 I think that we probably should take a roll. Eileen, can you take the roll, please? Certainly. Council member Alvarez. Council member Sawyer. Here. And let the record reflect that council member Fleming has not yet joined. Okay. Thank you. And I'm sure that she will once she. Is it is available. And if not, we will continue with the, with, with the agenda. And I have a number of notes. He just texted that she's almost done. Okay. Okay. Should I let's, let's give her a minute. Good morning, Victoria. Morning, Don Eddie. Right. Good morning. Thanks for joining us. So there were a couple of housekeeping issues. We had to go through. There's some changes to the agenda. And I've made a number of notes. To refer to. Because of the, because of the, some of the changes that have popped up. The study session for the council for this, for the parklet. This is the, our first item on the agenda. We will, we're pushing this item for discussion. For the June 8th subcommittee meeting instead, because instead of today, because we were, we have delayed the council date for this conversation has been delayed to June 22nd. So it makes more sense for us to do it a little later. When the council is going to see the item. So we would be continuing the, the first item on the agenda. Until June 8th. And if anyone has questions about that item, please feel free to call the city. And as this would be, is this race? Is this the, your. Number. It's the number for the economic development division. So any questions we have, we can forward it to whoever would be most appropriate to respond. Excellent. That sounds great. And that number is five, four, three. Three. Zero eight zero again, five, four, three. Three zero eight zero. So we'll be moving that to our June 8th. Meeting. And I don't, you know, I, given that it's on the agenda, Jeff, should I be asking for public comment? You could. Okay. So is there. If there is anyone who'd like to, to not wait until the eighth to offer public comment. They can offer that now. If we, if we have anyone waiting, do we have any hands up? We do not have any hands raised at this time. Okay. Excellent. Then we'll just wait until it, until we are able to deal with it on, on June 8th. The next time on the agenda has to do with deferred rent. On city properties. And Jill. Could you address this issue? Actually, we do have to pull that one. Jill gave me a call just prior to this meeting. Saying that there is a remaining legal issue that she needs to review. And she hadn't received information on that yet. Not from our city attorney to just want to be clear. So she asked that we postpone that as well. And I think she's going to just take that directly to council. So that one is off the agenda as well. Okay. Good enough. Thanks. Right. And certainly we, we just, the general public comment for anything that's tied to the economics of committee, but not on the agenda. We need to request public comment for that as well. Oh, thank you. Just, just, just for items, not on the agenda. Correct. Okay. So do we have any of those items? Items not on the agenda. That the community would like to speak to. We have no raised hands at this time. Okay. Well, then that being said, we will move on to 3.3 moving, moving right along the SB 93 hospitality right of recall update and discussion of local ordinance. Jeff, do you want to. Kind of bring us up to speed because we want, we wanted to reconsider our recommendation in, in advance of this item. Just for the, to the full council. The state bill. This was before the state bill actually passed. And because it did pass. And is substantially the same as what labor had proposed. We need to, you know, listen to have the conversation again. Indeed. We mentioned that we would have a conversation about it, but also knowing that, that, that the council agenda is really super full. And even, even pressing items are being shuffled around a lot. It's, it's really. Our open government task forces made some recommendations that have created some scheduling issues. So pushing certain issues, certain items out to, to further dates. So Jeff, if you might be able to give us an overview, if possible about how the state law. Might be different than our local. Ordinance as proposed. Sure. So just to kind of refresh our recollections. The right to recall. And both the state and a local ordinance do the same thing. They essentially are intended to provide hotel workers. Who are laid off due to COVID related reasons. For rehire. To make them eligible, give them the opportunity for rehire when positions become available. And as a council member Sawyer pointed out. We, we, with this group last met on April 13th. And then three days later, the state law passed. No. So. So there, the, the similarities between the state law and a local ordinance that is been drafted and recommended by local labor groups. Have the same definition of hotel, which is any hotel within the city's jurisdiction that has 50 or more rooms. It also has the same definition of a laid off employee. And to be a laid off employee, you have to have been employed for at least six months. Up until January 31st, I think, or January 1st, 2020. And then you were let go for a COVID related reason. Both the state law and the, the draft of the local ordinance. Would, would both apply to new owners. So if the hotel transferred ownership, they, the new owner would, would, would be obligated under both the state law and any local ordinance. To, to go through this analysis. There are a few differences. The differences relate to a notice. So for example, under the local ordinance, all hotels would be required to give notice to all their employees, those that were laid off or not, that the ordinance had passed and what it provides. There is no similar provision under state law. When the employee gets notice of the right for possible recall under state law, they have five days to decide under a local law, they get 10 days to decide. So they get a little bit longer. One other difference is in terms of the definition of a qualified employee. So both of them talk about, if you've held the position previously, local ordinances do go a little bit further. So if you've held the position previously, local ordinances do go a little bit further in that they say that if you could be trained for that new position, you are also qualified. The last difference has to do with how it gets enforced. State law says you go to the labor commissioner. And local ordinance says that it can be a private right of action. So you can file a lawsuit. And the differences there, I think are, if you're going to file a lawsuit, you're probably going to need an attorney where you don't need an attorney to file with the labor commissioner. But although both processes can be lengthy, sometimes administrative proceedings can take longer. I did reach out to the labor commissioner's office yesterday and was told that if it's a COVID related matter that you do move up on the, on the, on the wait time. One of the things I feel like I should point out is that the ordinance that was drafted by labor groups provide that for private right of action. It can be by that employee or by the city. And after conferring with the city attorney, that is not something that our office would recommend that, that our office would file on behalf of employees. But that's really a policy call, but that's, that's not a direction that we, our office would prefer to go in for a variety of reasons. So I think that that's probably a brief discussion there of the similarities and differences. And I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Thanks, Jeff. Eddie or Victoria, any questions about that presentation? And just to be clear, what we're looking to find out is because the state law passed. Are we still, is it still of interest at this committee to find time to schedule it at the council? Or are we okay with the state law? So that's the end goal that I'm hoping to get. Yeah, good point. I'm personally happy that the state did pass the, the 92. I guess the ultimate questions are with the, the time allowed, whether it be five days or 10 days or how to proceed if an employee has an issue moving forward. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. But really how we're going to align ourselves or with who we're going to align ourselves, whether it be the state or the local. Yeah. Good question. Victoria. You know, I'm going to be honest. I can. I would need like a grid. Two or a visual to sort of compare and contrast the differences. So. I apologize, but I don't have any clear feedback. I kind of need to. Hear it a little bit more. I'm sorry. I can put up my notes. I don't think you'd be able to read them. And I apologize. Maybe I should have had a PowerPoint. So, so again, the similarities. The same definition of hotel. Same definition of laid off employee. And they both apply for transfers of ownership. So if you have a new owner, there's no, they're both the ordinance, local ordinance and state law would apply. So kind of the, the, the framework and the general intent. Identical. The differences are with regard to notice. So an employee who finds out that they are rehiring. Under state law must decide whether to return in five days. A local ordinance gives them 10 days. So they get twice as much time under a local ordinance. 10 days instead of five days. If they want to come back or not. So that's one big difference. The other is in terms of who is considered qualified. Now, I don't know the types of varieties of jobs. And we are talking by the way for hotel workers. It's, it's all non-management non-supervisorial. So you're qualified. For rehire. If of course you held that position before. Or if you could be trained for that position. That is one difference that makes it under a local ordinance. Perhaps a little bit broader. So the other one is just if you had held the specific. Position. And the local, the stronger one is if you could possibly be trained for it. Well, the, the state law says the same or similar. Okay. It doesn't have to be exactly the same, the same or similar. Okay. So this one might be like, let's say I. I'm looking at the, the, the state law for example. And I'm looking at the state law, I'm looking at the state law. As a janitorial services. And now they need someone to do food prep. I probably could be trained to. Prepare. Something. Okay. So it's, it's actually fair. A good amount broader. And then the last difference is. Who enforces it and how it gets enforced. Under the state law, there's an administrative agency, the labor commissioner. whether you go under state law or a local ordinance. But under a local ordinance, instead of the Labor Commissioner enforcing it, you have to file a civil action in court. So presumably, you would have to get an attorney to take your case. And that could present some challenges, but legal aid. And I'm sure there's other groups who would help. So those are the differences. I hope that was more helpful. That's really clear. I apologize for not catching it the first time. You know, I think that the two ordinances are really similar. And I'm interested here in public comment if there's a strong push for us to do that. The other one, is it already signed into law? It is. It's already in effect. It was an urgency ordinance. And it remains in effect until 2024, the end of 2024. So it's in for a long period of time. I will mention that the city of Petaluma did pass this ordinance. They'd already had it on their agenda when the state law passed. So it was kind of already teed up for them. And they did pass it. So I think they passed it before the state law passed. Yes, so they were in advance of it. And I haven't heard from labor advocates or businesses, frankly, on this topic since we last met. So I feel hard pressed to do any, to make any changes when we are having trouble managing our current workload. But I'm curious to know if my other, if my colleagues or staff has heard anything one way or another. Oh, I can't say that I have. I'll jump in anecdotally on the days between five and 10. I mean, what I'm hearing is it's so, and I'm going to love to have Raissa speak to this when what she's been hearing, that it's so hard right now to get employees at all that probably it would, that the employers would probably be calling even, you know, before the five. So which, you know, that's the major difference. The other one is actually easier to go with the state law. It sounds like as far as that administrative hearing. So I'm curious, Raissa, what are you hearing about the general of an overview of the status of workers in that field? Yeah, so I only have a few calls since the last time I was going to ramp it up, but we did have to go to council with this one. But so with the two or three hotelers that I did talk to, you know, they can't find enough people. So one hotel actually not in Santa Rosa, but I just haven't been talking to them. I think I mentioned this last time they actually raised their rates, their wages quite a bit because they were worried as other hotels got up to, you know, started rehiring that they were going to lose them. So the competition is fierce for workers in the hotel industry. And that's what I've been hearing fairly consistently even before this question came up, that we cannot find enough people to work. So the rehiring, as I'm understanding it, based on who I talked to thus far, is not going to be an issue. They'll grab who they can and they poach frequently is what I'm hearing as well. I am seeing that as well through my businesses, the check cashing specifically. We're definitely seeing a lot of the conversation of the pay has increased and I've seen that in the checks. My only concern is a 61-year-old person who commented during public speaking, you know, as they are up in age, assuring that they have that right to return to work. I think that person was, if I recall, she was actually still employed. I think she was using it as an example of age, though she had not herself lost her job as I recall her statement. And Jeff, please correct me. The local ordinance was asking for hotels. The state one actually goes a little bit broader in respect to, I believe, its airport services as well as building services to office retail and other commercial buildings. So it's a bit broader, which I do like. That's correct and that's a good point. And I didn't mention it only because I didn't really think we had any of those types of employers in Santa Rosa, but that is a good point and I don't know for sure, but you identified the correct other groups that the state law does apply to. The one that we might qualify under would be the bed centers such as Burbank or something of that age, really. Yeah, well, go ahead. So, you know, again, I'm interested to hear from the public, but what I've heard from staff and from my colleagues so far and from the ordinance itself from Mr. Burke, puts me at ease in terms of the original concerns that have been brought to my attention and that there is a mechanism in place to protect people. And in this tight labor market, I think that that gives people a fairly good opportunity without being too cumbersome for business as the state has suggested. Yeah, good point Victoria. And I agree, it looks like the state has pretty well addressed the major issues. And there's one more which is kind of is lost sometimes and that is consistency and predictability amongst jurisdictions. And if we were to alleviate confusion and if we just adhere to the state law that it does tend to, if we don't have two different places to go to look at the rules and regs, that can be beneficial to workers as well. So that's one more reason. But let's go to the public. I've got some Zoom legalese I need to read before we move into public comment. I should have read this a little bit earlier. John, before you do that. Sure, go ahead, Eddie. Well, the people might be interested in the public comment. I'm really interested to hear how they feel about the difference between the five and the 10 day notice. Good point. We'll hope that those that are looking to address us will weigh in on that. So due to the provisions of the governor's COVID related executive orders which suspended certain requirements of the Brown Act, the Economic Development Subcommittee is conducting today's meeting in a virtual setting. Members of the public may view the and listen to the meeting as noted on the city's website as well as on today's agenda. Members of the public wishing to speak during agenda items or public comment will be able to do so by using the raise hand feature or pressing star nine on their phone. When called upon, they will then be given the opportunity, the ability to address the committee. So let's start with that right now. Eileen, do we have anyone looking to address us on this item? We do not have any raised hands as of this time. And any other communications with questions? No, we do not have any voicemails nor do we have any email. Okay, thank you very much. Let's see, I'm gonna make sure since we don't have any, I will make sure that this lasts. Well, I'll do it now. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please use the raise hand feature. If you are calling in via telephone, please press star nine to raise your hand. Each speaker has three minutes. A countdown timer will appear for your convenience. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so. Your, hold on a second, your microphone will be muted at the end of three minutes. Okay, I think I got it out. And we may have some public comment during our last item. So if we don't have any other comment, let's just hope that the state law in this regard covers what we need covered and that we can support the language in their, support their language on this item. So we'll move on to our last item. Oh, go ahead. Make sure I have it clear. So we are now not gonna be forwarding it to council. So I just wanna make sure that that is clear. Okay, thank you. No action is necessary. We're good with that, Eddie and Victoria. Through the chair and maybe this is a question for Jeff. I just wanna know since we did take formal action, if we need to do anything to undo that action. I think it was, I don't know that there was really any formal action. I think council member Sawyer mentioned it at a full council meeting. So I suppose that you could mention it again. I trust that council member Sawyer will keep everyone informed. Thank you so much. Yeah, it would be a good idea to let them know that we have embraced the state law and then decided not to add many enhancements that were comfortable with that. So I will make that very clear. And I appreciate that. That's a good idea, Victoria. Okay, so item number four, project labor agreement discussions. I made a few notes on this and I want to kind of go over them and get the comments from the members of the committee. We originally wanted to go to be a sole topic today. And because of issues that came up, we weren't able to do that today. But given how much we have going on and the time sensitive items that are already on our docket, so it wasn't possible to make this a standalone, although we're moving quickly through the agenda and that's a good thing. I also, I needed to point out that while this came up during council goal setting, and I had this checked on, this in itself was not identified as a top priority or even given sensitive issue. And I think there are a number of reasons why that happened. A lot of it is just, we have a lot on our plate. Then that's not to say that I don't think that this is important. And it's not to say that the committee does not believe that this is an important issue, but it has delayed the conversation somewhat or the various items and all of the items that we have on our plate. But I just wanted to make sure you understood that the expectations time-wise, because there is a lot going on. So we do have a fair amount, I don't have a clock in front of me, we do have a fair amount of time left for this issue. And let's see if this is not, this is really not a, it's not a COVID item. And that's part of, you know, some of the things have been pushed back due to COVID recovery. And this is not one of those items. Let's see, we don't have a finalized, it's not inside of our finalized council goals or the priorities list from our goal setting and discussion when this came up. But we also had a lot going on as we still do. So we will need to be really aware of staff resources and that's something that we're always aware of now because there is so much going on. So that's something to be considered is capacity with our staff and expectations of the community and other groups around this particular issue. And let's see, what else did I mention? Let's see, we're not gonna, we may run out of time today. It's kind of hard to say depending on what our decision is as far as moving this to the council or not in the near future or the, you know, in the months to come, we may run out of time today because we do need to come up with a recommendation, I think, one way or the other. But it looks like we may be talking about July if we decide to bring this back to council. We have general plan, visioning sessions scheduled in June. Big general plan as you know, big stuff and very time consuming. And we also have the permanent parklet program review before that goes to council at the end of June. So there's a lot going on. So I'm not sure exactly how to start this off. I mean, we could just get a, Jeff, would you be able to thumbnail sketch PLAs for those that are listening that may not understand the basic tenants of a PLA? I can actually do that for you. And then Jeff- Okay, thanks, Prisa. Because otherwise I didn't want to surprise Jeff with, hey, crash course. Never like to surprise. Yeah, I think the thing is for the economic development subcommittee, it's not going to full council but for the economic development subcommittee, we would, if we run out of time, we'd only be able to bring it back here in July. Because we have some other things that we have to bring up at the June 8th meeting. But okay, in the meantime though, so what a project labor agreement or PLA is, it's basically it's a pre-hire collective bargaining agreement with one or more labor organizations and it establishes the terms and conditions of employment for a specific construction project. And then it's through construction union bargaining projects, sorry, I have to look for my notes here because I had to look this up as well. But through construction union bargaining rights, it sets the wage rates and benefits of all employees working on a particular project to where all contractors and subcontractors have to agree to the provisions of the agreement. It supersedes any existing collective bargaining agreements, I believe. And then, oh, I think another important thing to note is that there, as I understand it, I'm not super versed on this, they run the gamut so it can be used for both public and or private projects. So I think the local ordinance, if we chose to do so could decide what kind of projects it would apply to. And I believe these specific provisions can be tailored to meet the needs of a particular project, but they generally include the prevention of work stoppages for the length of the project. And typically, and I think importantly required that employees hired for the project are actually referred through union hiring halls. So that includes even non-union workers. So non-union workers would pay union dues for the length of the project. And then the contractors and subcontractors would have to follow union rules on pension, more conditions and dispute resolutions. I am not super sure how many PLAs are in place in Santa Rosa. I do know that the Santa Rosa Junior College has a PLA in place for their science and technology building. And I looked that up. It's about $78 or $80 million project. And then they also have one for the renovation of their auditorium. And I think that was around $32 million. The other thing on my notes, let's see. Something that I know specific to having done the minimum wage ordinance, depending on which side of the aisle you stand on, like how you view PLAs, you can find studies in support or against it. So I just wanna be clear that there's a wealth of information on both sides of the issue here. But what I'm hoping that we can have is not bring up outlier examples, but we can look apples to apples when we're looking at PLA projects or non-PLA projects or union or non-union projects. Because I've noticed that it's hard to have a good conversation on this issue when we're looking at things that are not necessarily relevant to what our market is here, the kinds of projects that we have here, et cetera. The other thing that I noted is that, that, well, this is something that's promoted by unions. And supports the hiring through union halls, even of non-union workers. And even though those non-union workers have to pay union dues, I do wanna point out there's the opposite side from what I was just saying, which is here locally in particular, I think the majority, something like 85% of the construction industry locally is, or regionally, I should say is non-union. So it might affect also how our local construction industry responds or reacts to this. So that's the last thing I wanna point out. And Jeff, I don't know if you're familiar with PLAs, if you have anything to add on that, but hopefully that's enough to get us started on the conversation. So I just heard about this yesterday and so I just did a little bit of research and I think that's really actually a very good summary. And I don't know what kind of public comment you'll get or how much background you already have, but yeah, I mean, I think Rice has kind of identified the pros and cons that are out there. And I think I'll leave it at that. Thanks, Jeff. And thanks for that thumbnail sketch, Rice. I know there's a lot of discussion around this particular issue. Could you clarify one thing for me? You mentioned the making sure that we deal with apples and apples and not apples and oranges. Could you give me a sense of one of those examples that might be apples and oranges? Yeah, I mean, I don't know enough about it. I just know from my experience in dealing with these, sometimes we get these sort of like crazy, like in this project that happened in X city. And I was like, it's not something that is necessarily relevant here. The other thing, and again, I'm basing this off of my experience when I was doing the minimum wage, it was things came up or disagreements with ideas behind minimum wage, for example, that were not at all under our ability to review, such as tip credit. So I don't know enough to be able to say, okay, well, here's a really good example, but the only thing I can think about the top of my head is potentially the question of fair wage issues. My understanding of what the wages are here, they're very high. I mean, that's they're high across the board where the union or non-union. Is there much of a difference? I don't know. So I don't want to say, well, an outlier thing might be, and I'm making this up because I really don't know. You know, at such and such a place, they pay so little and union wages are up here. I just don't know enough about what it could be. So I think it's more of a question for those in support or those against to sort of, you know, have a real, let us have a realistic conversation. Please inform realistically to our locale what that conversation would be, so we can understand it better. Sure, and I'm sure there will be lots of, you know, if we bring this to the full council and I don't think I have to have too large of a crystal ball to think that we're probably gonna be bringing this to full council for a good airing. But before we move to public comment and any quick questions, Victoria or Eddie about the PLAs before we move to public comment? Yeah, I'm aware that in addition to the junior college having a PLA that they used for, I got to go in their new auditorium, by the way. Oh, it was in March of last year, it was like, it was so gorgeous, by the way. So I can't wait for us all to get back in there. So in addition to the junior college having used a PLA, I do know that the county has a standing PLA and I, please correct me if I'm wrong, that it applies to projects over a certain threshold. And I believe that it's only public projects in that, but I'm not sure. So, and it exempts a couple of places. So if we were to do this, we would have a couple of regional or local partners that are doing this. Do you happen to know any of the broad strokes of the county one so that we could at least sort of look at it comparable? I don't, but I can try to Google it super quick. It's okay. I know that it's got like a floor of $10 million and it exempts the airport and one other really large thing. It was a significant compromise and it happened a few years back. Just, I just wanted to put that out there. I don't have the details of it, but I thought it was helpful for us to know that this is not, you would not be unique to the city of Santa Rosa. Yeah, there are definitely stipulations or floors and ceilings and, you know, I do remember that conversation. It feels like a long time ago, but you are right. There are limits in that floor in the ceiling. I just don't remember the numbers either. It was 2014 and it just kicked me out. I think it was like projects of a 10 million or more for the county. Yeah. Well, we may get some of that information from public comment as well, if not now, then later. So if any of you in Victoria and Reisa and Jeff are ready for public comment, we will move to that part of our agenda. Yeah, can I just say one thing though? Like we were talking about this because it's not an urgency item or because it's not COVID related. Like I just want to be super clear too that I don't think we would be able to move this until next year, like to get it onto the council agenda for a study session. So I would suggest too that we can do followups through this committee, but the time and resources is probably would come later would take a while anyway. Yeah. I appreciate that. And having people's expectations well articulated is going to be really important because there's nothing worse than having an expectation that does not get realized. So I appreciate that very much and the council's reality. So Eileen, do we have any public comment on this item? We do. The first color is Eric Christian. Eric, if you could hold just a moment while I get you queued up. If you should be able to speak at this time and if you could confirm that you are able to see the timer. I can see the timer. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Eric. My name is Eric Christian. I'm the executive director of the coalition for fair employment and construction. We are a statewide organization formed 22 years ago by union and non-union construction firms to oppose project labor agreements and the bigotry and exclusion and waste that they represent. To the councilwoman's previous comment about the community college project, the project that was the engineer's estimate was $23 million and the lowest bid was $28 million. It is now over $32 million. And if you want an example, exactly what project labor agreements do, I couldn't think of a better one. So I thank her for mentioning that disastrous project also massively behind budget. That's what you get with project labor agreements, broken promises, all in the hopes of a big labor special interest getting a monopoly on all the work. Getting to the county, the county took because I was involved in negotiations almost two years where they sat down with various stakeholders. Now union bosses don't like that. They like to hand you a monopoly agreement just have you sign off on it. But the county staff actually did their work as they've done since by trying to keep as many projects as far away from the PLA as possible because they hate it. If you have an honest discussion with them, they'll tell you that off the record. We took two years. So you rushing this to the city council, it's not even gonna hear it until next year. I would actually advise that you have a study session during one of your meetings where this issue is able to come up because clearly you don't know what they are. You don't know the nuances of them. You have talking points handed to you by PLA components, many of whom contribute to your campaigns, but you don't necessarily know what they are. So I would advise you to do your job as a subcommittee and actually do your homework on PLAs. That being said, it was also mentioned that there are studies on both sides. There aren't. There are more than two dozen peer reviewed studies that show that PLAs increase costs anywhere from 13 to 22%. There are a handful of white papers published and paid for by big labor special interests that talk about how good they work. That's not a comparable analogy. I would like to pose the following questions on behalf of the, as was just indicated by staff, the more than 90% of the local construction workforce that is local. What is the problem that this solution would solve? And when I ask that, I don't ask it in generalities or for generalities. I ask it with regards to specific rationale given to you by proponents backed up by empirical evidence and data that shows that anything this controversial banned in 25 states, banned in 11 entities in California. That's what you're looking to take up here. Division, exclusion, controversy in the middle of a pandemic when unemployment in the state is the third highest in the country because we've done so many things wrong answering the pandemic. And now you're looking to bring this division and controversy and unnecessary bureaucracy to the city of Santa Rosa. You need and proponents need to explain exactly why and what the data is that supports that. Furthermore, I would ask again that all sides come in, have a real discussion here from all sides and do it at the subcommittee level before punting this up to the city council if that's something you eventually choose to do. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Eric. Eileen, any other comments? Yes. The next individual who will be speaking is Nicole Goran. And Nicole, if you can just confirm that you are able to see the timer. Yes, I can see it. Thank you. Good afternoon, council members. Nicole Gehring with Associated Builders and Contractors were a construction trade association and an apprenticeship training program all throughout Northern California. We have a number of members in that live and work in Santa Rosa and their workforce. And we also do projects for community programs, second chance, rehabilitation, like parole and probation and Salvation Army. And so we're all about putting people to work. And so in regards to project labor agreements, what we have found is where they've been placed in communities that local workforce is not able to work. So the biggest thing would be is we want all Santa Rosa workers to be able to work. Workers and apprentices, they should all be able to live, work and continue to build their community. And we saw recently in the Sonoma Valley Unified School District PLA that was just passed that none of those workers can even work. All of the hiring has to come from the union hiring halls. And in regards to apprenticeship, only union apprentices can be used. And so those are taking opportunities and displacing prevailing wage opportunities to earn money from those workers. In the event of the PLA where there is a core worker provision as in the Sonoma County, if those workers are able to work on the non-union side, they actually, I just looked it up for a carpenter. A carpenter's pension amount is $10.65. That would be lost to the union. And so that would be on a 1,000 hour job, they would lose $10,650 of their own money. And that's money that they are usually making on a prevailing wage job. So there is a large loss of funds to them unless they joined the union and then were able to vest over time. But just for one particular project, you would lose that funding opportunity. The staff report from Sonoma County on the behavioral health unit indicated that the PLA was gonna add 10 to 14% for that project. And that project had a fixed budget of $48.8 million, which means they would have had to, they have to find an additional $3.8 million or make significant adjustments in value engineering in order to make that project succeed. We've seen that a lot in a lot of cities where there's only been one bid and the bids are higher than estimates and there's had to have been a lot of value engineering. So it is gonna impact the community. So I would suggest that you think of all the Santa Rosa workers, let them all work. And the best way to have all workers working is without a PLA because that's where union and non-union workers work together. And I would also recommend you survey your contracting community to find out what their positions on this topic. Thank you for your time. Thanks, Nicole. Eileen, back to your court. Yes, Richard Marcoson, let me just reset the time for you. And if you would please confirm that you are able to see the timer. I see the timer, thank you. Good morning, council members. Richard Marcoson and I represent the Western Electrical Contractors Association, the plumbing heating cooling contractors of California, the American Fire Sprinkler Association and the independent roofing contractors of California. Each of them have an active contractor community but are also like ABC sponsors of state approved apprenticeship programs. This is the earn and learn model that allows replacements for retiring journey workers. I think Ms. De La Rosa did an excellent job of describing project labor agreements but a couple of clarifications. One is on the setting of wages. As I'm sure you are all aware as a public agency you are generally pursuant to the California labor code required to mandate that your construction projects pay the prevailing wage, which is usually the wage established by union collective bargaining agreements. So although there are some provisions in the project labor agreement dealing with wages, the wages themselves are set up by California code. Also the PLA does not supersede the other individual collective bargaining agreements that are put in place on all of the sub-trades. In fact, the typical project labor agreement will incorporate by reference all of the other collective bargaining agreements. And so the contractor who is required to agree to abide by the project labor agreement also in essence becomes signatory or responsible for as many as 14 or 15 different collective bargaining agreements. One of the recent or often cited goals of a project labor agreement is for local hire. However, I would caution the city that when you look at the local hire provisions in a project labor agreement, there's nothing fixed in them. In other words, there's no mandate of local hire. They typically will couch it in terms of the unions will make a best effort to employ local workers, but there is no mandate. There are no penalties and in some cases there's not even a requirement for any reporting of that. One of the other frequently cited reasons for a project labor agreement is based upon quality and delivering the job on budget. However, there are no provisions in the typical PLA that deal anything with quality or budget because those are the responsibility of the employing contractor and the public agency. And so the individual worker has no control over quality or price. Like the others, we encourage you to give this some serious thought and we're happy to join you in that discussion. Thank you very much and have a great rest of your day. Thank you, Richard. Aileen? Yes, we do have some other individuals. The next individual is Ken Krescher. Ken, I'm going to unmute you and reset the timer for you. And if you want to please confirm this, sir. I can see the timer. Can you hear me? Yes, please proceed. Hey, my name is Ken Krescher. I am a local resident, local property owner, local commercial property owner. I'm also an employer and a contractor in Santa Rosa. This topic means so much to me. In fact, I'm actually calling in from vacation in Florida with my wife and I'm sitting in Disney World while I speak to you. A little tidbit about that. I left instructions with all family, friends and coworkers that I was absolutely not to be contacted this week. This was to be 100% family, but this came up and I'm breaking my own rule to call in on this. It's that important to me. I'd like to also add that my comments and beliefs in opposition of PLA is not rhetoric. As I mentioned at the beginning, I'm a contractor. I'm also a union contractor and my company employees have worked on probably a little more than seven project labor agreements in the past. And I can tell you that they do increase costs. They do require double benefits for non-union employees. They do restrict the number of contractors that bid projects. It's not rhetoric. It's documented experience and I've seen it firsthand. I would encourage the council or this subcommittee, as others have said, if this is gonna be something to look at in the future anymore to really do your homework, do some studies, do some surveys to the contractors. I've often said in the past when this subject comes up, don't listen to associations, unions or union members because there's one thing they all have in common. They don't bid projects. Your contractors bid the project. A union cannot say, oh, it's not gonna affect the price. They don't set the price. The contractor bids your projects. That's who you need to be working with. That's who you need to see what the impacts of the PLA are. So I would really encourage you to do surveys with local contractors to see what impacts the PLA would have in your projects. And as part of that, figure out what it is you're trying to accomplish. Are you looking for local hire? Are you looking for health insurance requirements? There's so many things that municipalities want and they overlook the fact that those could be put into the bid specifications even without a PLA. I would also echo what Richard Marcusen said to the opening comments that the wages are already set by prevailing wage. A PLA does not set wages. A PLA takes a union contractor with one agreement or two agreements and binds them to 14 agreements. That's another area where your costs go up. Thank you very much. Thanks Ken. Back to the fun. Take no more calls. I'm gone. Okay, thank you. Eileen? Our next speaker is Rogan. I'm going to go ahead and reset the timer for you. If you would please confirm that you are able to see the clock please, Rogan. You have the ability to unmute yourself if you so choose. That's where you're calling. Okay, we'll come back to you Rogan. Go ahead to the next caller Eileen. Okay, the next caller is Sherry Cabral. Sherry, if you would please confirm your ability to see the timer, that would be wonderful. I can see the timer. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Perfect. So my name is Sherry Cabral and I represent the North Bay Building and Construction Trades Council. Kind of coming into this a little bit late, but I have listened to a number of what the speakers have had to say. And what I should tell you is before I came to the North Bay Building Trades, I worked for and I represented the State Building Trades Council, which covers all of California. And my primary purview and responsibility was project labor agreements. And I have worked on PLAs across the entire state of California and I've done so for the last 10 to 12 years. Across the state of California, municipal PLAs have increased, the number of them have increased by over 500%. And the reason for that is that because they have become an effective mechanism and tool for municipality in order to effectuate, change and drive economic development on a local basis. You know, it's your own capacity to create local jobs. So using a PLA is the only legal way that that can be done under construction and project management. There's not another mechanism that allows you to govern your workforce either through an ordinance or otherwise. The PLA is the only tool that actually allows that to happen. And I've had a number of encounters statewide with a number of the speakers that you're hearing today. And the one thing that I will tell you is this, statistically what they are offering you up is not correct. Statistically, 60% of projects that are bid underneath of a project labor agreement go to non-union contractors. So if a non-union contractor was so unwilling to bid projects, you would not see 60% of contracts that are let under PLAs go to non-union contractors. Two, local hire works. Santa Rosa JC is a perfect example of that. The Burbank Auditorium had almost 70% local hire both in the framework of the number of hours that were worked and the number of individuals who were employed. So yes, it does work and it is an effective tool. The idea that your cost on a project is tied to the project labor agreement is a fallacy. The cost of labor is controlled by prevailing wage and that is it. There's nothing else that governs that cost. So the other costs on a construction project are driven solely by economics, material availability, availability of contractors. And it's a basic equation that comes down to supply and demand. When times are good, there's fewer contractors to bid and their prices go up. When times are bad, there's more contractors to bid and they're willing to undercut each other or you have a situation in the market like you do now where materials costs have gone through the roof and we've all seen that. That has absolutely nothing to do with a PLA. The PLA in and of itself does not increase costs. However, it is your tool to employ a local workforce and to be able to say that those individuals who live here that pay taxes to you can work here. Public contract section code 2500 does not allow for discrimination against non-union. So that is not a part of the conversation despite what other people are telling you. So with that, I respectfully urge you folks to have the discussion, a look at PLAs to put this as one of the tools in the council's toolbox for being able to make change locally and to be able to keep local control of that type of change and development. So thank you for your time this morning. Thanks, Sheri. Thank you. Aileen. The next individual, we're gonna go back to Rogan. Let me reset the talk for you. And if you would test your audio for us, Rogan. I'm here. Did you say touch the audio bar? Oh, no, I just, we can hear you. That's wonderful. Are you able to see the timer? Yes, I see it. Fine, thank you. I'm Roger, I am president and owner of Mid-State Construction, a fairly large local contractor that's been working in this area for a long time. I want everybody to understand first that we are perfectly capable of doing PLA projects. And many of our projects have both union and non-union subcontractors on them. We do a lot of prevailing wage affordable housing projects. So we are not, I'm not coming to you today as a contractor with a vested interest, but as a taxpayer and somebody who believes in fair dealing. On a, I think it's been said, but I think everybody should understand that a PLA mandates certain wages, but those wages are already required on anything that is funded by the county, the state or the city. So for example, a contractor, whether there's a PLA or not, we'll be making with pension and his annuity a wage of about $150,000 a year. So we're not addressing a low income problem. We're simply blocking out with a PLA projects for a specific union minority. In Sonoma County, about 85% of all of the contractors and workers are non-signatory. They are in the same amount on your jobs, whether or not there is a PLA. But the PLA does do is it adds 10 to 20% to your project costs. And it means that there will be non-local people working on your job. There's the local provision means nothing if non-signatory contractors choose not to go after your project. They will turn it down in favor of better work that doesn't have the constraint of a PLA. So I urge you to investigate all aspects of what a PLA will do to your project and look at the fairness if you segregate your work so that it's only for a minority of the contractors in the area. Thank you. Thank you, Roger. Eileen. Yes, we do have some additional individuals. The next person is Ananda Sweet. Ananda, I'm going to go ahead and reset the timer for you. If you would please confirm that you're able to see it. I can. Wonderful, please receive. Great. Good morning, council members, staff. Ananda Sweet with the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber. I just wanna emphasize that we absolutely want to need to be part of any exploration or discussion around a PLA policy. There are very real impacts that come from a policy and should you choose to explore this, it will be critical to have an honest discussion and a data-driven evidence-based approach to reach an understanding of those impacts. Among those impacts, just one large piece is to understand that a PLA policy represents a choice to spend more taxpayer dollars to complete a project. And if that's a policy you want to explore, the clear responsibility is to take the time to gain a deep understanding of the full impact and to be able to articulate that to Santa Rosa in a clear and evidence-based reason to take on the increased project costs along with other impacts that come with a PLA policy. Again, we stand ready to talk through this with you and absolutely wanna be engaged in the process should you choose to explore it. Thank you. Thanks, Ananda. Thank you. Aileen. All right. And so our next caller is Jack Buckhorn. Jack, I have allowed you to unmute and I'm resetting the timer for you. If you would please confirm that you're able to see it. Yeah, I can see it. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Jack Buckhorn. I'm the executive director of the North Bay Labor Council. I also am a building trades member and have worked on PLAs for many years. I know council member Sawyer will remember when we had a project labor agreement study session scheduled when he was mayor and for some reason it just was taken off the schedule because of really the lobbying efforts of these out of town lobbyists that have showed up today and been telling some pretty good whoppers about what PLAs really do. So let's get down to some real numbers. And so we talked about no apprentices will be able to go to work. Well, and only union apprentices will be used on these projects. The problem that the non-union have is that they don't train apprentices and in Sonoma County specifically, 90% of all apprentices are union apprentices in joint programs, less than 10% work in parallel programs. And those 10% very rarely graduate. Ken Kreischer was the chair. He might still be the chair of one of these parallel programs that won a period of 10 years without graduating one apprentice. 10 years, think about that. At the Burbank project where Eric Christian stated that it was over budget, what he doesn't tell you is that they came and added new roofs and other items that were very high cost after the bid went out, had absolutely nothing to do with the PLA. As was already mentioned, that project was done with mostly union contractors and somehow they ended up with 70% of the employees being local on what I mean local Sonoma County and over 67% of the hours worked were worked by local employees. We can look at the great casino where we had a PLA, it was a private sector PLA which had contractors mostly from Las Vegas because it was a casino and we had upwards of 85% local hire in spite of the fact that most of the contractors came from Las Vegas because of the nature of the work. So in short, PLAs don't raise cost. We have studies that apparently the opposition doesn't like because it does show that you don't lose contractors and it doesn't raise price. And this was done at the college Marin. It's widely available, it was done by UC Berkeley. It's credible, it was peer reviewed, it's a real study. So thank you for your time. I really hope that we can put this study session together and follow through on the promise that was supposed to be made to the building trades over five, six, seven, eight years ago, however long it was. Thank you for your time this morning. Thank you, Jack. And just to the edification of the community, I've never made an agenda decision based on a request from lobbyists, just to clear that up. Eileen, anyone left? The next individual will be Joe Tremaine. Joe, I have unmuted you and I am resetting the timer for you. Please let me know if you can see the timer. Yes, good morning. I can see the timer. Joe Tremaine and I am with the IDW, Local 551 as its representative. I'd like to speak in terms of the project labor agreement and the project labor agreements are extremely important for our local projects that we have for both timeliness and the proper installation of these projects. The hiring of a skilled and trained workforce working within a prevailing wage class is beneficial to our community and that these projects are built by our local residents who in turn support our local economy. In addition, utilizing apprentices trained by a state approved training program like our apprenticeship training center, it's a five year program that pays you to learn. And when you complete, there's no college tuition debt but a six figure plus yearly income with family healthcare and a retired pension. When local skilled and trained workers build our local community projects, we get a safe, reliable, properly installed project built by our own community members which again, they support our local economy. Thank you for the opportunity and have a nice day. Thank you, sir. Aileen. Yes, our next speaker will be Joe Medina. Joe, I have unmuted you. I'm resetting the timer for you if you would confirm that you were able to see the timer. Yeah, I'm able to see the timer and just for correction, it's John Medina. Sorry if coming in on my phone here, trying to do multi-zooms. So I wanted to make sure I jumped in here. I'm president of the North Bay Building and Construction Trades Council. I'm also a business agent and was an organizer for sprinkler fitters, local 483. So here I am helping represent the thousands of workers as a few of the calls have been of the people that are actually going to do the project, not as in the case of somebody like Midstate who represents the ownership of a contractor or the contractors that have been speaking earlier or purely on their benefits. We're trying to speak on the benefits of the thousands of workers here. The argument against PLAs is that they'll become more expensive. This is not the case. Their study is like Jack just mentioned, legitimate studies from Harvard, Cornell, Rhode Island, Utah, Michigan, universities, not from these podunk colleges or wherever they're getting their information from. The municipalities are required by law to take the cheapest bid for these projects and companies that have to offer the competitive low bid have to sustain high profit margins. But the bidders must decrease efficiency, disregard quality, and minimize worker compensation to do so. The toxic system of competition leads to poorly built buildings that overcharge bids that take longer than expected completion time and then often need repairs post construction. The prevailing wage is an issue. It is the same wage across the board when public work projects are done. But there's loopholes in the system. And as a rep that represent workers, even the non-union workers that I talk to as an organizer and try to find them a better contractor who won't cheat them out of proper wages and benefits, which I've been doing for the last six years, the compliance issues on these jobs, nobody's out there looking. There's no money in it from the local jurisdictions, whether it's a city, state, or county, to go after prevailing wage compliance. We do it ourselves as business agents and reps. And we find it time and time again that workers are being cheated one way or another. These PLAs just close all those loopholes that these contractors are afforded and used to and the ones that we catch in time and time again and actually make it fair and even across the board for good contractors that actually paid their workers the complete wages and benefits. So this is one thing I think that the voice of the contractors and the guys that are working right now need to be appreciated and not just the contractors and the big money guys that are worried about their bottom line and their extra profits. Thank you. Thanks, John. Eileen. And the next speaker will be, I apologize, one moment please. Natalie, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you. I'll reset the timer for you. And if you can confirm that you see the timer. Thank you, I do see the timer. Hello, I'm Natalie Higley with IBW Local 551 and I'm also a member of the North Bay Building Trades Council. I just wanted to add my commentary to those advocating for the benefits of project labor agreements. Studies by UCLA, Cornell, and UC Berkeley have concluded that there is no evidence to back up any claims that PLAs increase construction costs and PLAs have actually been shown to save money by hiring skilled and trained professionals who make less mistakes and have less on-the-job accidents. There are a lot of misconceptions about PLAs, including that only union workers can participate in the project, which is not true. No one is cut out and no one is required to join a union. PLAs protect all parties from labor disputes, work stoppages, and ensure workers are paid the appropriate wage for their craft. They include their own policing mechanisms to ensure that everyone on the job is in compliance at all times. PLAs are meant to protect both the worker and the employee, ensuring coordination on the job site and the quality product for the community. I think that there's a good number of individuals who have spoken up on this call who have extensive experience working with PLAs, even negotiating them themselves, and they've spoken to you today about their concerns. I really hope that this committee looks on some of those folks as resources for learning more about this issue and how to handle it in the future instead of just listening to special interest groups determined to spread misinformation. Thank you for your time. Thanks, Natalie. Eileen? Yes, we have one additional speaker, one moment. John MC, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you. And if you would please confirm that you are able to see the timer. I can see the timer, yes. Wonderful, please proceed. Hello, Council members. My name is John Mac and Tigers, and I'm lucky enough to serve the men and women of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 551, as their business manager. That's the electrical union known as IBW Local 551. Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today. What we believe is important is the sustainability of our community. I'd like to speak to you about the importance of opportunity. We need opportunity for our younger folks to see that there's a future for them here in Sonoma County. Too many of the kids today don't believe that they have a sustainable life here. Even the Sonoma County superintendent said 70% of the kids graduating this year and next. That's our juniors and seniors. 70% of them don't see a future for themselves here in Sonoma County. They don't see themselves owning a home, raising a family, helping their kids with their homework, having their kids go to schools, they went to as kids. They don't see any of that, and how could they? Everything is so expensive. They're getting priced right out of the market even before they have a chance to dip their toes into the market. Project labor agreement with strong state certified apprenticeship programs guaranteed upward mobility, guaranteed wages, benefits, and pensions will show the community that there is a future for them here in Sonoma County. A future that includes them not having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. A future that means only to have them to work 40 hours a week to provide for your family. A future that includes healthcare for you and your family. A future that includes a pension that will allow you to retire with dignity. Still having the ability to hold your grandkids and swing a golf flip. This is the future that a project labor agreement brings. More opportunity for more community members. How can we ask our future workforce to plan to stay here when we don't take advantage of the opportunities staring us right in the face? One of the comments that was made earlier also regarding unions and pensions was not an accurate statement. Yet again, not an accurate statement. If a non-union worker, electrical worker is out there on a project labor agreement and they accumulate pensions or healthcare they get to also partake in the healthcare that they've paid into. They get also to take that pension with them when the project is over. So we wanna make sure that whenever these statements are being made they're not absolute and most of the times they're not accurate. So there's always another side and we're hoping that you hear in the other side. Project labor agreements will only benefit the community because more opportunity for more folks will make them what we believe is a livable wage here in Sonoma County will mean more folks staying here in Sonoma County. Thank you very much for your time. Thanks, John. Aileen, anyone else pop up to speak? Yes, Keith Woods. Keith, I'm going to allow you to unmute yourself and reset the timer for you if you would confirm that you're able to see the timer. Got it. Keith, thank you. Yeah, thank you, John and council members. My name's Keith Woods. I'm the CEO of the North Coast Builders Exchange roughly 1100 members student in North Bay union and non-union firms alike. Wow, I'm going to try and just do a wrap up of what I want you to walk away with more than anything else out of what you've heard today. One, I'm going to read you a couple of things. Press Democrat did an editorial years ago when the junior college was looking into PLAs and I'll just give you a couple of things they said because they're sitting out there objective looking at it and trying to figure out what's best for the community. What they said in their editorial is quote, so here's the primary question we have about PLAs. What problem is being resolved by adopting a policy such as this? There's no evidence of construction delays, cost overruns, unfair labor projects that would warrant such a solution. They continue to say what's broken that requires this kind of fix. One that has the potential to drive up the cost of publicly funded projects while essentially discouraging if not excluding local non-union employers. That's at the guts, that's at the core of all of this. How many labor, how many strikes have there been? How many problems with bidding for your 150 years of open and fair competition? First question, the three of you want to ask before sending this onto the council is, what are we doing with such a draconian? And it is draconian agreement. Why are we doing this in the middle of a pandemic when we're trying to recover? When you've got other things to do, why are you taking this on is a legitimate question. Numerous speech said, oh, we've got Harvard and Cornell and all these, yeah, sure, they may have their studies and I don't know who paid for them and you ought to look at any study out there. But let's remember what happened not by any outside study group, not by our group. Let's look again, as was mentioned, and what county staff who did their research said about their jail project just several months ago. You heard it before and it's worth repeating. Quote, from staff, reasonable estimates for the cost of adding a project labor agreement to a project of this side range, the cost will be between 10 and 14%, which means that the project labor agreement will yield an additional cost of 3.6 to 3.8 million dollars. Now, is the city rolling in dough to the point where a major project adding on 10 to 14, which might even be low is gonna be acceptable? I don't think so. We did our own study of 200 contractors, union and non-union, and we asked, do PLAs generally increase or decrease costs? 74% of contractors, union and non-union, said it increased costs. That we asked, would PLAs on the project of the JC be a disincentive to bid? 62%, and finally, are PLAs likely to reduce the number of bidders? The answer was 62% said yes. Why are you even considering doing this is question number one. Thank you, Keith. Eileen? Yes, we do have additional callers. One moment, the next caller is Frank. Frank, I have allowed you to unmute. I'm resetting the timer for you. If you would confirm that you can see it, that would be wonderful. Yeah, I can see the timer. Great, thank you. Yeah, hi, my name is Frank Reardon. I'm a business agent for Plumber's Local 38. Here in Santa Rosa, I have my office that's in a school facility. We have about 100 students up here in the North Bay and another 400 in San Francisco. I'm the guy that writes the prevailing wage. It's my signature basically on the wage that is used on all prevailing wage jobs. So all the contractors on a prevailing wage job, whether they're union or non-union, use my wage. It's my wage and we all buy pipe, speaking from a Plumber's Point of View, we all buy pipe from the same place. So if there are these accusations of project labor agreements costing more, it's not possible unless somebody's cheating. And the contractors have the playbook. They know exactly how to get around the requirements that are on any prevailing wage job. What a project labor agreement does is it has built-in policing, namely myself and some of the other labor reps that have spoken today. So it's just simply a way to make sure that the taxpayers get what they're paying for and asking for, which is a high level of construction expertise on their projects that are being paid for with their taxes. So that's my point. Everybody's made some really good points today and I wanted to reemphasize that point of view as well. Thank you. Thanks, Frank. Thank you. Eileen. And the next caller will be Chris Snyder. Chris, if you could hold on just one moment. You are able to, oh, I apologize, Chris, let's chat that one more time. You should be able to unmute at this point. I'm resetting the timer if you would confirm that you were able to see it. I am. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Yes. Okay, great. No, I'm just wanted to drop in and speak strongly in favor of project labor agreements. And I just heard Frank speak and he is absolutely right. I mean, the cost of prevailing wage is prevailing wage and the only way that costs go up is if contractors cheat. And the wage is what it is, but what this does do is it allows local apprentices to actually get on the projects in their own communities and work in their communities, as opposed to going down to San Francisco or on the East Bay. The labor communities in this area have so many great, we have a trades introduction program. We have kids that are out, that we take out and look at these projects and we get them directly into a career pathway. And when you are in a union career pathway, you have lifetime medical, you have lifetime pension benefits. It's all privately funded. There's no, their partnerships, the kids don't, they're not coming out with $100,000 a student loan debt. It's all pay as you go. And these are the type of projects that allow these guys to work, to learn. And I mean, it's just, it's a bonus to the community. It's a bonus to the kids out there building our infrastructure in the future. And I just really strongly, strongly support the project labor agreement here in Santa Rosa. I'm a Santa Rosa resident. And I, the value, I've seen it over and over again in my career watching these kids come out of high school, young adults, some people even, some people with problems coming back into the labor unions and it transforms their lives. And there's not a lot of good middle-class jobs left and these are some of those. And anything we can do to continue to support that, I fully support us, you know, not only as a union rep, but as a Santa Rosa resident. And so please pass project labor agreement. I'll do everything I can to support it. And I think it's just a wonderful thing all the way around. Thanks for your time. John, you're muted at the moment. Do we have any other speakers? We do not. Okay, we'll just give it another. Oh, no, I apologize. We do not have any additional speakers at this time. And do we have any written or recorded comments? And I, we do not have any written or comments or any voice mail for this album either. Okay, thank you very much. And we're getting down to that hour and a half song. So Eddie and Victoria, comments after hearing public comment. Yes. Questions. Yeah, thank you, John. So the one thing that I think that everybody agreed on is that we should be thoughtful in how we approach this and gain more information, even though there was a lot of disagreement about the issue. I think only one person thought that there was no particular reason that we ought to look at this carefully. The one thing that I want to respectfully push back on is one that the studies that come out of large research universities are factually incorrect. In this era of people feeling like they're entitled to their own facts, I think I find that really troubling, separate and apart from a discussion of whether or not PLAs are valid. And so I think that we need to be, to honor the research methods and practices. We may not always agree with outcomes, but it's really concerning to me when we start to erode what we all believe in as this fact. And so to that end, we're all entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts. And so I do hope that we take this up in an empirical way. And the other thing that really struck me is that there was an underlying tension between cost versus value. And so I heard folks saying that this costs more and it may cost more. I'd like to see more information about that. What I want to see alongside with that is what's the value to the local economy? If we're paying 5% or 10% more, are we getting that back plus more or are we losing that? And so I'll be looking to see how this impacts our local economy and whether or not the investment in this type of agreement helps us to generate more business and more economic availability for all of the people in Santa Rosa and the region. So I'm really interested in making sure that accessibility and upward mobility is something that our council and this subcommittee participates in facilitating. And so to that end, I do hope that we can as time permits get more information and have a robust discussion with some mutually agreed upon facts. And I, for my part, agree to not undercut facts from reputable sources when I don't agree with them. So thank you very much. Thanks Victoria. Any? Well, first of all, I want to appreciate Councilwoman Fleming's comments in regards to the reports that have come forth. They should be respected. In regards to why we should require or petition for a study session, it's because we are coming out of COVID. And I believe that as we do come out of COVID there will be building, there will be our economy will start up once again. And what I want to see are the comparison of those apples to apples. And we ask ourselves, how do we do so? And for me, it's the budget, what the forecasted budget is and in those buildings that have been built, what was the end result? What was the end cost? And if we could actually do a comparable of PLAs compared to those that did not require PLA. A question for me is the prioritization of local hire compared to the obligation of locally hiring. That for me is an area of great concern. So I do hear that both sides are interested in a study session. I personally do see the point of producing a study session or having a study session because we are now as the group. Thanks, Eddie. Well, we did hear earlier about the time commitments and capacity of staff. And as you both mentioned, getting doing a fairly amount of extensive research into kind of the battle of the information, if you will, back and forth. Because I did hear some similarities from both arguments. And so being able to ferret out enough information to allow us to make an informed decision, which is really what we always strive for is an informed decision. So, and knowing exactly how much time that may take. Raisa, you mentioned next year as far as being able to be able to gather enough information together to bring it to the full council. Is this something that would also need to be discussed as far as staff time and fiscal obligations and also the council coming together in creating its priorities for potentially re-establishing priorities when it comes to PLAs because it is a big lift. It is a big lift. It always has been and will continue to be. So what are your thoughts as far as expectations? Yeah, I mean, I have to say just today this was incredibly helpful to hear the comments and your comments, do those comments. So a couple of things is one, I think I would like to continue to that sort of narrow in what we would take or how we would present something to council, even for a study session through this committee. I did like the idea of having, you know, and I wouldn't wanna call it a study session but a continuation of this discussion through this route. And because I think it helps hone in on the issues in the data collection to have a better, more informed study session at the end. So I wouldn't be able to do that on next month's agenda but we can again, you know, begin putting it as an agenda item as we have time in the room for or maybe take it in pieces. A couple of things that I heard. I like this idea of understanding council objectives and goals related to it. So, you know, again, it speaks on both sides to the data and the problems that council is looking to solve and how we might be able to get there. And also, I think it's helpful to understand where we wanna go with, you know, is it would it be public only or private projects? So we can begin ticking off some of the elements of it, threshold of cost. I think we can do that through a series of our economic development subcommittee meetings. And then in terms of council priorities, I mean, to be honest with you, I haven't yet seen what the outcome of your, the two-day study session or whatever it was, the council goal setting session, I haven't actually seen what the priorities are yet. So I need to circle around back on that. But it's not as if it's not, if it's not even a top tier goal, it's not as if we haven't taken second tier goals. As staff has had time, it's just a consideration on where are we with the top tier goals. So I'm not saying it's impossible, but I am saying probably for full council, it wouldn't be until a little while, but through this subcommittee, I think we can begin honing in on the ideas and be better able to prepare for a full council. So given that, when, how long do you think it might be before we can bring it back for kind of a, well, perhaps by the time we discuss this again, we will have a full understanding of the council goals and the priorities well articulated. And council always has an opportunity as well of reorient, of rescheduling and changing the priorities as we move through the year. So do you believe, this is, we're in May now, do you believe that you could have a sense of what the goals, what I guess it would be, you'd like us to continue chewing on this for a while before we bring it back to council and maybe breaking up some of the pieces. You mentioned we might be able to kind of phase it. When do you believe we might be able to get it back on the agenda for further conversation? July is my best guess, because we've got the general plan visioning session in the June subcommittee. And then we've got to start moving on the childcare program. So that's also on the June program. July, you know, the infrastructure, the financing district, the EIFD question is coming up so that I was gonna try to do for July. I mean, we're a little bit of a holy pattern because we don't have, we don't know who our new city manager is or whatever, but and this might affect it. But I would say at least for a piece of it is perhaps July, and I can try to figure out how to at least break out what the elements might be that we can start ticking off and then put something, could have that discussion like how are we gonna break it down? And here's the initial discussion on the July agenda. And so maybe what you could do is, and you mentioned July before is to have maybe during staff comments, you could give us a little, an update as far as timing because you'll know more in July than you do now. I mean, you have two staff, you are a staff of two. I mean, there are two people doing what you're doing. And so that's not lost on anyone on this call. And so, or the Zoom meeting. So why don't we, under the, so we don't need to prioritize the item because I don't wanna give people the impression that we're going to be digging in on that day, but in staff comments, you might be able to give us a sense of timing, a closer sense of timing, and then perhaps we can get it back on that agenda for a discussion about either phasing the conversation. We may know more about priorities. We may know, hopefully we'll know more about the costs involved in putting together the information necessary to make an informed decision. So let's use July as our goal time to revisit or if there's nothing else to get an update, through staff comments. But again, I don't want it to appear to be an agenda item that we are going to be making any decisions about because I don't see that to be the case in July. Unless, does that sound good to you, Victoria and Eddie? So I think that it's reasonable to get an update in July and then my hope would be in July that we have more information. And I think this is what you're saying, that are able to clearly articulate a proposed plan forward for how the subcommittee and the council consider the issue. Yes, that is our hope. Give it a couple of months to get some of the details ironed out as far as moving forward. Okay. Good with that, Eddie? Okay, so at this point, there are no other things on our, I don't have an agenda in front of me actually. Yeah, that was it. Okay, so I thought, save the toughest for last. Luckily we had a lot of time today that I think that was beneficial that we had some quality time for this conversation. So at this time, in this format, Jeff, do I need to take a comment on items not on the agenda or final comments or are we, can I finish the meeting? I think we've already asked for a non-agenda comment. There wasn't any, I think we can just adjourn. Okay, so at this point, I will adjourn the meeting. Thank you all very much. I appreciate the time and energy. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.