 2018 meeting of the City Council. In this part of the meeting, the Council will receive public testimony. Thereafter, the Council members will move to the courtyard conference room for the closed session. Would the clerk please call the roll? Mayor Charazus. Here. Vice Mayor Watkins. Here. Council Member Brown. Absent. Council Member Chase. Here. Chrome. Present. Matthews. Here. And Naroyan. Here. Thank you, and thank you for being here today. Before we open public comment, I have a brief announcement. The City Attorney will provide a report on items listed on the closed session agenda at the beginning of the 1.45 p.m. session. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to any items listed on the closed session agenda? Seeing none, I will adjourn this meeting to the courtyard conference room where the Council will go into its closed session. Ooh. Guys, it's already. I want to thank everyone that today marks the 17th anniversary of the horrific events of September 11, 2001. I think we can all remember, for those of us that were alive then, where we were at the time. And I'd like to request at this point that we all take a moment out of respect to the over 3,000 people who lost their lives on that day. And the first responders who assisted those that survived to remember them at this time and open our meeting with just a brief moment of silence and out of respect. Thank you. At this point, I'd like to welcome everyone. Good afternoon. Welcome to our 1.45 p.m. session of the September 11, 2008 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. I'd now like to ask the clerk and Christine, if you'll be with us all day today. All day. To please call the roll. Mayor Trazos. Here. Vice Mayor Watkins. Here. Council members Brown. Here. Chase. Here. Crone. Present. Matthews. Here. And no, Royan. Here. And now if he'd please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. At this point in the agenda, we take the opportunity to introduce our new employees here at the City of Santa Cruz. So at this point I'd like to invite up the Director of Finance, Marcus Pimentel, to introduce some new employees to his department. Thank you, Mayor. I am generally proud and excited to introduce you, Ginger Baker and Edward Torres, who are like the classic finance people hiding in the corner. I'll start with Ginger. Ginger is another one of those former SoCal people who saw the light. And followed childhood memories of the Redwoods and came back to Santa Cruz from a place to visit to a place to live. We're very lucky to have Ginger here. She's in our revenue division as our accounting technician. A little bit about Ginger, she was born in Torrance, lived there for 23 years, lived in downtown Los Angeles. We don't hold that against her. We haven't asked her about her baseball affiliations. She used her Cal State University Fulton degree to get a job in the City Clerk's Office in Redondo Beach of all places. And later worked as a credit analyst at Wedbush and Securities and obtained her certificate to buy and sell stocks. So if you're looking for that skill, Ginger couldn't help you out. Not only does she bring that strong technical skills and really good customer service, she brings a balance to our classic introverted department. She does a couple things, she's a former CAST member at Disney, so she brings along some Disney magic. She's also a classically trained singer. And finally, she's a member of the Upright Citizens Brigade, trained improviser. And this is where I'm going to pause and let her demonstrate. No. We really look forward to seeing Ginger's development in our department and in her career path with the city, and we're really excited to have her. Moving on to Edward Torres, I'm really joyful to have Edward with us here today. He's come to our department also from that place down south. His reflections on that were, there's an orange haze in this guy that he wanted to run away from and there are no forests to find, so he's very excited about coming to Santa Cruz. He visited here in 2010 with a friend and saw this is the place he wants to come to. So he literally came here for that purpose. He's also in our revenue division, he's an accounting assistant, he's kind of our lead customer service person. And he does a really nice job of balancing technical skills with really good quality customer interaction, both with citizens and internal city staff. He switched his major from nursing to accounting in his last year and still graduated on time by double loading his accounting program and graduate in accounting degrees. We're really impressed and proud of that and we love accountants. Like Ginger, he brings also a balance to life. He was not a cast member, but a Disney pass holder, so we're excited about that. We're a Disney office. He also has experience as an instructor for rock climbing. Water rafting and skill survival. And I'll finish with his close friends of Colby and Lily, his Terrier and Black Lab. And he's got a challenge that he'll be the funnest guy you'll ever meet. So he welcomes you to come over to finance and have the conversation with him. So Edward and Ginger, we're very happy to have them both. Welcome. I'd like to now invite up the interim director of Parks and Recreation, Carol Scourge. Thank you, Mayor and Council members. It's my pleasure to introduce Ryan Cain today. Ryan is a parks maintenance worker out at the wharf. And so he'll be working directly on the beach dealing with all the maintenance issues, the challenges of all the hundreds, thousands of people that come to our beaches every year and literally thousands and thousands of them. And also working on special projects and then when things slow down a little bit back on the wharf and working on projects to keep the wharf operating and running smoothly throughout the year. He's really lucky. Ryan is homegrown, he's born and raised here in Santa Cruz. He graduated from SoCal High and he comes with us with experience from the post office UPS and he worked for Paso Tiempo Golf Course so we're fortunate to have his skills that he's gained through those jobs. He really enjoys golf surprisingly after working at Paso Tiempo. He enjoys his family, he likes to be outdoors, he likes to keep moving and active and he really enjoys living in Santa Cruz so we're happy to keep him here with a permanent job with the city of Santa Cruz. Welcome Ryan. Welcome. And last I'd like to invite up the Director of Public Works, Mark Dettel. Good afternoon, it's Mark Dettel, Director of Public Works. It's my pleasure to introduce Addison LeBlanc. Addison's a new engineering technician and he assists in the ongoing transportation projects, facilitating parking requests, permit programs, initiatives, and fulfills work orders for an investigative service request. It's an existing position in our traffic engineering position in our division. Addison was born and raised in Half Moon Bay. He attended part of the high school in Summersworth, New Hampshire and lived in San Diego for the last ten years. He currently now lives back in Half Moon Bay and that's quite a commute and he doesn't take his bicycle every day to work. I'll just tell you that. His environmental management and past experience and environmental management for Exxon Mobile Campus Project. And he was the project engineer for the Naval Medical Center San Diego Seismic Retro Rehab Project. He's got a degree from San Diego State University in Environmental Engineering. And when he's not working or commuting, he's hiking, backpacking, traveling, coaching based ball for special needs kids. So please join me in welcoming Addison to our team. Welcome. That's great. Welcome everybody to employment here in the city. That I'm really proud to call up Suzy O'Hara and Laura Schmidt. Laura Schmidt the director of information technology for the city and Suzy O'Hara principal management analyst to introduce the launch of a service portal. Something that they've been working on and really exciting for the community. Good afternoon, Mayor and Councilmember Suzy O'Hara. And as Laura brings up the presentation, I'm going to kick off the conversation. So I'm Suzy O'Hara principal management analyst in the city manager's office. And I also served as the project manager for CRISP. So I'm going to be kicking off the presentation and handing it over to Laura who is passing out the slides. And there will be a few available for the public as well. My role as project manager really was to coordinate the significant effort on behalf of the IT department as well as the individual departments that were involved in this. I think it was pretty much all of them. And major kudos to our internal team which over the last five months has built this program. And with that with this internal team that's put this together we just the opportunities are limitless quite frankly. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the problem that we are trying to solve with CRISP. And as you are all intimately aware, we get a lot of requests for service. And currently those requests come through many different mechanisms. People can call in, people can fill out a form on the website, people can email the council. So you guys all well know that process is pretty inefficient. What we are really trying to move towards is a one stop shop for a community that created an opportunity to effectively meet the community's needs. But also for us as staff to be really accountable to results. I'm going to turn it over to Laura to talk about each of these different categories here from the existing how do I report items through the technology that can grow because it's pretty technical in nature and she's also going to go through a discussion around really looking at the app as well but I wanted to talk a little bit about this equation. And what world does 7 plus 1 equal 1? That world is CRISP. So currently we have seven different types of requests from traffic concerns to encampments, graffiti, needles, code violations, sewer spills, etc. With seven different forms that are fillable on the city's website. And then one new form as well which is a general request and we can talk about that more when we go through the application. That is all now in one place that is CRISP. And so what we're really trying to do is build a highly efficient and effective way for our community members to put in their service requests. The general request area really is because we're phasing this launch of CRISP an opportunity for the community to also engage with the city on other requests that come in that don't fit into these seven categories. But ultimately we're just poised to have a lot more effective ways of being accountable to requests that are made by our community members and your constituents. And then also the data on the back end really looking at what kind of requests come in, how often and what departments are impacted. So I'm going to turn it over to Laura to talk more about the different efficiencies here. Great, thank you, Suzy. Thank you, Council. So the seven plus seven equals one. We focused on seven specific how do I. So in our website there is a part of our menu that says how do I blank. So we took seven of those plus a general request and converted it into the pilot program that you see. So one of our key things was centralization. Right now the how do I, it's embedded usually in a departmental page, a departmental sub page, and that type of thing. So over time we will convert this into this centralized one stop shop where you can go and request something from the city of Santa Cruz through this portal. So right now we have the seven request types that you see plus we have a other bucket which is the general request. And what we'll be doing there is we'll be taking a look at what types of requests are coming in through the general request category. And if it's a high volume, we will create it into its own request type. And you'll see later that we have fully enabled ourselves to be able to do those edits in the future. The other thing we wanted to focus on was ease of use. So it's the same basic steps for all request types. If there's a location of the request, we want to know that location. Where is the needle that you found? Where is the biker pedestrian hazard that you've noticed? We would like you to upload photos if possible. And then if you have other details and narrative that you would like to put in there, then put in that as well. So basically all of their requests have these three minimal things to enter for them. Also on the ease of use, you can use it most anywhere. It is enabled on our website, so you can get at it through our WWW page. If you want to use your mobile device, be that a smartphone, a tablet, or a phablet, you can use that. And we have an application that's deployed into the Android Store through Google Play and through Apple through Apple's App Store. Susie talked a little bit about process efficiencies. So the community request for service portal does a lot. It's one place to enter all the requests. It can geolocate if you're using your smart device and you say use the location. If you have location services enabled on that device, we can figure out where you are. If you're actually looking at the needle and you say use my location, it can pinpoint the latitude and longitude for you. It can access your camera as well, and you can take a photo and then upload it through our application. On the city side of things, the workflow routing was critical for us. So behind the scenes, once the request goes into the application, it gets routed to the correct department in the city to take a look at. And the general requests go to the city manager's office for disposition taking a look at what the request is and figuring out where it should go. We also have email and text integration. So when internal city employee assigns it to another department, they can email a person in the department or a distribution list letting them know that the request is out there. We can even text you on your cell phone if that information is in our system. And we've updated it, then we can send a text to the employee and say, hey, I know Sgt. Schacht is out there right now in the field and he's near this, so let's send it over to him. We also have really neat systems integration and with our work order system and our land use. So the property code violation request type, once it gets looked at and reviewed by the Planning and Community Development Department, it can actually get sent automatically to our land use management system to be able to create something in that system that can then be tracked and information added to it. And the same thing happens with the sewer spills and backups. It goes to our work order system that Public Works uses. So these were great wins for us. And then additionally, it has reporting capabilities that we've started a foundation with the reporting. And we can evolve it as time goes on and we figure out what types of reports we're wanting out of it. And it has a very flexible platform for us to be able to adjust that as needed. One of the things on the technology side is we built this on a platform called Mendex. It's a low code development platform slash rapid application development platform. The key foundation that our IT department needed. So to give you an idea, this product, we developed it in three weeks during a proof of concept. So we went from our idea and think of it as our napkin note design to an actually working portal. We said, okay, we can do this. We proved it, we can do it. And then the product that you see now was a five month implementation, which in terms of developing an application product from scratch, that's pretty good. And then what we've learned from this is we can now be self-sufficient to be able to add new request types, update and change the reporting, and we'll be self-sufficient for enhancements to the community request for service portal. Additionally, this product, we can build other apps on it. So we can figure out, we might need this type of application for this city and we can build it on this platform and be able to use it moving forward. We'd like to thank our core team, I think some of whom might be out there. So many thanks, this is our core team. As Susie said, pretty much every department in the city was touched and pennied up at least one resource. So it was a really great group of functional leads that helped us put this together and bring us to this point. So when you do a report, you report a blank and you fill in the blank. You give us the location of the item you are reporting. And sometimes that is where you're at because you're reporting other times you can go back to your desktop and type in an address where you saw it, that type of thing. You can upload photos, you can give us details, and if a field is required, we'll put an asterisk next to it. Contact information is purely optional in case the community member wants us to contact them back. It's required, however, for a property code violation, but it is kept confidential. There is a dashboard side of it that you see from the Santa Cruz employee perspective, and I'll show you that later, but it allows us to see all of the different requests that are in the system at that point. Filter it by status, filter it by request type, that type of thing. And this is test data, just so you know. This is on the administrative side as well for our city of Santa Cruz employees. We have a heat map that we created. So the little things with the little blurry edges, that's not your contacts. Those are clusters of items and you can drill down into them and I'll show that to you. And then on the right side is the code and the different color pin represents the different type of request type that is on there. And you can heat, and we've heat mapped it for you. So we'll do a little quick demo if that's okay with you guys. So from the city of Santa Cruz main page you can do, everybody is used to going how do I report. So what we did under this web menu that has already existed in the past, anytime where we replaced a request from a form and we replaced it with the application, like on the needle slash syringe, you now get directly put into the community request for service portal. You can also just come to the home page and the report and you can either click here or click here and that'll take you to the request home page for the portal. So the biker pedestrian hazard, the encampment, graffiti, needle or syringe, property code violations, sewer spill or backup and traffic concern. So every form is built pretty much the same. It's got the title of it, some text and then add the location, add the photos, additional information if needed, etc. and then you submit it. I'm not going to do that because our system's actually live. On the bottom of the home page of CRISP is submit the general request and then also if you wish to download the app to your iOS device, so your iPad or your iPhone, you can do that. And then if you want to download it to your Android device, your Samsung Galaxy or whatever, you can do that as well. I'm going to quickly toggle over to our test environment. So this is all test data because we don't have enough information in the live system right now for the heat map to work. But this is one of the neat reporting features and as you zoom in, you start to see the details. So if you looked at our test data for bike and pedestrian hazards, for instance, there are, is that a two, Suzy? Yes, it is. Okay, thank you. My contacts are not that precise. And this one I can see is a 21 and this one is an individual one. So I was at all and I clicked bike or pedestrian hazard. So we're now at that tab and this is the test information. I click on the 21, it zooms me down into the details. I can click on more details and then these are the three locations of the bike or pedestrian hazard. This is test data, but you can imagine the power of what this will provide us with whether it's universally for all request types or we want to see the patterns of the found needles, that type of thing, an uptick, and we look at seasonality. We look at show me only open ones. We look at it in December versus we look at it in July in August, that type of thing. So this is one of the really neat features of the tool and we'll be able to adjust this and change it as time moves on. That was pretty much what I wanted to show you. Do you have any questions? It's wonderful. Thank you. I mean congratulations to the IT department and all the group that was listed on there. I know Melissa from finance, she was involved in early investigations in regards to this as well and I just think it's wonderful that we're seeing it come forward. Are there any questions from the council? I got a quick one. Cynthia. Thank you. This has been so long. And as you say, one of the ways people make requests is to contact us. So I'm sure that will still happen and in that case, there's a way to direct them back to you guys. And then the follow-up of that is how do we know what the response has been? Yeah, so one of the reporting features of CRISP is to provide a database for the types of requests that we're getting, what departments are impacted and what that response time is. And so as we work towards using CRISP and the functionality for more and more types of requests, that general request is where we're going to be filtering most of the council requests. We really did go back and forth about how best to limit the burden on council with those service type requests, which you get a lot of. Typically that's forwarded to individual departments and those departments go through the process of resolving them and then sometimes we get an email back. What we had started about 18 months ago was a database which had a lot of this information. That information will now be in CRISP and what our intention is to do is to share that with council. So if there's general requests that come through your email box, those will get imported into CRISP and now the CRISP database will provide all of that kind of those accountability measures and the data that you hopefully are interested in receiving in terms of how things are being resolved. Yeah, it'll evolve. Thank you. That's great. Cynthia? Again, thank you. This is really exciting and really impressive to see that it came together so quickly. So one question related to Council Member Matthews' question was, is there a link that if people do go straight to us to try to reach out to us, is there something in there that cues them that if it's this type of request that they can just enter it directly into? Kind of where I was going with the question. So on the council's webpage, you all know that people are directed to the city council email. We're really trying to change the functionality of that and direct folks that have these types of requests to CRISP and really try to have policy, political related questions go to council and try to not have that overlap as much as possible. So we're in the process of making those changes to the city council's website but really the intentionality is to get people clued into CRISP. So that will lessen the burden on council with you guys getting service requests. I think it is, I mean, I appreciate you're looking at that and I think that that would be one of those things that would be helpful because people are going to automatically think that they should go to us and having an opportunity to go there would be great. Absolutely. Sandy? Thank you so much. I'll just say it again. Can't say it enough. So I have one quick follow question along those lines as well. Council Member Matthews and Chase. So just in terms of how we respond in the kind of interim as this is kicking off and people become accustomed to the different pathways. So if we do get constituent services requests or comments in our council emails, should we at this point be just replying with the link to this portal? Would that be the way to go or I just want to make sure that things don't slip through the cracks? Yeah, I think you raised a good point during this transition when we haven't transitioned away from email for city council purposes, how best to inform the public because you will continue to get service requests. And I think I'll answer the question by saying I think we need to develop a transition plan for city council specifically. I think it makes perfect sense to have a reply that if these areas are covered, if it's truly a service request, we should be putting, you know, directing everybody towards crisp. And we can certainly help with an auto reply and, you know, that kind of thing. For the purposes of the next couple weeks, I do think we need to make those modifications to the website. So people really do know that this is a new opportunity for them to make those service requests directly to city departments. And, you know, the council doesn't necessarily need to manage that. But yeah, I think we need to have some kind of transition process for city council members and we certainly can help with those communications. Chris, did you have anything? Just a question. When you click on there, who receives this? Is there just different people? It goes to various or is there one person who's like a clearinghouse and then that person sees what it is and sends it to each department? Depending on each request type right now and the joy of it from the employee efficiency side of it is it will specifically go to the department. A department, either a list of people or a specific person in a department who can then move it along its merry way. The general request right now is the one that I would consider is more of a triage request type. And that goes to the city manager's office because it is anything but the seven other ones then it could be a wide variety of things. So the city manager's office is getting that one and taking a look at it and figuring out if it can be assigned to a specific department and who in that specific department to send it to. Is that you Susie in the city manager's office? It's actually Casey. Okay. And I will add to that too that during the development of CRISP not only is it going to the right person in the department but it's there's a GIS layer and a time spatial layer that during different periods during the day, week, etc. Needle requests for instance could go to parks or public works or PD and that is all programmed in. So it really does strip down the timing that it takes to get a response and having those requests go directly to the department that's ultimately responsible for the response is really a big difference. Thank you. Council Member Naroyant. I think it's really important that there is some sort of and Council Member Crone thank you for bringing this up really important that somebody does hold all the data that there is some sort of clearinghouse because as a council member I'm going to be particularly interested in if let's say 20 people call in about the same road or about the same problem that's going on because obviously that's something that needs to be checked out and that's kind of one of the frustrations that I have now is you know when I want to find out well you know is do we have trends in the types of service calls we're getting it you know thanks to the system now we'll be able to see that. Absolutely. Okay so well there will be one person who will hold all the data and be able to say hey we we have 20 calls about a particular street and a problem here. Well from an administrator perspective that data is now going to be available through Chris for reporting in any which way that we hope to have it reported and so from the from the perspective of sharing that information with the council you know what we would intend to do is create a report that is really functionally appropriate and what you are interested in for the council's perspective but every piece of information that this system collects is information that we can report out on. So that goes to the one system and the one stop there's also it gets stored one place so there's not seven virtual or real filing cabinets of all this paperwork sitting somewhere around the city it's here so then we can extract it and present it in a format that is required and desirable. Okay because a lot of times when we're asked questions um especially the budget like where should we prioritize budget money when in regards to let's say public works of transportation this will be very helpful in being able to pinpoint where we think maybe some of some of these um dollars should be spent. I think I think this is wonderful and I really appreciate you bringing it forward to us I mean I think there's seven of us here you've got your seven to one I think we're all unanimous in our thanks and appreciation for it I just want to make sure that those that are the ones that are coming in us we know about it now but I really hope we do some really good outreach and communication to have different organizations in town that might be contacting us downtown community groups they have all this information so that when they do have this information they can report it directly through the proper channels which we're setting up now so thank you. You're welcome. In closing I did want to send some appreciation to Robert Arizy and Deb Elston they so we did a soft launch of crisp last week and they sent it out to a number of Santa Cruz neighbors and we did get some great feedback over the last couple days and so we will be working with neighborhood groups to ensure that folks have accessability to and understand that this is up and running and it's a new place to make those service requests. Yeah maybe you could bring back a report and see how it's going before the end of the year that'd be great. And I failed to highlight it but the app is bilingual and Spanish speaking as well. Oh great great thank you. All right what a great way to start the meeting. I have a few announcements and then we'll 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 at CityofSantaCruise.com Jennifer Cameron is our technician this afternoon and evening and I'd like to thank her for her work today. She's in the back during the day and I really appreciate her being here throughout the day. All city council members can be emailed at CityCouncil at CityofSantaCruise.com. If you'd like to communicate with us about an agenda item we'd like to receive your email by Monday at 5 p.m. before our council meeting. This provides us with an opportunity to review your email included with the rest of our agenda packet. Please bear in mind that all items of correspondence with the City and City Council constitute public records and are generally subject to disclosure upon request by any member of the public. Accordingly if you have sensitive or private information that you do not wish to be made public you should not include that information in your correspondence. Our rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left and it's my job to keep the meeting running without disruption. On that point we ask that you respect your fellow citizens whether you're inside or outside of the chambers today. At this point I'd like to ask all council members if they have any statements of disqualification today. The evening measure. Yes, yes. I do have a disqualification on the library measure. Would you like to state? Yes, because I do own property in near proximity to the parcel. Okay, thank you. Any other disqualifications? Okay, so there's the one. I'd like to call on the city clerk administrator to announce any additions or deletions. There's one change to today's agenda item 11. The cannabis ordinance updates has been continued to September 25th. Thank you. Let me just make a quick comment because we are going to have a very long meeting today. This is just the first half but at 7 p.m. we're going to have another session that'll take place and I want to I'll make this announcement prior to the 7 p.m. But just for those who are watching on TV or for any of you who plan to be here for our 7 p.m. session indoor overflow seating with live stream is going to be available at 7 p.m. We'll have overflow seating at the community room in the library which is located on the second floor that's located at 224 Church Street and we'll also have seating that's out here for those of you that want to be immediately adjacent to where the chambers are. During the break you could ask if you have any questions of where that's located. You could ask any one of the city staff. Many are in the audience and they could probably help you out directly. Okay. In regards to oral communications, oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on the agenda. Oral communications will generally occur at the conclusion of afternoon business at or about 5 30 p.m. but may occur on or before that time. At this point I'd like to call on the city attorney to provide a report on closed session. Thank you, Mayor Tarazas, members of the City Council. There were two items of real property negotiations on this afternoon's closed session which commenced at 1 30 p.m. in the courtyard conference room. Those are real properties at 808 River Street and 744 River Street. Council met with and received a report from the Public Works Director with respect to those real property negotiations but there was no reportable action. Thank you. I'd like to use this as an opportunity also to let the council know all of us here because we won't be meeting on September 13th. But September 13th will mark the 25th anniversary of service of Tony Kandadi to the City of Santa Cruz. And I want to call out that. Thank you for your service. Thank you. Yes. The next is the city manager report. City manager, do you have anything? No report today. First up is our consent agenda. These are items two through nine on our agenda. All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion. Do any of the council members wish to pull an item from our consent agenda for discussion? Council Member Crohn. Just a comment on item four but I'm not pulling it. Okay. Thank you. I'll wait until after we receive public comment. Anyone else? Is there any member of the public that would like to speak to our consent agenda items? These are items two through nine on our agenda report. Any member of the public may speak. Please step forward and you can speak to our agenda items for the consent. You'll have two minutes. Just step forward to the microphone. I saw one hand at the door. Thank you. If two minutes, please start the timer. Thank you. My name is Becky Steinbrunner-Marisenin of Aptos and I see on your consent agenda that you want to support a motion to approve endorse measure H. That is the ad valorem property tax that would ostensibly help affordable housing. I want to ask that staff delay their endorsement of that measure. I would like to encourage you to investigate the state property tax postponement program that they're first of all a backup. There are no exemptions to this property tax. It is a bond that would place debt burden of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars on the backs of the property owners, many of whom are already struggling to pay their taxes. There are no exemptions. The postponement program offered by the state is very difficult to qualify for. Mobile home owners are not eligible to even apply. This would include many of the seniors and those on fixed incomes who live in mobile home courts. The program was actually suspended by the legislature in 2009 to 2013 and could happen again. So there is no exemption and I think this will place an undue burden on those families who are home owners, property owners, but are barely able to make their taxes now. I will remind you of a historical event, the Great Depression, at which a number of families across the nation lost their homes, their farms, not because and only because they could not pay their property taxes. So please postpone your endorsement of measure H. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other member of the public that would like to speak to our consent agenda item? These are items two through nine. Any member of the public? Are you getting up to speak? Is there any other member of the public that would like to speak to the consent agenda item items? Okay, one more. Okay, please go ahead. Hi, good afternoon, council members. I'm here to speak in favor of measure H. My name is Lizzie Spies and I work for Housing Choices, which is the local nonprofit here serving Santa Cruz County. I work for Housing Choices, a local nonprofit that serves Santa Cruz County individuals and families with developmental disabilities. And in Santa Cruz County in particular, there's a growing need for supportive housing for people with developmental disabilities and I'll speak a little bit about the specific need in our county. Santa Cruz County is home to 1,696 people with developmental disabilities of whom around 938 are adults. And of those adults, 104 live in care facilities and only 240 are able to live on their own while 594 of them are still living at home with aging parents. So there's clearly a need for housing for those individuals who are not able to leave the family home because this is not usually by choice. This is from lack of opportunity of other housing options. And there's also a growing demographic. The number of people with developmental disabilities in Santa Cruz County has actually grown by 38% since January 2008, which is because of the cause of adults approaching their 30s and continuing life spans, growing life spans of people with disabilities as their medical care and social services have improved. So while that is a good thing, it's leading to more of a burden on families as their children are growing older and they're unable to care for them in their older age. Thank you. So I would just ask that you support measure H, which would provide additional supportive housing for people with developmental disabilities. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other member of the public that wishes to speak to the consent agenda item? These are items 2 through 9. See, now I'm going to bring it back to Council. I know Council Member Matthews has made the motion on the consent, but I want to say beforehand, I will not be voting on the minutes for August 28. I wasn't present and I have not yet rehabilitated myself. Okay, Council Member I would like to go ahead and move the complete consent agenda and also just point out that the motion, the proposal to support measure H was not put forward by staff. It was put forth by council members and it reflects this council's commitment to expanding resources for affordable housing. So with that, I'll move the entire consent agenda. Second. Okay, I think I heard Council Member Chase make a second on that and Council Member Crone, you had just a brief comment on item 4 before we do the vote. Yes, Mayor, I think, you know, on your advice, I just wanted to, you know, say that I would like to bring it back or at least not bring it back, but just raise it at tonight because I think it's linked with our library, our item on this evening's agenda. And I just want to point out specifically the proposed amendment updates the maximum funding amounts to be distributed to each jurisdiction based on revenue increase of 25 percent. So Santa Cruz will be getting six and a half million dollars more. This is the county will for library funding. And I just like to make that explicit to folks who are coming tonight. So I'd point that out. Thank you. Okay, we have a motion on the floor from Council Member Matthews seconded by Council Member Chase. All those in favor of the consent agenda items 2-9, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed. That passes unanimously. Council Member Crone. Mayor, point of order. I would like, I wonder, since we have such a big group here, I have several questions on item 10. I don't know if other council members do, but I was wondering if we could move item 12 up and then deal with item 10 later to, you know, I think most people who are here for item 12. I have no objections to that. I'd like to hear from the council if they have any concerns. We're already moving 12 before item 10. Reordering the council agenda. I'd like to know how many people are here for item 10 before we make that decision. No, no, no. I'd like to know how many people are here for item 10 before we make the decision. Item 10 is a second reading. Entity bonuses. Regarding the density bonus item. Right. Okay. So I think that maybe we should just do item 10 before going into 12 and not make two or three people who are here for item 10 wait as we go through. I think you might be here for the next one too. That's wise. Well, you know, I'm, I guess my point, we're going to have a long meeting today. And Council Member Crone, if you want to make a motion, we'll get a motion to place item number 10 immediately following item number 12 in order to accommodate the large group that we have here who want to talk out, talk about item 12. Is there a second? Yeah, I'll second that. Okay. Motion by, by Council Member Crone. Seconded by Council Member Brennan. We'll just speak to the idea of reordering these. Yeah. I would just curious to do feel you had extensive issues on 10. I anticipated as a second reading that would be relatively straightforward. I did. That's why I'm, I'm asking that we maybe do this so we can have time to talk about that and not let people have to sit through it if they don't, you know, not here for that item. Okay. Any further discussion? Cuts both ways. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise it makes a couple of people sit through a very long meeting. Okay. Okay. Let's just call the question. Well, we'll put this to vote. All those in favor of reordering the council agenda item moving 12 before item 10. So we're going to still hear 11 first. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed? No. No. That's no. Council Member Matthews, Council Member Chase, Council Member Naroyan and Vice Mayor Watkins. Those in favor or Council Member Brown, Council Member Crone and myself. So that motion fails. We're going to go right to item 10. So item 10 on the agenda is the consent public hearing. This is item 10, our agenda. Are there any council members who wish to only comment on this item? There any members of the public that would like to request this item be pulled or speak on it now? Now is the time to do so. I'm pulling it for sure. Okay. Council Member Crone is pulling item number 10. Do you have specific questions or are you interested in presentation? Presentation. Okay. Item number 10. And just to let the people in the audience know, it was a four to three vote. I tried to get this item after the one you're waiting for, but we didn't vote for it. So I'm really sorry. Okay. So item number 10, I have Carol Berg providing from the Housing and Community Development as our Housing and Community Development Manager to give a brief presentation, a brief presentation. Carol Berg, Economic Development. And it will be brief because you did have a lengthy presentation and discussion last time. But just as a reminder, the density bonus ordinance is required by the state and most of the language in our ordinance is what the state dictates us to have. We did, the ordinance came before you in October 2017 and you made major amendments to the ordinance to be in compliance with the state. No changes were made that were not dictated by the state at that time. There were two variables or options that were presented to you as recommended changes. And at that time, you wanted more time to consider it. We came back in March and came back again in August where you approved the amendments. And so quickly go through that density bonus ordinance is a way of exchanging, allowing developers to build higher or more units on a site in exchange for providing affordable units. And there are three components to the ordinance. One is the actual density bonus itself where developer can get up to 35% more units that would be allowed by zoning. The other is a concession or incentive which reduces costs necessary to be able to build the affordable units. And then the third is a waiver which removes physical barriers that would that are under the zoning ordinance such as the height of the building or setbacks or something that may preclude the developer from building the density bonus units and the additional units. So those are the basic three components. What the city had proposed was to amend some variations of the ordinance where we had a little bit of flexibility. And one of the options identified or discussed the defined approvals process for just the concessions, just for the financial component. And we had developed a system of three tiers based on the magnitude of changes being requested by the developer. There were some problems with this in that it did not address the waivers at all. It also did not require a public hearing be held for all of the projects that would come through under this. And that was something that was important to the city council. And so we recommended a change in the ordinance that would instead of having a tiered system would the approvals would be based on whatever the approval body would be for the for the planning application which wouldn't force the developer to go to both say the planning commission and the city council on something. So it would just follow the natural path of the scale of the project. The exception is that no project would not be heard without a public hearing which meant the minimum requirement for approvals would be the zoning administrator. So it actually increased the availability of the public to hear a project. And that's a proposed change. The second thing had to deal with the size of the units in the prior ordinance or the existing ordinance we had set a table up saying minimum square footage for such and such unit would be 500 square feet a minimum square footage for a two bedroom unit would be more. And so we set these square footages. And what happened is over time you see there's trends for smaller units for example for studios and our minimum square footage is actually higher than the max the minimum or the average square footage of studios. So we realized that number one the minimum unit sizes may not be consistent with the city goal to encourage smaller units. And number two it would look like we would if we kept this chart in there that we would need to make these changes over time again and again and again. And so the simple solution was to follow the county's lead on this where we're recommending that the inclusionary units be no the minimum size for inclusionary units be 75 percent of the square footage of the average unit size for that same bedroom size. And we had a few other changes that are just consistency with city law or our sorry our city zoning ordinance or again the density bonus ordinance. We had one change in the major stop transit stop definition where we had left off a word or actually added in a word that we needed to take it off. And then we had some references to sections that no longer were required or they didn't exist anymore. And then we eliminated any references to the tiered system. So those are all the changes that are going before you now. It doesn't include any of the changes that you voted for back in October which were dictated by the state. Thank you Ms. Burke. I'd like at this point to let's go to public comment and then bring it back so we can have a couple questions for Ms. Burke. I just want to let her know that I'm particularly interested in the bus route impacts, the proformas, the public hearings and the square 75 percent square footage issues. We went over this last meeting. You can think about that as we went over this last meeting. Thank you. Okay so at this point who would like to speak on this item? I'd like you to come forward so we have three speakers. Candice Brown contacted me in advance of the meeting. She's speaking on behalf of the branch of 40 action committee. And you have four minutes to speak. There you go. Okay. You may begin and start the timer please. And while we have this little brief pause, if you have seats available, we're getting cozy in here so please get in tight and letting one of you standing that like sit next to you move on in. Also if you want to get some fresh air the audio I believe now is on outside. Is that correct? The audio is on outside so you could hear it from the outside if you'd like and come back in at your leisure if you'd like to speak at any point during the meeting. Okay you ready to go? Okay my name is Candice Brown and I apologize I should have put branch of 40 action committee. We have been together for over three years educating ourselves on complex land use and transportation concerns of our community. First note that the Water Street Commons project provides 41 units of affordable housing 100% funded through tax credits and public funding. If the density bonus ordinance is used by private developers the impact is far greater. To get the same amount of affordable housing one would have to build 10 high density buildings of at least five stories to achieve the same as Water Street or five buildings if low income. This ordinance is more about high density market rate housing and very impactful. If you compare the ordinance with the proposed corridor plan that was put on pause one can see that the impacts are far greater. The density is not just in designated for transit corridors but in the neighborhoods heights and waivers make it just as impactful with possibly zero setbacks to residential homes. There's no transitional requirement for setback to residential zones and the transit stop definition change could allow the parking requirement to be a half a parking space per unit. Here's the metro route map on the left and the zoning map on the right. I have seen no map that shows the city white impact of this ordinance. The Santa Rosa white paper reference in my letter to the council carefully shows the map some neighborhoods impacted in Santa Rosa. On the east side from when I can surmise the impact is the greatest as it impacts parts of Grant Street, Market Street, Brant Sephardi water in Soquel of course everything south of Soquel past Broadway and throughout Seabright. And if the routes are cumulatively 15 minutes in frequency it would impact a half mile and either side is zoned for multi-resident zoning. This is primarily on the east side not the west side where the university is. This would especially impact most of the east side below water in Soquel from Brant Sephardi and past Seabright as I mentioned. Does the city have tools to manage these impacts? Yes we do have a choice to manage the parking. The city can use an updated parking study to exercise different parking ratios. This is not just about a state mandate. The Santa Rosa white paper surveys many cities including Santa Cruz I'm still absorbing a very thorough document. It shows the cities are using all means possible to ensure that the laws follow through a clear application process that includes costs in all cases otherwise the state law would be unequally implemented. In the case of Oakland they define additional concessions such as open space and courtyards which is needed for children. They also outline applications that would deny an application that would include the city already meeting regional housing need allocation requirements for affordable housing, land use next to agricultural land, inadequate water or wastewater facilities and inconsistency within the zoning ordinance and general plan land use designation. We have an up-to-date housing element so we can take advantage of these types of measures to guide choices in our community. This is not just about a state mandate. As a city we can guide housing policies more carefully. In the first tier the planning director can approve the exceptions without any reasonable documentation regarding costs. The list in the slide is not just about a few feet here and there but reductions of Austrian parking and housing density bonus percentages and fee waivers. One could have less detailed documentation but there must be some fair measure under which you exercise the state law. This ordinance impacts are many and complex and especially in the vast wide or the tight roadway narrow parcels in the middle of historical neighborhoods. The city council honors as our elected representative officials can use these tools as others have demonstrated in other cities. Ordinance can allow a neighborhood to change into a non-residential purpose and yet the city council can show some constraint. The density bonus ordinance is a sledge hammer to build housing in our community when we need sometimes a surgical tool. The tiers gives a city planning and commission city council some tools to work with. Just want to mention. Thank you, Ms. Brown. And here is the recommendations again. Thank you. 10% instead of 25% for instead on reducing the affordable housing units please. Thank you very much. Next speaker please. Sorry I ran out of time. Thank you Mayor Tarazzo and council members. My name is William Kingsley. I would just like to add one thing that Candace asked me to mention. What's going to happen is we're going to have the community members are going to have fewer opportunities to talk to an elected body regarding any of the designs that are coming up in the future and especially on the east side. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Steinbrunner. Is there any other member of the public that wishes to speak to this item? You'll be our last speaker. Thank you. Becky Steinbrunner is in the Vaptos but I'm following this very same issue as it's coming through the county. I want to point out that a member of your planning commission, Ms. Julie Conway serves as the housing planner for the county of Santa Cruz and I quite personally feel that's a bit of a conflict of interest to have that issue going on. I want to take issue with delayed fee waivers for developers that does not support the infrastructure that is necessary for this kind of housing. What this will allow is essentially worse gridlock with less attention to water to be in place for what is very dense housing and a very large impact on the community and the environment. I take opposition to actually being the developers being given credit for reducing landscaping and green space up to 35% to allow for a coordinated amount of building expansion at a time when your council says you're trying to reduce greenhouse gases and have a positive effect to prevent global warming. Why would you want to reduce green space and open space for the environment for the birds, the natural environment and for global cooling? What this will create is something that was very well documented in a movie called Citizen Jane where the public had no say in what went on and it created a ghetto. We don't want that to happen in Santa Cruz. We don't want it to happen anywhere in our beautiful county but that's what this is and it's being spearheaded by developers whose bottom line is affordability for them, not for the public. I also take issue with that there is no attention to CEQA in this. This is a huge change to our community and yet there's no mention about a CEQA process here to very thoroughly involve the public. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. So you were the last speaker on this item. So is there any other member of the public that wishes to speak to this item? This is number 10, the consent public hearing item. Anyone? Ma'am, if you're going to speak now is the time. Ma'am, you have a go ahead. Well, did you raise your hand to speak? Yeah, please. I don't know if you're talking to me. Okay, I want to let you know that I'm very against removing the tears because it's the only form of protection. This is sort of an end run around the Carter plan with a lot less protection. Neighborhoods like mine will be decimated if this goes through to full capacity. It will just be destroyed in Central Park. I think it is critical that you define criteria for approval and denial. You need to define the application process, have a pro forma in all cases. Why should a developer get a bonus if there's no need financially? I mean, that's crazy. I think there needs to be a concession review meeting with tradeoff guidance by staff. I think there needs to be a parking study to see if this is having an impact on the city regarding the parking ratios. There needs to be affordable housing required for 90% of the average market rate of housing. This shouldn't be done for market rate housing. It should be selective for affordable housing. The tiers need to stay because we need neighborhood protection. What kind of city do you want to have? Do you want to just have big giant faceless buildings with no open space? For the most part, it won't help families. So I'm really imploring upon you to really analyze this. I feel it's been really pushed through. Public doesn't really know what's happening. It's really not been, it's very complicated. There's really not been any public input or opportunity for neighborhoods and people to understand what this does. And it's very draconian and not fair. Also, I want to point out that it overwhelmingly impacts certain areas and others not at all. I mean, if you want to do fair, then put it in the west side too because it's all on the east side. Thank you. Third, before you begin, there's chairs that are outside. Any member of the public that would like to wait outside? There's audio. Kind of free up some space. Don't see anyone moving, but there are chairs out there. And sir, are you waiting to speak to this item? Yes. Number 10, you will be our last speaker. Okay. Please go ahead. I'll be very quick. I support this proposal. I feel that we've done a poor job over the last 40 years of providing meaningful amounts of affordable housing. I think we should advocate for deed restricted means tested units in any development we can get them. And I'd just like to point out as a clarification that Santa Rosa proposal, it also discusses a supplemental bonus density ordinance that many communities are considering. But theirs actually anticipates considering density bonuses of 60, 80, and 100%. Just some information. Thank you, sir. Sir, you are our last speaker and then we'll bring it back to council for action. All right. Thank you for letting me speak. My name is Fred Antacchi. I'm a commercial broker here in Santa Cruz County. I've been here for about 25 years. And I wanted to speak to the idea that I think what you're facing is some really difficult things. And this ties into the next, the general item 12, I think in the sense that we need affordable housing. And it's not going to get built the way things are going. I understand that, you know, my estimation, one of the big problems is traffic. So we're not talking about that right now. That has to be dealt with. I understand why we don't want more gridlock. But I think if the council just, you know, says no, we're not going to have any change, that's, it's going to take political strength to find solutions to deal with all the problems we have. We do need more housing. If we don't have more housing, we're never going to solve these issues. And I believe personally that we need to create more dedicated affordable housing, you know, measure J type of units. But I think in terms of, if you make it harder for developers and you throw up all these roadblocks, I get we all want open space. I reminded of that bumper sticker of U.S. out in North America. You know, we all, we all want open space. We don't want change in that sense. But we need, if we want to have affordable housing, we're going to need to do something. And I think these density bonuses are one way to do that if they're done right. So thank you. Thank you. Okay, now bring it back to council for deliberation and action. Council Member Cron. Mr. Mayor, again, I'll try this again. I'll move that we, now the public hearing has been closed, that we move to item number 12 and come back, because I have a couple of questions, I have some questions and amendments to make. And I think that most of the folks here are here for number 12. And I'll just move that we go to item 12 after we've closed the public hearing, because I know Council Member Naroyan was worried about folks who might have to wait here. They've given their testimony now. And I'm just wondering if we can come back to this after item 12. Let me ask the city attorney, didn't we just took, we took action about reordering the item to move forward. I mean, I think that's been asked and answered. I believe the appropriate motion would be a motion for reconsideration of the prior action. A motion to reconsideration for prior action. Is there a second? Second. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed? No. No. Okay, motion fails with Council Member Crohn voting yes, Council Member Brown voting yes, Council Member Naroyan, Vice Mayor Watkins, Council Member Matthews, Council Member Chase, and myself voting against the motion. Okay, we have a second reading. Is there any further action? I have questions. And questions for? Council Member Crohn. I said Council Member Crohn. Could I, Carol, could you come back up for a second? I know I sent you the Santa Rosa, and we just heard two different versions of that. Did you get a chance to look at that at all? No, I haven't, but I want to say that we have Gullfarve Lipman working on this with us, and they are in the forefront of density bonus ordinances, and we ask them, you know, what we can explore, not explore, and in terms of limiting things more, there's not much that can be done. She's a staff. Thank you. Could you put up the photo of the transit stops in the city clerk? Question? You know, why don't we do this just for the sake of time? If you have the series of questions, we can ask them, and then you could answer them all at the same, you know, at once, Ms. Burke. Member the public said that the density bonus ordinance is being used as a sledge hammer against neighborhoods. Could, how would you respond to that? The density bonus ordinance overrides city zoning, and in that way, it's a very strong ordinance, but it is dictated to us by the state, and so we don't have an option. And that it's overwhelmingly impacts some neighborhoods and not other neighborhoods. I can't answer that. And looking at this map, could you talk a little bit about the transit stops and where is this density bonus affects, you know, the city, you know, in the city? How does the density bonus going to affect around these transit? Because you have a 10.3, the major transit stop is an existing site or site included in the regional transportation plan that contains a rail station, a ferry terminal served by either bus or rail. How is this going to affect Santa Cruz neighborhoods? I'd like to ask the planning director who stepped up maybe to kind of direct this, but some of these questions are not necessarily directly related to the ordinance, and they're more perspective on, you know, what the opinion is. And I imagine everybody in this room has a different opinion on this, but if you could maybe ask related to the ordinance, that would be appreciated. So I'll just comment on that. We've out there at the planning. Excuse me, impacts outlined with the maps and a half mile radius impact within Santa Cruz where the high density housing could be built and where that qualifies within 0.5 parking spaces per bedroom. Right. And so that is the distinction. If you're in proximity within a half mile of the transit as defined by the state law and as modified in our ordinance to be consistent with state law, then you would qualify for the lower impact, excuse me, for the lower parking ratios. You say, you know, it's going to impact one area versus another, or excuse me, the public commented that that's the case. And really, you know, this has brought applicability throughout the city with the exception of that transit locations can have the lower parking ratios within half mile. If you look and you actually extrapolate a half mile out from this map, assuming this map is right, I don't know where this map has come from, but you apply a half mile radius around there. And most of the city will have a location within that proximity, assuming this map is correct. There will be some areas that don't have that same level, but certainly the state law, as Carol explained, the state law does supersede the city's requirements and we're aiming to be consistent with that. And I'd like to point out that, I mean, that map is showing, I assume, every bus stop or something, but you have to have 15-minute intervals. And it's quite hard to reach that. I did an analysis for the Water Street Project of the intersection of Ocean and Water Street, and it was able to attain that 15-minute interval only by the multiple numbers of buses that go through that intersection. There are very few places in the city that have that many buses passing through an intersection with that interval rate. Currently, but we envision more buses as time goes on, too. That would be nice, but... Okay, do you have any further questions, Council Member Cron? That there's fewer community members talking to elected body and you think you might have said, is that direction that you receive from Council? So the ordinance, as amended before you, would eliminate the tier system that requires certain requests for concessions to go to either the Planning Commission or Council elected bodies. Now, in many cases, the applications themselves, as we discussed two weeks ago, the applications themselves will dictate that they have to go to the Planning Commission and the City Council. For example, any... Excuse me. Ma'am, you in the back with a sign, would you please keep that lower than your shoulders so that people behind you can see? Thank you. Okay. For example, any application that includes a subdivision of five or more parcels, so if they're creating five or more condominium units or townhouse units, for example, that would automatically go to the City Council. And so there are already provisions in place. What this does is it would revert back to whatever that application requirement is except, so if that application is required to go to the zoning administrator, that's where it would go. The Planning Commission, that's where it would go. The City Council, that's where it would go. The only exception is that if it does not require a public hearing, then under the proposed language, any proposal seeking to use the Density Bonus would require a public hearing. So in that sense, as Carol mentioned, it does actually expand the ability for the community input at a public hearing process. The same thing goes for Carol mentioned at the beginning, the difference between concessions and waivers. And right now waivers are not required. They're not included in the tier system at all. And so regardless of what waiver was being requested, it wouldn't necessarily trigger a public hearing under the current rules. In the proposed ordinance, as discussed two weeks ago, those waivers would also trigger a public hearing at minimum in front of the zoning administrator. And member of the public said that tiers were just getting rid of, eliminating the tier system as an end around the corridor plan. Could you speak to that? No, it's not. It's required by state law. The tier system, our proposed changes for the tier system are actually to improve a situation where you slowly, over time, develop ordinances that are better, and this is actually proposing a better way of developing it. Okay, do you have any further questions? Council Member Brown. And again, I made a request, ma'am. This is a second warning. Keep the signs below your shoulders, please. Thank you. Go ahead. I'm actually going to just differ on the question. I have a related comment. It's a question I asked at the last hearing, and I don't believe I'll get any different of an answer now. So I'll just wait and make my comment when we don't break. I have a quick question. And before we get, what's the notification? So if a transit agency is looking at increasing their frequency of service and it impacts our local planning rules, how does that notification process work for homeowners in the area? I know that the Metro does outreach when they're doing major transit changes. To the extent that minor ones are updated with the community, I don't know that specific response. Certainly, they have the ability to change some of those, and the corridors are areas where those changes could occur, but those changes are more likely to occur because there's already bus service there. And those are areas where you're already likely to have that 15-minute cumulative headway. So for consistency with state law, we would have to adhere to any of those new changes. So if it has 20-minute headways now, for example, three buses per hour, but they change it to four buses per hour at 15 minutes, then that area would then qualify for the reduced parking ratios that Council Member Cron was referencing. I guess I would ask for whatever action we take that we give some notice to Metro that they let us know what their notification process is so that we are aware of that and that the members of the public that live near these transit stops are notified with any potential changes that take place so that they can be engaged and go to a hearing if there is something that's being proposed through that body. Council Member Matthews. On that point specifically, Council Member Chase and I sit on the Metro Board and I can disabuse every one of the idea that Metro has lots of money to add, routes and headways. There is an ongoing process, eternal, in trying to balance the budget with the frequency of routes and the coverage and so forth. And whenever Metro undertakes, anticipates or considers those changes, there's very broad notification. I think it's fine to get information on their process but it's always quite deep to both the users and the public in general. So we can find out about that. Having said all that, I will go ahead and move the motion to approve the second reading specifically because it's really a small adjustment to existing state law. I think it does give in fact greater access to the public to comment at a public hearing on proposed project. And specifically, we have very few tools really to increase the supply of affordable housing, the affordability of housing in this community. Measure H which we talked about earlier is one among a few and this I see as one more tool. For those reasons, I do move the second reading. Second. Motion by Council Member Matthew. Second by Council Member Naroyan. And I'd also like to ask that there be some sort of written correspondence that goes to Metro to get the response on how we do that. Include that in the motion that we request from Metro a description of their notification process when route changes are anticipated, considered or anticipated. Council Member Naroyan. And these route changes won't be relevant though until there's actually somebody proposing a development. And then at that point, if I'm correct, the whole public process for that one development would still kick in. People would still be able to make comments and we would still have to analyze whether or not the 15 minute headways even apply, correct? That's correct. It would only have implications if a development proposal were coming forward and it were proposing those reduced parking ratios. And in many instances, developers may not want to go as low as the state density bonus allows just for marketing purposes. Thank you. Okay, thanks. We have a motion and second on the floor for the discussion. Council Member Cron. Could you put that bus map up again? My hope is that we actually do have, you know, shorter headways and many more, you know, ways of getting around town, be they bus or otherwise that are on those same routes. I would just make a friendly amendment, but if it's not, I'll make it into a motion that we defer any changes on the tiers until the bus route impacts are outlined with maps and the half mile radius impact throughout Santa Cruz where the high density housing could be built with .5 parking spaces per bedroom. That's not acceptable as a friendly amendment. I am happy to request that as information. Understanding that ordinances can always be modified as experienced dictates. I'll go ahead and move that then. Council Member Cron moved an amendment to the motion. I'll second it. I appreciate the request, the opportunity to get more information and I hope that that happens, but I think that we should actually resolve that before we make this decision. I'll be seconded by Council Member Brown. Any further discussion? All those in favor of the amendment, please say aye. Aye. Okay. Those opposed? No. Okay, that motion fails with Council Member Cron and Council Member Brown voting in favor and Council Member Narroian, Vice Mayor Watkins, Council Member Mathews, Council Member Chase myself opposing. Council Member Mathews. I will add though an amendment that we request information on the current bus routes that would affect the City of Santa Cruz and the map of their impact throughout the city. Thank you. Okay, Council Member Brown. Well, I'll attempt to make a friendly amendment. I doubt that will be the case. So I'll just move it. That we not allow these projects to move forward without proformas. I am just going to say that I believe that any waiver, any concession that we grant is related to the financial interest of the developer. And so as a result, and I just can't see any scenario under which that is not the case. And I believe that it's in the interest of the public to have that information provided to the city when we make these decisions. Second. Okay, Motion by Council Member Brown. Second by Council Member Cron. City Attorney Cundone. Was to amend the motion that's on the floor. That's correct. All those in, are there any further discussion? All those in favor. I actually do have a question. I'd like some comment from staff on the relative impact of this on it's going to be ballpark from your point of view. So right now. Any of this would impact? Sure. The timing, et cetera, et cetera. So right now the ordinance currently does not require proformas for tier one concession requests. And that is essentially not being modified. Are there any modifications to that? No, that's not being modified. And everything else would require a performer that's a concession. But it'd be difficult to require a performer for a waiver when the basis of a waiver is a physical limitation. And the state density bonus law doesn't allow you or doesn't speak to that. And I'd be surprised if it would allow us to require proformas or proof of that. They only need to prove that there's a physical barrier. So that's the distinction. Waivers or the physical barrier and the concessions are the monetary one. And there isn't a proposal right now to modify what would or would not require a proforma. That's already specified in the code. Anything that currently qualifies as tier one does not require a proforma. And those would stay in the same grouping. They're just no longer classified as tier one. So those are the in general 20% less modifications. So if you've got to set back and you want to modify it by 20% or less. Answer your question. Would you be open would you be open to like making requests for further information regarding the status? Absolutely, I do see the issues. And I think I will then add to my original motion that we get further request on the details of how proformas currently are and are not required and how they may or may not be expanded. Okay. So I know we have the motion for the amended first. Council Member Matthews incorporated, you know, that reference not entirely exactly what you addressed. Do you still want to maintain your motion on the floor? I think it depends on the how the request will be handled. Well, in what form will we get that information? At what point and how will it come back before us to make a decision? I'll ask the city planning director. So we could bring that back in one or two, one of a couple of ways. It could be an informational memo or it could be an actual discussion item. I know there has been recent case law as well affecting the city's ability to require proformas and so we can provide a more current update on that information as well. Council Member Brown. So if it were to come back as a discussion item, I'd be willing to That's fine. Okay. So incorporate that into the motion. So you're withdrawing your motion. I've incorporated. Which has been incorporated into the motion by Council Member Matthews. So we'll go back to that main motion. Do you, does anyone need to have that restated? Is the motion still on the floor of the amendment? No, that was just withdrawn by Council Member Brown. I have another amendment to the main motion. Okay. And this is maybe of interest and I'm again sorry about folks having to sit here, but I tried to get this move to the next item but didn't get the votes to. There's and correct me if I'm wrong Lee in the on on page 10.6 it's basically saying if there's inclusionary units that the inclusionary units could be 75% of the total size of the other for market rate units. Is that what that's saying? That's correct of the same bedroom count. So if one bedrooms were 400 or let's say 800 square feet then the one bedroom inclusionary units could be 600 square feet. So I'm going to make a motion to change the 75%. Excuse me make an amended motion amended motion to change the 75% size for for affordable housing units compared to market rate units to 90% instead of 75%. Second. There's a motion by Council Member Crohn second by Council Member Brown. Is there any discussion on this item? Council Member Chase. Could you just remind us where the 75% came from? The original the minimum size was set in the prior ordinance by square footage and so that was too rigid and and sometimes exceeded what the average unit of that category would be over time and so we proposed it be proportional and we were basically following the county's lead on that which is 75%. Council Member Matt there's a motion and on the floor not accepted we can vote. Yeah so there's a motion on the floor for amended motion and did you second that Council Member Brown second by Council Member Brown any further discussion on this? Again I mean I think these are things that as we continue to look at this process I'm open to like hearing how this impacts just like we've talked about them notice to Metro and the prior on its face mirror it makes the inclusionary units second-class citizens why not make it much larger? So I'm just we have an amended motion and a second let's just say all those in favor of the amended motion please say aye. Aye. Those opposed? No. Okay that motion fails with Council Member Crone, Council Member Brown voting in favor, Council Member Naroyan, Vice Mayor Watkins, Council Member Matthews, and Council Member Chase and myself opposing. So we're back to the main motion and let's eliminate our discussion of that so we have a motion by Council Member Matthews, second by Council Member Naroyan, Council Member Brown. There are many things that I could say but I'm going to hold back here because I think I know where this vote is going and I'm sorry that I'm not going to be able to support the motion. I appreciate the willingness to address some of these issues that have been raised. I'm going to highlight one reason that I'm unable to support this motion because as I stated at the last Council meeting this these changes that we're making are related to where the state is silent on the law and we have some opportunities here and I hope that they will be considered in the future as many have mentioned this is a work in progress or process so hopefully we'll come back with something that is more amenable to my interests and I think many in the interest of many in the public here I'm unable to support it because we have an opportunity here to require additional affordability not just assume additional affordability with density but require it and we're not doing that and so for that reason I'll be voting no. Thank you. So any further discussion Council Member Naroyan. But then there's realism in what we can get and what we can do and we need to overlay that idealism with realism and you know the affordable units might be less square feet but we can build more of them and that's what I'm interested in I want the person who checks me into my doctor's appointment to be able to have a place to live and if it's 200 square feet less than somebody who could maybe afford a market rate place I'm okay with that because that person will have a place to live and they're not driving from Trondale to come to their job. Okay there's a motion on the floor and a second Council Member Crohn. You know Mr. Mayor it becomes you know it doesn't pencil out that's what we hear from developers all the time and no I don't think people should be placed in units that are our second class within the same the same development and I think that we should be out there finding uh non-profit developers who are going to build units in our town and that that's to me that's what's not happening so we are creating a a bonus density you know under pressure from the state as well but I don't think we're we're using all of the stops that we could as a city to demand more uh inclusionary units from from developers so I will also be voting no on on this item. Okay Vice Mayor Watkins. I just have a brief comment I know that this has come back to us I think now for almost a year I'd say and I think you know one of the things that I said at our last meeting which is how can we be in action knowing that we have opportunity for improvement along the way and I appreciate the concessions made in the discussion today knowing that we will be able to revisit and fine-tune it but in seek of perfection to stop progress for me um it it's it slows what we can ultimately accomplish and I think this is a step in the right direction and for those reasons I will support it as well. I'm sorry what concessions were made today what was changed in this in this um ordinance? Maybe it's not concessions but just incorporations into future understanding to better and modify and learn and continuous improvement and so report backs and and updates and revisiting so that we have progress and opportunity to revisit to even have continual progress in the future. I appreciate the robust discussion we've had I know I think at the first time this was heard it was an hour and a half discussion and I know that there'll be future discussions about this moving forward I think that you will hear this in the future we have a motion on the floor by council member Matthews seconded by council member Neuroian all those in favor please say aye those opposed please say no okay so council member um Matthews council member chase council member Neuroian vice mayor Watkins myself voting in favor of the second reading council member brown and council member corona post um before well I'll give you let you know the next item on the agenda is item 11 that's the cannabis ordinance updates if you're here for that item it's been continued to the september 25th 2018 meeting we made that announcement at the outset so come back on september 25th if you're here for that I'd also before we get to item 12 which I think many of you are here for I'd like to remind everyone that we have speakers outside so that you can hear the meeting from there out in the fresh air you can also sit in some of the chairs that have been set up and you will not be precluded from speaking it's just a place if you want to have some space out there to free up room here in the chambers during the deliberations so at this point I'd like to move on to the item number 12 this is the relocation assistance for D displaced tenants ordinance amendment and update there were and I'll turn it over to Scott Harriman and lee butler for their presentation thank you mayor trazos and council members lee butler and planning director and this is an item that is a follow-up to some of the housing blueprint subcommittees work the council will recall that last year we had a substantial amount of community outreach surrounding how we can support housing and address the housing crisis in our community and and that resulted in a report that really had a three-pronged approach the first was housing protection the second was housing production and the third was community vitality and this proposed ordinance amendment falls in that third category the community vitality section of the recommendations and our housing blueprint subcommittee had recommendations that were endorsed by the full council on june 12th earlier this year that included a provision to pursue an ordinance amendment the ordinance amendment that's before you today you'll recall that back in february the council adopted the interim rent freeze and interim tenant protection ordinances and of course we've got measure m on the ballot in november that offers up a separate rent control and just cause eviction set of criteria um as part of the housing blueprint subcommittee discussions the uh the committee and ultimately the council wanted to ensure that should that measure path or shoot excuse me should that measure fail that additional protections would be in place for those tenants and this is one of those uh potential measures that can protect tenants and promote that community vitality so i will turn it over to scott haremann and sarah flaming for the details of the ordinance thank you mr butler um mayor trossison members of the city council thank you very much my name is scott haremann with the city planning department the item before you this afternoon is proposed amendments to an existing chapter 23 excuse me 21.03 relocation assistance for displaced tenants i will note that the this these amendments will only take effective measure and the rent control ballot initiatives fails this ordinance defines what a large rent increase is and it establishes the amount and the timeline for landlords to pay relocation assistance to tenants this is not a rent control initiative uh this uh these revisions do not set limits on the amount a property owner may raise rent it simply states that if you raise rents more than a certain threshold in a one or two year period you would be obligated to pay relocation assistance to that tenant who relocates due to the large rent increase in summary the proposed amendments uh provides provisions to require relocation assistance in cases where the large rent increase is proposed that uh exceed these thresholds of 10 percent and 15.5 percent in two consecutive years the ordinance also establishes the amount of the actual the amount of the relocation assistance which is established as two months of the actual pre-increase monthly rent it also provides that the tenant would be eligible to receive this relocation assistance 60 days following the start of the large rent increase and when they state their intention to vacate to be eligible for the relocation assistance by way of an example of the large rent increase we looked at rent increases of 10 and 5 percent which would be within the framework that would not be subject to providing relocation assistance when we looked at that it was determined that um that a 5 percent and 10 percent uh back-to-back uh increases would trigger would result in a 15.5 percent uh total rent increase over a two-year period and therefore the proposal before you is 15.5 percent and we wanted to add the compound interest in that rent calculation so that people with good intentions to be within this don't get caught up by a simple math equation including compound interest so that's a chart showing the proposed rent increases at 5 and 10 percent I would point out that that landlords or tenant property owners still need to be mindful of their annual rent increases because two consecutive annual rent increases of 7.5 percent would in fact be in excess of the 15.5 percent they would be 15.56 percent which would then obligate the property owner to pay the relocation assistance so I just wanted to be clear about that as directed by city council and as a standard practice for the department we proceeded with a community outreach and as part of that process we initiated a focus group outreach so we reached out to the websites of the various organizations that are on various sides of the issue we communicated with the Santa Cruz Together Group and the California Apartment Association on July 8th the city staff met with this group we also reached out to the Movement for Housing Justice who are the proponents of the Measure M they declined to meet with us instead we're focusing all of their efforts on making their efforts on passage of Measure M excuse me the we also following those focus groups and taking the information that we see from that focus group outreach we had a community meeting on July 17th and at that community meeting we had a number of topics that were discussed the the cannabis ordinance update the ADU legalization update the community outreach policy and then the what was at the time considered exorbitant rent increase proposal at the the result of the community outreach meeting was that the terms exorbitant in inordinate were felt to be subjective and judgmental and may not reflect the actual rent that the tenant is paying or the proposed rent increase so with that we used we changed the words from exorbitant inordinate and simply call it large rent increase ordinance at that community meeting there was also some confusion expressed some of the confusion was the feeling that the city had authored the Measure M which isn't the case but there was general support for the proposed approach that was identified in the housing blueprint which is basically the item before you today we've also received numerous correspondence and some very thoughtful correspondence we had a suggestion for an appeals process we evaluated that however there's really nothing to appeal because the property owner can raise the rent any amount they desire they're simply obligated to pay relocation assistance if it exceeds the thresholds proposed there was also a suggestion to clarify who what tenants would be authorized to receive this relocation assistance also there the ordinance itself the the existing ordinance and the proposed amendments state basically that the the property owner and the tenants have to agree who the tenants are as part of the basic premise of the ordinance so that's not also an amendment that we're suggesting so with those changes staff is recommending first that this draft ordinance amendments is based on direction received from city council reflects input from a community wide outreach effort and would only take effect if Measure M fails this November therefore staff is recommending that the city council approve these amendments to chapter 21.03 relocation assistance for displaced tenants that concludes my prepared remarks and I'm available for questions thank you I know we have four groups that requested four minutes each and then we'll have public testimony let me ask who from this group wishes to speak to this item individually not in your group capacity if I could get a hand count individual capacity I'm gonna say I've allowed for the group four minutes each and I'm gonna say one point one and a half minutes for individuals speaking on this item there are yeah five groups I have the students united with renters Zav Hirschfield who's requested to speak in advance okay well why don't you step up and then also I had Robert Singleton from the Santa Cruz business council I also I'm gonna ask you this you know this is a time where everybody's respectful of everyone's voices and I ask that you please you know keep your own inner voices internal you know if you got a problem with what's being you know said just you know hold it to the end where everybody has a chance to speak that's what this is about it's not about having you voice out if you don't like what you're hearing because we'll all have a chance to speak and I really would very much appreciate you follow that guidance um we also have Cynthia Berger Cynthia Berger and you're speaking on behalf of that as soon as okay if you could step up just we're all here um also I have um Lynn Renshaw from Santa Cruz together and Nora Hawkman Nora you and again the name of the the organization movement okay okay just want to make sure okay so it's what is Robert Singleton he is representing the business council Santa Cruz business council Mr. Mayer process question do we usually have questions from the council then we go to the public I was gonna well this is I have just two questions for us staff I was hoping that we could go through and hear from the public testimony because like the last one and you mentioned the timing I'd like to just have that so we can get those questions answered I'd like to hear from the public because it also inform maybe questions that we might have even afterwards so if you can hold off on those two questions until afterwards one is for the city attorney and the other one is to staff uh I mean one is why are we doing this before um November 6th once you ask these two questions first do you like to do that I was just wondering why is staff bringing this to us before November 6th and because um there is going to be a vote uh and this would appear in some people's uh points of view that this would undermine the uh the will of the people on November 6th and then and then what is your second question my second question is uh to the city attorney for him to make a clarification there's been some uh folks wondering like why did council member Matthews myself step down previously why are we voting on this one I just want to make that really crystal clear in people's minds why don't I take why don't you take that one first uh city attorney kandadi yes thank you um I have received that question by a couple of different sources in the past several days so I think it does um it is appropriate to address that at the outset you might recall that when the council was considering the uh rent freeze just caused eviction ordinances last year we sought some advice from the fppc as to whether council members who owned rental properties uh would be considered to have a conflict of interest or due to a financial interest in the outcome of decisions relating to those ordinances and the fppc came back and said to the extent that a city council member owns rental properties that would be covered by rent control the council member that the ordinance would have a foreseeable financial impact on those council members and and so therefore they have a conflict of interest and what's more because the rent control ordinance would only apply to about 23 percent of the housing units in the city of Santa Cruz the public generally exception does not apply um were the ordinance to apply to all residential rentals in the city which are more than 50 percent of the of the residences in the city of Santa Cruz then under state law even if a council member has a financial financial interest in the outcome of the decision um then the interest is presumed to be or the impact of the decision is presumed to be the same on the council member as it is on a significant segment of the community and therefore the public generally exception applies and I've looked at this ordinance which would first only go into effect if measure M fails at the ballot box in November and it would also apply to all residential rentals in the city of Santa Cruz and so therefore under that same analysis the public generally exception applies and so all seven council members in my opinion are qualified to participate in the decision thank you does that answer your question the second question yeah okay I'd like to turn it over to the planning director for the first question that council member crone had thank you mayor trust us and council members this was specifically direction from the council upon recommendation from the housing blueprint subcommittee to bring this back in advance of the measure and the discussion around that was that if measure M happens to fail that what would the backstop be and this is one tool to provide some level of protections for tenants should that measure fail and as the council knows there are timing criteria associated with ordinances and so there is a first reading and a second reading at another meeting and then the ordinance actually takes effect 30 days following that second reading and so in order to have the ordinance give the ordinance the ability to take effect in advance of knowing the outcome of measure M the council direction on June 12th was to bring it back this month we do have a little bit of flexibility in terms of when this would take effect and when we'll know the ultimate outcome of measure M but the direction from council was to come back early enough that there could be no gap between the measure M should it fail and these protections being in place thank you can answer your question just wondering if from the housing blueprint subcommittee members present it was that does that feel like that was what you hoped would happen this was a sort of a safety net in case that measure M didn't do well or failed at the ballot box and the members of the housing blueprint committee or council member brown vice mayor Watkins and council member chase and so won't you as a round or Watkins can weigh into yeah so when we brought this recommendation forward we really were trying to prepare for a potential gap should the measure not pass so that was really our focus and thus the timing of it sorry I was the housing blueprint subcommittee bring this forward to staff to draft something looking at maybe they were as a safety net feature should measure M fail at the ballot box forgive me if I'm repetitive it sounds like council member chase answered the question but if these points weren't there I just want to make those clear my yes in fact we we did and it was part of the 42 recommendations that we brought forward I do not recall at the time of our discussions suggesting that we were we weren't explicit about the return date so you know I think that that was that's a little bit confusing for some people and myself included so so we didn't have a firm line about when that would come back to us but we did want to make sure that there was something that we were doing something to be potentially put in place should measure M not pass thank you that's your question okay at this point I I've asked up those people that requested time in advance organizations and I'm going to have them begin and then again I mentioned to the clerk each of the they'll have four minutes as groups and then because of the number of people we're going to keep it at 1.5 for individual speakers so I'd like to invite you up if you could restate your name but you're from the students united with renters julian perino stole would you say it in the mic just we have it yes uh julian perino stole hello council thank you for giving us this time to speak i'm julian perino stole and today i'm speaking on behalf of students united with renters i'm a fourth year ucsc student and a renter in the city additionally i'm co-chair of the democratic socialist of america santa cruise we want we want to staunchly and unequivocally state that we oppose the ordinance proposed today we oppose it on the grounds that it is deeply flawed and insufficient policy undemocratic local decision-making and that it is little more than a political maneuver to undermine the grassroots campaign for measure m as a policy which claims to assist tenants in its title we instead find that it is a broken and toothless completely mismatched to the needs of our community and indeed actually harmful to tenants this policy defines a large rent increase as more than 10 in one year or cumulatively more than 15.5 percent in any two consecutive years let's be clear this is an unacceptable upper limit which authorizes massive rent increases a 15 percent increase on rent is the sort of thing that makes people move out of this city it's the sort of thing that makes people organize grassroots rent control campaigns for many of us 15 percent is textbooks 15 percent is gas money 15 percent is groceries 15 percent is diapers this does nothing to slow the average rate of rent increase in the city it's rent control without the control just rent and more and more of it meanwhile just cause protections and a rent board which were placed with great care deliberation and necessity into the language of measure n or measure m are totally absent in this ordinance it's almost not without it's almost not worth speaking about the previous provisions of this ordinance because without just cause they are virtually unenforceable it's like having a big bold nevermind attached to the end of it and without just cause it'll actually incentivize mass evictions of tenants so that landlords can raise rent to market rate once private previous tenants have been priced out for renters for students for the poor and working class the rent hikes allowable under this ordinance amount to two things too expensive and too extreme pause the time please pause pause the time please pause the time please pause the time again if we can just hold your applause and clapping just so we can go through this i appreciate it thank you the result is essentially no rent control no protections and no representation it just doesn't work further we believe the consideration of this ordinance at this point in time is undemocratic in that it takes decision making power away from voters from tenants and from students by placing that power in the hands of city bureaucracy it is a way of saying that the 11 000 people who signed on to put measure m on the ballot should not have their full voice heard lastly we believe this ordinance is highly suspect as a tactic used in cities throughout california by the well funded corporate real estate and landlord lobby to undermine grassroots campaigns for rent control such as yes on measure m we've seen it in alameda we've seen it in mountain view we've seen it recently in sacramento and now we're seeing it in sanacruz why is it that just now such ideas are being considered after years of crisis after dozens of events laying out in minute detail the severity of this crisis after years of city council meetings years of discussions years of tenants pleading for help why is it that now we're going to stop sitting on our hands and start doing something about the housing crisis in the middle of a contentious election season in which voters will decide on rent control the answer is clear to take the wind out of measure m sales for those of us or for those who oppose measure m but who claim to believe in rent control this ordinance proves that the emperor has no clothes don't force this thing through thank you okay thank you sir next speaker so we have the next speaker it's robert singleton from the sanacruz business council you all have four minutes thank you good afternoon mayor council members my name is robert singleton and i'm the executive director of the sanacruz county business council the consortium the 80 largest employers in the county whose purpose is to advocate for community and economic vitality throughout the region over the past four or five years the bar now most important issue affecting local businesses has been housing specifically housing for our employees as we all know sanacruz like much of the state of california is in the midst of the worst housing crisis we've ever faced sanacruz regularly ranks in the top five least affordable areas in the entire country and as a result this has made it extraordinarily difficult to attract and retain talented employees and even more so service workers who cannot afford to live in the same community in which they work beyond the economic pitfalls of not building enough housing the lack of available housing has rippling effects across our entire community hurting not only our employees but their families as well as such many people are faced with the prospect that their children may not be able to live in sanacruz given this tremendous shortfall the business community has been adamant about supporting the development of more housing of all types because we are so far behind in the creation of new units we've also been working with local elected leaders and staff from across the county to advocate for policies that facilitate more development and specifically more affordable housing policies like enhanced density bonuses that provide incremental incentives to developers who want to build more than what is required for them of affordable housing waiving parking requirements in favor of more units and supporting the creation of additional funding sources to help bridge the financing gap to provide more public support for affordable housing measure h taken together we are fully committed to exploring new ideas and the compromises to achieve what we believe is in the collective self-interest of all of sanacruz however it is also for these reasons that we do not support measure m and that our board of directors voted unanimously to oppose it put simply we believe policies like measure m while well intentioned would actually harm the development of rental housing and ultimately lead to the decrease in the available rental stock within the city while some renters may benefit from the increased protections it would be detrimental to far more renters who would be inadvertently harmed it is because of these circumstances that we also voted in principle to support this alternative policy that is before you today this policy would create a financial disincentive to raise rents beyond a specific threshold while still establishing some rental protections adequate relocation fees and ample notice will provide renters with flexibility while preserving the same homeowner flexibility for extenuating circumstances like medical emergency within the family or an unplanned repair to a unit furthermore should the council choose to partner with a non-profit for tenant landlord mediation services this would go a long way towards empowering renters with great information about the rights that they already have with my remaining time I'll happily tell you a story about how this very service could have been could have helped me when I was removed from my own home about four years ago here in sanacruz and became homeless as a result because of the rental inspection ordinance a unit I was living in was deemed not safe or hospitable and I was given notice in order to leave I was not aware at the time that under city code that I was supposed to be entitled to relocation assistance and I didn't feel I had an avenue to go to and I didn't have the education or a mediation service or anything to go seek out in order to understand what my options were as a tenant or if I was being taken advantage of I think having some service like this having some city funds towards making sure that tenants know that there's a go-to place they can go to to assess their unique situation and understand what options might be available to them whether it's relocation assistance or other factors that might factor into their housing situation it might have helped me in my situation and it certainly will help other tenants moving forward and I think it's a really wonderful proactive step that I think you should all take and so we support the ordinance in principle and we hope you'll go a long way towards moving forward thank you thank you okay again let's let's hold all the okay next speaker please and miss burger you are speaking on behalf of the sanacruz tenants association correct correct okay thank you for this opportunity to speak for a few minutes the time for measured and incremental action is far from over it's it's far over or beyond that the time for measured incremental changes about this housing crisis it's that the renters are bearing the brunt of is a very um long past the time is now for action that can actually have some real effect to stabilize folks in their housing in sanacruz if you're going to pass a law you know it's time for you to pass measure m so that's something that you could do it would save a lot of time and money many millions of dollars for renters in fact the city does have a relocation law and I I believe that this is going to add to the current law or replace the current law one or the other but I must say when you try to control rents it really it's just useless because anyone can be evicted at any time and the only reason at this point in time they can't is because you have just cause for eviction an emergency temporary ordinance it was an emergency because we are having an emergency and that's why you took the unprecedented act of voting to make it not just a temporary ordinance but an emergency temporary ordinance because you were trying to protect renters I assume from being evicted which is what would have happened if you had made it simply a temporary ordinance which is what happened in other cities when they only made your just cause for eviction a temporary ordinance thousands and thousands of tenants were evicted in the month to six weeks that it took and I've emailed you the the the data about that so it is an emergency it is still an emergency the rents have gotten so high that a small a small rent raise for people who have been in their properties for a long time and had reasonable rent for them even that is difficult and they especially I've had four or five older women over 70 on section eight and they're being evicted and it's very frightening and there's nowhere for them to go so a little you know 10 percent or 15 percent it's already so high that you know a 3% rent raise is what people can just barely manage to stay in their place so this ordinance is just it's kind of ludicrous it's way too much money to expect a renter who has lived here a long time maybe they're on a fixed income these are the people who are vulnerable to these rent increases because there are landlords of it maybe would like to catch up play catch up and and rent raise the rent a lot and so that's going to be more people on the street sleeping outside of your shelter hoping to get in and that's going to be more older people taking care of their adult autistic kids or their mentally ill grandkids and on fixed incomes these are folks being their houses are being bought by by flippers or sold by flippers and so this this what we really need is real rent control here to protect your neighbors and friends and there's there's all this business about these housing the houses being sold or because of rent control the housing being sold right now is because the baby boomers are selling their houses all over the United States Santa Cruz doesn't have any people in between the ages of 25 and 50 it has a lot of people older over 50 that own homes they're ready to sell them thank you miss burger and before we get to our next speaker i want to i wanted to say that there are i can see through this window some vacant shares out there and i know i see that the the fire department over to my right and if you have a seat that's that's open raise your hand so someone can sit and then also um you know you can hear the meeting outside so you're still welcome to come and speak at that point but please if you like you could step out and sit at one of the chairs out there just to free up some space in the chambers okay um Lynn Renshaw from Santa Cruz together Lynn Renshaw Santa Cruz together.com we're a coalition of over 1500 community leaders elected officials renters homeowners and students thank you for your dedication and long hours spent serving our community sustaining rental housing requires a balanced and fair approach derived from a thorough process of community input from all stakeholder stakeholders combined with a serious and complete study of impacts we brought several property managers to the meeting on the relocation fee ordinance they made suggestions to keep the ordinance consistent with other notice requirements keeping new laws simple and consistent with existing law will make them easier to understand and increase compliance thanks for including us in the process if we want to maintain our rental housing supply we need an alternative to the deeply flawed and problematic measure m a city ordinance lets the city council keep control of local rental housing laws measure m or anything like it will lead to greater housing instability an environment of just cause evictions leads to less rent controlled housing and more housing instability according to the Santa Monica rent report rent board report from 2015 page 19 at least 15,000 low income people were displaced from rent controlled housing between 1998 and 2016 by 2016 only 4% of low income renters remained in rent control units the report called quote rent control in the city of Berkeley 1978 to 1994 and quote on page 91 says quote about 3500 units that were rented in 1980 were not rented in 1990 conversions included 1200 single family houses converted to owner occupancy 7500 units and multifamily property converted owner occupancy 500 more vacant units an absorption of about 650 rentals into enlarged single family houses the Santa Monica rent control board 2015 report on page 6 shows rental units removed since the passage of rent control out of a total of about 36,000 rentals 9,000 were no longer available as residential rentals after the Santa Cruz Democratic party heard this evidence they voted to oppose measure m 18 to 3 because there is so much evidence showing negative unintended consequences with far more moderate laws than measure m only three cities have passed rent control since the 80s this was done by measures not city council vote the most extreme and damaging part is just cause evictions these provisions prevent people from controlling their own property which leads people to exit the rental business rental housing is one part of the entire ecosystem of our local economy and any sudden and unstudied change can affect more than rentals for example cool new startups in the Wrigley building depend on rental housing availability to attract employees extreme eviction laws that will shrink the rental housing supply will make it harder for companies adding higher income jobs than in turn help people afford housing the chamber of commerce and Santa Cruz business council opposed measure m for that reason the Santa Cruz and Monterey trades council and brotherhood of electrical workers oppose extreme measure m because it's just cause evictions because they know it will shut down construction and hurt working families according to the city of Santa Cruz housing element 1700 residents work in construction Santa Cruz together is interested and available to come to the table to create true housing solutions that will keep Santa Cruz vibrant Santa Cruz together dot com thank you miss rencha okay the next the next speaker the next speaker uh jeb from yes on m jeb from yes on m jeb uh so i'm uh with the movement for housing justice a coalition of 11 000 rent control activists and uh and community organizers and i'm a renter here in uh in Santa Cruz i've been here for the past 17 years in that period i've had to move 11 times most recently because of a 40 percent rent increase in 2016 so it's very encouraging to see the city council finally taking on the displacement crisis in a serious way thanks it should be said to the tireless work of uh of all the community organizers that are in in the room now the rent freeze of this council courageously past in February has allowed countless renters like myself to stay in our homes and it's encouraging that this the council is proactively interested in putting something in place should measure m fail in November and tenants lose the fundamental rights that they've enjoyed this past year however as terrified as i am of the prospect of losing the protections of the rent freeze i take no comfort in this proposed ordinance while it is framed as a less extreme compromise that puts some protections in place against the most egregious violations even a cursory look shows that all of this ordinance's so-called protections are unenforceable and meaningless and will do nothing to keep renters in their homes take my own 40 percent rent increase for example for an example it would seem that this is precisely the sort of thing that both measure m and the proposed ordinance are aimed at addressing however unlike measure m the ordinance that we're discussing here has no just cause protections which means that all the landlord would have to do to skirt the supposed 10 to 15 percent limit is issue a no cause eviction and a 40 a 50 a 100 whatever they want increase becomes fully permissible under under this ordinance limits on rent increases with no just cause protection are completely meaningless and if there's anything good about this ordinance that we're talking about now it's that it really demonstrates that moreover just doing the math on this one shows that the limits imposed 10 percent or 15 and a half percent over two years allows rent to continue to rise at more or less the same rate that is already rising with no rent control at all this is merely the status quo rebranded as as renter protection to return to my own situation under this ordinance my current landlord would be able to raise my rent nearly 500 over two years that would be the same thing as an eviction i would i would have to move most troublingly however is the timing of this vote i understand that the council wanted this matter to come back to it before the rent freeze expires with the certification of the election and before their session is up in december however while i don't doubt the council's sincerity in wanting to keep protections in place for renters helped by the freeze the introduction of this measure in the lead up to this election reads like a page straight out of the anti-rent control playbook a similar thing was tried in san francisco in 1979 more recently in mountain view and alameda where it actually derailed the vote and uh and provided no protections and in fact a very similar ordinance was just introduced in sacramento last week from where i'm sitting this looks like yet another instance of rent control opponents using this council to influence the vote with this ordinance they will be able to go to renters and tell them that they don't need measure m because we're already protected and you can bet that with half a million dollars already pouring into santa cruz from outside rent rent control opponents if you pass this ordinance that that is the message that we will be blasted into everyone's homes repeatedly over the next two months the swiss cheese ordinance will uh will be seized on as a political tool to sow confusion among voters while providing no enforceable protections for anyone if the council is actually serious about extending protections should measure m fail and i hope that you are the most straightforward way to do this is to reaffirm the courageous position you took in february and simply extend the rent freeze barring that there's time to address this issue between the election and the expiration of that freeze that way the issue won't play a role in confusing voters and your decision will be informed by the outcomes of measure m and proposition 10 which could dramatically change what it means to regulate rent the rental market across the state this would also provide adequate time to incorporate enforcement mechanisms and just cause protections into an ordinance so that it is not completely hollow like the one before you today thank so i urge you to postpone this matter and let the voters of santa cruz make the decision thank you all right thank you thank you for all the organizations that spoke um we're going to now open it up for individual comments you'll have one uh one and a half minutes clerk for each speaker how many of the the attendees wish to speak to this item i would get a count on that and also those outside i'm looking through the window how many of you wish to speak on this five outside 25 i get like 30 in here you got over 30 okay 30 uh that's like 40 people i think go ahead sir hi my name is cliff bixler and i'm a nearly life-long resident of santa cruz um i'm just here to uh tell you guys that you should keep it simple you know i think that the main thing and that has really grown the santa cruz together movement and the number of people who are vociferously against this major m would you pause please um if you would speak into the mic i know it's kind of awkward just so it amplifies your voice out for the members in the room and there's a lot of people here so we'll speak louder yeah yeah okay go ahead ma'am i i do feel that uh one of the most important things that has caused santa cruz together to grow is the just cause eviction um feature which people consider to be really outrageous and extreme as well as the proposal for a rent board and i sent you all an email uh last night including an article uh of a grand jury investigation pause please pause okay i um just i'm hearing instructions that we cannot block the door so anyone who's standing on the outside they need to be against the the hallway in fact if you're planning to speak and you don't mind just standing outside we have um amplification to their speakers and that way you will have a chance to come in we just need to kind of free up some space in here based on the level of interest on this item excuse me mr blitzer you can continue mix floor yeah blitzer thank you close but that's okay all right so uh besides the just cause eviction uh feature um the fact of instituting a rent board i think you should us seriously avoid either of those um i sent you all an article about a grand jury investigation of berkeley's rent board which is germane because the one of the lawyers who helped write that ordinance was at a community meeting and took credit for writing major m and we should learn from their mistakes the berkeley rent board was cited by their grand jury as being rife with cronyism with people being hired because of who they were friends with rather than we're qualifications the director was being paid more than the public works director i should get more time since i was interrupted thank you sir i actually you you were paused um so the like we paused the time so that was one and a half minutes it's it's one and a half minutes but thank you okay and and i will say i encourage you all to read the article that i said thank you and also just for everyone we're speaking to an item regarding um and draft ordinance and i know this blurs on lines and different issues but if you could speak to the ordinance when you're talking out of i would greatly appreciate that next speaker please who's the next speaker sir hi i'm ken ken rilling my wife and i we've invested in real estate for 40 years here in sanacris so we now own uh pu d with three houses and we have college students uh that rent from us we our policy is once we find a tenant we keep the rent the same no matter how long they're going to say we know what their income is we talk to them we're not going to raise rents we already sold one of our houses where we had uh 12 students and uh we don't want to sell the other three we can work with our tenants we talk to them we sit down with them we find out what their needs are that's the way we ought to do business they help us with our income we develop those properties for my wife and i's income we struggled we had nine percent interest rate six now we're down to four we still owe three quarters of a million and we like being landlords please don't handcuff us with inordinate rent the the possibility that we can't deal with our tenants anymore thank you thank you sir next speaker and again you don't not need to um actually next one we'll have you we'll go to you next if that's okay after go ahead please hello council members um i wanted to first of all thank you for voting in support of the temporary rent freeze ordinance in february um i just want to say that that has had a meaningful impact for renters here in the city um people like myself who are renting it has relieved a lot of anxiety knowing that we have some sort of protections so i want to thank you first of all for supporting that but i wanted to say i'm very disappointed um this rental ordinance would allow i mean we just saw a 30 30 percent 33 increases over a five-year period um that is not sustainable as someone who is working here in the city of santa cruz living paycheck to paycheck um a 10 percent i mean as as jab just mentioned 10 percent increase is basically an eviction this is not going to protect people from being displaced at by any means and instead of instead of choosing to potentially extend this ordinance that actually has had meaningful impacts for people you have chosen to go with an alternative that is actually not going to do anything for renters like myself um the reason why we didn't show up to the to that meeting that we had is because it undermines measure m it undermines the grassroots uh grassroots efforts of hundreds of volunteers that have been able to collect 10 000 signatures in a two-month period that's incredible this is a people-powered movement and this is only going to undermine the grassroots efforts that have been happening um and i also find it a little ironic that the opposition has said they support rent control they don't support this kind of rent control and yet they were the people at the table not proposing rent control as an alternative so i just find that um a little ironic thank you thank you and wait before you stand up sir generally people line up on this side i don't know if you've ever spoken at a council meeting before but people are lined up and if it's okay to him go for him to go in front yeah okay go please go ahead but everybody who wants to speak please line up to my left well i'm just saying people line up to my left that's where it is i think they might be some of the people i want to speak that are on that side okay even the time please yes my name is mickey larson and i'm a senior citizen and i'd like to speak on not on behalf of senior citizens but i want to make them aware of certain uh factors uh is it appropriate to ask how many uh council members are senior citizens pause the time please we generally if this is your first time speaking we will not respond to your questions you're this is your time to speak and if there's any questions at the end we we can answer them but may not in this case in this case okay go ahead can i ask the audience if there is no please you're addressing the council please go ahead okay um i'll look at the audience now and then uh seniors beware housing for seniors could become a scarce commodity if measure m the santa cruz rent control initiative passes i say this as a senior who is concerned for seniors who want to rent from property owners let me propose a scenario a landlord rents to a senior he would keep the rent below market rate and add moderate annual increases to offset costs the tenant is quiet and consider it and always pays the rent on time so what's the problem the problem may be found under the just cause eviction protection section in the initiative under the owner move in section it says among other things that a landlord may not evict the tenant if that tenant has resided in the unit for five years and if the tenant is 62 years a roller this eliminates the flexibility flexibility landlords might need when life changing circumstances arise thank you your time's up you can you can submit any written comments to the council also i already have thank you next speaker please my name is josh bruhinsky i'm speaking here as part of landlords and homeowners for rent control um and the first thing i just want to point out really clearly anybody who's talking about measure m today if we're talking about that's the whole point here that that is shows what we're doing here which is undermining the process right measure m is not the question the question is whether this alternative is something that we should do and when we should do it so there doesn't need to be a vote right now and there doesn't need to be a vote before november 6th in order to make a protection that would continue the rent freeze that can happen november 13th and there's time and i think you're completely wrong this actually when you said there's a 30 you made it sound reasonable like it's 30 days and we've got to wait and wait it's so easy to put something that's retroactive so if you want it to not undermine this yeah if you'd address the council please and if there's a question sorry if you wanted to not undermine measure m it's very very easy you can all vote to do that show that you care about it because caring about tenants is something that you did with the rent freeze and you can continue it there's a second piece really which is that there's two parts of this that are just absurdly awful um one the 15 percent just basically sanctions what we have so you're saying okay what we've done over the last five years the thing that's created this crisis that's evicted thousands of people that's fine let's do it go for it that's a problem the second part is without just cause eviction you're actually going to see way more than that because any landlord i'm a landlord it's very easy i see how you do it it's very simple just kick them out you know so thank you next speaker please my name is rob stone i'm a landlord with one property with three units near downtown and i'm in support of passing the ordinance exactly as it's written it gives tenants protection from large rent increases it will not drive landlords to exit the market along with their properties which is very important if we want to maintain our housing stock here it does not create the expensive bureaucratic nightmare of a rent control board and it allows the council to flesh out the details needed and i'm thinking in particular of project sentinel which has worked very well for other cities and gets high marks from both renters and landlords and if you use a service such as project sentinel that would mean tenants would no longer have to fear being outspent by their landlords and legal proceedings because it's free to both landlords and tenants thank you sir next speaker please hello my name is camille adelman i go to school here and i've been a renter for the past three to four years and this ordinance i strongly oppose thank you mainly because it will not provide protections for renters but rather loopholes for landlords it will allow rent to increase by about 47 in five years and it does not include the just cause evictions for as you have heard are very important um in protecting renters from eviction um and essentially this proposal will encourage further exploitation of the community which might remind you 60 of our renters most of which are low low income and marginalized people so this prioritizes well off upper middle class landlords the real estate industry and capitalistic agendas over the community and the well-being of it and might i remind you you and your decisions are for the community and for the betterment and well-being of that so i urge you to not support this ordinance thank you next speaker please next speaker hello my name is jessie wilkins i do have to bend down you can move the pause the time please that microphone actually moves up so you can actually move it cool man thank you dr david uh so what i'm speaking on is what they spoke on in the proposed new ordinance i don't see how you can make a sound argument that just cause eviction takes away the control of homeowners because when i got the print out from the library that just cause eviction things were like bad conduct being a nuisance crime uh damaging your property selling drugs things that warrant eviction that a person can still evict someone for it just prevent someone from evicting someone for the hell of it so that they can then raise the market rates or uh how much they can charge to bring in new people new people the other thing i wanted to address was how rent freeze could potentially hurt or make it harder for people to find homes or take away the number of homes available to people that seems insane to me because what it's doing is putting a cap on the rent that people are what's the way to say this it's keeping the rent from going higher so it's establishing some sort of baseline that people can move into instead of having to be kicked out of one place and on to another so making it more is that my time yes it is sir thank you thank you thank you next speaker please next speaker please hi my name is chad and i'm a student renter in the city of Santa Cruz i want to first acknowledge the power dynamics of this room and say that a meeting at four o'clock on a tuesday is not a time that working class people can make because they're trying to make a living wage in the fourth most expensive housing market in the world according to the no place like home project where medium income and average housing costs were compared this ordinance does nothing to protect renters 70 percent of who are already experienced or who are already experiencing rent burden this proposal would allow exploitive landlords to increase their tenants rent by 14.9 percent in two years legally so who does this target and who does this benefit this is a direct attack on the housing security of low income communities people of color students and other marginalized folks especially because this proposal doesn't include just cause eviction protections this proposal benefits the real estate industry landlords and upper middle class people white people who don't see housing as a human right but as a commodity that they can capitalize on regardless of the people whose lives they are uprooting i'm calling on you as our elected representatives to not give preferential treatment to the people with money resources and white privilege to sway this issue housing is nowhere near affordable in the city which is why we shouldn't even entertain this ordinance if you really care about renters then vote yes on measure m don't set up the city for failure thank you next speaker please next next speaker next speaker thank you next speaker please hello my name is vicky winters i live in the lower ocean neighborhood of santa cruz and i just want to say how much the rent freeze has helped my neighbors i've really seen how people feel you know a little bit more security in their housing due to that however i do have a couple neighbors where the landlord has raised the rent in excess of the allowed amount and has intimidated the tenants because due to their documentation status um it threatened them with reporting so i think that um you we need to wait and see give measure m a chance with its allowance for an elected accountable rent board that would enforce the provisions of the ordinance um and this ordinance other people have pointed out it is allows codifies the already high rent increases and does nothing to protect tenants from being evicted in order to raise the rents even further so it it does nothing to protect tenants you have the power to extend the rent freeze and then come up with something that has as much protection as possible for tenants and as many of the provisions of a rent board as possible such as publicizing um outreach and um helping people to um actually enforce the the ordinance and enforce rent increases thank you next next speaker please next speaker you're up next speaker hi my name is jenina jenina lorenas um i've lived in this community off and on for over 20 years the last time um well in the late 90s and early 2000s i was here for the last housing crisis which eventually forced me out of santa cruise after moving 15 times in five years and experiencing over a $500 increase in my rent in that period of time i'm i'm here today um to tell you about the last apartment complex that i lived in it was owned by an elderly um two elderly friends whose families could speak into the mic sure two elderly friends whose families eventually took over the properties when they died when they took over those properties they raised our rent 10 a year for five years until eventually displacing me two single moms and um and another single woman after after we left they eventually sold the property and the new landlords um immediately evicted or didn't evict but terminated the lease agreements with the remaining tenants including two single fathers and an immigrant family in order to raise the rent four times what we had originally been paid under this ordinance that you are proposing today this is not only allowable but encouraged and normalized behavior that you are putting forward to to landlords i encourage thank you thank you next speaker please next speaker next speaker good afternoon council i want to start by appreciating the february decision for the rent freeze and the just cause evictions i think that was uh telling and very important however many of you acknowledge even today that we're in a crisis um but i urge you to make sure that your actions illustrate that truth just now you voted to uh voted down an option presented by council member crone that would mandate affordability versus assuming affordability that it will be included uh you unfortunately lost the opportunity to be leaders and bridge builders around the conversation of rent control when you deferred the work of solving the rent crisis to unpaid community volunteers to craft a measure and get so the support needed to get it on the ballot now like many decisions made by this body you're being reactionary and if you decide to pass this ordinance in my opinion you will be undermining the voices of over 10,000 community members we hear from council member neroyan about realism versus idealism but the idealism to me comes in the form of believing that this ordinance will do anything to protect renters the realism is that we cannot wait any longer for real renter protections and sustainable rent stabilizations there's talk about community vitality but the renters say that this ordinance does not provide stability or trust in renters protections the city will lose diversity it'll lose culture and what will exacerbate the already horrible traffic i know i can speak for myself as a community organizer i don't get raises my income is based off of the overall income of the organization and as you know nonprofits are suffering financial uh you know funding issues so i can't support a rent increase of 10 to 14 percent and i'm not alone don't be used to derail democracy if measure m fails thank you extend the rent freeze and extend renters protection this november thank you thank you that's and i'll remind you you have a minute and a half to address the council a minute and a half um i have uh usb can we hold the time until that yeah um go go ahead wait just wait thank you are we ready thank you council uh first i'd like to thank staff for doing such a great job of public uh getting public input as uh mr harman said they really went the extra yard on that and i appreciate it i like this ordinance i like it so much that i believe you guys should enact it not wait for november six but after the second reading enact it as soon as possible it does not as you heard it does not conflict with the rent freeze because it isn't rent control it's mitigation for tenants who get there um have large rent increases so there's no reason why you couldn't enact it make it effective as soon as possible um i do like i said i do appreciate it i do think that there are some small technical changes you guys should look at it really should be authorized occupants only uh you could do that in the definition section very easily um and also section 2103 dot 030 a2 is extremely unclear i think this is non-partisan issue it just the the word prior needs to be qualified and um i did take the liberty to uh give uh alternative language on there if you would like to do that but just it doesn't meet the uh what the drafter intended i do think that um you could also make future improvements such as you could adopt language similar to what is in the los gales rent ordinance which would i thought on page two which would make it illegal to for a landlard to terminate a tenancy for the purposes of raising rent and that would be in place of a just thank you sir thank you next speaker please good afternoon my name is catrin tobin i'm a city resident property owner landlord and realtor and i support the city staff current draft ordinance as a hedge against more extreme one-sided and counterproductive measures as such i urge you to resist adding any elements to the measure without a deliberate collaborative process further study and benefit of the results of the november's referendum on the grossly flawed and overreaching measure m if as you expect measure m will be soundly defeated it will be because of its expensive and unrestricted rent board bureaucracy and the stifling just cause eviction edicts my support for the currently proposed uh rent increase ordinance would be withdrawn if the council saddled it with either of these hostile to owners elements the end of a mutually agreed lease term should be just that i would love to see our community invite investment and development rather than suffocate it i'm in uh i live on the upper west side where it seems a majority of us are tending empty rooms from which kids have flown in lots and houses that are bigger than we need i'd like to see more ad use and i'd like to see more vitality and uh development on our neighborhoods so that we could provide housing and rejuvenate these neighborhoods that were built in the 60s that seemed to be deteriorating i'm in favor nope that's good thank you and again um there's a certain there there's a certain amount of time but you do not need to use a full amount of time i think i'd like to get a full uh show of hands now how many speakers are waiting to speak get there seems like more than uh we started keep them up we want to do a count yeah i'd like to yeah we got five outside i'd like 15 outside okay i'd like to go to a minute so we can have time for discussion so the remaining speakers will have a minute hey sorry guys we i think we're we're i just if you can't be concise and go forward and yeah next speaker my name is rosanna bruny i'm in support of the measure that's before you now the ordinance it's being framed today by some people as an end run around democracy it is not this is democracy you are our elected representatives and this is where i think this whole issue should be addressed is with city ordinances not by amendment to our city charter i'm in favor of this measure as a first step i think there's a lot more steps we can take together i'm a mom and pop landlord and i'd like to be included in future discussions and i'm confident that we can come to mutually agreeable measures together that can serve tenants and serve housing providers and not be as extreme as what measure M proposes thank you next speaker well done hello i'm bonnie britain i'm also a landlord a mom and pop landlord i've been have been for 40 years i've been lucky in selecting tenants that i've had no problems with my tenants have always stayed as long as they want i have never evicted anyone and i have kept my rents low lower than the had fair market rates i'm in support of this proposition because i think that measure M is so horrendous it um but i do believe that there should be some kind of um stipulation for mom and pop landlords to to come before the boards because 10% not when lorenzo low 10% will not even meet the um increases in utilities and maintenance and taxes and i think that many people are unaware of that that landlords have to pay insurance house insurance and all of these other things that thank you next speaker please hello city council and members of the or was it representatives of the city my name is broadly jinn i'm a student a renter and i'm researching the housing crisis here in santa cruz i have a question for you which i do not expect to be answers are you kidding me do you really believe that this will in any way protect renters it will simply convince the public that when they come vote in november if that measure M fails they will pre-protect it and they shall not this does nothing to prevent uh was it unjust evictions this does nothing to prevent ridiculous increases in rent it does nothing to protect any of us thank you thank you next speaker please next speaker hi i'm carol polhamis i already wrote your letter i'm not going to repeat that um but i did have some thoughts i think you've heard a lot from the students i think you've heard a lot from the retired i am one of the retired and we have the time to do it but you have missed the voice of a group that is not here because of the timing of the meeting and some of them i work with as a retired educator i work mentoring brand new teachers for the county office of ed and i am currently mentoring 20 of them one of the biggest issues that most of them voice is that they are new homeowners they recently bought their homes they're starting their families they're in their 30s they're trying to support their situation many of them are landlords um reluctant landlords and i just ask you to consider housing is expensive for everyone whether they're a tenant or landlord or homeowner new homeowner please um do not include just cause evictions which seems to be the most frightening part especially for young people who are just barely getting into their new homes thank you thank you next speaker please morning of order mr mayor um there's there's a lot less than 114 people in this room and if we could let people outside know there's evidently some people not happy outside they'd like to be inside there's i see about 25 different seats available in here i'm excited yeah you know what ma'am you know um sir i meant to that's a first warning okay this we're going to try and keep order in the room um i'd like to ask the city manager or someone from the staff of the city manager to speak to the fire chief and orderly invite people in to sit as as they can from the back door thank you mr mayor that thank you please go ahead honorable city council members my name is jasmine sunak you i'm confident that this that the santa cruz renters landlords and those considering to invest in rental property can work together to have a mutually beneficial relationship in order to do so sufficient time needs to be allocated to research ways to support safe fair price fair priced rentals in santa cruz if sufficient time is not dedicated to finding a solution that benefits all then there will be likely a very disastrous unintended consequences landlords will go out of business which will reduce the amount of rentals on the market those who might have been interested in turning their own property into a rental may no longer have the incentive to do so and there will be no incentive for investors to build more rental housing why would anyone invest in buying or creating new housing with arbitrary rules and regulations that aren't beneficial for both tenant and landlord if thank you thank you next speaker please and if you have any additional written comments you can submit them ma'am if you want read you can submit your written comments okay next speaker please hi i'm cindy forenze thank you for considering this alternative to measure m if it fails i believe it will be due to concerns such as eviction control the complexity of the measure a powerful board damaged the supply of rental units especially rental houses because measure m would enact the most severe rent control program in the state for backup on that you can refer to the 2017 fremont study that really pinpoints richman is one of the most severe when people were asked to sign this petition last spring they weren't told about leases it would never end they were told about the need to stop really steep increases in rent and this ordinance could do that please don't add back in the reasons that measure m would be most likely to fail the unprecedented controls the complexity and the rent board if you're concerned that landlords would evict tenants in order to raise the rent more than 10 percent without incurring any relocation fees you might consider alameda's policy i have a copy of that here would you care to see that thank you again you can leave any written comments with a crook and she'll pass around next next speaker please next speaker hello i'm sorry about uh i wasn't trying to be disrespectful just want to start the timer thank you oh there's a timer no no you're not you oh okay put on pause okay my bad put on pause yes yeah we started over start the timer okay go ahead okay so everybody is saying that this is like swiss cheese rent control and i have to disagree because cheese has protein this is more like a soulless empty sandwich that is like full of holes um this because this provides no real protections for anyone rents will continue to rise because this doesn't do anything uh this would encourage landlords to rent raise rents between 10 to 15 percent which would push out a lot of people working two to three minimum wage jobs like bus boys um and there's also other talking points on this too like this is why the opposition wants it because it's not real rent control but what i wanted to say is that i think it's very undemocratic to have this on a tuesday at 4 p.m. when most people are working and also i'd like to say that this is 9 11 and we should be at home morning for those that have lost thank you that's all i had to say thank you next speaker please good afternoon my name is jeff howe and i'm a student i rent a voter and a worker in this city and i happen to live in a wonderful house and under this new ordinance the 15 percent increase would be more than 800 dollars which none of us could afford that would be an eviction so because of that i don't support this ordinance because it's too little too late and as far as i know i think this housing crisis has existed here for a long time and where was this ordinance then where was the california apartment associations money then i didn't see that back then so i know what i'm voting on this november and it's not on this thank you thank you next speaker please hi my name is meghan thomas i'm a resident of santa cruz i'm a homeowner and i'm a voter and i intend to live and vote in this community until i die i appreciate that the um city council has is paying attention to the problem of rising rents i appreciate the rent freeze that you all enacted and that was absolutely essential to allow a democratic process to take place what's happening now though is something that's subverting the democratic process and i want to call your attention to that so rather than speak to uh the merits of measure m um which others have already spoken to i want to urge you to attend to your duties to allow the process of the voters making a judgment of on measure m to take place this is very clearly the timing of this very clearly subverts that and it's subverting the democratic process and i'm going to remember anyone who supported that thank you next speaker please next speaker please my name is barbara childs sometimes um i want to put this in slightly broader context um we not only have to continue to fight sexism and racism and other isms but we have to add to that today the third great injustice that wasn't talked about maybe as much in our country but will be talked about more and more landism that's my word for it landism is the belief that those without land or the value produced by land are inferior people and therefore do not deserve the same basic rights to emotional and financial security that landowners enjoy they somehow don't deserve the same housing security for instance that the landlords take for granted and we just heard that when you all five of you voted to give poor people 75 percent of the space that a rich person gets i would like to ask is that it you wrap it up go i would like to ask everyone in this chamber and i ask myself because i was born in this society as well to reflect on this toxic mental attitude that we all have next speaker please hi my name is francine tyler my husband is a public school teacher i am a very part-time accountant given my family issues that i deal with um we are also uh small-time landlords in this city we have two rental units that we lived in before we made them rentals sort of bit by bit sacrificing to get each one and we also have a grant unit on our property i want to say thank you for giving us something else to look at besides measure m i think that um your ordinance uh can be a really good option i want you all to please do not put in the just the just cause evictions into it um if you're living with people on your property as a grant unit that's really scary and i personally know three people who have sold rental properties because they're afraid of measure m i know others who have said they're going to sell if it passes and i know also multiple people who have either closed down their granny units or who are not going to build them because of the fear of measure m and when my husband and i can afford it sometime in the future we will close ours as well thank you next speaker please next speaker thank you good afternoon my name is deborah wallace as a property manager i find the ordinance as written clear and easy to comply with i'm happy to see that lease expirations can still be used to manage problem renters problem tenants are rare but it only takes one bad situation to impact an entire neighborhood i've managed property in the city of santa cruz for 17 years and i've seen i've had several problem households during that time the result is neighbors that lose sleep feel unsafe and are concerned for their children for example we had a household on swanton that started off as a student household and many subletters later devolved into the den of inequity they were partying had a band were hoarding all kinds of detritus on the side lawn and growing pot in the attic the neighbors called the police several times for loud and unruly gatherings and amplified music but the tenants always cured the nuisance thank you next speaker please good afternoon my name is mike palhamas i'm a lifelong santa cruz resident and as a teacher at santa cruz high school i'm one of the people rent control is geared to protect yet i find myself in the opposite situation this ordinance is and others like it hurt me and we don't even have a say in this one yes you're elected officials and you have the power to do that but this affects everybody and should be up to the people to decide in addition neither measure m or this ordinance places restrictions on the university which is not totally to blame but is not blameless in our debacle this pits students against homeowners in a situation neither really helped to create instead we should be incentivizing development and trying to attract businesses which pay livable wages thank you thank you next speaker please afternoon i'm michael gazer i'm a homeowner in santa cruz i you've heard about problems with the ordinance i'd rather talk about the timing the word that comes to mind to me is cynical this is just so transparently an attempt to undermine measure m we have two more months of an election campaign here and i would ask the city council not to get used by the other side if you don't think this is about measure m why have we been hearing repeatedly people coming up here and saying this is the alternative to measure m that i prefer please don't let the other side use you to campaign against measure m i i i please ask you to vote against this and let the voters decide then begin talking about your uh deeply flawed relocation ordinance thank you thank you next speaker please next speaker next speaker thank you thanks thank you everybody my name is dr jeremy orvic i'm one of your local emergency physicians i've lived in santa cruz off and on since i was a student here in 92 i'm in support of this measure instead of measure m 2008 after i completed residency i had the chance to move back here and bought a home on gladdus avenue i now rented out to a local family their wife two children after the mortgage and upkeep i estimate that i net approximately 400 per month by renting that property it's hardly a windfall and it's here that i reach my point i don't do it for the money i can't live there currently but the ashes of my mother are on that property the ashes of my father are as well as are my uncle and as will be mine i delivered my daughter there myself on the concrete floor that i built took me years of saving to borrow and purchase it i sympathize greatly with the plight of renters in this community i was a student here and i remember but please understand that for me and my family this is not an issue of rent control this is an issue of personal control of personal rights and of my right to enter into a consenting contract with a fellow adult in the confines of my own home without the santa cruz city council or any other regulatory board intervening on just thank you hey thank you next next speaker next speaker please hi elise casby um thanks for the opportunity um i i second what michael said the timing on this is incredibly cynical but not unexpected we are in here dealing with politics politics is about power what i want to say is i really think we should keep the power of the boycott in mind because if people are going to play dirty like this we can play dirty too and what we can do is we can appeal to the entire working class all along the bay area i think it's time that we started seeing our tourist business for what it is it's an asset to the wealthy whereas the people that are working here and are going to school here are basically being reduced to refugees and slaves homeless people the government was supposed to protect us if i want to say that's kind of a cynical comment on my part but i think what we need to see is this is holaciously unfriendly we need to boycott next summer we need to get the word out to the east bay it's time to hit the landlords and the greedy wear their pocket books up thank you next speaker please next speaker next speaker next speaker thanks i am a ring hold on one second can you ask i'm gonna ask you outside i least thank you okay if you can keep it down thank you next speaker hi i'm a registered nurse in santa cruz county i'm a resident of santa cruz city i'm also a member of the california nurses association and i'm a union representative um i do support the ordinance as you have it written now without adding any more just cause evictions or a rent board i work directly in the community with patients in their homes including renters homeowners and i also go to the homeless shelter and i have found that since measure m has gone on the ballot that many of my patients have suffered both renters and homeowners alike with the threat of losing the housing the possibility of having to sell their housing and i would strongly urge you to not add any more features that would discourage landlords from renting out their homes and losing more housing thank you thank you next speaker please next speaker hello my name is gail jack i'm a resident of the city and a homeowner uh this proposed ordinance amendment quite frankly is treachery treachery to all the citizens in our city but especially to those who work so hard to get a true rent control measure on the ballot i am disappointed in this council for bringing forward for something at this particular time that does not help any tenant in this city what the ordinance is written does do however is interfere with and undermine the democratic process of allowing citizens of santa cruz to vote for or to vote against measure m which has legally qualified for the ballot in november if measure m fails any decision on this matter i believe should wait until january 2019 to be decided when we have a new city council and have had time to write a new rent control and just caused thank you ordinance next next speaker please next speaker please good afternoon my name is steve i have been renting in santa cruz for 17 years currently on month to month every single week i'm worrying about if this is my last month and scrambling in impossible housing markets find another place working on rent control over the last year i've met a lot of people in much worse circumstances a woman in an apartment downtown who works at a gas station and is worried that the next time the rent goes up she's have to leave and doesn't know where she'll go a woman who due to increased rents lost her housing moved into vehicle lost full custody of her child to her ex-husband and can only see her child during the day so as a renter and somebody's hanging out with renters and knows how much it's how hard it is i can say that this supposed protection this is an insult this offers no protection the rents have gone up on average 52% in the last four years this would allow another 47% in another in five years without any any help and it could even be going up more because there's no just cause and it could as an end around thank you steve next speaker please hi good afternoon honorable city council and kind people in attendance my name is michael cox i do not live in the city for 10 years i've worked for a company offering mid-range commercial and residential rentals in the city i do not own any of them myself the matter before us today is whether to establish a hardship fee to be given to renters when rent has been increased too much and i know all the nuances and all of the hidden catch 22s in that are very much foremost in your minds and so i would very much like to see your debate aside from the rather polarizing comments we have here one comment i do have on the wording itself is as a layperson i found the use of the term interest to me confusing to describe the compounding effect of subsequent rent increases i wasn't sure if interest was the proper term and so you might want to look at that thank you so much for your time thank you next speaker please hello city council my name is Owen thomas i'm a working person and recently graduated student here in san cruz i want to talk about framing for a second today's proposed ordinance is being framed as a safety net generated through community input so if you want to have an example of a law generated through community input take a look at measure m drafted by unpaid local organizers placed on the ballot through 10 000 signatures together by going door to door in our community second off if today's law is a safety net in case measure m doesn't get passed it won't prevent the loss of people who are just hanging on in our community and it won't protect tenants from being evicted so that landlords can skirt its toothless regulation so this is not a safety net it's a very deliberate attempt to dismantle the prospects of effective tenant protections in the city the opposition is great at framing they gave us uh mom and pop landlords and they gave us as well as uh what do you want to call them housing providers um so let's not fall prey to framing uh vote yes i measure m thank you next speaker please next speaker hi my name is stacey falls this ordinance is clearly an attempt to subvert the very popular measure m a measure modeled after successful rent control and just cause eviction laws in other cities there's absolutely nothing extreme about wanting to protect renters in a city that is known as the worst least affordable city in the entire country and the fourth least affordable city in the entire world the opponents of measure m are consistently telling you half truths and distortions in their arguments against measure m for instance i always hear miss renshaw talk about the number of houses lost the number of rentals lost in berkeley but she never mentions that neighboring cities had the same number of rentals that were lost and in fact berkeley was able to preserve twice as many low-income rentals as the neighboring cities so i'm just tired of all these lies about measure m it's rent control and just cause evictions are in the democratic party statewide platform there's nothing radical about that and studies all around the state show that it is effective in protecting renters thank you okay joe joe before you begin how many more speakers are there outside how many more speakers are there outside how many more speakers out there outside this is it okay ma'am you'll be our last speaker in the end okay oh and i'm sorry one up front so you'll be our last speaker right here is there any other member in this room that has not spoken the wishes to speak to this item okay i'd like you to stand up so we can get a count it looks like six or seven more one two three okay please go ahead thank you joe hall i'm a property owner in santa cruz and i just want to thank you for taking the time to listen to everybody's comments today i support the ordinance but i support it for probably a different reason when mayor chase was in office she went through a very long process and i came to two of the meetings one of them i actually ran across where she was talking to people about their housing issues so what i've heard so far is really not much different than what i think she heard they prepared what's called a blueprint and in that is this type of an ordinance i think it came through a pretty studied democratic process may not please a lot of people may displease other people but i think it's a good starting point and i think that's where our community needs to be not in a polarizing issue i don't think i could add much more so i want to thank you for your time and wish you well for the rest of the evening thank you next speaker please good afternoon uh my name is brennan and i'm here to speak as a tenant and voter in santa cruz in strong opposition to this meaningless and misleading proposal the opposition of rent control they've said for months that they're going to support some version of rent control does not measure them now we know this is what they're trying to support um for a situation in santa cruz the renters right now is no better way to put it than too expensive and too extreme this ordinance will allow for 47 percent rent increases every five years without even the possibility of real case assistance that's basically what it is right now um only a renderer who can prove and how are they going to prove it that they've been directly displaced because of a quote large rent increase or receive any assistance if this were proposed any other time it would be simply meaningless but the timing is what makes it actively misleading this is right out of the california apartment associations playbook mountain view sacramental sanmateo elsewhere all these cities they have um they've put a meaningless ordinance that sounds good and then using to convince voters that a more moderate alternative exists so in conclusion please have the self respect to not be made upon in their election game reject this proposal thank you thank you next speaker please and again if someone's spoken said something previously i mean you could see you could repeat or just say it you don't have to go forward but please go ahead hi my name is tau the u.s. was found on stolen land stolen land that's rendered into private property which has historically been made more accessible to own by white people so what does that mean it means that the ownership of property is one of the primary ways in which power is organized in this country and for you to not see that for you to not see that a certain side of this uh you know this this issue is well funded by our rent and money is you know it's really ironic do not call yourselves progressives if you're gonna fall for supply side trickle down reaganomics okay like it's ridiculous how much you don't see the irony of what y'all are doing if you want to be a swineless landlord bootlicking politician go ahead but we're not going to stand for that thank you next speaker please jeffreys medberg homeowner in santa cruz members of the council i urge you to vote for the successive rent ordinance i know the vote will not be unanimous because a few of you will box citing backbone and moral principles for the rest of you this vote will be a clear indication to the voting public of your stand on rent control several of you have stated publicly that you actually support rent control uh just not this rent control referring to measure m so your vote today will indicate what sort of rent control you do support as has been already clearly explained to you by many previous speakers your excessive rent ordinance will not help a single tenant who is struggling to make it life in santa cruz instead it will bless and encourage the actions of that small group of unscrupulous landlords whose practices make rent in this town too expensive and too extreme your vote for the for the proposed ordinance today will be a real boost for measure m the public will see your ordinance as your preferred alternative to real rent control so um i thank you for making uh thank you for tuning for making your intention next speaker please next speaker please hi my name is neil langholz um i managed property for nearly 20 years and from that perspective i find this ordinance ordinance is practical it's pause please i need you to keep it down when people are speaking okay yes she did thank you please go ahead the notices make sense and the amount of relocation fees is an amount that's far easier to come up with compared with the nearly 20 000 required by measure m when i was a property manager every year i would have one or two very difficult rental situations i received calls late at night from people who were who were unable to sleep one group of tenants had an old piano in the front yard and they would play it during the night time parties another at another party group of renters they had major ragers very large parties that disturbed the entire neighborhood the tenants um got on the party list but that didn't require them to move the only way i could get them to move was to wait for the end of lease i'm happy to see that uh lease expirations can still be used thank you next speaker please my name is dave willis and personally i don't see how a person can get like two bites of the same apple i mean it's like measure m we we did everything right we got our signatures we brought it to you and you still voted against all the work that we had done that could be demoralizing but yet we're still here we're fighting we the people we're telling you you're hearing our true story now on the other side like you are saying measure h all i see is measure d which is disaster the thing is um galley moses we walk around worried scared every day how are we gonna live somewhere that's not a good feeling to walk around wearing um is it legal like to have two rent increases in one year people face that this is not what i want to talk about but i got lost thank you next speaker please thank you my name is freda and tacky and this is a very contentious very emotional discussion with plenty of self-interest attempts to shame and manipulate through raw emotions and half truths on both sides discussion has been characterized by a tendency to vilify one side or the other greedy landlords irresponsible tenants you should rise above the vitriol of raw emotions being displayed and focus on the real issues and real solutions which need to be forged through more painstakingly slow input from all the stakeholders in our community the fundamentals and genesis of our problem won't change the problem is one of supply and demand we have a housing crisis with proximity uc silicon valley in the beach these factors won't change and will continue to exert pressure and create friction division so driving housing providers and developers out of Santa Cruz through price controls and just cause eviction is not the solution in spite of what you've heard the hard facts support that this will happen thank you thank you next next speaker please next speaker my name is uh keith mckenry mckenry like the library and uh measure m is not extreme enough it does nothing to bring to justice the people that have caused this housing crisis and continue to rob our community um including for instance the people running our banks um on august the first weekend of august a number of people uh at least five people came to me and said they had just moved into their cars because their rent was increased so high that they could not afford to live in their apartments that was during the rent freeze their rent it was in the hundreds of dollars these tenants lost their house during the rent freeze and that's because it was not a rent board available to protect them from landlords that are violating the your vote for rent freeze so i encourage you uh to not support this transparent effort to get behind the developers and defeat proposition m thank you thank you next speaker please hi my name is peg popkin i'm one of those landlords but i haven't i think only once or twice have i had to raise my the rent on tenants that were existing we've made the changes at the times they've been i've done a tried to do a really good job taking care of them right now my steps need to be fixed but i'm taking care of the supply line that's leaking to the for the water but the thing is is we have a crisis in housing here and in some ways measure m is helping part of that segment there are more homes available for sale in santa cruz than we've had in quite a while which means that we're getting owner occupants this is about housing people it isn't just about landlords versus tenants um eventually some of these people that are our renters are going to want to own a house because that's how you get to sort of stabilize things the other thing is is there's a very nice part of the um leasing thing it's called a long-term lease thank you i see i see 11 speakers on the side is there any member who's sitting out of the public who's seated who is going to speak to this item okay one two okay so you have two two right there okay so is there anyone outside that wishes to speak that's standing outside how many people okay so that gives us at um 18 more speakers go ahead hi mercy calson and um i'm a long-term santa cruz resident and i do have a place in santa cruz that i'm holding back it's vacant i'm not running it out because measure m is just too severe and i can't risk that kind of liability in my life at this point in my life i've worked really hard to get to this point it's nobody gave me anything i took a lot of risk and measure m is just it's just too fierce so there you go there's one house that won't be available if measure m passes and i'm very sorry for the tenants tonight and i have a lot of um compassion for them but um i have to also thank the city council for coming up with something you know to offer out there that potentially will give uh compassion people such as myself an alternative to um to measure m if you're trying to do something um maybe there'll be something more in the future that will be more acceptable to more people thank you next speaker please hello city council members my name is josey bucannon i'm here on behalf of the santa cruz county business council as well as santa cruz together first of all i would like to thank all of you for the incredible work you do working to find a real solution to the santa cruz housing crisis is a monumentous task and one that has been led very comprehensively and inclusively by this council which is why applaud your current effort to pass an alternative rent control ordinance i keep hearing that this proposed ordinance as is is not an extreme enough proposal to fix the santa cruz housing problem it is an interesting sentiment and one that probably comes from the fact that the current cost of living in santa cruz is very extreme the income gap between people in santa cruz is incredibly extreme we live in a town where many people share single bedrooms into their adult years or commute for minimum wage jobs while others own multiple beachfront properties things that have created an incredible disconnect it is unfortunate though understandable that this issue has grown so large thank you thank you thank you next speaker please again there's one minute per speaker i'm gonna ask you to please sit down point of order point of order what's important you're warned to not disrupt the meeting we've had speakers that have come from out of the area to speak on this from different areas you guys travel with a half million dollars listen yeah ma'am i'm gonna ask you to please sit down and we'll listen to it well then i'm gonna ask i don't think they should be allowed you have a warning i understand everybody has a right to speak i'm sorry ma'am i'm staying up until they're gone nope i'm gonna ask ask you to please sit down or i'm gonna ask you to please exit not leaving not sitting down they can't speak okay well okay well yeah you've been warned and i'm gonna add yeah um okay i'm gonna ask you i'm gonna ask you i'm gonna ask no everybody has a right to speak no not everybody yes they do then i'm speaking do you ma'am i'm gonna ask for a quick pause in the discussion and we can talk in the side do you um let's let's let's take a pause so we're gonna take a quick three minute pause thank you you take a break i should just leave it's gonna go on and okay at this point i'm gonna ask that we clear the council chambers so everybody please clear the council chambers we those people would clear the council chambers and those remaining 17 speakers will be allowed to come in at the end and uh so please everybody clear the council chambers i will not leave these chambers you're not a member of the city though and i'd like at this point for anyone who is unwilling to leave at this point we're i'm gonna ask that the sergeant of arms eject the uh the member anyone who's not willing to leave on their own volition from the council chambers thank you for your for uh your cooperation thank you for your cooperation again um i'm gonna ask the sergeant of arms to eject anyone who's not leaving on their own volition i say that she didn't like her removed from the yes i'd like to eject anyone who's unwilling to leave the council chambers at this time ma'am that's not your concern i'm gonna ask that you leave council deliberate without this thank you okay so thank you and so what i'd like is the remaining 17 people that we had um anyone who has not spoken there were 17 folks that were um that were on that that list remaining i'd like them to be escorted in to have the chance to speak for one minute each okay thank you hey council member crone council member brown if we could uh we can get going so people will be escorted in who have not spoken yet one at a time to provide their their their time okay so here we are i'm gonna make a motion that you that you mean there's no reason to shut down the chambers for one person we've had this happen before many times in the past or several times in the past i'm gonna make a motion to let people in who are not disruptive if do we need a motion for that because i would second it i i do think i just we can ensure that people aren't disruptive i think people should be able to come back and allow people back into the chambers who have not been disturbing the meeting i'd like to invite the remaining speakers back into the meeting at this time who have not spoke there were 17 people that none and i'd like to hear their testimony first please allow the remaining speakers uh ma'am you can begin you have one minute thank you my name is ann elliot my sister and i own property on cliff street and we encourage the council not to make a hasty decision regarding this ordinance i think both landlords and tenants deserve a well-researched solution to the housing crisis not a quick fix with unintended consequences we have 10 rental units we charge reasonable rates they're under market and our tenants have never experienced um exorbitant rent increases we tend to keep people for a long time seven of our units are rented to students under a nine month lease from september to june those seven units are converted to vacation rentals during the summer months and we have families that have vacationed at our place in our units for four generations they make reservations up to a year in advance so that they can have time their time in their units to carry on their family tradition if just cause eviction ordinances are adopted and one or more of our nine month thank you next speaker please before you start the time could you identify yourself sir and where you're from we don't prefer you'd like to do that hi council mayer please begin time good afternoon my name is anil bhabar with the california apartment association i wanted to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak here today uh and i wanted to urge the council as they deliberate on this ordinance uh not to include just cause as part of this ordinance we've seen the effects of just cause in other cities it is an ordinance that really limits an owner's ability to manage their property it makes it difficult to evict bad tenants who are affecting the good tenants ability to live peacefully it requires the third party testimony which many are not willing to give in to evict some of those bad tenants and i want to reiterate the fact that the housing crisis we have here today as the result of an average of 259 units being produced each year for the past seven years and that alone is the reason for the situation we're in today so thank you thank you next speaker please hello members of the city council to identify myself my name is case of kumar i'm about to be a third year undergraduate student at uc santa cruise who is a renter and i can only assume because the room behind me is now cleared that i was grouped together with anneal who i've met maybe twice because our skin color is the same so no side is doing better than the other and i think that needs to be stated it needs to be stated loudly and now to make my point i believe it's also unfair to only go by the stereotypes i have been a vocal opponent of measure m and i believe that the ordinance before us today is a good solution i've had students tell me that they also believe this i am not a lone voice but i am a representative the booze out there are one side of the argument and i urge all of you to hear both sides of the argument loudly and clearly see everything that is before you including the empty room because someone couldn't stand that two men of color were not somehow related thank you next speaker please next speaker next speaker next speaker hi my name is kim solsbury live in the city of santa cruise and one of the reasons i'm speaking is because i've seen this turn into such a divisive nasty race or whatever you know situation as both sides have said it is one of the most expensive places in the in the country santa cruises i've been here 42 years most the time as a renter and my rent went up and up since the 70s and i was a single mom working several jobs finally but was able to buy a little house at the height of the market and have a huge payment so i think the reason another reason i want to speak is a lot of people don't understand that my house payment went up 25 percent this year and i've considered taking in a roommate and it's just it this greedy landlord thing is really sad because i tried to talk to some students out there and got ganged up on because i want to say you know we're in this together and it's not like we own free and clear homes so thank you i want to say next speaker please my name is rosanna zacarias and i am going to be endorsing what she just said what i hear is that landlords are being treated as they are really greed people and you know pretty much cousins of um safe jobs you know and it's not the case really you know most of people that i know they own houses and then they pay depend on that payment to make means in a very expensive city as well so nobody says about the bad tenants that destroys the property and uh in this condominium where i lived 48 units one bad tenant and selling drugs and we find needles with heroin around the country and what happens you know what i hear is that it's always like sweet teachers and nice nurses that can't be you know they're being pushed away it's not true you know this measure is very extreme and it's treating landlords like has mortgages and all that like point of order mayor i'm against measuring which measure which measure is extreme i didn't understand what she was measure m so i thank you ma'am your time is up next speaker please my name is canis brown from east moracy um first of all i'd like to understand how this measure was created when you talked about the stakeholders that were invited i didn't see any tenant associations there's many tenant associations in this town other than the measure j i mean the measure m so i really don't understand why that wasn't possible i really think that the timing of this is terrible this really does not shine a good light on the city council it's your way of interceding into a measure that's on the ballot the people have spoken and they wish to vote let them vote without this measure thank you next next speaker please good afternoon council members thank you for your patience my name is rose marie mcnear and i want to say that uh in my twilight years i'm hoping that my grandchildren as they proceed onward will be able to have housing and what i hope is that the dissension and that the animosity that occurs between tenants and landlords goes back to partnerships that's what it is we need a pathway to housing and housing is where it all is and i think everyone should have the opportunity to attempt to own something and they can start out by renting and we can give incentives to those who are good tenants instead of this divisive thing let's get together i mean i really really do believe we're all people that need each other and if we don't work together then we'll have this divisiveness we have to try to figure out better ways your attempt at trying to do this with this uh 2103 is going to help them help the tenants thank you thank you next speaker please hi i'm gary whitney i'm a small landlord here in town and i've got three units all under market i have never raised my rent 10 or more to existing tenants i have never evicted anyone for a better paying tenant and i am going to support the measure uh today i think it's very difficult to create housing when uh an average cost uh new home would carry a five thousand dollar a month payment and we've even found in recent cases where uh 450 thousand dollars was about the amount of uh of new uh low income housing so um you know i i think that we we have an economic engine on the other side of the hill that's ready to gobble everything up over here and we have to be very careful how we proceed and i also think that i i think the truth and the facts matter and this 52 percent increase in all this and you've been hearing about it's absolutely false information it's based on zillow and zillow only does a sampling of what is available to them thank you sir does not include thank you sir landlord the tenant thank you sir next speaker please hi my name is uh jeff vc and uh the uh your draft ordinance now is clear and simple i hope that you keep it that way the key to this housing crunch is housing supply protecting what we have in increasing and one really good thing about your ordinance is that it allows landlords to charge market rents if they want with penalty it allows i'm not encouraging anybody to do that but what that does is it reflects in the appraisal of the property my property now under the freeze that we currently have or measure m the property value is reduced by 20 percent because of my lower rents because i can't either one of those i can't raise the rents so i'm just stuck with losing 20 to 30 percent and i have multiple properties uh what's good about your ordinance it allows market rents so what that means is if i under your ordinance with an appraisal they'll use the market rents which then keeps my property value up and that will discourage me and other landlords from selling their properties or converting it i think that's really really important so whatever you do leave that in your proposal please thank you sir next speaker please again if you and if you you don't have to use the full minute but feel go ahead i'll take his leftovers i'm back thank you for including experienced property managers such as myself in the process of writing the relocation ordinance i am glad to see that recognition that rental agreement and dates are a critical tool for managing property i think it's time for a little story about that we manage a large single family residents on the west upper west side it's a four-bedroom house with five tenants no bigger than a three children family right and early on in the tendency there were reports from numerous neighbors that there were loud parties excess garbage multiple cars arriving and leaving and parking all over the neighborhood and peeling out in the wee hours litter on neighboring properties trash and vomit all over the neighborhood and i am not exaggerating we as property managers accessed all available resources including the student conduct officer at ucsc the santa coups police department santa coups neighbors organizer deb elston all to no avail i even wrote letters to each tenant and parents who were cosigners including photos of the mess and nothing worked so just cause eviction is not necessary thank you detrimental next speaker please i see people coming in are all you standing up to the left waiting to speak on this item yes anyone else back now you've spoken i i see okay what about you yes you're waiting to speak okay please go ahead hello my name is harry dong hello and thank you council members for your time i would like to comment on the city draft proposal if measure m doesn't past the annual residential rental increase proposed is a fair and equitable solution if just cause eviction as being considered in this draft proposal i believe there will have the same unintended consequences as measure m's just cause eviction and most residential lease agreements are already terms and conditions regarding eviction terms that protect both parties as well as laws both property owners and tenants have mutually agreed on these terms in a lease agreement any just cause eviction terms levity on property owners that does not allow illegal binding lease contract to be enforced is open to interpretation and litigation tenants need property owners to rent from and property owners need tenants to fill their housing please allow a fair and equal solution to both parties by passing the council measure before us thank you sir next speaker good day council members it's probably been a long one for you i am joellen smith and i am a santa cruz county resident and i'm also a city property owner my husband and i bought a house on the west side 10 years ago to retire in hasn't been a rental and perhaps never will we had considered it but we wanted it as a retirement place a thought of going somewhere coming back in a year coming back to our house doesn't seem like that would be possible with a measure m you know with seniors are getting squeezed on that end that was a dream may not happen so that is my personal story about how i feel about measure m i do support your council proposal as i think that it would be adequately served if rents are too expensive for some renters then it may be the possibility that you find another place it has a just cause which is good so again i support measure m are you excuse me support your council thank you you can wrap it up if there was just one more part and really oh well no i'm sorry no problem next speaker please i'm looking for correction hi my name is christina horn and i support the staff position um on uh the rent increase before you today uh there's been lots of discussion so far this afternoon about the democratic process and last time i checked another venue for people to get their opinions to the their elected officials is through writing a letter and i reviewed all 210 letters that were submitted and those that were supportive of the staff position outnumbered those that were against by well over four to one that's first point i wanted to make a second part is that i firmly believe that a good part of eventual success in life is simply showing up and i'm happy to be a part of the group that did meet with city officials in an effort to contribute to the community dialogue and be part of the solution thank you very much thank you very much next speaker we're discussing an ordinance will follow on only in the event of a ballot measure proposed for the november election fails this is not a negotiation the vote is going to happen i'm not sure they're creating new rules on such an important topic is appropriate without researching the anticipated effects of those rules this seems fully perfectly reasonable except apparently in our community having said that i personally have not met or corresponded with anyone including any housing providers that think that some sort of rent stabilization uh that don't think that some sort of rent stabilization might be similarly reasonable in fact i think a lower percentage increase might also be reasonable as the proposed increase still results in the 30 to 40 percent increase over five years this reasonableness however does not extend to the just cause eviction rules or the unaccountable rent board should m fail these will be the reason why accordingly adding these components to the current proposal will be profoundly undemocratic i urge the council to keep the proposal considered to be as simple as possible i also urge anyone with a sincere interest in improving housing affordability in our community to vote no on measure m thank you next speaker please hello you all thanks for allowing me to speak i've spoken before and i've sent you letters my name is fjohn labarba my wife and i have lived here for 45 years we have had a old victorian that we rent for 21 years we still owe a substantial mortgage from working on it and we have never charged market rate and we rent to a full cross section of humanity i don't get into it because i don't have the time as to what they do for a living this is compelling evidence i pull this off the internet you don't have to take my word for it look it up the Santa Monica rent board posted this i'm from i was born in Santa Monica there was a 2000% increase in high-end gentrification of housing and moderate went down 34% in the last 18 years and low income went down 93% because of the rent control board also there is an analysis from a local berkeley paper that the alameda county grand jury has found that the berkeley rent stabilization board is a self this is their words the alameda supreme court self-sustaining bureaucracy that operates without effective thank you mr. labarba next speaker please hello city council my name is lauri palmer i'm a property owner in santa cruz and a voter and i am uh deeply disturbed by the ordinance on the table here because of the appearance of undermining the democratic process and interfering with a ballot initiative that should go forward and i think that you should extend the rent freeze so that these kinds of decisions can be made after the vote has been made what's heartbreaking to me about today with the range of speakers presenting here is that it shows the perversion of our humanness through private property because the range of people speaking in support of this ordinance which will do nothing for the renters range from you know as we've seen people who have stories for you that are heartbreaking but they're being twisted by this individual idea that private property is entitling more than just having a body and needing a place to live in the world and i feel like our uh understandings for social debt and a community are being undermined thank you next speaker please good afternoon city council my name is debbie gould i'm a property owner in the city of santa cruz and perhaps you didn't intend this but your proposed ordinance um seems to be subverting the democratic process um and uh i really hope that you'll think about what that means to me someone said cynical before and to me i i have to use the word corrupt it seems like there's a corruption of the democratic process there's hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing in the apartment association speaking here against measure m and for this ordinance that should tell you um about and 11 000 people signed a petition saying that they wanted measure m to be on the ballot let the voters decide extend the rent freeze if you really care about renters thank you i'd like just uh make a pause council member norse left a recording device at the front per our rules of decorum individuals may place and leave unintended audio recording devices at the designated location in council chambers on the window ledge adjacent to the press press box sign i ask that you move your device and put it there please that that is according to our rules of decorum i'd ask you to adhere to those rules thank you thank you i'm not going to disrupt that right to record the meeting okay please move the recording device to the to the area where it says press box sir our rules of decorum are such that you move the recording device you can hold it there you just just can't be unintended it can't be unattended sir i asked that you not disrupt the meeting please pick up the device okay you can hold it thank you cannot be unattended ma'am next speaker please it's right there to the right next speaker please ma'am next speaker thank you next speaker please go ahead my name is sally gwen satterley i am a registered nurse i am a member of the national nurses united the california nurses association and i own my own home i worked very hard to collect signatures for this petition for this measure m initiative please allow this to be voted on and and wait until we find out this does seem to be very confusing to people when you do this new ordinance so please let the voters decide in november and then we will go from there thank you so much for your time thank you ma'am next speaker please good evening city council josh steve and santa cruz city resident i ask a simple question where was this ordinance when my family was wrongfully evicted the time to have this was years ago in my family's case it was to due to intentionally deferred maintenance nothing like light fixtures that fill up with water during the wettest season of all decade in santa cruz that landlord only wanted to evict an upsell only to turn my room into his office in the end with his previously occupied unit today all i ask is support for this ordinance as a fail safe regardless of what happens this november it is time to put some accountability back in the hands of these types of negligent property managers they exist no matter how many naysayers or soul good souls say otherwise they are still present thank you thank you sir next speaker please my name is tom donahue i'm a renter in santa cruz and a volunteer for the yes on m campaign this completely misguided law championed by our highly conflicted mayor is some kind of alternative to measure m is truly a sham this would in fact have catastrophic effects on the most vulnerable low and middle income members of our community while doing nothing to scale back rent increases for anyone instead of keeping rents reasonable this law would incentivize landlords to continue raising rents on existing tenants to just below the allowed threshold year after year while tenants would have no choice but bear that cost without any recourse instead of giving tenants relief this law would only normalize these out of control rent increases and allow them to continue unabated essentially enshrining them into law even worse this terraz's proposal would incentivize landlords to evict tenants whenever they want to raise rents more than 10 percent in order to avoid the risk of paying relocation fees so rather than providing vulnerable tenants with the means to survive they would only kick more tenants to the to the curb thank you sir next speaker please hello my name is steve mckay i'm a professor of sociology and helped put together over the last two and a half years a big study of 1900 renters in our community i speak as a property owner but also as a citizen that i want to commend you for supporting the research and the forums and that for the subcommittee wanting to protect renters and then passing the rent freeze i'm concerned because the timing of this decision and this ordinance undermines the democratic process and it makes it appear that you are undermining measure m and the vote i'm not going to speak on for against measure m it's simply the process if you're serious about protecting renters as the subcommittee clearly was then you could do things you have the power to extend the rent freeze and to do other things so that it doesn't appear you're undermining the vote on measure m by trying to protect renters you don't want those optics people are going to remember you don't want to taint this body by presenting yourselves as impossibly tainting the election thank you sir next speaker hi my name is mariam greenberg and i'm also a professor of sociology at uc santa cruise and i've been involved in a study on the affordable housing crisis in santa cruise and i would concur with what a lot of people have said that there is the understandable impression and potential reality that this would taint the vote and people would have the impression that there is a more moderate alternative to measure m and while as you've heard from so many people this would not have that kind of an effect it would actually enshrine the status quo if it were to be if it were to be enacted certainly that's a very powerful argument i also wanted to speak to as a researcher on this issue the fact that rent control is not intended to produce more housing and i think there's been a lot of concern about the effect on supply and that we need to think about a holistic approach to affordable housing that includes protect production preservation as well as protection of tenants uh and so thinking about measure m for instance alongside of measure h is something that we should keep in mind thank you and i just want to do short earnestina did um you're is anyone else want to speak to this item that's here yes okay you'll be the last speaker sir please go ahead you got it she needs is it on let's see if it's on maybe two tests testing one test test test there you got it okay um i want to let you know that first of all i am very disappointed that this was supposed to be a tutorial so the people that i invite to come here they were at work or they were picking up kids picking up kids which is very important to humor team okay so people was not able to be here nevertheless it's gone a little bit more but i was very disappointed with the fact that this was coming but that noise in there you know though that is what keeps me going and and bring me hope that maybe we will be able to get to an understanding here okay we are not here to talk about if there are good tenants or no bad tenants we are here to remind you that you are an elected officials we vote for you to be there 11 000 people brought you their signature in here to say that we are in support on measure m if you really care for well some of you don't even care so i'm not even gonna waste my time in that but if you really care please keep this measure m thank you adopted that's a lot okay sir you'll be our last speaker please go ahead sir you can step right up and speak you'll be our last speaker pat kittles and a cruise i don't really have an opinion on this i'll tell you up front because i know very well there's a lot of people that take advantage as renters and there's a lot of people that take advantage as landlords so i don't see where this really is going to resolve the problem more than put a band-aid on it make people happy for a while population growth means that there's a more demand and less supply so that's what we're talking about we're really talking about population growth and you really should be making that connection if we want to stop housing prices from going up and rental prices from going up we need to stop population growth around here that means we've got to be serious about sustainable immigration call me whatever you want but those are the facts and i think in your heart of hearts you know it thank you okay and i understand there's one more speaker that didn't step up before i made a couple calls you'll be our last speaker on the side of please step up and you can go right ahead we're at the woman holding the mic she was doing that i have one moment does she want to hold it no she does not she's uh you missed that part please go ahead okay great thanks i appreciate the opportunity to speak my name is linda chattin and i am a property manager with ci f property management in capitol and i just wanted to say that i think the like has been spoken about earlier i think the real issue is not to put tenants against landlords i see it from both sides i think the real issue is the elephant in the room is that we really need more housing uh obviously for everybody so i think if we could think outside the box and come up with some dynamic creative solutions and let others know about what those solutions are and not do it through restrictive measures like as you're proposing thank you thank you okay that concludes the public that can excuse me sir this that concludes the public testimony on this item item number 12 i'm going to bring it back to the council but before i do so pardon yeah i'm good what i'm going to do is um ask that the sergeant of arms and anyone who's assisting them to allow people members of the public to come back into the chambers those that were not disruptive to this item can come back in for the proceedings as we discuss this item i'm also going to ask staff because we do have items number 13 and 14 if we can defer those to a future meeting um okay well we'll see how it's going no they can come in through the back they're going to be escorted in at the back i'd like them to be escorted in those that uh those that weren't disruptive sir you could you could they're handling it thank you okay you're going to have to talk with city manager okay so i'll allow people to come in we're going to transition people can come in to this item we'll bring it back to the council as um well as soon as we get a little bit of thank you yeah they could be seated yeah again you can again we're at um 545 went a little longer than anticipated so yeah so and they can people come in a little you can come take a seat if you're outside and you'd like to be in here for these proceedings please come on in those that are outside can come on in what's that oh well let them let them follow the procedures they have in place no it did not of course you can i sure did and his too okay i'm going to just bring this back so we can start having a discussion why should we call a pause until people people want to participate in our discussion there i'm just getting really frustrated because we had one person who's maybe who's out of line and probably should have been put out and that would have been solved everything and now we're playing this game but why can't people why aren't people coming back in um because um well council member crown thank you for those comments one of the things was i wanted to get through the public speaking portion of this so we can have all the public testimony we're actually bringing it back to the council for deliberation and action and i left it to the sergeant of arms to determine the best method to return people to their seats i'm happy to wait and pause until uh there's a sufficient number of people in the room and tell their seated but um appreciate your comments and if that's the will of the council we can we can wait until the chambers are full again i mean i just find myself distracted by all the noise so i you prefer to wait i would prefer okay that's fine we can wait why don't you take a take a break if anyone wants to do uh take a break which i will i'll be right back thank you for your patience everyone we have two council members they'll be coming back and i'd like to bring it back to the council for discussion first of all i wanted to thank everybody that was uh probably twice as long as had been anticipated in terms of the discussion and i'm i'm thankful that we were able to get through the public testimony portion of it and um for the most part i think for the most part people were respectful of the process and hearing both sides and i think that um at this point i really like to maintain that same level of discourse has this back at the council as we kind of discuss this you know there are going to be different viewpoints expressed and i'd appreciate that if everybody remain respectful of the discussion and process and we'll move through this in an orderly fashion so at this point the item before us is the ordinance on item number 12 the relocation assistance for displaced tenants and ordinance amendment and i'd like to begin by responding to someone who made the comment as why is it that just now this is being considered this was an item that was part of the homeless blueprint committee discussions that took place the housing blueprint there was another committee that i referred to the housing blueprint committee discussion that goes back well um at the beginning of the year and um i think that there has been a variety of discussion and points on this and i think it's important that if i'd like to kind of bring it back and as this is before us kind of circle back as we started with a discussion from them on what we've heard and how we want to kind of proceed council members thank you so i just before i start i want to thank everyone for coming out expressing your opinions i am a bit it's unfortunate i guess that we have now had a lengthy discussion about the merits and of rent control or no rent control when this was not the intention for this particular agenda item so thank you for your patience and so i just want to make a few comments as a member of the housing blueprint subcommittee we did in fact include in our set of recommendations and we had a lengthy discussion about this the an interest in making a recommendation that something come before the council that would make it clear to the public that we are concerned about this issue i recognize that a lot of people are asking why now it's a question i can't answer but i can tell you that now being on this council it's been and continues to be a concern of mine so in no way did we intend or i won't speak for everyone on the committee but i will say that for myself the intention was certainly not to undermine the democratic process and you know i really believe that our work was done as of february 13th when we enacted a temporary rent freeze and a temporary moratorium on evictions without cause and i and it's my hope that this council you know is is true to its word and say and i think we all said we we want to step back and allow the democratic process to play out so you know yes we did ask for something to come back to us i did not recall that that it needed to come back at this early of a date and with that i would you know i'd like to make a motion but i do have a question for the city attorney about timing you know i'd like to move that we um we asked out to come back to us at a later date preferably after the election to allow this democratic process to play out let this debate happen outside our city council chambers so we can take care of the business that we we are here to take care of um so in terms of doing that though i want to ask the city attorney and you know we kind of talked about dates our intention was to try to put something in place should the measure m not be adopted by the voters my understanding is that the election will be certified 30 days after the election that gives us some time to actually revisit this at a later date this and or you know other measures i'd really prefer not to discuss how to tinker with this particular ordinance that's before us and just move the discussion to another time um so um tony if you could um give us a sense of what the the timing first of all is it possible if we came back on november 13th um with could we adopt something with a retroactive date so that there is not in fact a gap in timing and that would allow the the process to play if you could just walk us through that and i haven't i haven't researched the retroactivity issue in preparation for this meeting so i apologize for that but um under the standard procedure for adopting an ordinance is that it has a first reading and a second reading and it takes effect 30 days thereafter pursuant to the charter so whether or not the charter allows an ordinance to have a retroactive effect um is something that i need to analyze but if the council were to take action prior to i believe i i i want to say that the um certification occurs at the end of the first week after um or the first week in december after the the results are announced so it'd be about december 7th so if the council were to take action by the second meeting in october an ordinance would be in effect before the results were certified um alternatively if the council were to adopt an emergency ordinance of the type that was uh considered by the council and adopted by five votes in february um those would take effect immediately i have a little bit of concern about whether or not um the necessary findings in support of an emergency can be made when the reason for doing so would be well well known to the council um in time to take legislative action without relying upon an emergency ordinance so i have some concerns about that um but that would also be an option for the council thank you just a follow-up question how about the extending the rent freeze um up until that time so it would cover that time period you could do that by uh under the charter the um an ordinance can be amended in the same manner in which it's adopted so the council could bring forward an ordinance to extend the effective date of the rent freeze um council member crone i appreciate your sentiment and i you know i appreciate the um the request from members of the community that we extend the rent freeze but for the same reason that i'm suggesting that it would be my preference that this council um step out of uh appearing to interfere with this electoral process i think that's something that we can do at a later date as well so i'm going to just i'm going to move that we um we direct staff to come back to us with this and or any other um uh version of this ordinance um on or after october 25th i would like to get confirmation about whether or not we if we could do something retroactively my preference would be that we hear it in november but if we could just start with on or after october 25th okay there's a motion by council member brown second by council member chase um council member neroy so i would like clarification just on the timeline again so if something comes to us october 25th that's still before election day right like so we would still be making a decision about something before election day right mind if you're going if you want an ordinance to be adopted in the ordinary course and be in effect before the results are certified you would have to you would have to finally adopt the ordinance at the 25th 23rd 23rd okay so all right so we would still be adopting something before election day which i imagine it would be still considered usurping the democratic process according to some people who spoke i think that the argument that has been made would still be applicable right and so and then in terms of timing so would that be a first reading on the 23rd and then a second reading at our first meeting in november if you did it that way then the ordinance wouldn't take effect until december 13th okay but so we would absolutely have to say it's an emergency declaration for it to go away i'm getting ahead why are you oh excuse me all right so october 23rd would be a first reading a second reading would would happen at the next meeting and then you're saying it wouldn't go into effect until december 13th right okay the rent freeze is in place till what date it automatically expires upon the certification of the results of the of the measure it's december 11th i believe okay so round december 11th or so is when okay so we would still have like two days that we that there would be no protections in place is what it sounds like it's possible that some landlord could i mean i have my doubts about the practical ability of a landlord to implement a dramatic rent increase in that period of time they couldn't because you would we still have you know rules about if there are no requirements a lot of tenants have leases that specify the amount of the rent that sort of thing but it there might be a small window of opportunity for a very narrow set of circumstances okay um so it's just interesting though because it would still require us to make a decision before election day if an ordinance is brought forward in the ordinary course of business that's right okay but you were saying that an emergency ordinance isn't necessarily something we can do either because you're not sure if it would rise to the level of being a true emergency in the legal definition um well it's a little bit more nuanced than that to be frank with you the courts are required to or are supposed to give deference to a council's legislative findings supporting an emergency so long as they are factually correct and so so if and under the charter you're required to set forth the reasons or the factual basis upon which you're declaring and exist the existence of an emergency and so long as the findings are accurate statements whether or not a court disagrees with the council's legislative determinations it's supposed to defer to the council's judgment on that point okay thank thank you for that information thanks council member brown my intention here once again was not to complicate the matter um by uh suggesting that you know i understand the point you're making council member norea in about october 25th still being before the election what i would like my preference would be that this uh be reconsidered after the election after the election date if that's possible so perhaps i should restate the motion as and see if my second is inclined um the motion is to direct staff to come back to us with uh an ordinance after the election so no that would be our first meeting november 13th and uh so that would be after the election pending uh the um you know pending anything from the city attorney about the ability to make that retroactive to um november whatever the data is that we need to do it if you could remind pen to ensure that it is enacted um prior to the expiration of the temporary rent freeze so the two options would be to bring it forward as an emergency ordinance again which if adopted at november 13th meeting would take effect immediately or bring it forward as an ordinance in the of course ordinary course of business which you if you adopted or if you introduced at the 13th would be adopted presumably at the 27th and go into effect on the 27th of december or both um however we still don't have clarity about the ability to make it retroactive is that that's what i think that's the thing that's that is causing the confusion here yeah i mean i'm assuming i'll be able to definitively and answer that question um and be able to offer a firm legal opinion on that but that's not all the way always the way things work out so i think it's just to follow up on that question i i think your comment was too the the advanced knowledge that if we're going to try and do an emergency ordinance for something that we have the potential to enact now would question that right the basis for the council and if you think about the basis that was cited in the emergency ordinance in support of or the emergency ordinance adopting the rent freeze it was out of a real concern that um that rents would be preemptively increased while the community was considering whether to adopt a rent control ordinance it was to preserve the status quo and you have the ability to preserve the status quo now um and while the outcome of the election is far from certain the foreseeability of its failure is one clearly foreseeable um path forward and so that's the reason why i'm a little bit concerned about bringing forward as an emergency my intention was not to have it brought forward as an emergency i understand that concern okay so i had council member math using council member chase and then vice mayor walk ins i don't have a calendar in front of me but it seems to me we could and now i just need to be able to read it at a distance um we could put it off for one meeting to determine the timing while city attorney does some research one way or the other we have time to do that so the motion could be to um defer the timing of action on this to be determined out of or or just to be arranged by the mayor in terms of i'll leave it to council member chase well so i was kind of kind of go back to council member rounds motion it seems like the two options we're looking at is one we want to determine the ability of retroactivity that's the big question um and then the alternative to that would be if we stuck with the date certain and i think the date is important because our intention from the blueprint subcommittee was to make sure there wasn't a gap so knowing that we can actually have a first and second reading have substantial time for the public to weigh in on it and for us to make any modification for that to go into effect so that there isn't a gap should the measure not pass was really that was the intention of what we recommended so it seems like investigate the retroactivity but then absent that we can't do that then it would be heard on the 23rd for first reading yes okay i i agree with that if that's where you are okay thank you for uh articulating it a little better than i did any further discussion council member we did get a couple of suggestions that i thought were reasonable should we just communicate for example the definition of an authorized tenant and some other kind of yeah the authorized ethical things can those be incorporated in the any first reading maybe any comments that were submitted in regards to the ordinance language have that um considered considered for okay okay wait we have uh plex mera walk ins and then councilman work road i mean i don't have anything else to add other than that i interpret the motion as uh council member chase articulated um that's council member brown second i'm sorry council member brown articulated then council member chase seconded and then restated and i just want to um okay i just want to um just if i can just make a few brief comments i think i appreciate the context that was set because this was and i appreciated the opportunity to work alongside my colleagues to really come up with strategies to increase affordable housing in our community and um i it's unfortunate that um it wasn't it's interpreted today as something different by some and so i i just really want you know to really acknowledge the intention behind that i think principally that we all really share which is a something in the absence of nothing if that's the way that sort of the desk settles so i mean that's sort of the essence i think i just really want to kind of highlight um so i'm fine with moving the timeline um and i'm fine with fine tuning what what was brought today and taking in the input that we heard as well and more input from the council um and if it's after the election and that works that's great and if it's a little bit before because we don't want to have something where there isn't anything then i'm then i'm okay with that as well so that's sort of my position on it Councilmember crown i'm just wondering if everybody in the audience knows where we're at would you like would you like the mayor really to restate what what what where we're at because i think it's confusing i think i think um what um what we're hearing right now is general consensus that the item would be deferred after reviewed by the city attorney for a future meeting based on when we can have an ordinance that would go into effect that would accomplish what's included in the draft that we have here before us we're also going to review some of the um consider some of the language that was presented to refine some of the definitions and uh revocation payments and um depending on uh the findings of the of the city attorney that would come back to us as early as the um october 23rd meeting so no one's voting up or down on the relocation assistance for displace tenants ordinance and amendment update tonight we're voting to defer it defer to bring back uh a first reading which could be on october 23rd thank you is that is that uh i would just assume that the direction would be to incorporate provisions to ensure that it right covers the gap between no gap the certification of the results of measure m and the effective date and i just sitting here thinking about it as the council's been discussing it i i think that i can come up with that language okay council member norion so i i'm struggling with this because the whole purpose or the whole argument of saying we want to defer this is so it doesn't happen before election day but october 23rd if according to my calendar that still before election day so i'm sitting here thinking that we're only postponing the inevitable which is having to make a decision before the 23rd and so um i don't know if i can i don't think i can support the motion because we've sat here for a really long time i can't even remember when we started this and i don't want to ask the community to sit through two more times possibly three more times to still have the same result of which is still making a decision before election day so i don't think i can support the motion as is right now council member matthews briefly as i can i want to acknowledge that the intention of the housing uh sub blueprint committee sub committee uh was never to do an end run around the rent control their work started at the better part of this year this was one of many items and it was brought forth with with good faith as directed by the staff it was never their scheme to do this and the plan that we have now to defer it i think is to reduce the perception that it's being done as an end run it's the members of the housing blueprint subcommittee that in fact have suggested the timing be delayed somewhat with the intention of not leaving a gap in whatever um admittedly very partial mitigation is adopted i don't think anyone sees this as uh an amended or a substituted rent control but it's it's a mitigation that with the um at the suggestion of the subcommittee members is being delayed somewhat still before the election but that's what we have i i guess i'll i'd like to just on that point ask the city attorney what what what about what is what is the latest that something like this could be you know heard so that if it's if it was later than that latest i'm not quite sure i understand well beyond the election if that's what the will is of the subcommittee i mean i i guess that was not the direction well i just by you know it's see what he's asking if it can be adopted in a way that has a retroactive effect then you have a lot more flexibility okay okay i think um it's clear what the motion is in the second um he's going to investigate retroactivity okay thank you so i'll ask anyone else if there's any further discussion on this item um i just wanted to say how i really appreciate the folks who came tonight and spoke and the sort of tone that you had i think i'm really really appreciative thank you very much i feel like i need to i i might be voting against this motion but i just want to make it really clear that i want protection for people i don't want a gap and in fact i was even going to look at the percentages of um 10 and 15 thinking that well you know when i look at the situation for where people are paying rent now that's a significant increase too as well and i was willing to propose that maybe it be rolled back to five and ten as well because i think that would cover costs you know that people might have as landlords if if something happens to their to their building so um i just want to make it really clear though that i'm not against gap um protection and between the current um protections we have obviously i voted for them originally but i just don't think this process going forward makes much logic um when you consider we're going to have to decide this anyway before election day i just don't want to continue to put the community through endless meetings and and ad nauseam discussion so that's how i feel haven't we given direction that what comes back will be designed to avoid the gap and yes so it could be after the election in fact and preventing on what the city attorney's research tells us and if you want to provide an informational report to that effect that would be that would be fine yeah and just for the record mayor i mean replied to councilmember neroyan that we're also i heard everybody say they're interested in tenant protections the tenants have come up to us tonight saying this is not protection stop stop don't do this so i just want to make that clear yes we are interested in tenant protections and i just need to say in response to that we haven't heard from every tenant we heard from tenants here today we also have letters that have come to us from other tenants who've said they want this so you know i you can't just say definitively what we hear please don't interrupt me i'm not what we say definitively here or what's being said is the only testimony we've received it isn't okay that's in response okay we have a motion a second on the floor i'll also say this i mean i feel like part of the election process is about having at least the public educated about these issues one hearing from both sides we heard today from different perspectives on it and it's important that one it's a matter of one the council has taken steps to provide tenant protections in fact if you go look at that listing of action items there was funding that was made for landlord tenant legal assistance a variety of things that weren't discussed today and i think there have been actions here and i feel like the fact that it's being framed as kind of a one-sided argument i think it's it's it's a it's a misnomer we there have been lengthy discussions i think they started with last year and i think the fact that they're coming up now is something where maybe there's more work to be done in terms of how we kind of set in place actions so that they are inclusive so we have both those that are property owners and tenants and tenants rights activists discussing these things so we come up with sensible policy because clearly when you have a discussion like this when there's such divisions on where those are we need to find opportunities for common ground so i hear the motion in the second is there any further discussion okay all those in favor what's on the floor please say aye those opposed no okay that passes with um um brown vice mayor walk-ins uh council member crone uh council member matthews council member chase and myself and uh council member doronian oppose i thank you for everyone for being here and i'm going to ask that we um defer items 13 and 14 i've conferred with the city attorney our city manager and we can move those to a later date is there a second second we're going to move item 13 and 14 for a future meeting i would strongly like to request that we hear item 14 which i think can take be done in four minutes we've got you know we've got a seven o'clock meeting that's scheduled for the library and we've got to hear public oral comments um what we have a motion in a second is there further discussion on this i think oral communications can't do not it's not mandatory that they be a half an hour those can be set for 15 minutes i'd like to move through this one item quickly yeah are there folks from the are there folks that are applicants here i'll bring it up once i hear we see whether or not there that commission is down two people and i'd like to get them running okay so what's the what do you what do you guys want to do there's a motion and a second on the floor i mean i think council member matthews point that that shouldn't take very long hold on so we're discussing whether we move for two items and we'll go to your oral communications don't you worry you know i think council member matthews point that that will not take very much time and we are down two members is is probably then i'll hold that to the end of the day after we have our discussion after the library if that's the way we want to do it you know i mean i i just want to do our oral communications and get it done okay so yeah let's move motion to defer item 13 to a future meeting item 14 until after the library discussion and david i would like to ask one question there's nothing timely about item 13 is that right i confirm that with a city city manager okay that's fine so all those in favor please say aye hi hi any opposed okay passes unanimously with council member crone absent okay we're going to have our oral communications there were two members of the public groups that wish to speak on this i granted four minutes uh to uh council member norse or council member norse i did it again it's just i'm just after going through that it's for your group and then you requested um three minutes on behalf of the freedom sleepers okay if you can go right now please or can you go ahead mr norse mr norse go ahead please i just like you're the longest on this one can you go please you're the longest speaker on the side i mean you requested the usual group rate which you've cut from five to four minutes yes okay okay tell me when to begin tell me when you want me to go right now whenever you okay the federal court may put a check on council created crackdown on the homeless or they did last week last winter in the wake of the hepe threat there were two walk-in alternatives san lorenzo benchlands and the afc run shelters why the unavoidable starkly visible presence of sick disabled and elderly people on the sidewalks outside businesses residences and even these council chambers flushed from the parks by vigilante needle maniacs me me merchants and property speculators dumped from shelters these refugees found community and camping spots together and again they will this winter because they have no choice but this year in spite of expanded funding there are no announced plans for a walk-in winter shelter why who knows we must ask the council enablers and cheerleaders why this failed empower the bullies strategy as the police outside council chatter about mythical housing along with silent screams at the prospect of renter revolt are familiar mariturasas and his buddies ballooned ranger powers in the city funded cops who beat the bushes back city manager martin Bernal's first alarm security thugs act isaeth ray the loud nelson center's mean spirited matriarch who idiotically against all common sense keeps the bathrooms there closed to the public these preposterous lock them out non-solutions lock restrooms fence parks ignore the most obvious human needs and simple economics a bathroom is cheaper than a crap cleanup why this cold design to exclude the community to punish the poorest whatever the reason for this make them feel unwelcome and they will flee the struggle against bigotry never ends even if rent control passes this november where is the more radical action to creep santa cruz affordable for most of this real rent reduction speculation taxes the old coalition of students elderly disabled and unhoused has yet to reappear where's the pushback against the increasingly powerful mini police states developing here and elsewhere evicted tenants will face rude midnight roust property confiscation by taxpayer funded peace officers the last several weeks have seen jail strikes across the country conditions in our jail are not substantially different campgrounds are inevitable part of our future absent profound institutional change campgrounds ironically will be the excuse to concentrate contain and control the poor sacrificing their dignity and freedom for a facade of shelter those outside will then be persecuted as service resistant without human rights on the streets and voluntary autonomous self-managed encampments there will simply as well simply be let local concentration camps prettied up with little flags behind barbed wire like the current river street campground and coral streets homeless lack of service centers i d cars guard booth restricted access long waiting list bureaucratic absentee management and of course designation as a campus george orwell would have been proud this is not a future we want but one we must fight against because it's sweeping inevitably towards us with smiley liberal backing it shouldn't be necessary to remember we all must sleep to survive use bathrooms regularly rest to go on and find community in public places to feel human concurrently the city's laws let police remove these basic rights at will the federal courts have weighed in this fall the rest of us need to say no and drag city officials kicking and screaming if necessary to adjust humane response and of course i'm speaking to the community because i don't think the city council has been listening thank you thank you mr. Norse next speaker please you have three and a half minutes thank you we stood here before over three years ago as a freedom sleepers protesting the unconstitutionality of the sleeping band we slept outside of city hall every tuesday for two years beginning on july 4th 2015 we read to most of you the decision from boise versus bell we and many others begged you to change the ordinance don lane requested to take the word sleeping out of the ordinance so now as you know it has been declared unconstitutional by the ninth circuit court as we all suspected but what i see happening here in santa cruz is that you are now figuring out ways to still criminalize those who have to live on the streets by giving other types of citations and continuing to make every place illegal to sleep in the city which causes people to trespass the police continue to harass businesses to sign a contract with them so they can go on their business they can go on to their business at any time and give citations for those trying to get a night's sleep you can you continue to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars putting up fences to keep the houseless out of the parks and then then you say you have no budget to help the houseless you continue to put up signs throughout the city not allowing people to sit or stand keep their belongings or bikes nearby knowingly that this is what you what you call the unsightly to keep them out of sight and out of our parks a few months ago i videotaped a car that was going to be towed it had two people in their sixties who were disabled living in them thankfully a compassionate cop mark elvereth disagreed with the original cop who called the tow company one of the people in the car couldn't sit or walk due to bone on bone on her hips she's been waiting for surgery and was in cruciating pains andy mills told me the next the next time they may not be compassionate and should probably try not to sleep in the city but go in the county the following week when i wasn't videotaping the same original police name not mark found the same people and towed their car now they're living on the streets and one of them can't walk and if you think and if you're thinking of changing the ordinance to only if the shelters are full this would not only be immoral but probably unconstitutional a lot of the people living on the streets can't be around others they have drug or alcohol dependencies and cannot stay in the campground or the winter shelter if that were to be there and even if the shelters were full you know that most people in survival mode cannot keep track of their court dates or even if they could keep track how are they supposed to get in the courthouse if they can't have a place to store their belongings they can't they're too afraid their possessions will be stolen a very fair at all two common occurrence and andy mills has decided to double down on citations such as trespassings these trespassing these tickets increased by 88 percent in the first six months of this year you made it illegal to sleep anywhere in the city public urination and defecation would not happen if you supplied sufficient bathrooms littering and illegal dumping would not happen if you supplied more trash and recycling bins this kind of treatment is inhumane and my guess it will be unconstitutional instead of waiting for it to be unconstitutional like our sleeping ordnance maybe this time you can get ahead of the game and stop upping the citation and criminalizing the homeless thank you okay so how many people are here to speak for oral communication one two three four five six seven eight okay um i'm gonna we have not had a break yet we're gonna have a dinner break we have a seven p.m session um i'm gonna uh we'll have one minute per speaker for oral communications and so ma'am if you'd like to begin you can thank you ma'am would you like to begin you can speak into the mic please i agree with everything that was said absolutely everything or heaven sakes please please start taking care of our people our neighbors who live on the streets first no library no parking lot take care of the people first feed them make sure they have bathrooms and for goodness sakes do not arrest them for trespassing and have these citations where these people have to come to court and if they don't come to court then they go to jail this is ridiculous thank you next speaker please mayor city council and city officials my name is riko baker i'm a vietnam veteran and i'm here on this amazing day of september 11th quite an amazing act to follow here i'm representing veterans for peace chapter 11 of santa cruz this is uh we're trying to celebrate this whole year as armistice year because it's it contains the 100th anniversary of armistice day which ended world war one on 11 11 at 11 o'clock in 1918 as armistice 100 santa cruz we've been holding events on the 11th of each month at the town clock leading up to a grand event on the evening of november 10th first at the united methodist church and november 11th at memorial plaza and the veterans memorial building as described on the back of a flyer which i'm going to hand out to each of you thank you any another minute please i'm claire joy riko baker's wife associate member of veterans for peace santa cruz chapter 11 we are working with the mayor of santa cruz to create a proclamation stating city of santa cruz support for the 100th anniversary of armistice day and we invite you all city council to contribute to purchasing a large wreath to be placed before or on the world war one memorial pillar the morning of 11 11 2018 the pillar contains the names of 45 veterans killed between 1914 and 1918 we also invite you to join us on the morning of november 11 2018 and to contact us if you wish to speak at that time thank you for your time and for your dedication to what is best for the city of santa cruz thank you and um the city manager's office is arranging a meeting you i know you've emailed and so they'll do that so that we can kind of one maybe address the wreath and also to finish the proclamation so thank you i want to make a very brief comment another place where names of local veterans killed in combat are listed which is absolute chilling is the hallway to santa cruz high school yeah really yeah takes your heart away yeah no thank you yeah thank you okay thank you next speaker please she'll post her conscience and action after the last uh meeting uh i hand delivered to all of you the next day a letter about my our proposal for a task force having to do with the bathrooms i even said to the secretary your secretary will they see this letter she assured me they will the members of the city council i haven't heard from any of you about this task force i had a feeling that you really did listen to us the other day but none of you have responded all we're asking for is that you appoint a task force that deals with the issue of bathrooms as chief mills beautifully wrote just today many of you have been strong advocates for the homeless over the years and now is the time to press forward and ensure there are solutions that meet the need of the homeless and yet improve quality of life for all one last sentence please there are some really smart people the chief said here and i believe collectively santa cruz can increase the illusions that work please respond to me thank you next speaker please i'm keith mckenry with food not bombs and as sam abbey samuels and others have pointed out it's been ruled in the night's court of appeals that many of the laws and actions of our local law enforcement community here are unconstitutional and that's of course what we were saying for the two years of the sleepout that was um harassed by uh city officials here and the police but so our message is clear it is illegal to be harassing people that have no access to shelter or housing and the city must stop and of course i'm certain if the if uh you're not comply with the constitution we have attorneys that are willing to sue the city to force you to comply with these laws also i urge you to create a permit process there's a number of organizations that want to provide portable toilets for the homeless here including food not bombs has raised money to continually operate a portable toilet down by the post office we have lots of support from local businesses and the post office itself so i hope you endorse that permit process and i'm going to be giving you a copy of the uh report on the unconstitutionality of these laws next speaker please josh steven city of santa cruz resident first and foremost why is it that we are down to two free public parking lots here lot by laurel street extension used to be free and now it has meters no other improvements to the pothole plastered paid parking lot just meters what's more to the is the fact that residents have to pay the parking fees such as these meters and other passes to have friends over in their apartments here around and what is this for oh a general fund sounds more like fundraising to a new smoothie bar back at the city's office to me if you are going to put us on the hook and charge us for more parking then you need to put your our money to use for transportation improvements and not into a mysterious general fund second these oblivious time limits for oral communications other cities have three minutes the council will take all day with discussions and even have the adept and um we only get this lackluster amount of time the city of san jose has had their meetings go to bar hours such as two hours into two a.m you can't spare an extra minute or two for your dinden poor poor people we may be santa cruz but we're in the land of the slugs but it doesn't give us the right to act like them thank you next speaker please thank you council mayor i would like you to celebrate with me the complete transformation of the experience of homelessness downtown this time last year there were mounds and mounds of belongings chained to bike racks i have dozens of photographs to show that but just go downtown we may not have realized it or even noticed it things have totally shifted we have 130 people 140 this week storing their belongings with the day and night storage program operated by the warming center program many people moving without backpacks many people reducing you're not seeing the the quantity of bike trailers it's been a complete shift so i'd like you to celebrate with us and just be be aware that now when you see that stuff it's actually rather infrequently than constantly pervasive also i want to remind uh and this is a different a different hat there is a shelter crisis we haven't funded the winter shelter it's going to be on the warming center to pick up the entire slack i hope all council can realize we are not getting any funding locally for the warming center picking up for the slack on the coldest nights of the we have to double down this winter thank you next speaker please and you'll be our last speaker for oral communications thank you i'm louise drummond and i'm here to speak about your policy toward the homeless the city's policy i think is insane really insane because you you go about finding people who can't pay the fines and and then they can't get jobs and can't rent now how how does that serve anybody and i assume that chief mills has started ticketing for trespassing because of the pressure from our beloved city manager and besides that there was a whole program suggested for the for the homeless to improve conditions like charging stations and so on there i forget how many points there were how many of those points have been put into action i haven't heard of any of it i i just think that you're all complicit in the sadism the sadism of the elites of this town toward the homeless thank you okay thank you okay that completes oral communications and we're not actually going to leave just yet we have the review the council calendar is anything else that we have no okay any other questions on the calendar um i want to say that um we're going to adjourn or recess for actually for until the 7 p.m session we're going to start at 7 10 on that meeting just to give a little additional time we've been at this um since um earlier today those of you that are here um we have to clear the chamber so the clerk can have a break so i'm sorry about that and i just came in and got comfortable we'll be back at 7 10 to start the uh the evening session regarding the library so could we get it came early to get seats is there we can leave stuff on the seat yeah leave your things on the seat of the the uh it'll be locked so you'll have a place if you'd like to be here okay mayor could we get a report back on how many of those uh stations uh plug-in stations okay thank you also can we ask staff to get back to us if we've established any plug-in station well yeah please just ask i'll i'll ask okay yeah okay thank you okay so we're reset and there's um there's the food electronic devices is what she's asking about to our 7 p.m session starting a little late based on the end of our afternoon session this is the uh session of the september 11th 2018 meeting before we begin um i want to just say that um today is also um september 11th and i'd like us to really take a moment before we begin our proceedings today reflect on the over 3 000 people that lost their lives and the first responders um that were active on that day working to help those that were um that were that were that were killed or injured in the horrific events that took place 17 years ago today so i'd like to ask that we begin with a moment of silence before we open up the meeting evening session thank you okay we're here for one item actually um to begin and then we're going to have an item after it's concluded um that we carried over from this afternoon's session um i'd like to first um ask the clerk to call the role mayor charasas here vice mayor Watkins here council members brown here chase crone here matthews here and orion here thank you um this next item on the agenda is um the recommendation to proceed with the library mix use project um and budget adjustment um it's item number one um we're going to begin with a presentation um from staff and then um after the conclusion of the presentation um several groups an organization have asked to have some public comment i'm going to turn to them to speak and then um we'll have our public uh individual testimony from those i'll ask for a show of hands um so at this point i'd like to turn it over to um staff to make their presentation great thank you sorry excuse me before we begin my apologies i also want to make an announcement i did at the beginning of this afternoon's session there is indoor overflow seating with live stream at the library conference room where the board once met that's on the second floor of the library at 224 church street we also have outdoor seating um the seats that are immediately out here are available and there's outdoor audio we'll also have um the ability if you do wish to speak um we'll call you in when it's ready both those are at the library conference room as well as those that are outside um again we had a very long meeting this afternoon i'd like to have everyone's cooperation so we listen to one another and and be respectful of all the viewpoints that are presented and also those that have signs that might be above the shoulders need to be down so that anyone behind you can see so i need you to put your signs below your shoulders or you can stand against the back wall if you so choose um but i just don't want any uh signs just disrupting the viewpoints of people that are here for their meeting now i'd like to take the opportunity to turn it over to staff for the presentation great thank you um good evening mayor city council my name is amanda rotella i'm economic development coordinator i'm joined here today um by staff from the public works planning of order mayor um i just wanted to clarify the process tonight like staff presentation then just so the audience knows when they we might get to them and what the process is i think i just did that i wasn't going to repeat it right i'm going to say we're going to have the staff presentation and then after we hear the presentation i'm going to turn it over so we can have the group um anybody grouped we had several groups that requested public comment no questions then they'll go council i'd like to hold the questions until after the uh the public speakers on this and then we can have questions we'll get to them right yes absolutely thank you okay so that's that is the process and now staff please okay okay um just as i was saying um i'm joined here today by staff from the economic development office public works planning and the library so it's sort of a a group effort um for this presentation and we're here tonight to make a brief presentation on the library mixed use project and recommendations that have been detailed in the staff report we're aiming to be brief and concise recognizing that um there are a lot of people here who'd like to speak so we'll be moving quickly so we always feel it's important to recap past council meetings and actions um and we continue to touch upon the december 6 2016 meeting because council direction from that really meeting has really framed how we move forward um from including the creation of the downtown library advisory committee direction for um analyzing recommendations for a permanent site for the farmers market as well as developing a parking rates matrix for funding the portion of the parking um as part of the project we also met this summer june 12th and june 19th uh to look at the downtown some of the vision challenges and opportunities we looked at the parking rate strategy and also had a presentation from delac today's presentation um we will be looking at four areas first we feel it's important to really take a moment to reiterate the problems that we're trying to address as they relate to the library parking and housing um i think as city staff we see ourselves as problem solvers so we've been really focusing on the proposed solution the library mixed use project so we'd like to take a moment to really step back and and um focus on the reason that we're here today and the problems we're trying to address so we'll be doing some very minor touches on that we'll be looking at the um how we got to the proposed solution the library mixed use project i'll provide some feedback on the community engagement and feedback that's happened and then we'll get into next steps timeline and recommendation the big picture slide and we continue to bring this graphic up because we really feel that it demonstrates all of the components that play in the downtown and really the interconnectedness of those components and as we're looking at the big picture and how downtown is changing and growing we really want to be aware of how changes and growth are impacting across all of these pieces we really want to vibrant downtown with a strong economy and activated community spaces a downtown that's easy to access with sufficient park parking inadequate housing to meet the needs of the community and so there's a lot to balance and as we're looking at five to six hundred new housing light um housing units in the pipeline for construction in the downtown we really feel it's the city's responsibility to plan for related infrastructure to ensure that downtown not only survives but thrives so this is something that we've been keeping in mind as we move forward and now I'd like to bring up a library doctor Susan Nemitz to speak about the library hello i'm Susan Nemitz um in 2013 the library board put together a facilities master plan where they evaluated all the facilities of the libraries across the county um downtown has been a set of special problems and you can see pictures I know many of you have had the opportunity to see the library up close and personal so I won't go into much detail but if you go to the next slide the facilities master plan and Nolan Tam more recently found a variety of things that were wrong with the building ADA basic infrastructure pieces the whole building's dated and really an inefficient layout for doing modern library services I think the other thing that we faced in 2016 when measure S passed 23 million dollars was allocated to the Santa Cruz public downtown branch library and we were looking at the cost of construction for libraries across the Bay Area coming in at over a thousand dollars per square foot so we made the determination that 23 million dollars was probably not going to get us a state-of-the-art library so one of the things we just want to talk about because people keep asking is what happens if this proposal does not pass um the thing I want you to be aware of is that the measure S bonds fund expire on June 30th 2024 so we have a limited period of time in which to make these decisions and we are already kind of constantly closing the library itself or parts of the library because of aging infrastructure blowing electrical fuses pipes breaking a whole variety of things that have occurred particularly over the last three years and we'd prefer not to continue to do so and then I think probably most importantly though is we really aren't meeting the 21st century learning needs of the Santa Cruz community now we'll hear from Claire fleece there from the public works parking division hi I'm Claire fleece I'm the transportation planner for the city so for the parking portion of this project one of the things that we looked at is how do we make sure to address our infrastructure needs now and into the future and looking forward we know that we are going to be losing about 10 percent of our existing parking supply in the downtown our community in downtown both residents employees business owners depends on parking as one element of a thriving and sustainable downtown and we know that we're also planning for growth in downtown as Amanda mentioned we are planning and implementing the council's two-year strategic goal to entitle five to six hundred housing units in the downtown we also have recommendations in the downtown plan for how our community will grow and intensify in the downtown and specific recommendations from the housing blueprint subcommittee specifically related to parking and growth um excuse me I should have mentioned um that um earlier today council member Matthews mentioned that she has a conflict on this item and I'll just turn it back over to her I was so caught up in the moment I forgot to step down so we are having a lot of fun excuse me y'all it was not an intentional gaffe um these guys said what are you doing up here you're welcome you're welcome to sit and stay and watch that I will announce and I'll join the audience um I announced in the afternoon I have a personal conflict of interest because I own property nearby the parcel in question so I'm disqualified from participating in the discussion or the vote so my apologies to everybody thank you okay okay so uh bringing it back parking as one element of this project and of our infrastructure in downtown what we're currently seeing in our parking structures and our lots is hitting capacity many many times during the week incredibly common what this limits is the ability for our downtown businesses to continue to thrive to recruit and retain employees and to be able to grow into the future it's something that I know you heard in lots of letters that came in over the last few days um our wait lists right now for our parking structures are in excess of one year specifically we have 702 people waiting for 1384 permits you've seen this slide before but just to reiterate we are going to be losing a large number of parking spaces in the downtown 10 of our overall parking supply primarily these are in the southern portion of downtown and as we know we're projecting to have much of the future intensification and growth in our downtown be in that same southern portion so at the same time that we're going to be losing parking supply we're going to be increasing the demand for parking and infrastructure in our downtown if we do nothing we know that demands for parking in the downtown will exceed supply and it will limit our ability to implement the vision of our downtown plan it will also limit the ability to use our shared parking supply to implement many of the recommendations from the housing blueprint subcommittee and other of our housing goals being able to leverage our shared parking model to achieve those housing goals limits customer parking and it also really limits our businesses ability to recruit and retain employees and to continue to grow in our downtown so with that I'll hand it back over to Bonnie Lipscomb to talk about housing great thanks Claire I'm going to talk just for a few minutes about housing Claire and Amanda already sort of set the background for some of the recent city actions and over the last 18 months really intensive look led by a former mayor Cynthia Chase and by our housing blueprint sub committee council members really led to a number of recommendations focusing on housing as well as included in our two-year plan important thing to realize that we are all aware of but it bears re-emphasizing is that we're in the midst of a severe housing crisis a recent report released in September by California housing partnership shows that when you factor in the high housing costs in Santa Cruz one of the highest in the nation that our poverty rate has risen to almost 25 percent which is also one of the highest in the state more housing at all income levels is urgently needed more than 10,000 affordable units are needed in our county over 3,000 of those are needed in Santa Cruz finding sites for multifamily housing is extremely limited and that is where the downtown comes in we'll talk about that more in a few minutes and then funding for multifamily housing particularly affordable housing is limited it's extremely limited over the last 10 years with the loss of redevelopment the amount of state funding received in our county for housing has decreased by more than 16 million while homelessness has increased by 15 percent there is a direct correlation there we need to develop more housing in Santa Cruz as part of the council two-year work plan a stated goal is recognizing how housing is critically needed in our community in our downtown and that we really need to look at our underdeveloped and underutilized sites in the downtown which includes our surface lots for revitalization and potential housing development I want to talk just for a minute on Pacific Station because this is one of the projects that conceptually has been approved um numerous times over the last actually five years by council we do have over six million of redevelopment funds we've purchased the nonprofit insurance building downtown and this is the proposed site that we have been assembling to develop 60 to 80 units of affordable housing in downtown what this proposed mixed-use housing project does by creating a consolidated parking in the downtown it gives council the policy opportunity and decision to decide whether or not to actually take the parking that is required to be built as part of this project and put it in a consolidated structure by doing that we're able to save significant cost savings to the project it's a lower cost of parking delivery as well as to take that space that otherwise we would have used to build parking and convert that to additional units so this is a really important project for us in the downtown and we see the linkage between the two by being able to leverage the development of the other site to create more opportunities for affordable housing in our downtown this is just another rendering uh early stage rendering of of the pacific station project from the front street side so what happens if we do nothing uh current residents will leave Santa Cruz due to lack of available housing we already know it's happening now current residents will leave Santa Cruz due to lack of affordable housing options it's happening now some of the recent projects over the last five years we've been able to create have been projects like the tannery center that was a project that was created with with redevelopment funding a hundred units and uh that's publicly funded we need to be able to create more projects like this the potential in our downtown with our city owned lots gives us the ability to create future affordable housing projects in our downtown downtown is developed without substantial housing creation we know that because of our zoning laws within the community and because that Santa Cruz is largely built out the downtown has the greatest potential for us to develop a sizable amount of housing in our community and finally this limits implementation of our downtown plan plan vision that starts with the vision Santa Cruz you know more than you know 30 years ago to today with a recent plan amendments it is about creating housing downtown so how did we get to the proposed project um looking at the problems we're trying to address and really this started as Susan mentioned back in 2013 with the um the comprehensive facilities master plan uh process that the library undertook and then following that the approval voter approval of measure s funding and so after that uh at the December 6 2016 meeting council directed the formation of delac the downtown library advisory committee to really take a deep dive and look at the needs of the community to look at the options available within the constraint of limited funding and delac was asked by council to assess the options and then provide a recommendation back to council on how best to move forward and as you heard at the july uh june 19th meeting uh delac unanimously recommended option b which is to create um a library as part of a mixed use project on the proposed site and this option really gets a 21st century library facility with the desired square footage and and within the recognition of the constraints of funding additionally the downtown commission has provided a recommendation and the downtown commission advises council on all matters pertaining to maintenance and management of the parking district and the central business and improvement district and so they received a presentation on june 19th and you can see um what their recommendation included um constructing a new parking supply project um and the rest there and then finally the housing blueprint subcommittee as bonnie referred to um at the june 12th meeting council voted to support the recommendations laid out in the report and i think just the two here ones that i'd like to touch on the first one here analyzing city-owned parcels downtown with particular attention to existing service lots really looking at those sites that could be used for affordable housing development and then number four they're really directing staff to consolidate parking into structures to provide increased opportunities so we really see this project as the culmination of council direction and um recommendations from advisory bodies and really see this as a great opportunity to address three of our goals with one project and the city is really in a unique position to have the majority of funding identified and a site identified and so we're hoping to move forward so that we can create and reinvest in our community spaces like a new and modern library we can consolidate surface public parking lots to create more opportunities for higher and better uses and implement the council strategic plan of entitling new workforce affordable and market rate housing in the downtown now um one of the final pieces we want to touch on here is community engagement so this is a new piece that we're reporting back to you you provided direction at the december 6th and june 19th meeting to develop outreach plans and to connect with the community engage on the potential project so i've also printed the attachment which details all of the engagement that happened and it's on the back windowsill there and and i've provided an updated copy for you as well since engagement has been ongoing even after we've turned in that report so really it started with the delac process and the extensive outreach that they did as a result which included 12 public meetings that all had public comment opportunities and a really um well responded to survey over over 2000 responses and then over the past summer we have been working very hard uh to bring forward a multi pronged approach approach to our outreach on this project really with the goals of getting information out and engaging with new demographics really targeting especially the businesses and employees and users of our downtown and we really felt it was important to provide lots of opportunities and lots of ways for the community to get information and really engage um one of the first things that we did was set up a project web page that had information about all of the project components we also had meetings with small groups and one-on-one meetings which really allowed it just to connect with people and talk to them about their concerns and answer all of their questions and and really make sure that they had all of the information that they needed we also hosted a large um open house at the august 6 i know many of you were there and we made presentations to larger groups and community organizations and we're really proud to report that there have been more than a thousand contacts of community engagement over the last couple months and it's really been a priority of staffs and we've been working really hard um to really connect with the community on this important project here's some of the community groups that we've met with um business groups housing action now don't bury the library friends of the library um downtown management corporation you can see them there a lot of them are here to speak to you tonight and really um as you've heard there are a lot of concerns about this project i know many community members have spoken to you there's a lot here that will speak tonight and so wanting to be really clear about the feedback that we've heard so i'm just going to give a couple just a high level point out a couple of the pieces that we've heard sort of the most often um and just kind of quickly move through that so regarding concerns for parking um a couple the pieces that have really kind of stood out to me as i've been speaking with the community is this desire to see a plan for maintenance and safety in existing garages um this feeling that we shouldn't create parking because of the impacts on the environment and there's a desire to focus just on tdm and then this um nervousness around not everyone being able to use alternative transportation because they live far away they have multiple jobs or have children regarding the library some of the key pieces that have come up um is there's concerns about the library being part of a project that includes parking um concerns about management of the social issues in the library and and then also a lot of concerns about what's happening with the current library site if we're leaving and so um those have been kind of the big ones that come there and then just sort of our miscellaneous category um one of the things that we've heard from groups across the across the community is this desire to see more open spaces in the community more community gathering spaces and concerns about losing surface parking lots that are that could be considered a community space also a lot of concern about the design wanting a building that fits in with the community that matches the downtown feel um and really wanting to ensure that we're thoughtful about that and then this feeling about a shared vision and do we have a shared vision and if we don't how can we move forward on the flip side there have been support that we've also heard from the community and some of the top-through things that we've heard about parking is people are really um excited that the parking deficiency fees are going away businesses in particular are very excited about that and they feel that the parking rates changes are reasonable there's also those that support parking garage parking garage to replace the lots that we're losing and then this feeling that we want to make downtown viable for people to drive to because we don't want them going over the hill to shop or go to job so we can make it easy for people to get to downtown we can encourage them to not drive over the hill regarding the library the community is very excited about um the possibility of the library being a draw for families and a safe place for families and kids to be downtown and they're excited for our modern library with technological improvements and then finally um there are groups that like the mixed-use concept and they feel that it's a good use of the space and and efficient use of the space people are want any improvements that will bring more people downtown and especially the community is excited about the housing component and the possibility of including housing so that's sort of a brief overview of what we've seen as I said that that attachment that I've printed out and provided you with details all of the the pieces of feedback that we've gotten and I know you'll hear from the community here as well tonight okay now I'm gonna talk for just a minute about the the timeline and then briefly go over the actual recommendations um so the proposed timeline for the project is we've had a number of questions of how long will it take you know where are we what's the initial phase is that we would anticipate if if council directs us to go forward tonight to be spending about the next nine months in a pre-design phase and I'll go into a little more detail on what is in that phase in the next few minutes and then following that then following 18 to 24 months would be spent predominantly on design environmental review and analysis and engineering and then finally the actual construction period would be two years a little over two years and so the whole timeline is a pretty considerable length of time it we think that it will work well if we're able to move forward within the timeline of 2024 for the library bond so we are tracking on that we do think it's doable it is a little tight but we think it's it's possible to focus just on that initial phase if council gives us direction to go forward tonight I just wanted to break out a little bit of what that means and this is outlined a little more detailed in the staff report but over the next couple months we would select an owner's representative and I'll go when I go into the recommendations to talk a little bit more about what that is but this is an individual who would actually serve as our agent and and would be the main point of contact for the design bill team and really shepherd the project through and it saves considerable time and overall project management it's a model that we use quite frequently and then the next period starting in November we'd anticipate that we would release a request for qualifications request for proposals for design bill team select the design bill team and this would this would be a council action sometime in November December and then also as I'll talk about in just another minute we are proposing that we would move forward selecting an urban planning organization for a visioning and reuse of the library city facilities and I'll go over a little bit more detail of that in the recommendations and then this next significant period following that would be once the design bill team is in place and our owner's representative we would do a community outreach process on project design and we had considerable feedback during the last three months of outreach on just overall concerns of what the project will look like and really feel like that's a very important element of a public project of this scope to make sure that we're considering that we've had some preliminary just conceptual sketches that really are massing that we presented out in the community and there was definitely some concern of that particular architectural style so we felt like it was really important to have a deliberative process around design and so that on design as well as a community engaged effort led by a group similar to urban land institute or spur where they're working and visioning and helping us sort of look at the existing library site in the context of the sort of the broader downtown vision and our city facilities and giving us some ideas and opportunities for us to return to council for you to consider what the options could be in that context and then the actual development of some of the different architectural styles this is similar to a process we went through for the pacific station project where we had a very engaged community outreach process and what that felt like we're you know attending the farmers market and attending different holding different public meetings and different venues and getting a feel of what different sort of how design and look of what a project whether it's an urban field where it's a modern field or a more civic feel you know natural field all of those would be elements of design that an architect design build team could really help gauge with a with the community and then we would bring that back to you in a study session for your feedback for us since it is a civic city project on what design ultimately we should we should use to go forward with the project and then finally that would be presented to you in june and once that we would move into the next phase which would actually be the active design and development which was previewed on on this slide so now to the recommendations they are in your report the first one is to accept the downtown library advisory committee recommendations for a new library program mixed-use project and direct us to move forward with a project that includes affordable housing commercial retail and parking uses on the city-owned surface parking lot known as lot four and this we brought this up previously in throughout the presentation tonight and in some of the previous meetings and i'm sure you'll hear from a lot from the community on on this topic but if you look at the staff report you'll see that this report is actually across and interdepartmentally which we typically don't have this many departments on a staff report and that really just shows that we have almost every operational department engaged in this in this project from public works planning economic development with support from the city manager's office and of course the library are all working together on this project because it meets so many of the needs both of our city goals as well as the community the future health of our dead town is really dependent on that we're looking and adequately planning for this balance of needs that includes housing that includes us balancing parking to support our active businesses and residents our employees downtown our retail our restaurants and if we don't get that balance right as we're planning for the future a lot of these businesses are going to leave a lot of these office users are going to leave a lot of our residents will leave and we'll have a very different downtown in the future if we don't plan appropriately today we feel very strongly about this and this is behind the recommendation that becomes from from the multiple departments authorization to proceed with the owner's representative to manage the overall project and the design build team we do believe that going with a design build process saves significant money and funding at the city level this is a model of practice that we implement more regularly on projects in recent years specifically the owner's representative would work directly with the design build firm and by not having to go through multiple bidding processes we both save time and money on the project and believe we can have a quicker a quicker delivery regarding the parking rates we have three an ordinance and two ordinances and a resolution in your packet that involve moving forward amending the parking meter rates both for the downtown meters amending the parking and permit rates for the parking lots and structures and directing staff to work with the downtown commission to update the current parking resolution for a five-year phase out the specific reasons as identified also in the staff report are gradually implementing this over a five-year period which will give time both for our downtown employees businesses and residents to adjust to the prices over time and it also moves to the industry best practice which is to have the parking user pay for the cost of parking and this and goes along with the sunset of the parking deficiency fees as well and then it also allows and incorporated into the proposed parking structure is an annual transportation demand management so an alternative programs for the city to work with the existing programs in our public works and parking division and to work with businesses in the downtown and our area partners on programs to offset this transition and the choosing helping to choose alternative modes in the downtown and then finally the last two I mentioned when we were talking about the time the timeline but to have a deliberative process and have milestones where we come back to council and where we have to have you weigh in on after we've done considerable community outreach on the project design and return to you with options for consideration this is time again what we heard during the three months process is a lot of concern about articulation setback heights just the look and feel of the project and just felt like this was a really important element that we needed to include and then finally to initiate analysis with the land plan or planning organization similar to urban land institute or SPUR to have a very thorough process because this is again another area of considerable community input and with that that concludes the recommendations is just a repap if you want to come back to it when you're looking at questions later and with that we are concluding the presentation available for questions I think at this point that concludes the present presentation I'd like to take it up with the group presentations or group that have contacted in advance there were many of you and so I'd like to go to that first in the interest of kind of hearing from the public and then bring it back to the council for any further questions and deliberations so the first individual that requested was Rick Longinati for the campaign for sensible transportation then I'd like to then I'd like to call up if you please hold your applause and then also the Chamber of Commerce Casey Beyer so you'll be up next and you have you know I had originally provided four minutes there's so many groups and I'm I'm asking you to try and limit it to three if at all possible I mean I'll give you the original four I'll give you the original four but if you can limit it that I'd be grateful based on the number of requests okay good evening council members Rick Longinati time or thank you so I want to talk to you mainly to pose a bunch of questions tonight I think there are a lot of questions that need to be answered before the council takes a really big step such as approved the staff recommendations see if I can advance this okay so three years ago we had three consultants that the city hired to speak to the planning commission and the downtown commission and their message was to implement transportation demand management before building new parking capacity and the main concern there was the cost of new parking this was one of the can you see this you're not you're not seeing this are you let me go back there you go okay please there's the title of my talk okay so these are the three consultants that came to the park to the downtown and planning commission and their message was implement demand management before building new capacity it was largely sorry it was largely because of financial reasons the janice road says when you talk about that $30,000 fee per parking space no agency will make enough on user fees to pay for that space and she says everybody in the industry agrees with her basically these were the recommendations that came out just the price of parking to manage demand and so forth oh and by the way the bottom one you put all these things in place it's not a short-term process because it takes time to put all those things in place and see the results before you commit to building new parking janice roads mentioned $30,000 per space that's not what we're looking at here we're looking at $75,000 per space um so here's a question for you and i don't have the answer to that so a timeline so may 2016 i think the city did a very good thing which was to sign a contract with nelson-neigart to produce a parking strategic plan the finished plan was to be presented to the city over a year and a half ago it hasn't been finished and not only that but the work products that are named in that contract have not been published there has not been progress on that so here's another question what happened to that plan why has it not been finished and where are the work products we paid for that voters approved measure s in 2016 you all know about that december of that year against the advice of these consultants who spoke to the planning commission city staff proposed a 600 plus space parking garage and we all know the reason it was because the library could get a bigger bang for the buck if they become a tenant in a city-owned parking structure patrick siegman was the person who worked at nelson-neigart for nearly two years working on the city parking strategic plan i spoke to the city manager a few weeks ago and then he went to the good times to say that city misused his parking model and why does that matter i'm not here to get staff in trouble that's not my purpose but i'm here to say that there's a big consequence if we do not heed what siegman has to say and these other consultants so the city's doubling of parking rates is likely to result in around a 30 drop in demand what that means is a drop in revenue so substantial reduction of parking demand due to these increased prices or these three other things that we know are coming down the pike ride services drivers list cars or economic recession they could all reduce demand and reduce revenue could trigger a downward spiral where we have to raise prices again which would also lead to a lower demand the downtown's vitality is at stake here jeffrey tumblin just recently spoke to the rtc says particularly in a downtown environment too much parking is worse than too little parking the challenge is to figure out what's the right amount of parking and recognize that parking is an incredibly expensive asset we need to manage that capital asset effectively how about getting expertise here's our city's annual count of parked cars during the peak week i'll just finish up the peak week of the peak week before christmas if you look at this graph what in that graph tells you that there's an urgency to build new parking when we're down we're we're 2008 was the peak and we're down to thank you yes we're down below that thank you i'll leave this slide up i'm done i'll leave this slide up i think you need new expertise thank you thank you okay next speaker is from the from the chamber of calm from the chamber of commerce kc buyer kc buyer you're up next kc buyer from the santa cruz area chamber mayor terraza and council thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you tonight i will try to be brief but i want to bring in some historical context to the relationship between the santa cruz chamber and the city council and this community we've been around since 1889 1889 let me repeat that 1889 100 years later in 1989 we had a devastating earthquake the loma fredder earthquake that destroyed the downtown and it was the santa cruz area chamber in my predecessor john leiser who led the redevelopment of the downtown in fact it was the santa cruz area chamber that helped pay for the tents on the parking lots that you're talking about that kept businesses in play for 18 months while we were recovered from that i bring this in because it's about collaboration and partnership and we're not talking about just a parking lot many years ago about a dozen or so um the the chamber created a community fairs committee and i say community because it's not just a government affairs committee it's a community affairs committee that committee meets once a month it brings local elected officials public officials from all over the county to meet with business communities to find collaborative ways to work together and it was through that process that i sent a letter to this to this council on behalf of the board of directors of the chamber supporting this project the concept is right the dot the dynamics is right and the staff report is on mark you may recall in 2001 when we had a hiccup in the economy it was again the chamber of commerce that jumped forward to help local businesses with small loans to keep it in in place during the dot com i make that comment because also in that same time frame the chamber led a housing study and a transportation study lo and behold in 2016 was the business community and some people in this room that supported measure d that created the transportation sales tax that now is being utilized to create and hope bring hope and opportunity around the county let's fast forward again to 2011 in the city of santa cruz established uh the downtown beach trolley who did they partner with the santa cruz area chamber of commerce in 2012 and 2013 again in 2017 and again just last week the santa cruz area chamber led a delegation of folks from this community business people community leaders and public officials on tours to san lusa bispo boulder and the bay area last year and just this last week to lake tahoe what are the course reasons for those meetings to bring collaboration and partnership and to learn from how other communities work to improve their own community and i think it's been a learning curve think about it for a second 2016 when it never happened if we didn't visit santa barbara the work that then mayor chase led for a year on housing would never have happened if we didn't take her to the bay area and take a look at seven other cities and the opportunity to collaborate and learn from other people i make this point because your chamber is about an independent organization that helps work all cross pores with local elected officials with community leaders with environmental leaders with business leaders and we try to find a collaborative way to come solutions now let's turn to the problem at hand your staff may need to comment about this being a project that is very holistic in its sense it's a library it's a parking issue it's a housing program and it's about the vitality of the downtown if you take a look at this i call a library a community center it is the hub of your center with a good robust state-of-the-art 21st century library you bring people downtown whether they're coming by by bus or by car by pedestrian they're all coming because they want to be part of the vitalization of the downtown area i'm going to make one more comment just if you could wrap it up please i will on behalf of the chamber board of directors i urge you to support the recommendation of staff and move forward as quickly as possible on this project thank you next up is don't bury their library it's michael thomas and jean brockelbank and then we'll also have after that bob kegel representing santa cruz works we have a couple of slides to set up okay um if you could get no we've already worked with christina great we have to remove rick's first before we get ours there it is okay hold on one second we'll get the time um going where you start thanks okay i'm michael louis jean brockelbank take a look at this picture last month uh this two-story 44 000 square foot building was described by the library director susan emits as being quote so underutilized it was making her crazy she said that to us now does it make any sense to demolish this underutilized seismically sound building and haul it to the dump is that environmentally responsible culturally or financially responsible we're not going to demo the civic auditorium we didn't demo the town clock city hall or even these chambers just because they are old we know the library building itself belongs to the city and its residents but a building no matter how showy and modern does not make a library it makes a building that houses a library we respectfully remind council the downtown library does not belong to you it doesn't belong solely to city residents most residents who voted on measure s would never have voted yes had there been even a hint that the outcome would be the behemoth prompt project presented to council today no longer just surprise and shock people are disheartened and disillusioned with government if this council votes tonight to pass every recommendation handed to it by staff expect a collective anger to fill this room and permeate the community that sounds dismal so i want to share some good news here's the good stuff please listen i see rachel has left number one the city manager told the downtown library advisory committee at one of its meetings where we were that the parking garage is not dependent on the downtown branch being a tenant in that structure secondly the library director told the public at another one of those meetings it's possible to request and be granted an extension to the deadline for spending measure s bonds when she was asked if that was possible she said it's possible number three the same amount of money to build a new downtown library can be used to transform the existing library for the 21st century and last the city will receive at least another five and a half million from measure s even if garfield and branza 40 got half a million dollars each as they darn well should that means there would still be close to 28 million dollars for renovation of our downtown library what exactly that could that mean so let's take a look at this slide this comes from the committee's final report from nolan tam the consultants the city paid take a look at the this is the what's called the option a renovation and look what it includes it includes all site development costs a million 200 000 building construction for these things seismic work skylight replacing fire sprinkler lines is necessary replacing heating and cooling branch ducts replacement of two elevators retrofitted ADA bathrooms all those things that were described as why the current library is so horrible okay it also includes soft costs computers new computers and printers movable furnishings and equipment library graphics signage and public art another 1.2 million dollars or I mean another almost 2 million dollars and it includes escalation and cost for the start of construction so all of these things we're going to estimate it at 24 million but we now have 28 million so we can make a darn good renovation with 28 million dollars if you just look at this please table staffs recommendations tonight don't bury the library whether in a parking garage or in a landfill rachel i'm sorry you missed my presentation actually i didn't i was right in the back and we actually had a video and i heard everything great thank you thank you so much thank you council mr kegel uh representing santa cruz works then after mr kegel you're up santa cruz works and then um we'll have um tamara opposinger represented student group and then we'll have zack davis represented dmc good evening i'm bob kegel and founder and treasurer of santa cruz works i'm also the ceo of product ops and i want to thank you all for your service we believe it's time you start hearing from the companies on the floor above retail at some of that's on us we need to figure out how to reach out to you and we'd like you to reach out to us we believe as our elected leaders you're the stewards of our sustainable community you apply your foresight as you as to see what's needed and you take action accordingly a lot of efforts require long lead time so it's important that you take action early and often our job as business owners is to build strong firms that create sustainable employment for our teams i want people who live here to work here yet there are many things in our community where we need your help here are three number one housing is first and foremost even though the inspiring intent of major m is to help the little guy i'm quite confident passing it will cause the opposite to occur you need to understand the economic mindset of landlords and use that to your advantage the single biggest biggest action you could take to lower the cost as opposed to just holding to cpi is to help create choice for the tenant help create supply lots of it and do it efficiently downtown by building up not out number two the homeless challenges everyone knows it's a problem it's a very complex problem but we need to take bold action we need mental health facilities we need social workers we need constructive ways like the downtown streets team to help people reintegrate into our society but most of all we need real shelter not tent city i've had clients tell me they'll never visit here again because they were accosted by a homeless person downtown on the street or walking across san lorenzo to go to their hotel at the paradox that's a serious and a real problem for me an infrastructure i urge you to vote yes on the library project not only is a fresh new library needed we desperately need parking i've heard people claim there's no need that's just flat wrong there are 700 names on a list and over a between a year and a year and a half wait time that will impinge our ability to grow any of our businesses where are people going to park i've heard it encourages more driving and that's bad for the environment i call shenanigans driving over the hill for a job is bad for the environment if you do nothing we're going to lose approximately 300 spaces so the new parking lot is really only going to net 270 these are really important issues to all our membership and all the science and technology companies that we're trying to to build here we're trying to make this community sustainable for the people that live here as opposed to having to go over the hill and get a job and it requires a cohesive collaborative cooperative effort thank you for listening let's both ensure that you hear from those of us that provide good jobs and benefits and let's work and let's work together to create a better future for all of santa cruz thank you mr kegel okay tamra posner you can um and mike she can give her presentation on her thank you she can give her presentation on her own okay go ahead so for my bought mitzvah project me and my friend and my dad surveyed is it surveyed 40 random library users and we asked their opinion on the options for improving the downtown library with the money from measure s and if they would rather renovate the current building or build a new more modern building as part of a parking garage where the farmers market currently is having done this and previous research including talking to library staff i feel we should definitely not do this personally as a frequent library user i think that walking and riding into the library wouldn't feel as safe also the general atmosphere wouldn't be as nice and it's really bad to tear down a whole building and build a new one it's really bad for the environment plus where would the farmers market go and everything that we want for the library the um don't bury the library people said would be in it if we renovated it when measure s was voted people didn't know that the building was going to be rebuilt and especially not put in a parking garage so i think that we should just renovate it like everyone thought we were going to do and most importantly the results of our survey were that only three people out of 40 agreed with a multi-use building 70 percent of the people agreed to renovate we shouldn't spend 28 million dollars of tax money on a proposal that very few people agree with if you don't think that our survey accurately reflects the public's opinion then you can put this issue on the ballot and let the voters decide on it my dad's going to show a clip you can show the clip okay he's some of the average responses and if you want to watch the whole survey you can go to youtube and search up public survey of library proposals i would like that so much i don't think we need a new structure for children to be educated i don't think the addition of ipads and laptops and the modern library is necessary i kind of like where it's at and i think if it's tends to renovate it then we should definitely do that if the library in the parking garage would have more modern equipment would be newer would you prefer that or you would you still want to renovate this one no because um Santa Cruz has a has a mentality of um they're proud of the localness you know and the quaintness and their their weirdness if you will and um it's like modernizing it on an inside is like just keeping up with the times but a big old modern building somewhere else i don't think would for my taste would suit me in Santa Cruz i'd like the old with an upgrade new heritage you know what i mean so i would say for me i'd say expand this this is probably good enough as it is maybe a little bit more like maybe a second floor but uh there's the antique fair and the farmers market i i say leave that that would be my i would prefer this renovated rather than building a new one and i think you can make this itself a modern one i don't see why uh new building has to be done want to be taking their kids where there's a lot of cars being parked such so i just like this location i like the farmers market being where it is 100 against a parking structure with the library on the bottom it doesn't make sense at all i mean at least the library we should be on top it just doesn't make sense this is a fine building it's lovely you could renovate it i want it to be here and i want it to just be simple and wonderful would it change your opinion it would not be enough to adequately renovate thank you okay thank you okay zack davis representing the downtown management corporation zack davis yeah represent downtown then we'll have vivian rogers from the friends of the santa cruz library yeah after following zack davis from the downtown management corporation hello everybody um first of all thanks for uh putting this on i know you've had a day and admire your patience in stamina um i sent you all a letter individually hopefully you got a chance to read that um speaking for myself personally um but i in addition to being a father of three young children i also have a business downtown and i sit on the downtown commission the chamber board and i'm here tonight as the vice chair of the downtown management corporation patrick pindrell our chair couldn't be here but he drafted a letter on behalf of the commission and our corporation and i'd like to read that we did bring up this issue at our last meeting and held a vote on it the vote was eight zero with one abstention in support of the mixed use library project and this this letter reflects the opinion of the the downtown management corporation with regards to the specifics of the parking there are many mixed opinions about redevelopment downtown santa cruz and you can debate whether an existing parking shortage has been adequately documented however it is a fact that new applicants are told by the santa cruz parking office that there is approximately a 12 month waiting list for parking permits in the downtown this message can be a strong deterrent for businesses looking to move into the downtown and these businesses will often instead look to open a different part of town or out of the area entirely the permit issue that already exists will be further compounded in the future as the downtown parking supply shrinks with several lots that are currently in use will go offline uh staff reports indicate that it is not a question of if these lots will close but when all of the current parking permit holders for those closed lots will have to relocate to existing lots which are already at capacity and the effect will be even less available parking permits and spaces for those already working in downtown and a longer wait list for those looking for more from an economic and business standpoint this is extremely detrimental to our city's ability to compete with other communities there's absolutely no reason why we can't have a robust TDM program that sets an example for other communities while also addressing the immediate need with a mixed use project that will benefit the community as a whole these two issues are not mutually exclusive and can be addressed in unison i just want to say also um there is this need uh now that we've identified that the downtown management corporation has identified for parking for the economic vitality of our downtown has been mentioned before but we're also looking out decades into the future when i think many of us in this room will no longer be here looking for a library that is an example um that is a source of civic pride um for our community a resource for our children um we're looking for the ability to support the creation of affordable housing um we're looking to facilitate the creation of quality jobs and these are all things that will last many years in the future so when we're talking about cost we need to be not thinking so much about the cost right now but what is the the cost of missing an opportunity that is in front of us at this moment that will support the vitality of downtown for decades to come thank you thank you hey vivian rogers friends of the santa cruz library good evening everyone um my name is vivian and i'm here tonight to relay the hopes of the santa cruz friends and their board and their dedicated volunteers and i'm going to try to get it down to three minutes you were saying okay for nearly 40 years the friends have been working closely with the library staff and on behalf of the libraries to create the best community libraries in this county we were one of the major contributors to measure s and our friends sat on the committee for measure s at that point i can tell you there was not a single friend who thought their role was to limit the type of remodel or construction for any branch in the system in fact we were there to create the best possible libraries throughout the system at all of ten branches and tonight the friends are here and we're looking at you to carry on their tradition we're asking you tonight you have the opportunity to use measure s fund to its full capabilities we're asking you to vote for a library in a mixed use building on cedar street to provide the resources not only for santa cruz residents but the county as a whole my volunteers are looking for opening day collections they want to talk about increased spaces for computer labs teen resources and more programming for children and adults so they're going to be there are people here tonight who are going to ask you limit the measure s funds to a remodel only they say they support the libraries my friends ask how can they say they support the libraries when they don't support the needs or the request of the library staff their friends ask you to show your support for the library by showing your support for the library staff by offering them the resource they want increased space should show up the talents they have they want to provide resources for children and teen and adults here that we need in this very expensive community and when it comes down to it tonight the if you vote no for the library for this mixed use building the only loser is the library because tomorrow the plans will continue to decrease the parking lots plans will continue to create more housing downtown tomorrow the demand for increased parking will begin you will have visitors and electric cars who want parking spaces you will have employees who are carpooling who want parking spaces and you're going to have new downtown residents who may not even have a car but they're going to ask you for a parking spot for their friends and their relatives at that point they're going to come to you and ask for more parking downtown and you will have the urgent community support for that parking garage which you won't have are the resources for a 21st century library because at that point there will be either a small library half the size of that building right across the street or you will have 10 branches with less open hours less collections and less resources as we pay for the remodel so my friends ask you tonight please vote to use the measure s to its full capability please ask we ask you to vote for a best library possible for this community thank you thank you okay i'm gonna invite up robert robert singleton robert singleton from the santa cruz county business council and then chip will be up after for the downtown association and then the final organizational speaker will be shawner hebert from north cal carpenter's union hey robert singleton santa cruz county business council good afternoon or evening mayor and council members um i didn't have a chance to prepare a lot of remarks tonight so i'm glad we're going down to three minutes i'm kind of a rough and tumble earlier this this council session um i want to just say uh to focus on a different aspect of this project to me this project is always about is all is all about the future of downtown and the various the the concerted and overarching community vision that we have to make better use of our river levy to have a um more economic vibrancy downtown and then the key thing here is to me this is all about housing housing is fundamentally uh needed here in santa cruz if we're in the midst of the worst housing crisis we've ever seen um just published about two hours ago in the sentinel um a report from a state-wide organization found that we're short in santa cruz county alone 12 000 affordable housing units 12 000 housing units we have about 24 000 housing units in the entire city of santa cruz so put that in perspective that's a lot of housing that we need to build and there's not a lot of a lot of opportunity sites to build it and not a lot of funding available if we consolidate our parking in downtown planning for less parking overall which i think we no one wants to be reliant on the automobile we want to phase that part of our downtown out as much as we can and encourage people to take alternative means of transportation but provide providing the parking in one space and allowing for the the new developments that are going to take place here to make use of that parking to lower their on-site requirements to allow for more publicly funded uh uh projects like the nyac building or like the existing library a facility where i'm here to have more deed restricted affordable housing on site than what they otherwise could pay for through these projects that to me is the overarching win here and that's the major opportunity that we need to take we absolutely need as much housing as we can get and this is the best possible way to ensure that we get the highest number of deed restricted affordable units the closest transportation to have the few or the most opportunities to make use of alternative forms of transportation for those future residents and ultimately be helpful for the entire vision of downtown to again make better use of that river levy to help facilitate new investments in a better more effective library and ultimately reduce our reliance on the automobile by consolidating that parking so i urge you please move forward with this project please help downtown uh help us achieve that that overarching vision that we've all been talking about for years thank you very much thank you okay downtown association good evening mayor trazi city council members i am chip i'm the executive of the downtown association i'll speak quickly um our board of directors have spent most of the summer learning about the proposal hearing many uh uh impassioned arguments against an enthusiastic support for this proposal and ultimately voted uh seven votes to one with one abstention to support uh this project with some conditions and some concerns attached um i would like to note that in a survey of our membership resulted in uh just under 70 percent support for the delac recommendations and a little over 80 for the development of new parking to meet future demand you have the letter of support and conditions that raised by the downtown association board and i hope you have had the time to read it um and i thank you for the opportunity to cover some of the broad strokes this evening uh first i'll express the importance of a well-designed library downtown as many have spoke to already uh urban planners and private developers today all over understand the um the importance of libraries as an anchor downtown it's a unique anchor that it serves the entire community um i'm editing on the fly i prepared a five minute speech uh um so a new library designed with the 21st century in mind uh is an opportunity that we should embrace and the downtown association hopes and expects to be involved in the design process and the downtown association is also very supported over the opportunity this presents for development of affordable housing in the downtown core many of the people who work in downtown are traveling from farther and farther distances because of the cost of housing investing in transportation demand management so important without addressing housing affordability is like pouring water into a bucket full of holes and we need to stop the leaking the downtown association is asking you to include no less than 20 units of affordable housing in this project and take every opportunity to pass policy that addresses more affordable housing in the subsequent parking lots as they do come offline um you'll hear again this evening i'm sure about bolder colorado downtown that i'm very familiar with and have learned a lot from um and it's important to understand that in many ways boulder is an outlier they have not achieved their success particularly in transportation demand management just by giving employees bus passes but they've spent decades investing in public transportation systems bicycle infrastructure and recently partnering with lyft to create great incentives not only for employees but for shoppers as well santa cruz does a very good job with traffic demand management and yes we should strive to do more the downtown association board is asking you to increase the 300 000 annual budget for tdm future parking demand is more uncertain now than ever and understanding the recent potential loss of parking in downtown district the downtown association board asked that the city complete a parking demand study to determine the appropriate scale of the project before moving forward and finally the board of the director requested the city work with the downtown association to develop a comprehensive community-based vision plan such a plan developed with aggressive outreach and broad input would inform development goals funding priorities and policy decisions a downtown vision plan is different than an area specific plan a vision plan provides a roadmap for the evolution of downtown santa cruz a framework that integrates downtown housing jobs mobility historic preservation public open space retail infrastructure arts entertainment et cetera i'll conclude by saying there's both great support for this project and great reservation among our members as an organization we hope you fully support this project and we also expect that you hear and address our concerns however you decide to vote on this matter your collective decision on this project will have great impact on our city for generations voting to support this project is very important to the downtown and its stakeholders and paying attention to the details of this project is equally important as always i thank you all for your service and for the opportunity to speak today thank you chip the last speaker group organizational speaker is shan hebert he's the norcal carpenters union uh from the norcal carpenters union and uh if you can look for three three minutes i'm going quick i thank you mayor and council members um i've submitted some uh comments online but i wanted to be here and speak to you personally um sympathy that i'm work while we're sympathetic to the concerns of the proponents of uh alternative modes of transportation i'm here speaking on a segment of the workforce that doesn't have the opportunity to avail themselves of those modes of transportation i'm speaking on behalf of people that have their jobs that are transitory in nature they carry heavy tools they have odd hours and so these are people that don't have the opportunity to commute by bicycle so uh we're talking about spending a substantial amount of taxpayer money on this project and uh we have a chance to uh to achieve some significant savings by addressing multiple needs with one project first the existing library is not a viable candidate for retrofit attempting to do so would result in a higher per square foot cost and it would limit the scope available for the project and reduce the innovative possibilities for a new 21st century library second while we have a burgeoning tech sector in santa cruz we have to admit to ourselves that it's not the main driver of the economy here and i don't see it being so in the foreseeable future while we have a love hate relationship with tourism we have a tourist-based economy and the simple fact is that people don't come with their families from merced on their bicycles we need to provide parking for those people so that they can have a rich tourist experience here in santa cruz spend their dollars downtown and third finding a way to incorporate affordable housing into this project we can take a tiny step towards addressing our housing crisis not just by addressing the supply side of affordable housing but by addressing the demand side as well this project on a city parcel would require prevailing wages and it allows workers on that project to be building affordable housing at workers that don't have to go home to affordable housing we we often look at the opportunities that we have to create affordable housing and we overlook the fact that the contractors that are doing that work are sending workers home with poverty wages to subsidize housing of their own and we have a chance to stop that cycle by including housing in projects like this so uh the construction workers that i'm talking about have a transitory nature they work project to project and these are good middle-class jobs with training and benefits and it's one of the last stepping stones to the middle class for people without a college education excuse me so these people that live on a project a project basis are counting on projects like this going through so i think when we fix our gaze on long term and we don't look down to the people that live short term to short term to feed their families i think we're doing them a disservice and uh i urge you to uh support this project i support this project our members support this project and i urge you to concur with the recommendation of the planning commission thank you thank you okay that can that concludes the group presentations this evening i'd like to see a show of hands of how many individuals would like to speak to this item if i can get some counters and um i there are some outside um okay so let's count first inside oh i mean like over 20 20 and outside is there anyone uh yeah exactly so i would assume 30 then two okay i'm gonna go one and a half minutes um for public comment per person um so if you could line up to my immediate left here line up to my immediate left and alisa are you going to speak on this okay well we'll figure that out are you are you going to speak on this item you want to go ahead leet kick it off go ahead alice go ahead you can you can begin alice you can begin okay you can begin somebody can begin my name is uh cat steel you might have known me as catherine but the older i get the shorter my name gets uh thank you city council members for being here and having us be here i want to start with we speak and i read and report some news stories about downtown Santa Cruz could you speak into the mic is sometimes am i in it now yes you are okay reading the time how do we actually define downtown or outline downtown and i'm not asking you to answer that question i'm not even going to answer it myself i would just start by saying a few years ago two gentlemen came and talked about how they reduced the need for single occupant vehicles on university campuses one was from uc santa Cruz the other from stanford my immediate reaction how does a university campus relate to downtown santa Cruz took me several weeks to get around and get through my own brain to think what if i was to think about santa Cruz as a campus it would be huge it would include a lot of departments industry commerce residential cultural arts recreational government transition transit public transit uh and then you might even look at the river and the geography geology what i thought it was initially and all the time i worked here was uh basically town clock to a loud and nelson center thank you i did come up with an idea of a campus your time your time is up great i want to pass these around to all of you so that you can see please do hand hand it to the clerk and we'll take a look at it great thank you and also before at least you go are there any parents here with kids i see a lot of young kids that might have to go to school i'm going to ask that you guys maybe give them cuts in line so that they could speak first so if you are a parent with children that like to speak like to give you some advanced opportunities to speak thank you for that mayor appreciate it yeah yeah okay no i'd like the parents with kids to go now if you don't mind at least um so if you have if any other parents any other parents with kids that need to get out early see them falling asleep hi my name is dr tear martin um i am one of the 10 professionals who volunteered to be a part of delac and we unanimously recommended the multi-use project however i am here um to speak on behalf of my kids an eighth grader and fourth grader um who up to this point growing up in santa crews have have felt very little connection to the downtown library one of the things that struck me about the delac meetings was when people usually over the age of 55 spoke about their connection they felt growing up in this community to the library how wonderful how privileged my kids have not had that opportunity to feel that kind of connection of a safe space the older they get one's an eighth grader one's a fourth grader there is really no space for them in the downtown branch and so for them when we talk about going to the library it's like can you can you just run in and pick up what we ordered online right for me i have a professional opinion in support of this project but as a parent i worry about this city's kids growing up without that connection what does that mean for our future what does that bow to our future citizens who will be voting in five years six years seven years if they have no connection to a place of learning collaboration knowledge and and and really empowerment and self-fulfillment my fourth grader i'll say really quickly up it up thanks has to access internet and computer and computer work every week for her homework think of those kids who cannot afford that in their homes right thank you so much thank you next speaker please elise yeah thanks i am submitted comments by email earlier and i have hard copy i want to give to the clerk i just want to say for the people here i am an activist i have spent a lot of time in santa cruz observing city council observing various governmental bodies and i just want to say the so-called housing blueprint subcommittee is absolutely atrocious for the utter and complete and lack of truly affordable housing it is a developer scheme top down also in a few years ago a ceo named alex cliford was hired to basically take apart our public bus company he left a destroyed bus company in illinois where he is the people he was supposedly helping to public transportation really uh don't like alex cliford it was a big public scandal but he was brought in here specifically to privatize and take apart our public transit system that is exactly what he has done people need to know this please start researching who these people are okay so i can't go through this whole thing tonight but i did want to say those two things because most people don't come to enough city council meetings to really understand what's truly happening in santa cruz so this whole scheme starting with measure s being deceptive yes it was very deceptive and there's a reason for that martin burnall bonnie libskin and a few other people and certain librarians want to make sure that they get a so-called state-of-the-art parking garage combined with the library i want to say i'm in favor of a mixed-use library this is a hazard to children's health to combine a garage with the library i wish i had more time i don't unfortunately don't buy the cell job this is atrocious thank you leis next speaker please next speaker go ahead you can go thank you i'm colonel terry maxwell and i want a government that respects my tax money that provides efficient services that addresses legitimate needs of the community and is honest in its dealings and its representations to its voters and taxpayers that has not been the case with measure s i voted for it the seventy some million dollars because sure i'm for libraries guess what i went to the orientation meetings i evaluated the current library and with mark lee i've been very assiduous about becoming informed i was bamboozled i was conned you never intended to just renovate the library like you said that was more than implied in the resident request for the seventy million dollars from us in addition to that i bought things for the defense department and i know that your current library could be renovated for nine to fourteen million and currently meet all of the needs you need including at an extension out the back of it and perhaps adding as much as one to two additional floors in addition to that i did a walk around survey twice a couple of afternoons and what instance i found night there were 24 people at the library using it 19 of them were homeless when i asked them who they were this is not what the bonds were for i'm sympathetic to the homeless you want to provide more bathrooms space for them and showers renovate the old building with extension outside facings you get in for a nickel bathrooms and showers that's what you ought to do and by the way you will serve this the taxpayers the voters of santa cruz city should remove all of you from office thank you sir abomination of their money thank you miss thank you sir next speaker mr ferrell good evening my name is matt ferrell i serve with zack on zack davis on the downtown commission i'm here to urge you to support the proposal of the recommendation before you i worked for the public works department as the parking manager from 1985 to 2007 and during that time we did a number of parking studies about parking demand downtown and those parking studies were very uh helpful and fairly accurate and forecasting parking demand i think that uh the proposal before you is one that will help meet the existing demand for employee parking that is currently a met downtown while also giving us the opportunity to improve our transportation demand management plans please support the staff recommendation thank you for your time thank you matt next speaker please hello my name is martha dexter i served on the delac and i'm currently chairman of the santa cruz library advisory commission in 2013 when i served on the library joint powers board i had the privilege of approving the facilities master plan for the library system it pointed us in the direction of dramatically improving all the branches and led to the successful measure s campaign in 2016 new libraries are already becoming a reality in felton and capitol and joined with the beautiful library in scott's valley to bring our system into the 21st century now is our chance in santa cruz recognizing that measure s funds alone can't provide the funds for a truly modern library i urge you to support the mixed use library project proposed for the lot at cedar and lincoln this is our path to a new library with expanded community space a larger children's room dedicated teen space and increased collections including space for like local history and genealogy please don't settle for less than the best through a mixed use project such as this all the measure s funds will be used for library design and construction no need to spend precious dollars on demolition of the old building on temporary space during construction or on building the structural foundation time is of the essence the measure s funds must be used to complete the project within the next six years this is our chance now for the best library money can buy a true destination in downtown santa cruz let's build a library we can all be proud of thank you next speaker please sir you can go good evening my name is john hall i'm a resident of santa cruz a professor and someone who loves libraries i could repeat the many other comments voicing opposition to building a so-called mixed use library underneath the parking garage but i want to raise a different issue my fundamental point is that the proposed project lacks any reasonable connection to an overall vision for the core downtown area of santa cruz a point made by the downtown association speaker if we want a holistic vision for the city core we want to think about what it will look like 50 or 100 years from now 160 years ago landscape architect frederick law ohmsted designed central park in new york he called the park quote a democratic development of the highest significance in santa cruz we lack the sizable undeveloped open spaces that manhattan had in 1868 but among ever fewer underdeveloped spaces we do have parking lot number four as well as the adjacent pearl alley parking lot number eight across lincoln lot number four is now the site of a vibrant farmers market wonderfully set in the western afternoon sunlight what should the city council do to fulfill ohmsted's vision of creating civic spaces within urban areas i submit that the council should table the staff recommendation indefinitely in order to give serious consideration to closing off lincoln street between cedar street and pacific avenue creating a permanent farmers market and fair space ringed by parking to be used by vendors or market fair days and the general public thank you sir thank you thank you next speaker please thank you should pop right out yeah thanks check can you check it just to make sure the song hello one two three yeah okay hi again um can you hear me yes okay thank you um i want to let you know that uh i owe a lot to the library okay i learned english at the library in santa cruz library um when homeless i have a refuge for me and my children at the library um my children participated in many of the projects that the programs that the library offers and now my grandchildren are being also using the library um most of the time when i got there to use the library um as an adult i don't find any computer available because it's a lot of demand mainly by homeless people who needs also to find refuge and do job search or house in search but the upstairs the children is always almost empty okay so it's misuse that area and i know because i have been there in the other hand i don't really want to be in your shows today because it has been a long day and very difficult issues but i want to let you know that sunday i went to the um saturday to the rise uh march in san francisco where about to almost 50 000 people gathered to look for what's going to be the future for climate change and um i'm going to say that if you are going to be building more parking space for more cars who are going to be produced more carbon dioxide you are in the wrong route of this progress so i hope that you take that into account thank you thank you thank you uh next speaker please pauline sales santa cruz climate action network um very fast yes affordable housing yes tdm yes increased parking fees no this garage now you may not know yet but yesterday governor brown signed sent bill sp 100 setting a new 100 clean energy goal and issued an executive order establishing a new target to achieve carbon neutrality both by 2045 carbon neutrality means no emissions basically to be simple here now that means gasoline vehicles have to go away completely there's going to be helped to get there the state is going to have to help cities counties get there and so the spiral that mr longinati talked about about first of all you reduce the you increase the price that cuts down some of the parking we get the uber and the left and that cuts down well there's going to be a whole bunch of this maybe um subsidized electric bikes subsidized electric vehicles money for a fleet of a decent fleet of electric buses whatever 2040 2045 is 22 years after when this building would be completed and it'll be obsolete and a financial burden please don't build it thank you next speaker please next speaker i'm james meccas um my siblings own two businesses downtown and i have part of a commercial building santa cruz library patron for more than 60 years as best as was still considered the best choice for insulation and flooring when our current library was built i look forward forward to a new library and i think making it more accessible and connecting it to parking is a good thing we desperately need more parking downtown particularly lower pacific and many business owners and customers agree uh parking is a basic requirement if cities want both community friendly core and business revenue for programs because local business rarely succeeds when relying only on nearby customers planned affordable housing below cathcart will add hundreds of residents cars and only a portion of that parking is required on site even if many ride bikes they will likely leave their cars at home while they ride those bikes just as many do today the shortage of parking below cathcart was considered acute 50 years ago little has been added since lot number 12 at pacific and maple for example had 20 spaces when it belonged to mcmahon's furniture in the 80s it has 16 spaces today after remodeling that lot will now disappear altogether along with two larger lots on front street near the warrior's venue another 106 spaces behind the red church will become senior housing all lost parking my brother has a business at 901 pacific he buys permits for employees to park in any of 10 spaces three blocks away but often those spaces are already taken by all-day local residents with no metered spaces for customers thank you mr. mckis thank you next speaker please good evening my name is bonnie belcher i represent the antique fair i think you just got an article passed around uh from the sentinel saying what a great asset we are um i think most of you are also well aware of my position with regards to the antique fair and the proposed library parking garage project from my letter that i submitted in my um presentation at the june 19th city council meeting however i feel compelled to reinstate the necessity in my priority for the antique fair to stay in its present location on the hundred block of lincoln and lot four where we have been for 15 years should the project unfortunately go ahead i request the continued use of lincoln and parking lot eight across lincoln from lot four and at affordable parking deficiency and meter fees there are many people who depend on this show for their livelihood and i want to be able to continue to provide the optimum location for them to sell just see there are a few other points i wanted to make one of them was of course about major s and people not being aware that that would involve the possible moving of the library with a garage on top um it seems that um unlike it's unthinkable in my generation that a lovely building that used to have the ivy covering it would be abandoned and it would become a garage excuse me a library with garage on top with its inherent noise and pollution problems i urge you to rethink this project and look at other alternatives before making a done deal dishing one of my big questions is why do the two items have to be linked surely mr carnegie would not be amused and neither am i thank you next speaker please hello my name is keith gudger i want to thank the mayor and the city council for this session i'm sure uh this council has asked the city staff for the recommendations for parking and they have recommended the mix use structure before you this council asked the downtown library advisory committee to explore options and after considerable deliberation they unanimously recommended the mix use structure include the library these dedicated people both staff and committee have carefully reviewed the issues and are in favor of the mix use proposal including the library i am hoping that you will follow the recommendations over the years our family came to many programs at our downtown library it was always a challenge to find parking and navigate the streets to get to the current library a new library with attached parking is a wonderful idea that makes it easier for families to use the library the new location is much closer to the transit center making it easier for those with limited mobility also by approving this plan you can improve access for those with limited mobility families teens job seekers and future generations of santa cruzans allowing them to all take full advantage of a modern library please vote to approve the mix use structure thank you next speaker please thank you i'm adam illard ball i'm a professor environmental studies professor at ucsc and i've also got 20 years experience in transportation policy planning and economics much of that on parking and i'm here to urge you tonight to reject the parking garage proposal and give the rate increases time to work before committing to this irreversible decision and conduct an independent evaluation a year to 18 months from now how well these rate increases are working to reduce the amount so why first of all this is really risky we're in a new transportation era we have uber or lifts now jump bikes and santa cruz within the lifetime of this parking garage will have driverless cars they don't need parking downtown and so it's disturbed to see that there's no risk analysis in the staff report there's no analysis of what happens of parking revenue craters as it's happening in many cities across the country already um and what happens to the general fund then and secondly the garage is unnecessary and it appears that the staff analysis underestimates how much these rate increases will serve to reduce demands and the fact that there's a waiting list is just shows that people are waiting for subsidized cheaper parking it doesn't mean that there's a shortage of parking by itself in downtown um so i urge you to manage the supply before build pouring concrete 75 000 um dollars are space will buy a lot of demand management and a lot of affordable housing downtown that will be a much wiser use of this large sum of money thank you mayor thanks thank you next speaker please hello thank you for having me and thank you for considering this project and i want to urge you to approve the the plan before you i think it is the right strategy um to bring a 21st century library a family friendly space to downtown and i think more projects that consider creating a downtown that everyone wants to go to all the time must be at the top of our mind and i just i hope that you say yes thank you next speaker please jane bar eating housing we submitted written comments earlier in support of the staff staff recommendation if adopted the city council will be demonstrating that they are implementing the downtown plan consolidation of the library with parking and commercial uses at one site will result in more efficient use of the site as well as allow the reuse of the light of the current library site and other surface parking lots which are the least efficient use of sites in the city this is important for affordable housing development at is is is it is increasingly difficult to find housing sites and a new study out from the california housing partnership demonstrates that the sanacris county's affordable housing needs have grown significantly when factoring in high housing costs sanacris county's poverty rate increases from 13.8 percent to 24.8 percent one of the highest in the state and key findings were renters in sanacris county need to earn 50 dollars and 96 cents per hour it's which is more than four times the state's minimum wage in order to afford the median monthly asking rent of $2,650 finally sanacris county has an affordable housing shortfall of 11,873 homes we urge you to to act in regard to your earlier actions in for the downtown build sensibly build up and i think this project can lead to more affordable housing thank you thank you next speaker please evening council members monoconic i live and work downtown i have shared with you an amendment that considers both the recommendations of our hardworking staff as well as the values of our passionate community this amendment ensures that the community sees a design option for the library that includes the magnolia trees it also directs staff to seek the bulk of new parking that they predict is needed at the county building on ocean street i've done some research since the last meeting when i first suggested building the parking lot at the county building supervisors cunardy and friend both believe the county would be supportive of a joint parking project the county's new general services manager michael beton is motivated to solve the county's own parking shortage and is actively trying to set up a meeting with our city manager to discuss a poll posted on next door showed 60 of respondents agreed that this alternative should be studied compare that to the good time straw poll that showed that 100 of respondents opposed the current plan the new parking lot at the county building will do far more for our city's economy than one that crushes downtown downtown residents and workers will use it because it's within the one half mile radius transit planners use when placing new stops visitors can easily find this parking from ocean street it is adjacent to the river levy and will connect to the sanctuary trail it will spur reinvestment in the ocean street corridor visitors can park once for the beach and be shuttled around and back to their cars by way of downtown encouraging new discoveries and last minute pizza and ice cream stops best of all downtown visitors will see one a downtown that we locals are proud of one that reflects our values and the beauty of our community thank you next speaker please Doug Erickson here as a teenager i always knew i was going to be living in a million dollar house i just didn't know that it was going to be 1200 square feet on a street that hadn't been paved in 50 years my name is Doug Erickson i'm the founder of the santa cruz new tech meetup i'm also part of the santa cruz works cruise hacks and an angel investor in multiple companies in santa cruz how many people quick poll are tech workers either in santa cruz or over the hill hey mr erickson if you could just face us okay a couple here right that's my this is the point as a community leader and tech professional i think about this all the time how do we how do we grow business how do we uplift this community here and i also work 60 hours a week like most tech professionals we can't come to these wonderful meetings we can't always show up to all the local issues but as a community leader i'm asking you to to vote for the mixed use library project on behalf of the many frustrated tech professionals here thank you thank you you may not you may not come but you're always welcome you may not come to all the meetings but you're always welcome yes next speaker please josh steven city of santa cruz resident i had to look at that presentation earlier and something really struck out to me the there's a recurring theme that's all play placed in that and it's cars cars cars cars cars even when depicting the pacific station model there wasn't a single bus there wasn't even a bike in that picture this just caters and caudals this primitive mode of transportation that we should be trying to move away from enabling this project only enables more driving it does not support our public transit services it doesn't support the fact we just started getting jump bikes and bike shares throughout the town it just it goes off tangent and it also raises the question what are we doing with our other parking garages we have two parking garages in this city how hard is it to add on another level or just simply remodel one of the ones we already have in existence we need to be making use of our land that that what is supposed to be put on that land maximize the use of it not just destroy and rebuilds all willy nilly i i support all the other raises and ideas but i do not support the idea of a library on top of a parking garage thank you thank you next speaker please good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is jack nelson i'm a retired land use planner and environmental planner i worked for the county of santa cruz the sierra club sent you a letter i hope you saw in your packet of materials today i'm the chair of the sierra club's transportation committee here but i'm speaking now for myself and i want you to know about a certain kind of grief that i have to carry around with me it's it's an obligation i have because i'm a student of climate change and that's my job tonight is to bring that into focus a little further um i heard it mentioned early tonight in the presentation that all these different city departments were engaged in this project but there was one that was missing so the city has a climate action coordinator and when i spoke to tiffany wise west she told me no she was not in her input was not sought for this project she would have liked to have been consulted but she wasn't and i know because of the grief that i see when i think about what's going to happen in the 21st century on climate change i know that people don't want to think about it so it's just my job to bring it to you and um ask you to not make a 21st century library be part of continuing carbon emissions in santa cruz county uh thank you your time is up next speaker please investing in a library is one of the most progressive acts a community can make libraries are free and are one of the greatest class equalizers for our society when my husband was out of work when my son was a baby the library was essential for our family to thrive nowadays people depend on libraries not only for books and children's programs like we did but for computers printers wi-fi and a free and safe place to meet with tutors or classmates as a member of the delac and as a progressive i looked at the estimates i studied the numbers i was not manipulated by staff reports or architects and i had all the information that i needed to make an independent and informed decision as a progressive i still came to the conclusion as did every single one of the members of the downtown library advisory committee that the only way for santa cruz to have a modern library is to include it as part of a mixed use structure otherwise the cost will run more than 10 million dollars over the allotted funding or you will be denying people in santa cruz the chance to thrive social justice and the fair chance to have a modern functioning library in our city thank you thank you next speaker please i'm kandace elliot the human resources manager for the glass jar and board member for the santa cruz downtown association and i've done quite a bit of outreach in the community about this project just educating people on what it actually is and i've found that when i talk to people and explain the points and that a lot of people are moved to believe that it's an awesome thing for our community and so thank you for taking the time to listen to all of us tonight i know you guys have had a really long day and and i appreciate you all okay thank you next speaker hello i'm susan cavallieri i live in santa cruz um in all the discussion of the 21st century library and i did not hear anything about what's happening to santa cruz in the 21st century with climate change the un secretary general antonio gutteris uh said today according to the new york times that climate change is the defining issue of our time we need to shift away from dependence on fossil fuels building a parking garage is going to make people feel as if driving is okay we all need to be part of a new way of living on the earth and we need help from our leaders to do this we need a better better bus transit system separated bike lanes car pools have to be financially supported and we cannot think about building the five-story parking garage thank you thank you next speaker please next speaker thanks hi i'm sally arnold i've been a santa cruz resident since 1976 um i sent an email comment to you but tonight i just want to start with everybody loves libraries nobody likes climate change and for some reason then a great new library has been hitched to a climate change increasing parking garage they need to be separated they're two separate problems they got their own potential solutions they're different we need to uncomfortable them in this current debate i want to talk about the site if you want to build a construct a multi-use building with or without parking with or without a library i believe the site you've chosen is a poor one the corner of Lincoln and cedar is an ideal location for its current uses surface parking farmers market other community events it's in the heart of downtown but it's on relatively quiet streets so pedestrians can easily access it and the space is shaded by the beautiful heritage magnolia trees on the other hand the proposed site for the new farmers market on the corner of front and cathcart is a busy intersection it's loud it's smelly with car exhaust it's difficult for pedestrians to access it is not a space in which people want to linger outdoors i suggest that you improve the current farmers market location to be both surface parking and a permanent event space build your multi-use building over on front street if the library really needs to move they can move in there don't add a parking garage downtown it's just going to induce more driving that's going to create more greenhouse gases and nobody wants that i mean really i think if we think about principles we all like libraries we all hate climate change thank you next speaker next speaker please x speaker jim jensen santa cruz resident uh since 2001 i want to come at this from two different directions one i live work eat and play downtown and secondly 20 225 years ago oh my god i've gotten old i worked at that building as a clerk for the downtown branch library now even though i live work play and eat downtown i walked here after seeing a particular comment i do occasionally drive and i will spend probably 15 minutes around and around and around trying to find a parking spot um that's probably not good for the climate now as for the um working at the branch 25 years ago it was a hole even then we were closed for two weeks for asbestos the elevator is antique the bathrooms are inadequate and last year thankfully the sewage system backed up for may 4th so i got to do my star wars selfies in front of the city hall where there was some sunlight instead of inside the building so we have the option and i definitely hope that you accept the staff report to either spend x amount of money on a new library and a parking co-collected parking garage or more money to basically polish a turd thank you thank you next speaker please one two uh okay we've got four we can still go good evening um i'm dan speltz i live just outside the city limits but i'm a regular uh uh user of downtown businesses and the and the public library i want to echo the concerns about climate change um this is the current issue of the union of concerned scientists quarterly and um this is the economist and an august issue of the economist uh dealing with the fires not only in california but around the world this is dealing with the impact on coastal real estate in the united states as a result of sea level rise um climate change climate disrupt pattern disruption is a serious uh uh concern so what we need is not a parking garage we need bus transit um and just to give you some figures the the metro santa cruz eco pass would cost three hundred and fifteen thousand dollars there's four point five million dollars in the parking fund um there are four thousand people working within the parking district uh if you take sixty percent of those people who drive in single occupancy vehicles and only ten percent of them only ten percent were to use the eco pass that would save two hundred and forty parking places that's more that's a back of the infelope sketch but that's more than the two hundred and twenty two that we would lose thank you thank you next speaker please my name is diana farm with midpen housing corporation we're a nonprofit affordable housing developer uh we need to keep in mind that this development is part of a larger plan that will make the downtown a more diverse space that would provide access to members of this community from all walks of life in addition to a more modern energy efficient library we will be gaining affordable housing housing that many members here can agree is much needed in this community when i'm not at home here in santa cruz i spend my days at the watsonville civic center civic building home to a library superior court city offices a parking lot and midpen's offices um it's a great asset to the downtown we are close to everything it's easily accessible and it's accessible to peoples from many members of the community both young and mature students and lifelong learners and a variety of groups that use the space for a variety of reasons um the library spaces in particular the library is not buried it is visible to pedestrians and it fits the community very well we hope that we can get something like that here in santa cruz so please approve this development thank you thank you next speaker please good evening thanks for the opportunity to speak my name is steven sveet uh i'm in i've been an urban planner for about 30 years i wanted to address the civic discourse on this topic i i um i listened to a speaker that was brought in but from the transportation commission earlier this week jeffrey tomlin many many of you know him uh among the things his big messages were he did refute the idea of building new parking um and that and said that more parking is worse for a downtown than less it's better to have a deficit he pointed out that both san francisco and oakland city governments are actually decommissioning some of their parking structures to address the vitality the growing vitality of those cities and replacing that storage space was something more useful but i'm not here to talk about that his other message was when a topic is so divisive in a community when the vision isn't clear and by the testimony tonight i think that's evident we have like a very split situation the some speakers have talked about decoupling the projects because there's a lot of issues swirling together he said it's time to regroup and really clarify the vision for the community and i think that's where we are here in santa cruz tonight as evidence by we only have two minutes to speak so let me hurry up when the voters are measured for voted for measure s none of us had any inkling that we were voting for a new mix so-called mixed use but really parking garage car storage library combo on another site uh just this week if i didn't finish with this one more comment two million dollar remodel of a 51 year old bank building beautiful building on river street santa cruz county bank what the numbers seem off how can we not renovate this library go up another floor for 10 times that much which is 20 million 10 times that much so something we should thank you slow down the decision and regroup thank you sir thank you next speaker please thank you all for your time i know you've had a long day and i want to start by saying i strongly agree with what sally said a few minutes ago that we all love libraries we all hate climate change there's a point that we can all agree in the middle of all of this my name is lisa ekstrom in the presentation from the city we heard repeatedly about if we do nothing i'm pretty sure that no one here wants to do nothing however this proposal's version of doing something creates more problems than it purports to solve many of us who support the library who love the library want it brought into the 21st century in the current location not in a parking garage we do not agree that this proposal is the only optimal option for the library i really do not buy it i urge you to reject this proposal and take action to create better solutions let's make a great renovation of the downtown library for 28 million and address our transportation issues sustainably thank you so much before the next speaker goes is there anyone who's seated who who's going to want to speak that hasn't spoken already anyone who's seated in the in the pews or outside no okay everybody lined up who hasn't spoken yet should be on the left's hand side and please continue hi um my name is satya orion and i live in felton and i spend a lot of time at the library i love it here what i want to talk about tonight is the soul of santa cruise which is the reason i moved here 20 years ago i've lived in santa cruise a lot of that time i learned today that on september 12th 1966 our lovely carnage library was demolished 52 years ago i wasn't here then but i feel very sad about that and i feel especially sad that that might happen to this library i personally feel that this library could be renovated for the amount of money that the 28 million dollars if we can renovate the civic auditorium for 20 million dollars i can't see any reason why this library couldn't be renovated for that same amount of money excuse me pause please sir that's your warning you can't speak out of deter time okay you have a warning sir okay you have a warning okay please go ahead you can leave then please thank you i'd like to have some extra time because you can leave then sir thank you please please continue sorry for that interruption yeah okay so i i spend a lot of time walking around this town please start yeah i got rattled by that yeah so this someone said to me today about the the carnady library it was made out of bricks and it probably would have fallen down in the earthquake which might have been true but it would have had a couple of decades before that happened this library has been found to be seismically sound it could be renovated and so i want to say again the soul of santa cruz the location of the farmers market the beautiful trees that are there has anyone looked at those trees that would be killed to put this building when i walked out of here the last meeting we had that i've sang at actually i looked at our library out there our beautiful library and i'd encourage everyone to look at it when they leave tonight and also to the parking garage that you can your your time is up but i lost some of my time we paused your time actually okay well we could add three more stories to the parking garage down the street thank you next speaker please good evening uh michael st with campaign for sustainable transportation uh long evening let me try to summarize the reasons for not building this garage with a library underneath number one the study requested and paid for by the city to research the possibility of even needing a garage was never completed number two it was recommended to try all tdm policies before building a garage not completed number three 24 of downtown employees surveyed by the city said they would consider driving if their free bus passes were made available number five uh raising the parking rates has shown to reduce parking demand that's being ignored number six the failure to include our sustainability climate action manager in the process was also a mistake and number seven being the most important is climate change project of this magnitude will create significant greenhouse gas emissions not only in the construction phase but also by supporting and encouraging single occupancy cars for now and in the future until these areas have been completed and tried this project should be tabled and maybe revised to not include the garage thank you thank you next speaker please susan worth so cal i am just speaking on behalf of those beautiful magnolia trees they are probably around 200 years old and they they can't fight for their own lives and that beautiful farmers market that's like the best thing our community does i can't understand why you would just want to put an ugly square fascist-looking building with no overhang in the middle of that parking lot and take away all that beauty and community i just don't understand how you can vote to do that so please don't thank you next speaker good evening council my name is drew mire i've lived here 20 years my wife and i're raising two kids i've served two terms on the historic preservation commission i'm currently a board member on the coastal watershed commission and i have commuted the hill for 15 years until about three years ago when it took a job with amazon here one of the first few employees let's not forget the big picture climate change is an irrelevant conversation when 20 000 some people are commuting over the hill every day simply to be able to live here we have to look at the bigger problem of an economic base that allows people to afford to buy the scarce housing that we have until we are able to build our way out of that which is not likely to come in the near term so we have to attract people who can afford to live here and those jobs are very difficult to come by communities that can support livable walkable functional downtown living have libraries and parking garages in the heart of them i don't love the change changes the factor in my life and in my job every day santa cruz has to look further and we have to bring the people that can afford to live here now to buy the houses and build the communities that we're going to have in the future please vote in favor of this project to drive us in the right direction thank you next next speaker please hi thank you guys for listening to everybody my name is erica and i want to express my support for moving the downtown branch to a mixed use facility um the downtown library does not represent this city santa cruz is a very artistic place full of life education science and community resources and our downtown branch needs to represent that according to the world health organization cities will hold 70 percent of the world's population by 2050 and as this expansion happens local leaders planners and citizens alike must take this into consideration to make logical decisions these multi-use facilities serve economic growth social cohesion and overall quality life santa cruz needs to be a people-oriented city and the library should be a community learning center in our 21st century downtown library should contain so much more than books it is clear that much of the arguments against this facility are to do with the parking and a certain attachment to the downtown branch and i've even heard some things expressed about not wanting a 21st century library and to me this line of thinking just doesn't align with today what we need to move forward with as well as what santa cruz should represent so i hope that you will move forward with this project thank you um before the next speaker whoever has the sign in the back if you keep it down below your shoulders i i thank you or stand against the back wall so it's not blocking people behind you please put the sign down thanks please go ahead david rosen if you're speaking to the mic please my name is david rosen and i've been living in santa cruz and working in different places here for about 15 years and uh i don't like the idea of putting the library on the first floor of a parking garage uh i like the library as it is now and i hope that whatever the decision is that it uh benefits the community and then it turns out to be a very nice renovation or new library i certainly have used the library quite a bit uh to educate myself and uh to read and to use the computer lab and things like that and uh it just seems to me that there's going to be noise issues uh in any place that i've lived or worked before where there has been a development like that where the upper floor is noisy and creates pollution i mean it just seems impractical and so i don't support that but i do value the suggestions that have been put forth for instance comparing this community to boulder now i lived in boulder and i took the hop the skip and the jump which uh traveled down broadway street in boulder uh i took the bus to denver denver international airport for eight dollars and i really think that there's a lot more that can be done with uh public transportation with uh keeping in mind that they're okay thank you thank you for your comment next speaker please next speaker next speaker thank you hello everyone my name is susan renison i live here in santa cruz thank you for listening if you'd pause for a moment in order for the um camera operator to get your sound you need to speak into the mic very good like this yes please thank you so much thank you everyone thank you um this is a huge proposal as we know and it can be difficult to go against staff recommendations um i urge you however to do so or at least delay making this decision i work in a mixed use building i work at the watsonville library the library is a tenant in that building it's subject to the demands and requirements of other tenants we've experienced two leaks closures because of fire alarms going off in other parts of the the building uh noise from the upstairs smells drifting in from subway and design restrictions that have impacted the library use to the present day it's um really hard been hard to to make that plan work um and of course we're glad for uh healthy friends of the library group and as a librarian i realize the prestige of a good library and being a librarian however it doesn't mean that we're always right or that we have all the answers um we would not have less of a good library with a remodel rather than a reconstruction safety comfortability connection a good use plan these are important whether we remodel or have a new library and they could be in our new library please do not approve this project use our money to remodel instead thank you thank you next speaker hi um it is my own opinion that uh the only improvements that need to be made to the library are in its collection and uh programs uh there need to be multiple copies of leviathan and the republic as well as a copy of the maha brata um let me think um as it is upon mine as it is upon myself to visit there every day um let me think the parking structure seems to survey um we need uh more low-cost parking also there should be more emphasis um also the program and uh and uh collection would be uh non privatized non privatized non privatized improvements exactly um anyways spending should be more focused on public space and homelessness there are rooms at the elm street uh church that are not being used there are rooms at the salvation army that are not being used when there are homeless people downtown who are being harassed by police um that sleep on the ground every day um the tent city is a joke you have to wait two months to get in there and the facility is gross to say the least um you know there needs to be like a free clinic here hphp is not helpful okay thank you oh yeah no problem thank you next speaker please hi i'm peggy dolton is um uh longtime over 30 year resident of santa cruz um i'm an ardent environmentalist i really enjoy clean air and sunshine and clean water and uh because of that i really feel that we need to have more housing downtown we need to increase the density downtown and for the people who've been speaking about the environment it's really a matter of timing we need to get rid of those parking lots so we can put some housing downtown we do that by consolidating the parking in one structure then eventually we get rid of that structure when we don't need it anymore but we can't wait for the housing so we have to do it now my concern as a downtown resident who's who lives across the street from the site and i work across the street from the library i couldn't be more affected by this uh by this decision so i have to say what do i think is right for the town that i live in and i have to say it's the environmental decision to get that density do the mass transit improve the environment go and go forward but i want to ask i hear over and over that it it's a possibility to build a beautiful structure let's build a beautiful structure let's have a lot of you know greenery i'd love to save those trees make sure the farmers market has a place to go there are a lot of issues that i want to make sure get covered i think the last few projects the city have done has done have been good ones and parking garages are usually very ugly so let's make a beautiful parking garage if that's possible thank you thank you next speaker please my name is carol fuller and i was a member of the measure s committee to for the new library and so here we are with this possibility before us i also worked on measure s i was also on the measure s committee this spring for a quarter cent sales tax in the best of all possible worlds we could have parks we could have public transportation we could have all kinds of things that would make life better we could have not a housing problem and not homeless but it isn't what we have we have to work with what we have the city already has to cut at least two million dollars this year from its budget as i understand so you have to work with the framework the beauty of this project i think it's a good project i will urge you to support it is a lot of citizens who had no axe to grind looked at it looked at everything they came up with this plan they liked it the city staff supports it and i i'm urging you to go forward with it and and five more years when it's built and the beauty of it too is that we can have a library until this one comes online if you try to rebuild the present library which all the staff tells us is inadequate you'll have no library for probably three years while that process goes forward so i'm in five more years i will be over 80 and i think i'll move into that senior residence across the street from the new library and i can do it without a car thank you next speaker please hi my name is mica yelts i'm a relatively new employee of the friends of the santa cruz library and i don't see the library the way other people here have seen it i see it as a obsolete antiquated building that doesn't serve the purposes of the community and is certainly not adding anything to ascertaining a building or a surrounding community with the 21st century needs that our community has so i ask you to approve this proposal thank you very much thank you okay um before you begin uh is there any member of the public that's here that hasn't spoken to this item is there any member outside or at the overflow in the library community room if anyone's over there keeping track do you have anyone over there that can report back in okay great so sir you'll be our last speaker of the evening okay last public speaker thank you good evening my name is marvin lewis longtime resident of santa cruz you have an obligation this evening both the public health and the fiscal health of the city of santa cruz so this decision is weighed with some import the proposition proposition 65 is explicit regarding enclosed parking structures it says warning breathing the air in this parking garage can expose you to chemicals including carbon monoxide and gasoline or diesel engine exhaust which are known to the state of california to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm do not stay in this area longer than necessary now this forms the basis of a potential class action suit on behalf of staff and patrons of the library in regards to public health effects that would have a potentially substantive effect upon the fiscal well-being of the city of santa cruz now due to the risk of a misplaced vote concerning your decision um they're relative to the aesthetics the cultural implications and uh most importantly uh the fiscal well-being and the public health of the city i urge you to put this decision before a public vote so that the public at large can make a decision as to what type of environment they want to expose themselves to when they are visiting a library thank you thank you sir that concludes the public testimony portion of this item so i'm going to bring it back to the council for um questions deliberation and action so that we can kind of move forward on this um i'll start over here to my immediate right um which is council member crowned thank you i'm on your right i'm on david teras is right my immediate right uh i have a few questions uh for staff first of all thank you to the public that was we have obviously a diversity of opinion out there and uh it's what seemed to me like an unresolved community uh right now um question for the city attorney uh bonds expiring in 2024 is there no is are we under a gun do you know if we have to spend that money by 2024 or is there a history that we could ask for more time if needed um i have not researched that particular topic i'd be happy to look into it report back to the council perhaps um economic developer director has some further information susan nimitz library director uh last summer i asked our bond council the question and they said we have to have made substantive progress on a project and in some cases they will do extensions i did ask him to define what substantive progress meant and he said that's not fully clear thank you a couple more questions um asbestos removal is there asbestos in there now and how much and where and is it is it um potentially hazardous or is it enclosed in something where it's not getting out to member crone we have done asbestos removal in the building before what we have left is our columns and our flooring and it is uh it is a process to remove it i do not believe the public is at risk or we would close okay that's what i was wondering um the you know that i didn't see anything that might be in in in the documentation we we got i did go through it fairly well especially the letters to the to the to the project but i don't see anything about the homeless challenges that several people brought up and i'm wondering what the game plan is um i mean a person used uh you know his random survey of 19 of 24 people uh but i i do i brought my kids there when they were growing up for the last 20 years um and there was a obvious you know homeless presence in the library and i'm wondering either what the strategy is going into the future or what other cities are doing to confront are they just accepting that task as part of the library task that homeless services council member crown it's a it's a great question and a complex issue we've been working really actively with the city for the past two years um i agree with what people are observing the library a huge number of our patrons are experiencing homelessness um but i would say it's children it's college students um and it's some of the traditional perspectives we have about homelessness um when i came on board we began to work closely with the city it was right after the day center had closed and we definitely saw a significant increase um in both patrons experiencing homelessness and um and in incidents in the library we also have done surveys where our community members have expressed their um feelings of fear um that they don't feel safe in the library so we've gone with a three prong approach one was we developed a code of conduct and we have been um following that clearly we worked really closely with the staff and our security guards to ensure that there are behavioral expectations and if people don't meet them they are asked to leave the library um often for periods of up to a year um the second thing we did is we created some services within the library for people experiencing homelessness that are using the library in appropriate ways i think the third thing we've done is really work with the city on the citywide strategies about how we deal with homelessness and you know it's everything to um how we deal with campaign enforcement um how we do with deal with bathrooms live public libraries around the country have a legal obligation to serve the entire community and they also have a moral obligation to do so so we believe that um people experiencing homelessness are welcome within our walls what we ask is that they use the library as a library well stated i i really appreciate those uh those words um i don't know how much you've gotten into the tree issue but how many trees are slated to be cut down and during the whole nelson niger not nelson um the uh nolan tam sessions with the delac was there any sense has nolan tam ever saved trees before and built those trees into the project council member i think that the tree research has been going on in the city i'm gonna turn it over to bonnie if that's okay thank you we did reach out to leslie kitty the city's arborist to look at the trees she said that she um that the trees are pretty old and there was a 50 to 60 chance that they could successfully be transplanted um it would the cost would be pretty high because they're old she um has had some complaints about the um condition of the trees in the past um so it is possibly relocated it would be fairly i'm not thinking of that i'm thinking of building them into any structure is that possible to take some of the magnolias the heritage tree magnolias and actually you know do something i don't think it's unique i think yeah i mean we could definitely look at that my i i need to we need to look at where they're laid out on the site um specifically if there are any um particularly that could be built into some of the open space elements i'm not really sure until we actually look at the layout of them on the on the site okay thank you um we've got quite a few letters on the uh the nelson-neigard issue i was wondering if somebody from public works could address that issue the the misuse of someone's uh that we hired statistics from 80 percent to 90 percent or 30 percent uh deficiency i guess or some yeah we might have a multi-team response on that one economic development actually commissioned the study and i i think there is some uh misunderstanding on the purpose of the study which um we did start that study over two years ago prior to any sort of council discussion on the mixed use project or the parking structure the purpose of that study and the title of the study that's in progress is called the economics of parking and the goals for that study particularly were to look at the long-term future vitality of downtown and looking at how we are um charging for parking what our parking policies are particularly around parking deficiency fees because a lot of our businesses were um reaching out to us with some confusion on how they pay for parking and some of the the weights that they had for parking permits and just not understanding how we're providing our parking specifically downtown so the purpose of the study was really to look at our existing parking structure um sorry our existing parking strategy structure of prices in the downtown um our various policies that make recommendations for improvement um specifically on the study uh we have it's in progress we're hoping to be able to have it for for this evening they're still working on draft comments um one of the challenges we've had and i'll just tell you the reason why it's one of the reasons it's taken so long is we're actually on our third team with nelson nygard within the project we haven't um had direct issues with with the consultant they've been in a situation where they've for various reasons certain team members have left the company and so we've had to regroup and we're now on our third team um and we're having to adjust some of the study as we go but the final elements that will be coming out um for the actual strategic parking plan it is around parking pricing and strategies so specifically the deliverables is recommending an on and off street pricing structure um and a brief summary of on and off street pricing levels in peer communities we really felt it was important to benchmark to neighboring communities um what they're charging for parking to really compare to how we're charging for parking with the understanding that a lot of the businesses were were feeling that they were subsidizing and were in fact subsidizing parking so moving the cost of parking to the actual parking user is one of the goals and recommendations of the parking study and um the contract was nine nine thousand nine hundred ninety seven dollars and have we used that all up um no we still have a little bit of that contract amount to finish the report and is that just under what before it comes to the council we usually get it if it's over a hundred thousand it's under a hundred thousand i'm saying if it's over a hundred thousand we get it you would have had it yes we would have come to you um prior to um issuing that uh so there was a question about what was the outcome of of the nelson-neigard study i mean you went through but are we going to continue with them or are you are they still working on it they're working on they're working on the the comments from staff on the executive summary of the pricing structure right now and um the seventy five thousand per space sound right or is that uh it's not it's not just to clarify it is not analyzing a parking structure it's not contemplating uh whether or not there's a need for a parking structure that is not the scope of the study it is really looking at pricing structure downtown that i need to clarify the parking um actually rates structure of how we charge for parking in the downtown i meant seventy five thousand per space to build that's that's what i'm saying that's not specifically in in the study it's looking at how individuals who pay for parking in the downtown how they're paying for it and making recommendations and comparisons to benchmark cities does the ballpark price of twenty seven million for the library now and forty one million sound right to come out with six is a sixty eight million dollar project um would be yeah i would probably bring in um i recommend actually actually jimber from uh public works to come in and talk specifically about the the parking structure what we have so far is because because we have presented you just with a concept plan what we have is a rough order of magnitude costs and at least on the parking side we had a range of costs it was from 33 to 37 million through and those were 2018 numbers um for the parking piece the library i believe is 27 and then there's a third component that is neither library nor um parking that is out front along cedar street that is some other use uh and i'm hearing from council that that's going to be a housing use and the sixty eight million then ballpark figure is it more or less than that uh that would be on the high end and what what can you put that in perspective with other projects that we've done around the city i'm just thinking the sewage treatment plan or the police station or i cannot we haven't it's the largest public works project we've ever taken on it's not the largest in size certainly but um in cost well if we build this yes it'll be it'll be probably the largest in cost construction prices have risen considerably in the last few years yeah that's another consideration that is that construction costs are really high and a number of people have pointed out the how can it be so expensive particularly for the library at a thousand dollars per square foot and that is a very accurate estimate in fact the bids that came in for the capitol branch which just came in a month ago came in at that level so we actually have real data showing that as that is actually the cost of new construction um also it's important to note that that includes everything it's not just the building it includes the everything that goes within the building as well so that's why it's that high because everything has to be replaced the furnishings the outfitting the technology and all that as well so councilmember crown do you have many more questions professor adam miller ball um was here tonight and uh he says that we haven't done any risk analysis i was wondering have we done risk analysis uh what he was referring to as far as uh what if ret parking revenue craters and i didn't know he was going to be here tonight but um he is a colleague and i've known him for many years and he has been working on transportation all over the country and in europe as well we have not done risk analysis on uh this project uh when we presented the rate strategy in detail on june 19th we did present a very conservative uh careful approach to our pricing structure um we had that study verified by a third party economic planning services analyst um and we included um a number of uh conservative factors uh we did include the we did include the um excuse me the rates elasticity so some loss in demand uh due to a price increase but mostly what we've seen here are um in in santa cruz for local conditions what we've seen is even though prices have gone up occupancy has also gone up that sort of flies in the face of price elasticity we approached the model uh in a different way in that we did we took the demand and supply model and then did a post processing where we looked at what the size of the shortage would be and how we would maybe attack that with tdm and a new supply project and the 700 waiting list somebody mentioned was predicated on the fact that they're all in line for cheap passes if it goes up to 75 dollars would that waiting list be diminished greatly it it may but uh that's not what we're seeing here in santa cruz and i would just remind you that the 700 is that's individuals waiting for permits it's actually those some of those represent business owners who want the total numbers 1400 uh permits requested currently so there's quite a bit of pent up demand and that went into our rate strategy we heard a lot about um environment tonight from several people and also correspondence i'm wondering um why this would be the kind of project you would pass by the climate action task force or at least by uh tiffani wise west who's the climate action coordinator um typically the the climate action coordinator and the climate action committee doesn't review individual projects you know they focus on their scope is to focus on the climate action plan and the implementation of the plan and the various elements to it and so that is the scope of the work now you know with respect to looking at individual projects we do have our planning folks who look at you know green building and all that sort of thing in this particular case the project hasn't been referring to the level where we have you know a project where we can evaluate you know the the uh the what kind of level of of lead certification for example uh it's going to achieve all i i think the desires to have it be as high as as possible and to include we have included i think in the estimates that it would have solar and lead certification and that sort of thing um but with respect to uh tiffani's role you know she typically doesn't review individual cap projects last question how do we explain to the public when the person said two million dollars for the san jose county bank to to um renovate it and we're at 27 million we have and we can't seem to um have enough money to renovate the library um is that just too much of an apples to oranges kind of comparison or what what's going on there because it does you know in a lot of people's minds it's like whoa 27 million dollars councilmember it's a good question and i'm not an engineer so what i've done is talked to other area architects focusing on libraries and i've had two architectural firms say that is what they're seeing in the um over a thousand dollars a square foot is what they're seeing in the library economy in the bay area most recently the half moon library which i hear is fantastic just opened two weeks ago it was 24 million for 22 000 square feet both the live oak or i'm sorry the um capitola and the felton libraries have just gone out for bid and both came in over a thousand dollars a square foot so what we're seeing is not inconsistent with what the um experts that we hired told us thank you mayor hey thank you i do have comments too yeah definitely we'll circle back councilmember chase i think so a couple of my questions were asked by councilmember crone um one of them is no i appreciate that we're on the same page um one question is what's an update on the eco pass and where we are with um metro on that thank you hi clear fleece late transportation planner so the eco pass model is a staff proposal from metro of sorry i'm a little taller um was a staff level proposal from metro staff on what could be the parameters of a transit pass program for downtown looking at both our downtown employee makeup and the survey that we put out two downtown employees seeing how we could meet them where they were to help them choose other modes than driving alone to alleviate our parking shortage transit was uh desired six of nine near the bottom of the list things that came higher than that were uh biking carpooling other options one of the things that we looked at is how can we provide a transit option that may be any capacity may be a different transit option for downtown employees and running the numbers what we found is that even if we doubled the number of employees who are using transit currently we would be able to pay a lower price than the staff level proposal from metro at the same time as we would be able to invest in other alternatives so one of the things we're going to look at going forward pending action tonight and the creation of an annual TDM budget is how do we spend those dollars most efficiently to meet our downtown employees where they are if it works for you to bike i want to help you find a way to bike downtown if it works for you to carpool i want to help find a way to make that happen and if transit's an option for you i want to get you a transit pass so an eco pass is one way to achieve some TDM goals but it's certainly not the only way i have a couple follow-ups for you so i'll stay here um so one of the things it's it's more of a uh just kind of reaffirming i think what we've talked about recently when we talked about the jump bikes which is that is now something that we just got online that we didn't have before that certainly is going to be factored into our TDM because would you repeat what is one of my favorite statistics about um that was really illuminating to me about the number of folks who actually transit doesn't make sense for downtown i'm one of those people where i live and both of my jobs are um within distance where it doesn't make sense actually for me to get on transit but it does to either walk or bike or in some cases use my car yeah so one of the things that we look at is as long as parking is the fastest easiest and cheapest way for people to get around they're going to continue to park but if we make other options faster easier and cheaper that's a way that people will consider changing their mode typically what we think of is if you live within a mile walking is going to be the fastest way for you to get to downtown if you live within three miles biking and in particular using jump bikes or another e-bike is going to be the fastest way to get around and as you get further out than that transit becomes an option the caveat to that is that we know that one in two employees downtown work in retail or restaurant in the service industry generally these are jobs that don't have the typical eight to five monday through friday schedules that we see with the upper level office workers having schedules that vary that way in particular if they start before seven or eight a.m when transit really begins or end after eight p.m when transit frequency really ends transit's not an option for those people it's not something that we can say we'll give you a bus pass and you'll be able to get home to your home in core lettuce or bonny dune or felton where you can afford to live so making sure that we provide a real range of options for people downtown to maintain the vibrancy and the diversity of our downtown is important and then one of the other follow-up questions this one's not for you thanks okay i'll sit down i don't know who it's for exactly but um i wanted to confirm to one of the things that was driving up the cost also of remodeling the current location was also being able to maintain the branch somewhere else in during that time which i think wasn't explicitly said but i just wanted to clarify that that's a huge part of the costs in that yes yes that's correct because uh the the idea would be that we would try to have a smaller but temporary branch that would still operate and so that was in the several million dollars that just to keep that operating while the library would be renovated if that was the option thank you any questions from this side yeah i have a i have a couple um i was just curious i noticed through the delac process that they considered four options how did you get to the point of choosing those four options um to study uh councilmember it's a very good question part of what we did is tried to write uh the rfp in the contract with some sense of scope rather than because it's costly to to do endless options so we took the proposal that was um um uh discussed at the december 2016 meeting which was a mixed use we took remodel because it was the obvious choice um build new and to be honest we added the fourth option as we got deeper into the process and people said well what can you get for 23 million thank you and then my um last question is i noticed um folks from the dta and dmc got up and said that they supported this project did you um did other organizations communicate their support as well i'm just curious other people who wrote in and said they supported this so from the library specific side we had the library advisory committee uh support we had the geological society of santa cruz which has about 150 members and we have a genealogy sorry center in the library itself and then the friends of the library and in addition to that um you heard from a lot of the groups here today um housing action now also sent a letter of support with some conditions in there as well um so you heard from the business council santa cruz works santa cruz chamber of commerce the dta and the downtown management corporation are also organizations that spoke here tonight in the north northern california construction union yeah oh right thank you great thank you remember brown yeah just to follow up on uh council member neroyan's question about the origins of the the four options how they came about um you know i one of the things that i and i followed this pretty closely one of the things i haven't seen uh were concept you know design drawings of any sort for any of the other options aside from option b which is the staff recommendation coming before us tonight the delac recommendation and just right now while i can while i have a moment while i have the floor i really do want to thank everybody who's participated in this process and you know really have a lot of respect for all the work you've done and um your your commitment to making this project happen so i'm just wondering like you know it would be nice to see what it might look like to have some of those other options um council member brown the delac process did not actually create any drawings of any of the four those drawings have come after the fact we've been done with our work since january of um this year and so those drawings have happened after the fact i saw a few in the city manager's office prior to that just i think what you're referring to is so there's the the the facility's master plan she's referring to the facility's master plan so i was going to add the facility's master plan uh that's where some of the options were explored as part of that as well so as part of the facility's master plan they actually looked at uh renovating they looked at a new building and they did do some rough sketches of you know how it might be laid out um also they looked at uh uh re uh a major renovation of this building where they looked at the changing the entrance it was a 2013 document that it put a maintain gain and attain levels of right they even looked at a mixed use project back then as well as part of the pacific station project so all of these options were explored as part of the master facilities process which took place uh that that was adopted and presented to council in january of 2013 i have a quick question and i i apologize claire it was for you before when you're already up here so i'm sorry to bring you back up i um i was just curious it sounds to me i just want to confirm based on the previous question that we are pretty much going as as sort of full suite ahead in terms of our TDM options and or is there anything more you think we can do oh there's always more yeah we've been investing in TDM for decades um it's what's led us to have a drive alone rate 20 below the national average and the second highest rate of bike commuting in the state of california um but there is always more we can do and that's why we're asking with the pricing strategy proposed to you tonight to create an annual reliable TDM funding source that we can use to continue to incentivize mudshift um i'll say um i'll start with a comment first and that is you know i was on the library board in 2013 when we went through this entire process for the facilities plan and i tell you i've um seen firsthand the the situation that are branched downtown and there were times when it was closed because of um facility failures and um so i think firsthand if you talk with those that worked there um they've reported the problems they've experienced and as a parent myself when our family goes to the library um i look at what we have in terms of resources up on the second floor for parents and i think boy we are woefully inadequate in terms of what we're doing for kids and young families in this in this community in terms of libraries and i think that's kind of a missing piece in terms of when we talk about the library itself and something i'm very interested in making sure we correct um the one thing i wanted to talk about really is kind of this idea of what is our vision for the downtown you know we're talking about this in the context of a joint multi-use project with a library in a parking garage but i think it's part of a piece of a larger puzzle and i would like maybe staff to comment about what this means to look at how we create more opportunities for housing downtown create more opportunities for economic development and create more opportunities to create a more active kind of livable downtown if you could kind of comment on that i'd appreciate it um you know specifically in the recommendations let's go back go back to the the last two part of these are in response to some of the community feedback that we'd heard both through the outreach process and sort of early on as we started planning is the questions arising of what what is the vision for downtown and we have a series we showed part of it in one of the previous presentations in june of some of the guiding documents that have led us to this point um and as we were talking about the overall process in downtown it's looking at what opportunities we have and specifically the first part of that is looking at the city-owned properties downtown for a long time and certainly with the council two-year strategic plan goals of creating housing in the downtown we had already been focused on what these opportunities are and recognizing that for long-term vibrancy in the downtown we need to have a healthy balance of businesses and residents and frankly some of the challenges we have um with retail and with the shrinking tax basis related to retail with online sales is it's it's even more important going forward that we're looking at what are ways that we can support our existing retail in the downtown long-term to survive one of those opportunities as we're looking at the long-term vision is to make sure that we are supporting those businesses that we are actually bringing people who live downtown who can potentially shop downtown and will be downtown to support those those businesses for a long time into the future that's a really important part of our vision downtown it is a balance of the residents it's a balance of the retail both the restaurants the um actually commercial retail we have and the office users downtown all of those components together make a healthy downtown and that part of our overall vision is to making sure we're getting that balance right as we plan for the future and part of that does include you know as we've talked a lot of tonight and and over the last 18 months housing but a part of it also includes parking and making sure that we're providing parking for those who need it as well as looking at you know alternative modes as claire has has has said so eloquently this evening that we're balancing those needs in our downtown and and that's something we've been focused on for a really long time as far as visioning going forward there's a number of studies that sort of led us to this point that we didn't include in tonight's presentation some of that starting back into 2011 would be the bob gibbs retail and market study in the downtown and a number of recommendations that he made support moving forward with a vision including actually an investment in a library he was so excited when he heard about this project but he says when he looks at cities across the country it's libraries and the fact that as a community we're looking to reinvest 20 plus million in a downtown library says those are what save downtown's revisioning libraries as community spaces as a really important part of our community vision going forward I mean I think that for those that were around post earthquake in 89 when there was a vision Santa Cruz process there was a really robust kind of look at what we were going to build out in our downtown and how that looked and I'm curious like how you know deep are you to get into this to make sure that one as Peggy Dolgen has said you know we build a beautiful structure it's not just another parking garage because this is a really important part of our downtown not just for the stake of the library but for what we want to see in the future right down to make it more of a destination yeah so two things to that the first is that the 2017 downtown plan amendments are actually amendments to that original visioning downtown visioning plan so that's taking that vision forward into 2018 another element of that as we go forward is both these two recommendations that are before you this evening similar to the pacific station project where some of you were involved in that in that project in that process we had group four who had specifically had as part of their team they had a facilitator who was a professional and community engagement and they sort of led us through a staff along with the community on various various methods various techniques different approaches to making sure that they got active engaged community participation and part of that process that was a fascinating for us sort of the vernacular around how you describe architecture in the way things make you feel that I felt was such an engaging process for those that participated in it and so we came forward two years ago to show ideas they had boards based on a different sort of styles of what the buildings could look like that's going to be a real part an important part of this process to flip for a second to the visioning side I think that's where an urban land planning organization like urban land institute or spur you know based in the bay area comes in is is this is what they do they go into communities they look at sort of the they do sort of a SWAT analysis of your strength you know and opportunities weaknesses and threats and they put that together and they look at individual visions they look at what's missing they look at sort of the overall community context and then they come forward with ideas and they have again have a series of community engagement as far as that process and then they make recommendations on what you can do and as part of that analysis it includes a cost analysis considerations for council and we would bring that back to you for further consideration and just a couple more you know I really appreciated the fact it was Candace Zach and Kendra downtown business owners spoke up about like the importance of creating more vibrant downtown and especially for young parents making sure that we create family friendly spaces downtown what are we doing to make sure that that outreach happens with the downtown business owners and also future you know property owners that are down there so that we're making something that actually is really well integrated into the area not just moving over some of the issues that are going on right now in the present space to a new location and instead of creating something that's going to be a much more kind of vibrant vibrant facility well I would say as part of our outreach as I mentioned one of our goals was really to engage with new new groups and demographics and we really worked hard to connect with the downtown business owners and we had lots of one-on-one meetings with DTA members and people who work downtown and own businesses downtown and I think that we formed some relationships that'll help us to engage those those same people in a design process I think we've seen that there's a really engaged community on this topic and I think we would hope to activate them to be part of a design process to ensure that we are seeing the vision through and this is the last point was that when we had discussions about this before I know there were different discussions about if there was a mixed use garage where the library facility would be and I am personally I would support something that's even higher like where you have a facility that has you know space and view and light from you know the top if that's where it's going to go as well as the opportunity to have even some landscaping or other sorts of treatments on there I'm wondering if they're funding funding that could happen through like when there is development there's park funds quimby funds that could help support some sort of outdoor space you know on the top floor to make it more of a you know public space for all the housing that is anticipated downtown is that possible yes we can certainly look at that and obviously the design process will help to kind of guide that there are examples of facilities that have for example the west hollywood library has tennis courts on the top of the parking structure I would just like to quickly that just to go back to the project cost I think an some of the opportunity for that will also come in in that bottom category when we have funding source for the housing and other mixed uses we're looking at opportunities to bring in both private investment and also other federal and state funding sources another very encouraging aspect of the project that we're analyzing right now with some financial sort of technical experts is that possibility of doing an opportunity zone project at this site with the mix of uses including affordable housing library it's it's it's a project that's perfectly suited for opportunity zone financing so we're looking at that we're looking at leveraging what that will do to the project is bring in quite a bit of funding that otherwise wouldn't be available to reinvest and create some of those elements that make a very livable project right can you say what opportunity zone funding is for people who don't know yeah it's it's a it's a federal program and we created we created opportunity zones it's it's a federal program that is being instituted by the state and initially they created a zone that allows for tax you know basically equity investors to get tax credits for investing in a project and as a result we get the benefit of that investment over a over a period so typically you do a public private partnership with an equity investor that creates funding for the project that wouldn't otherwise be there it's a more user-friendly version of the new market tax credits that some of you have heard us talk about in the past that becomes very very complicated it's a it's a little more straightforward program we have two opportunity zones in Santa Cruz that were recently created initially one was created a more creek because it's based on census tract for reinvestment we were successfully able to move that so now we have one in the downtown and our mission street corridor and just slightly going into the beginning of of the east side so we're pretty excited for the opportunity and starting to have conversations about which areas and which projects might be good good fits for opportunity zones and our initial feedback that we have on this one is this this this project looks very good all right councilmember crown ready for uh comments now or um well that's what we've been doing to keep it thank you um i was wondering if you could put up that photo of the library because i'm i was struck by this i think our city manager showed it to me when i was in his office one day what uh that space looked like um hopefully it'll come up it was uh it's the Carnegie library that used to sit on that site i think i think this is the picture but i don't know if it's uh i hope it's the right one um and i'm just thinking i i keep thinking about the 21st century library uh and what what a loss that was of the uh the Carnegie library um could you also put it down here for the i don't see it oh uh oh um the upper does that that looks like the right one right is that martini's that it and um that's top right these were a few a few other pictures like i took the the the parking garage one was recently in the uh uh in the sentinel i believe and um i i was struck by the picture also of uh of the downtown library in that view and i don't know if how much it was discussed with the delac i might have missed that meeting where that was going to be the entrance and it was going to open on to um uh center street there that and kind of merge into the civic auditorium city council uh plaza uh area is there another picture there as well are those the only ones okay thank you um well um well i respect the work that the staff and uh delac has done um what i might be contributing tonight is um might not be what you want to hear but this is what i've heard from the community that that i've um been talking to i don't know if you could put up that um i wanted to do it but i'm very concerned about um our community enlarging its carbon footprint and um i have a uh a substitute motion that i would i would like to put out there's no there's no motion on the floor right now there's just a recommendation well i'm gonna i'm gonna put out this motion right here then um that we uh i don't know if you can make that a little bigger for people to be able to see but um is that as big as you can make it that's as big as i can to have it all you can get it on the tv's out there or no it is it's on there uh so i would um my motion would be uh a four-part motion would be to accept the downtown library advisory committee's report of of january 25th 2018 and number two that the city council acknowledges that we are not traffic experts and we will return to the original scope of the nelson-neigard consultant contract and reengage these consultants in designing a fully vetted transportation demand management uh plan for downtown and number three that the city council also acknowledged that the library should be separated from any parking structure and that the two projects should be addressed on their own merits and a sub of that would be um the city council will appoint a subcommittee uh of the of the city council excuse me to uh hold a minimum of three public scoping sessions in order to determine how to move forward on a new downtown library with the purpose of staying within measure s allocated funds be uh the city council's direct staff to hold off on planning any additional city-built garage until a tdm program has been in place for at least one year see direct staff to immediately partner with metro and institute a two-year pilot eco pass program and offer all downtown employees free of charge bus passes and allocate a minimum of three hundred eleven thousand dollars from the parking fund toward this effort with the understanding that those receiving these passes would not be eligible for monthly parking passes and d will city council would appoint a committee to come up with recommendations on how to re-envision the area between lincoln and cathcart along cedar street notice parking lot four and uh the fourth part of this motion would be that staff report back to the city council in three months concerning the progress of citing a downtown library that's the motion yes okay great well then i'll second that um i am gonna ask for a friendly amendment that um we include i'm just seconding the motion asking the maker of the motion for friendly amendment uh that um staff shall also report back to the city council uh with a specific plan for affordable housing truly affordable housing um within the project scope i would accept that um but can you put any any numbers on it because that was a question i always had like everybody talks about affordable housing and affordable by design and affordable this affordable that i sure 50 to 80 is it 80 to 120 or what what is affordable uh i would use a 60 percent of median income rate the very low income rate that we use in our inclusionary guidelines um and and i'm certainly not talking about affordable by design thank you i accept that amendment is there a discussion i'll make a comment on that um so i um appreciate councillor crone and councillor brown's intentions here with the motion i however am not going to support it um and was prepared to move the staff recommendations with some caveats to that and some additions uh i won't support it because i feel like this project is exactly what we've been talking about when we've been talking about thinking about housing in particular but how we envision our community this project um isn't just looking at the project in and of itself it's really looking at our downtown and what we expect for our downtown how we want the community to be able to engage with it and use it including working living playing um event space uh envisioning a new place for the farmers market that is actually a outdoor space with you know a much better configuration and charging stations for electric vehicles and event space for gatherings um this is really our opportunity that we have been asking for to not just think about things project by project by project but how those things can be done holistically and thinking about what our community is going to look like in generations to come and i think one of the things that's so interesting about the conversation about the library is that there's so much nostalgia wrapped up in it and that came up a lot tonight and i appreciate that very much and i also think that we have a tremendous responsibility for the future users of the library um which our current library is completely uh lacking right now and a huge part of that also i though i think are the concerns that council member crone has around our impact on climate and i do believe that these are not mutually exclusive that we've been actively and robustly pursuing tdm and we should absolutely continue to do that and this project doesn't ignore that so i am uh prepared to um unfortunately i won't support the motion on the floor i am prepared if it uh if there isn't support for the current motion to move the staff recommendation with some additions that do include things about tdm um outside outdoor spaces and engaging the community in the ways that were described about how we can uh envision our downtown collectively so i will not support the motion on the floor okay i won't be supporting the motion on the floor either although i do appreciate the issue of looking at some of the issues in regards to planning future planning in the downtown library and um i on that point i feel like we need a long-term vision for our downtown and this is a one of those pieces that looks at how we can reimagine our downtown to be more family friendly and more focused on infrastructure for the next generation i don't see what's here um being recommended as one that moves us forward it kind of keeps us at the status quo so um i am unable to support the motion on the floor i'll just add a few comments if actually i can i i just without you know being repetitive of what i've said at previous meetings or what's already been spoken um by council member chase and mayor trazos is just this really huge need to balance um you know what we have now what we want in the future um external circumstances um planning and bigger vision um i really want to also echo the importance of thinking about a policy decision that lasts well beyond our time on council or our time on this planet but for the future generations that are going to inherit santa cruise um i really do believe that our downtown is severely lacking opportunities for children to engage and i think this is a great opportunity to do so and i know that this is would be the beginning of something um that would be further discussed with hopefully a very robust community process and input uh engagement um and you know i think there are also opportunities for us to have checks along the way if we are wrong with our projections what's our policy plan be how can we uh convert uh the the potential parking structure into affordable housing or sell off existing lots i think we can have those checks and balances along the way as well as have a really thoughtful process in terms of what we hope to see for the current and existing sites so for those for those reasons as well as some of the other ones that have already been mentioned um i too won't be supporting at the time i do also want to just if i could add that i think there are really a lot of things that we do share and then there are elements within here in terms of wanting a robust uh tdm program in place of really checking back with the public and really working with the community so i do know that although this maybe um isn't something i'll support at this time i think there are aspects that we can find council alignment um moving forward so the motion on the floor motion by council member crone second by council member brown council member crone i didn't want to pick up on what council member uh what i can said about policy decisions that will last for generations pouring cement is cement is one of the worst you know carbon footprint you know greenhouse gases are admitted um cutting those 17 trees down on that site it's another we're modeling what i would consider behavior that is not what's going to uh be good for those future generations that we're we're modeling behavior that's um really destructive to the current planet and if it doesn't start here in santa cruz if we can't be modeling um good environmental behavior when we don't even have a person overseeing this when you green building standards i don't i don't know i'm on the climate action task force and i don't see anything um guiding a lot of the environmental behavior in our town i know that the current climate action task force coordinator is working really hard and diligently on lots of different projects but um i think we're missing the the bigger picture here i think you know i i believe parking cars is what's driving this whole project um and as i said earlier as i said earlier um the issues uh these issues are so unresolved in our community you know and i i can't help but think being in this chamber in october of 1997 when there was a council that tried to push forward a beach and south of laurel plan against the wishes of many people in the community although at that time maybe the council didn't realize how many and so i'm just um saying you know this if you go ahead and do this tonight um i mean i i would hope you would support this this what i put forward because i think we need to take a step back here and and from i think the brink uh and we have a chance to actually send that message to those future generations that we we didn't build the parking lot the no project alternative and we actually went off in a in a different direction one that is more um life sustaining on for the for the planet too um thank you thank you all in question okay so there's a motion motion on the floor by councilmember crown seconded by councilmember brown those in favor favor of the motion please say i i those opposed please say no no okay that motion fails with councilmember uh brown and crown voting in favor councilmember noroyan vice mayor walkins councilmember chase and myself a post so now we'll return back to the council for deliberation is there a second an alternative motion so um i will move the staff recommendations and i have a few things that i would like to include in that um some of them i'm just sort of reiterating statements that are already made um one and then some i'd like a council consideration on so one is to really reinforce maintaining our robust tdm program and certainly include in that um the new which i know is sort of assumed but the impact of having the jump bike program and how that will impact sort of movement downtown continuing to um evaluate the best use of our eco passes and plan and how that would make sense i understand the proposal that was put forward didn't actually make sense um but i think that we can probably come to a place where there is something that does make sense for downtown so i'd like us to pursue that um i want to reinforce item number six which just really really um focus on the active engagement of the dta as they requested in the vision for downtown as well as the design but also really reinforce what bonnie described in terms of the outreach to the community to fully engage actively the community in that um as project as as we move forward and to reinforce the housing blueprint subcommittees uh community engagement recommendations of making sure that the public is involved early and in a meaningful way so that their recommendations for design and all of those things are done at a time where it can actually impact the project um i want to really focus on maximizing our outside spaces in the project including um pursuing the possibility of maintaining the trees that exist there the magnolias in particular um to the extent that we can and then continuing to work with the city urban forester to determine if it's feasible to move them if they are not able to be maintained and then the latest one that i just uh came up with was i really think this is our opportunity to come up with a public facing indestructible outside bathroom that is open 24 hours a day to me this is the project where we can actually probably work this in it's astoundingly expensive to do these things people are often surprised um i think this is our opportunity so i would like to see us work that into the proposal and i'll stop there second thank you okay there's a motion by council member chase second by council member doroyan i thank you about the bathroom idea yeah i think um if we can incorporate that and do kind of have the indestructible bathroom that takes a lot of effort to vandalize that would be great the other thing i wanted to add possibly is a friendly amendment one of the things that's being done with parking garages that are being built in other cities they're doing what's called future proofing where the parking structures are built in the way that can be repurposed easily so for instance you know a lot of people are saying that parking might become obsolete because we'll you know first first of all people who are under 30 are not getting their driver's licenses or buying cars nearly at the rate of people who came before them so that's a really interesting trend and those tend to be the people who are attracted to living in an urban environment so it's not unrealistic to say that you know parking at some point might become a little more obsolete and so their future proofing or designing these garages in a way that each floor can be converted it requires a level base flat floors upfront costs that are virtually the same as traditional parking garages actually and denver has future proofed their parking and i always believe that when we do vote for big projects like this we need to think not just in the immediate time but 50 years from now so i was hoping that perhaps we can add to the motion asking staff to look into future proofing a park the parking garage i would accept that is there okay looks like yeah i would accept that amendment i would if i may i don't know if it needs to be an amendment but i'm sure it will incorporate it at some time but it would be helpful to also learn more about the affordable housing vision for it being integrated or and connected to affordable housing in our downtown so i mean in terms of reporting back at a future time i'd love to learn more about that then comes from around um this is a this is a difficult decision for me to make in many ways because i agree with my colleagues pretty much everything that's been said here and i i want to reiterate my my respect for all of the work that's gone into bringing this proposal before us the visioning you know i share a very you know a strong i mean i can't say how strong of a desire for a library that really meets the needs of our community and is us that family friendly space you know i want to see all of those things happen and so i don't want my reticence to support this the motion on the floor to in any way suggest that i i don't support all of those things and that i will absolutely be involved in the conversation moving forward to ensure that we get to where we collectively want to be that said um you know i as many of you know and i've said here many times you know my uh you know i one of the reasons that i uh ran for city council was really to um to support affordable housing development truly affordable housing according to our inclusionary guidelines we talk a lot about affordable housing by design affordable housing has now been dangled as with many projects in front of us as a reason to support moving forward with this plan and until i see some demonstration that that will actually come to fruition it's very hard for me to believe and i i feel like we get this in a lot of projects well we need to approve this because we need affordable housing i don't see the affordable housing getting built arena you know where we're at in terms of our rena goals and i won't go into those details right now um show that we are woefully behind on affordable housing development so you know that's one of the main reasons that i'm i'm having a hard time with this i don't believe that affordable housing will just come as a result of you know a parking garage attached to a library um and another reason that i'm having a hard time with uh supporting this is that you know i'm i'm not really clear based upon the feedback that we've received from the community that this is something that the community is uh truly behind i you know i've heard more um i've heard more opposition on this project than i have since the the beach area plan i believe um and and so i have a feeling that um for those who asked that this uh go back to the voters that that may be happening no matter what if we if we do make the decision to move forward with this plan it may be coming back to us without our mate are actually acting to take it to the voters um so you know i just want to say but you know with uh community support seeming a little bit uh wish you wash you here to me and i appreciate everybody who's come out and said you support it um i i believe you do and i want to work with you all moving forward whatever iteration this becomes um but i can't support the the motion tonight and i won't reiterate all of the environmental reasons and all of that because i think that many of you have articulately laid them out and number one it talks about accepting the downtown library advisory community recommendations and move forward with the design and development of the project i know we've had this discussion about um when it goes through the planning process sometimes there's no design review and i'd like to make sure that one this does go through that the um planning commission there's some sort of design review they can set up a subcommittee of that so that there is a formal process that's set up for the design so that's not just one where we kind of go forward and have those recommendations so i'd like to ensure that that um there's design review that's established through the planning commission through subcommittee of the planning commission to review whatever proposal comes forward so that's not just you know you know what we've seen sometimes typically it might just be process through a single department because i think this this is a much bigger project than um what we've seen in the past i just um if um lee butler planning director could comment on this i wonder um how this project would be impacted by the new um community outreach or engagement process that we just voted on i think a couple meetings ago to see what it would look like with this specific project and if that meets the mayor's expectations sure thank you mayor and council member lee butler planning director and at your last meeting you did accept the uh and adopt the new community outreach policy this would be considered a significant project under that um through that process we identified a subcommittee of the planning commission getting involved early on to provide design guidance so something like that is certainly similar to what the mayor is suggesting um i was gathering something um even slightly more robust than that in terms of the planning commission's involvement as far as what the mayor was suggesting correct very much similar okay thank you did you accept the yes and rachel okay okay council member crown um i know a couple people came up to support the project and said that uh they're worried about carbon footprint but so i didn't understand the enlarging the carbon footprint in order to decrease it um by taking up some of the surface lots and consolidating the parking um which you know i hate to get in the way of the the trains leaving the station but uh again the tdm has not been done to the point of like when we instituted we stopped the desal project it was because of we implemented a whole bunch of measures um that we didn't have to have the desal and uh it started with conservation and really a good tdm project uh or plan transportation demand management plan would start with you know that c word you know conservation and people you know us modeling that for the community um i'm just wondering from the city attorney um there was a question about a referendum on a council decision how how long does that take and what what what needs to happen right now to have a referendum on this decision should it go forward it's premature for a referendum to be brought forward on this decision because it's not considered a legislative act like a decision to actually approve the project would be after going through the land use entitlement process that is a decision that could that could be subject to referendum but not a preliminary decision of this nature where the council is merely the most part selecting a preferred alternative to further analyze and study and to bring forward at some point as a quasi legislative decision that could be referended and um our economic development director when do you perceive that land use acquiring entitlements going through is there a timeline yes um this is a very rough timeline but um so the next nine months will be pre-designed so we the entitlements would be in the second phase the following behind that 18 to 24 months the design of environmental review and and engineering um the last thing i'll say before we vote um really is um from somebody who's a hero of mine his name is bill mckibbin coral reef researchers indicate that these spectacularly intricate ecosystems are also spectacularly vulnerable rising water temperatures are likely to bleach them to extinction by mid century in the arctic polar bears are 20 scrawnier than they were a decade ago as ice pack as pack ice melts so does the opportunity for hunting seals all in all the 21st century seems poised think about the 21st century uh library the 21st century seems poised to see extinctions at a rate not observed since the last big asteroids slammed into the planet but this time the asteroid is us it's a moral question finally if you think we owe any debt to the future no one has ever no one ever has figured out a more thorough going way to strip mine the present and degrade what comes after all the people who will ever be related to you ever no generation yet to come will ever forget us we are the ones present at the moment when the temperature starts to spike and so far we have not reacted if it had been done to us we would loathe the generation that did it precisely as we will one day be loathed and bill mckibbin wrote that in 2001 and things have only gone faster than he had ever expected hi thank you we have a motion on the floor second motion on the floor in a second all those in favor please say aye aye those opposed no okay um no okay um that passes with councilmember chase vice mayor walkins councilmember marion and myself and um opposed by councilmember crone and councilmember brown we're not done yet though we've got one more item so um thank you for all of you that um we're here for the meeting we're going to move on but or move back to item 14 um this is in regards to appointments to our historic she's in the back historic preservation uh commission we go back to it don't leave don't leave anybody no we're almost there almost there leaving on a okay thank you let's uh get back to the last item of our agenda which is item number 14 alise please uh we need to move on thank you item number 14 this is the uh general business for the historic preservation commission appointment with two vacancies um and i'll turn it over to hey excuse me intense we're just going to wrap up here so please step out okay this is a motion to appoint up to two historic preservation commissioners at this time and um we have in our packet two the names of the commissioners so what we normally do is ask for um we go down the road for see if any if there's any um nominations and then we put it to a vote there's two vacancies okay so let's do that so councilmember brown do you have a nomination you can nominate up to two um oh okay so now i have to look up the name sorry i hold on one second well for action here um time i guess okay i'm i'm ready having uh read through the um applications um and and just looked at the the expertise and credentials of the applicants and and they're uh can you so much shut the go ahead and um you know they're rationale for wanting to serve i would put out the i would i would put out nominations for um tracy bliss and um i want to make sure and i will i hope i don't mispronounce his name um hold on one second almost there sorry i should have just written him down um albert albert um naras albert naras is that correct okay so all right those would i would i would nominate those thank you councilmember noroyan it's been covered okay thanks for my walk it's councilmember crown i'd like to nominate you carter he's served he's an architect he's served on the county historic the city's historic preservation commission previously he brings a kind of construction knowledge to the challenge of historic preservation that would be really valuable and uh albert naras is just hands down amazing albert naras right what was his name yeah i'm just just fine okay and you they're covered i'm gonna add william schultz so that's bill schultz and tracy bliss so it looks like um we'll we'll put it for for about first um all those in favor of uh no we go we go and say our or the two that we want yeah yeah now i'm going to say because we have the nominations of all those around there but um all those in favor of um no what you could do is go through in each vote for two you each say two names because because whoever gets the most votes will probably have the longer term okay okay gotcha right and then ask the clerk to call out the names of those that were nominated well no ask sandi to give her two names and then rachel no she goes for nominations okay so on the nominations i'm gonna stick with my uh two votes being um tracy bliss and albert naras i'm also going to stick with those two councilmember crown uh tracy bliss so i'm just voting for one uh hugh carter and albert naras you and albert and i'll vote for tracy bliss and um and william schultz i didn't hear the last two william tracy tracy bliss and william schultz for you you voted for you carter and and naras albert naras and i had the same would you like me just to list the one naras and then you voted for bliss and schultz that's right and what about uh vice mayor whatkins she voted for well i'll choose me i voted for tracy bliss and albert naras so we have tracy bliss and albert naras both have five votes you might want to uh councilmember crown didn't crown who is your second vote you didn't vote you voted i thought you voted for tracy bliss yes so there is five votes each for naras and bliss and that means you might want to designate which one would have the longer term they would both be eligible for reappointment but one of them would have to be reappointed starting this january or if someone who voted flip a coin for one of the which do you want which a little like the person that didn't vote who did not quick councilmember crown which which would you bless for the longer seat i'm fine with that i don't really have a preference yeah but bliss is fine for the longer seat frankly i would prefer albert naras if you look at his credentials and i met with him briefly for about an hour and a half the um knowledge connection with the university um it will be really invaluable so that'd be my preference for the longer term okay well then we'll just go and we heard i heard councilmember crown bliss narra do you have a preference on the longer term longer term naras i mean i was fine with bliss so it looks like narra gets a longer term okay so that concludes the item for number 14 and that brings us right up to the end of our meeting so i thought we would go till 11 30 and i'm pleasantly surprised i won't but you're welcome to so um thank you everybody we're adjourned until our next meeting on september 25th have a good evening thank you christine for an amazing job that was a good job thank you good job