know almost your first paragraph or second paragraph Where you said you're no longer charging children Uh fine and I That has bothered me since 2008. I was on the library board and I I lost that battle. It was like, you know I was the only no vote so I can Cut that away that it's over. It's done. It just made no sense. So thank you very much and Thank you. We're so Yes, we both know the right thing to do the amount of money you've got um Also, uh, I just want to thank you. I I don't give me your questions as much But I just learned this last week how to download Books onto my phone Someone helped someone helped me there, but it's just been wonderful To browse and pick up the book and push borrow and it's on my phone or my ipad So I hope uh any I hope I know you've offered the service for a long time But certainly I have a staff done gone up on it or Are you seeing more and more using it our ebook use is up 80% That's crazy. I'm one of them I would just say to the public that may be listening to this if people are intimidated By the software they should call our reference line and we have people that will walk you through it They did I absolutely it was just wonderful. They did it It was daunting. I don't know. It's going to be daunting and it wasn't so Anyway, again, thank you for everything. Thank you I'll turn it back to you to see the culmination of decades of Progress coming to fruition in a library. It's wonderful and I give a personal shout out to the Um increase in online services. I'm sure you all know but the public should know I'm up for canopy online access to movies with your library card. You have free access to 10s of thousands of incredible movies. We are getting our money for It's wonderful And we've been able to negotiate with many of our vendors Who limit the digital services to the library on site? So for example Ancestry.com which you before had to use within a library's walls I was available at home. It's a tremendous resource Great to know I'm sure one more question Do the friends of the library hire, you know the coordinator or whatever the title is or are you part of that? The friends of the library hire their own staff. They recently hired marcia greenspans Um Who is a development director or assistant director at? homeless service center And we're just really glad to have her on board. She has just such an interesting set of experiences and skills I'm thrilled That's the reason I asked it because I'm on that board And it was such a lot and then I realized she went to the friends of the library and I thought oh are they ever lucky? So I'll say hello to her for me because I don't see her you probably don't either Would you please yeah There any other members of the council of questions at this time? Susan I had a question for you. Um, kind of extending to The fines and fees and I was just wondering I think it was it was either the u.s. Conference of mayors of the league Help on the cities this came up and there's a number of cities now where they're actually just Eliminating late fees all together because oftentimes So much money is spent on the collections agencies for them and going out and trying to collect the fees They never get to be so pay the collection agents. Is there any thought around potentially eliminating as we move into you know Well as we continue to do the impact of coving 19 and given that there's a projected deficit Is there any thought around? Just eliminating late fees all together And I guess is there any data out there to suggest that that might be a good route to take Mayor I think you're absolutely right the data really shows that libraries actually get more books back And don't by not having fees And that the money raised doesn't necessarily always offset the cost of having fees We had a proposal to the jpa this spring To get rid of fees our whole budget Proposal is sort of being rethought right now because of coven 19 But the board is allowing me to do Is basically put off charging fee late fees during this period Because people can't readily we don't even want their books back right now And so I think what you'll see is probably a discussion of it again next year But in the short run there are no late fees at the library Thank you I just want to thank the city council You've been such supporters of libraries and I know many of you were centrally involved In getting measure s passed I think the libraries in Santa Cruz are going to are incredible But are going to be even more incredible as we move through What are some difficult and challenging Times But I really do want to thank you all for your support thank you all and economic development staff from the working with The library subcommittee because we've been doing A lot over the past year to engage with the community and get Perspectives of so many people in our community so that we can really make sure that we're going to make You know the best and most important decision as we Decide on what our new library is going to look like Absolutely That's mayor mires Yeah, susan. I just wanted to say thank you and thank you to all the library staff especially All the time you've been putting in With the library subcommittee process And both really um, I feel like you really provided You really directed, you know these two analysis that were done and that provide Additional information for our community about you know the downtown library and I think that's been really helpful for our community to understand Better about the opportunities, you know that need to be evaluated and Just want to compliment you on the felton library It's an amazing place and i'm so sorry that right after it opened People are not able to use it at this point, but it is truly an amazing place and Just also re-express. I believe at least from my perspective the council's commitment to to the garfield and Brent's a 40 libraries. I know um, I know we committed To get into budgets that right now might be hurting quite a bit, but I really hope that We can hold true with those commitments when we made the decision to upgrade those libraries to be beautiful and Really 21st century libraries. So thanks for your work over this year and uh, we'll keep we'll keep going. Thank you Thank you Hi, thank you, susan for the presentation. I um, just ditto the the kudos and uh, thank you for all of the work that you Do in library stuff does It's just I don't even have words to say how uh wonderful it is to You know learn about and be a part of Uh, you know library community, uh, that is so innovative creative and um, you know motivated to make uh, the library experience, uh, you know Just a wonderful experience for all of its users. I really appreciate your commitment to that and all of the work you've done And yeah, the um the online the kind of virtual world That is opened up now through um through the library for a lot of people who are Are stuck, uh, at home. It's it's just it's just wonderful. So thank you and and I ditto Being a member of that library subcommittee. I really appreciate all of the work you're doing. It's um, it's just You know, I hope we can we can get over the finish line on that one and also as uh, Vice mayor meyer said Make sure that we follow through on the commitments that we've made to the other libraries Those it was one of the most exciting things to see and be able to do to you know, just vote yes on those Um, so yeah, um, just thank you for everything And sandy, thank you so much for also recognizing the staff. I get to work with extraordinary people Okay, uh before we Move on I just want to give the public an opportunity to speak On this item, which is our library's budget. So if you are interested in speaking to this item There should be a list of phone numbers on your screen that you can call into And after you've called in you can press star nine on your phone To raise your hands and when it's your time to speak You'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted and the time will the time will be set to two minutes Okay, so we have one person who's on the line You are on the line. Good afternoon Good afternoon. I've been listening all day. Believe it or not to all the department presentations And it's pretty clear that you know, we're in an era of budget uncertainties and we need to prioritize city spending So I'm hoping the subcommittee will recommend the renovation at the library's present location We can't depend on millions of dollars more for the mixed youth project with so many unknowns The decision deadline is fast approaching as you all know And we've seen some preliminary group for our designs. We're waiting for the final ones But so far that has not been an apples to apples comparison so, um, you know, I'm listening to Reading what susan presented to the jpa at their meeting last week Outlining, you know, what's what it's going to be like in libraries in the next two years due to covet Coping with that, you know, there's going to be a lot less person-to-person Interactions and it's it's a lot more virtual programming and, you know, online present online activities So this seems like it would be a good time to do the renovation since the library is closed And, you know, two years down the road, we could have a totally wonderful rebuilt library there So, um, also another aspect is the value of community open space that a lot of There's been a lot of talk about that and this post-covid Times, um, and um, so let's not fill in parking lot four with a massive concrete structure It's not needed and um, I hope you're going to make the right decision for the community. Thanks a lot All right, thank you Okay, was any other member of the public would like to call in now at the time? And after you follow the instructions on your screen to call in You need to press star nine on your phone To raise your hand When it's your time to speak you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted and the time will be set to two minutes Let's give folks One last opportunity to call in Seeing no other members of the public Susan, thank you again for joining us to see the presentation And I'd like to thank all the department heads city staff Members of the public who were able to join us today for our budget presentations by our various departments To our city employees and department heads You're all doing an amazing job and thank you for your commitment during very difficult times And together we will all continue to work our way through Santa Cruz during COVID to adjourn our meeting and Everybody please be safe and stay healthy Thank you