 Okay, good afternoon. Welcome to the 2 p.m. Public portion of the closed litigation session of the January 9th 2018 meeting of the City Council in this part of the meeting the City Council will receive public testimony Thereafter the council members will move to the courtyard conference room for the cold closed session May have a roll call, please Bonnie Thank you mayor council member. It's crown I'm here, and I'd like to be the first to welcome you as our new deputy city clerk administrator Bonnie. Thank you Be patient with me Matthews Chase brown here Naroyan here vice mayor Watkins here and mayor trousers here 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 230 p.m. session Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to any items listed on the closed session agenda? Hearing none, I will adjourn this meeting to the courtyard conference room where the council will go into the closed session. Thank you Before we begin the meeting, I'd like to Take a moment of silence for Laura brown Laura brown an active community member and local government administrator passed away on December 23rd 2017 She began her career at the city of santa Cruz as an administrative analyst in the public works department Followed by assistant to the city manager personnel director and six years as the assistant city manager She had the distinction of being the first woman woman in every position. She ever held at the city In 1991 miss brown left the city of santa Cruz to take the position of assistant city manager of Monterey And in 1995 she returned to santa Cruz county to take the helm of so cal creek water district for many years Please join me in a moment of silence in remembrance of laura Thank you I'd like to call the meeting to order Good afternoon. Welcome to our 230 p.m. Session of the january 9th 2018 meeting of the city council. I'd like to ask the clerk to please call the roll, please Thank you mayor councilmembers crone here Matthews Chase brown here Narayan here vice mayor Watkins here and mayor terrazas here And now if the clerk could please lead us in the pledge of allegiance To the flag of the united states of america To the republic for which it stands one nation Indivisible with liberty and justice for all Thank you And now this is an opportunity to introduce three new employees to the city of santa Cruz. We'll start with Kathy bonino And principal human analyst sorry I am happy to introduce to you our new human resources technician sophie langton Sophie comes to us from eureka california and she's been with us a little over a month now And sophie plays a pivotal role in the human resources department Her primary task is in the recruitment and selection area And so you have the opportunity of seeing the direct results of her um Work meeting our new city employees Sophie before coming to santa Cruz sophie worked as hr director at united Indian health services a nonprofit agency Where she directed all human all areas of human resources management Prior to that sophie worked as hr coordinator recruiter and program director for california mentor services Which assists adults and children with intellectual and developmental disabilities Sophie also worked as medicare counselor and community outreach coordinator For the california state health insurance advocacy program And was interim executive director for making headway center for brain injury Sophie has a master's degree in human resources management And she has a bachelor's degree in behavioral social and cultural advocacy In her free time when she's not unloading her boxes and moving into her new home from eureka She enjoys hiking and walking in the great outdoors. She enjoys the beach and When opportunity presents itself, she likes to longboard surf. All right, so Um Sophie has undoubtedly hit the ground running with us so far and we are more than happy to have her As part of our great team and human resources. So please Join me in welcoming sophie langton. Welcome sophie We had another we had another recent new employee from eureka not too long ago So then the next i'd like to welcome up director of public works mark deddle Good afternoon mark deddle director of public works. I'm pleased to introduce our two new service maintenance trainees for the streets division um Right next to me is wan louise melina and next to wan is lani fra lani forced Wan was born and raised in watsonville and graduated from power valley high He currently lives in watsonville and wan worked for the city parks department as a temporary worker before he came into the public works And when wan's not working wan planes a lot of soccer and he likes to run Welcome, we're on welcome wan And next to wan i have lani forced lani was born and raised in santa cruz And he currently lives in midtown santa cruz Uh lani graduated from socal high and attended a few cabrillo for a few years Lani's also worked in sheet metal and construction for the last 15 years and three has three years of tig welding experience And when lani's not working he likes to spend time with his daughter lily And they're very active. They like to spend time surfing fishing biking skateboarding and playing softball and soccer So please join me in welcoming my two new employees Now it's my distinct pleasure to invite up water customer services manager kyle peterson to introduce a new employee in the water department Afternoon mayor city council. It's my honor and pleasure to introduce to you miguel silva He's our new water meter specialist As you might know water meter specialists There are four of them in the city and they're in charge of the 26 000 meters that stretch all the way up the north coast and all The way to 41st avenue. So very important job and we're really pleased to have miguel with us miguel comes from the city of palo alto where he for 15 years read water gas and electric meters So we consider him a real meter nerd We're very pleased to have that on our side miguel is a I was interested to find out a native of portugal His family moved to boston when he was four years old and eventually found their way out to san osa You are a family man. You've been married for 14 years and you have two daughters Eight and 11 he also helps raise his two nieces. His brother died unexpectedly two years ago of an undiagnosed cardiomyopathy And so he's a family man. He's a meter nerd He also is addicted to Obstacle course races. So he's up for challenges And I think we really scored this time. Please welcome miguel silva All right, thank you Now we'll move on to the presentations for some of the agenda And I want to say that I think this is the first time since I've been on council that diana sessums from the league of cities has Presented before us. I served with her at one time on one of our advisory committees And I'm really happy to have you present now the legislative affairs update from the league of cities. Okay Good afternoon, mayor and members of the city council diana sessums monterey bay public affairs manager for the league of california cities You might not know that the league was founded in 1898 and we are celebrating our 120th year We are essentially a trade organization trade association for cities across the state of california Our mission is to restore and protect local control through for cities through education And advocacy in order to enhance the quality of life for all of californians We do that by educating advocating and providing a number of services to cities across the state Our services include two-way information sharing through our listservs We're the professional association for city staff We provide training and development for city managers finance officers public works city clerks And the list goes on and on We publish the legislative developments through california city advocates a monthly magazine western city And we also share best practices through our nonprofit think tank the institute for local government It studies good governance issues such as public engagement sustainability ethics We publish a series on local government 101 and this information is free not only to members of the city council and staff But also to the public at large We offer Educational opportunities for city council members three main educational events throughout the year The next one is coming up next week in sacramento. It's our new mayors and council members academy This is really the basics boot camp if you were for new council members We offer a june training which is a great opportunity because it's right here in our backyard in monterey In the summer. It's a new mayors and council. I'm sorry. It's a mayors and council members academy executive forum This is intended for council members of all tenures I would encourage you to take a look at that and sign up early if you're interested because it always sells out And in september we have our annual conference in expo This is always the league's largest event of the year And it's an opportunity to also guide the organization as our general assembly sets policies and priorities We have webinars throughout the year and upcoming webinars will include New housing laws retirement system sustainability new organic waste recycling program So a very broad range of topics and we have local events here on the monterey bay Our next event will be january 22nd. You should have already received an invitation and we have congressman jimmy panetta attending So I hope that you'll plan on joining us for that I want to take a moment to congratulate mayor david terrazas who this year was honored As an advanced leadership award recipient from the mayors and council members department of the league This award goes to individuals who have shown their dedication to continued education Um, and mayor terrazas you have done that In order to enhance your knowledge and skills to better serve the public. So I congratulate you for that So on to the advocacy portion of the league's agenda The league advocates at the ballot in the legislature and through the courts In 2018 we set four strategic priorities The first one is addressing public safety concerns of california cities That encompasses the growing concern across california Of the impacts of reduced sentencing laws And also seeking additional tools and resources for the challenges that have resulted from that including homelessness mental health and ex offender reentry programs We also will be focused this year on protecting funding and local authorities surrounding the implementation of the adult use of marijuana act Our second priority will be ensuring the sustainability of public pension and retirement health benefits This is important and and we need to focus on finding options for cities to address a growing unfunded pension liability The third priority will be protecting existing transportation funding for local priorities This will include opposing efforts that would reduce or eliminating funding for cities Including a pending ballot initiative that would repeal the transportation funding package Which was passed just one year ago after 10 years of hard work on behalf of local government Our final priority for 2018 will be improving housing affordability And supporting additional resources to address the homeless crisis A lack of funding in this area is clearly a major impediment towards progress Even the housing package that was passed last year with a bond and a permanent source of funding Is a drop in the bucket compared to what cities lost with the elimination of redevelopment So we will continue to support additional funding But we'll also support and promote policies which provide local incentives and tools to address this crisis I don't have to tell you that this year 2018 is an election year We'll elect not only a governor, but there are also 38 initiatives that are somewhere in the process of qualifying for the november ballot Obviously, the vast majority of these initiatives either don't have funding or duplicative and we'll never make it to the ballot But we believe that somewhere between 12 and 14 initiatives will be on the november ballot The league has already taken positions on several initiatives including ACA 5 which would further protect The transportation funding package that was passed this past year that'll be on the june ballot We're supporting that of course And then on the november ballot the league has already taken positions in support of both The housing bond and the park and water bond and we've taken a position in opposition to the pending Elimination of that Crucial transportation funding package The legislature returned this past week for the second year of a two-year session The governor will kick off the year and set the tone when he releases his budget tomorrow And then his state of the state on thursday The league's work is really going to be guided by these 2018 strategic priorities that i outlined for you But with 2400 bills introduced in the legislature during this session We will obviously be involved in a broad range of issues That span not only these but other topics of concern and policy areas to local governments The league is grassroots at our core our strength lies in the collective voice of cities as diverse as santa cruz and hemmett Stockton in san francisco And i want to thank the city of santa cruz for being an active partner in advocating on behalf of cities and local government I want to also encourage you to stay involved this year. It'll be an important year for cities I want you to plan on joining us and to mark april 18th on your calendars Which is the league's legislative action day and also to plan on participating Through our division meetings. As I mentioned earlier our january 22nd one If you have ideas throughout the year on how we can better serve you, please don't hesitate to be in touch Thank you diana Are there any questions I do have one council member norion. I was wondering I'm really happy to see that you have housing affordability and Trying to find additional resources to address the homeless crisis. Is there a um working committee of city elected Working on this with you guys I'm just curious because I haven't heard anything about it And I think santa cruz probably should have a presence there Yes, we would love to have you participate. We have um Policy committees. We have eight policy committees and they deal with different areas of concern for local government and one of them does focus on housing Only focuses on housing, but do you have anything specifically on homelessness? No, that would fall under that committee's jurisdiction. Okay, so all right. Thank you. It was a major concern when our We have a strategic planning process actually for the first time in 15 years. It was here in santa cruz just uh two months ago and um Cities across the state are grappling with the housing crisis and and we heard them loud and clear that it needs to be a priority for us So our board will be focused on it. Our staff will be focused on it and then the policy committee that addresses housing It'll fall under that domain And we could follow up with you. We have interest in wanting to work on one of those eight policy committees. Absolutely Councilmember crown Thank you councilmember norion for mentioning that. Um, diana, you've been with the league for a long time, haven't you? Since I was like 12 I It's great to put a face to your name because we get a lot of communicates from you Um, do you know because the gas tax really should be on all of our radar screens? One of the signatures do you have any idea and when should we be looking for that or one of they supposedly Do you just find out if they qualified? Yes, um It's an interesting time right now because um The proponents of the measure actually pulled their paid signature gatherers off of the street last week And they told the press that it was because um, they wanted to do a validity check on the signatures that they already qualified for It could mean a number of things and we're not really sure what that means They say that they've collected approximately half of the signatures that they need They could have paid their pulled their paid signature gatherers because they've run out of money And so our estimate is um right about now in the next couple weeks They're going to have to make a major contribution to their campaign account in order to move forward And then they have a couple more months. Um, if they do that in order to qualify to collect the rest of the signatures Thanks, so by april count some over matthews a couple of things, um, there is a statewide coalition to Oppose the repeal double negative And um, I know that's come up at metro two and um put it on our agenda and take it I know there's a Yeah, thank you Um There's a name for that. So that's something we can Go on board about um, and then secondly regarding the policy committees We can actually make appointments at the Um division level and i'm actually the division chair this year and David's serving on Transportation. Yeah. Yeah, and tiffani wise west is serving on the um environmental sustainability policy committee And something was sent out earlier, but um, I'm not sure I think our our division appointments Slots all filled up. Maybe we have a couple of vacancies still We actually have two vacancies. Okay. Um So maybe you can um recirculate that But I just put that out there if not this year a future year Find a policy committee that interests you and raise your hand Okay All right, see I just want to thank you again I know that going to the annual meeting is really one of the most educational ways to learn about not only policies that are happening But also interact with other elected officials from throughout the state and it provides an opportunity to kind of share best practices on Issues that we're dealing with here in the city So I encourage everyone to go to that if they're able to and then also put on your calendar the january 22nd Meeting monoray as well as the legislative action day on april 18th, and I'm happy to carpool up with anybody He's interested in going on that Okay, thank you. Thank you. All right The next item is um for anita perigo. This is her 30 year service pin recognition He's hearing audience Our dental director of public works and this is one of the highlights of the of the day or the week or even the year Sometimes is being able to to issue a 30 year pin um I've known anita for the 16 years. I've been here and she's been a great employee that um Just kind of goes on very steady and um gets her job done and Does an amazing job of managing helping us to manage the parking in the city, which is a valuable resource And she's it's not always a thankful job that she does But um, let me give you a little background of the 30 years that she's shared with me and Allowed me to share with you. Um anita actually grew up in hyowatha, kansas And in 1974 after high school she came to santa cruz to visit A friend and decided to move here. Isn't that a a story we've heard before? That's even before the university right or not with the university Anyway, anita worked with has actually worked with the city for 37 years She started in the cita program and worked in flood control moving to as a maintenance one position in streets and then a full time Uh with parking enforcement Anita leaves lives in sea bright She's been in the same house for 30 years and she's married to her husband ron pair goes here And are your sons here? Um three sons Sean devin and trevor They also have two cats and a dog Some fun facts. Um, the very house she rented in the beach area was $300 a month Um, and before working with the city, she worked with barry scott Who's in it at the county doing water conservation education And after the earthquake anita worked as an abatement officer for the santa cruz police department for a year And then when she first started with the city marlin who she works for now actually worked in central stores at the corp yard And uh But I know the question we all have and I don't know if she's thought about this But how many citations have you issued in your We have an estimate We think it's over a hundred thousand that she's With that I want to thank you for all your years of service And congratulations. Thank you It's been a crazy ride. Um, I've been blessed with meeting some great people. Um Back to the day with ed with throw Street department. I got a chance to work at the landfill I've been blessed with um Getting to know different aspects of the city working in these different departments and um But it's just been really great and I've just got a really great group of people that I work with which really helps with this job So other than that, thank you guys and uh, hopefully it'll just be a few more years and I can retire No, we're not allowing you Congratulations anita All right, now it's my pleasure to go to the next item on the agenda. Um, you know It's not often, um, we can recognize, you know, a year's worth of service We just heard 30 years worth of service, but I think in the course of the last year We saw that condensed into a single year based on all the activities you did So, um, I'd like to take this opportunity to, um, issue a proclamation in honor of former mayor, uh, synthia chase for her service over the last year And if you know, we don't often just read these through but I'd like to take the time to do that here um In december 2016 synthia chase began what would be her year as mayor and brought to the position of tremendous passion and focus on our community Over the next 12 months synthia chase dedicated her personal and professional time to support a fresh look at our community's housing needs And made housing a critical component of her mayorial term During this period synthia chase led the community and had a mayorial listening term What whereby she met with a variety of community members and groups Which provided a comprehensive record of our community's housing needs Synthia chase was always gracious and kind with others and brought to her position of professionalism in her Approach to serving the community and supporting the city of santa cruz Through her hard work and dedication the city produced a report entitled santa cruz voices on housing Community engagement, which was a monumental effort and the product of her extensive community outreach Under her leadership the city became well informed and educated about the needs of our community And experienced a renewed focus on supporting investment Which leads to affordable and workforce housing and opportunities to increase our community's quality of life Cynthia tapped into a very challenging community issue and successfully brought a strategic vision Which raised awareness about this issue that affects nearly every single member of our community During her term synthia has demonstrated to the community a deep connection to santa cruz And a strong commitment to the long-term health and well-being of community members Now therefore i david tiras is mayor of the city of santa cruz Do hereby proclaim january 9 2018 as synthia chase day in the city of santa cruz And encourage all citizens to join me in expressing heartfelt appreciation for her dedicated and exemplary service as mayor And for her contributions to the greater good of the santa cruz community And I mean that I know some of you who were here last month. I know everybody up here was Cynthia on the last day of her service You know, we did not have the opportunity to properly celebrate you. So we're doing that today Yeah So You are welcome to take you're welcome to take the floor and and have your piece if you'd like well, um I will start by saying I understand now how uncomfortable it is for people to receive proclamations and have a bunch of attention on them Um, I thank you mayor trazos. I appreciate that very much. It's um very meaningful to me to receive that um I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity that I had to serve in the manner in which I was able to this last year It was a tremendous honor. Uh, it was incredibly hard work. Um, but I think what was most amazing about it is that when you're in the role of mayor that you have this opportunity to engage with So many members of the community and on such a deep level. So because of the Work that I was supported by this incredibly dedicated staff in doing around housing and homelessness um, I got to hear from hundreds of people in the community and got to hear very heartfelt stories And their experience their challenges but also the things they love about the city and it is what I think For me keeps me going is recognizing how many people in this community are so dedicated to this city And all the things that they love about it and all the things they're willing to go through to actually stay here Because it's not easy for any of us in a lot of ways in terms of housing costs and um, The other challenges sometimes that we face but there's so many beautiful things about this city That make it worthwhile. So I'm really grateful for the proclamation I'm grateful for the opportunity I've had to serve the people I've gotten to serve with and the staff who've been a tremendous support and I think one of the things that I tried to do this this past year that is really important to me And I think is how I will continue to serve on this council in this community is that There is more that we have in common There are more similarities that we have with each other than there are differences And right now when there's so much attention being paid to how we differ I think it's really important that as a community we come together and recognize All the ways that we can partner because that is in fact how we are stronger and we lead and serve better So thank you for the proclamation and for the opportunity to serve and then also I'd like to turn it over to city manager martin Bernal Uh, thank you. Um on behalf of the city staff I also wanted to thank you for your tremendous support throughout the year. As the mayor mentioned, we normally Recognize you and thank you at what we affectionately call it the last supper dinner And we hadn't didn't have a chance to do that, but uh your support was really tremendous and That's been a long-standing tradition for the city manager to provide a gift to the outgoing mayor And so I wanted to present that to you today and again Thank you for your unwavering support for the staff throughout the year It was really a pleasure working with you and thank you very much I'm not going to open that now. I'm going to accept that and then I'm going to open that later because this is a lot of attention That's probably And I will share with you what I received later Hopefully it's not a box of kittens because there's no air holes And is there any council member would like to say anything at this time? Yeah, I just want to say thank you for A really great year and I'm looking forward to continuing to serve with you And I'm pretty sure that almost every member of this council Had their hands on that gift because we took it to the last supper It went everywhere. So It's got some mileage on it. So you do have to tell us what's inside Thanks All right. Thank you Council member narayan Yeah, I I just I don't think people understand like how many hours you spent doing your job as mayor And I just think that needs to be recognized because aside from the fact that you spent a lot of hours A lot of the hours were substantive as well and so Yeah, I'm pretty sure the general public doesn't know the hours we all put in but when you're mayor It's and I don't know how you did your regular job And then just you know living having to take care of all of the personal things that we all need to take care of So just a lot of admiration and a lot of admiration for the housing talks that you did I think It just gave people access to let you know what's going on out there And well, we think we have a good handle until you actually go and sit with people In different parts of the town and different walks alive. You don't know everything. So I acknowledge you for Going out and doing that and I love the tone and temper that you have running the meetings as well It was it was a good year. Thank you Council member crumb Yeah, I wanted to also Thank you for choosing housing And and really persevering. I mean, it's a tough issue and there's a lot of critics out there as you found out That was standing up here on the dies as well. I guess sometimes you included in that But I I appreciated you Despite all the the white noise with outside voices, um, you know steady path going, you know listening and keeping on track because um It is an issue that we need to deal with and and I think you've given us a great Segway into to doing that. I hope we're going to pick it up this year too Vice mayor Watkins I'll just quickly echo the admiration and support and just Pleasure it was to watch you serve as mayor You were fantastic. You were fair and you were just and you ran a really tight meeting and you were really collaborative and supportive And as a first term sort of first year for me to observe you in that capacity It was fantastic to watch you act and work and listen to the community in all ways that have been already Shared in terms of the housing outreach But also in terms of how you ran and led our city So I really want to thank you for your leadership and I was sad to not be able to do that on that evening I'm glad to see you in good health here today And having an opportunity to acknowledge all the work that you did this past year as our mayor and our leader So, thank you Congratulations I'll be above One thing where you can see oh just um Grateful to have you among us. Yeah, you know that Thank you I'll just say one thing that um rachel actually reminded me of and that is that Um, it is incredibly difficult work actually that we all do many of us have full-time jobs in addition to this and One of the things that we often sacrifice is personal our personal lives and um I have done it again, which is I did another speech and failed to recognize my husband Which is now a theme that I do when I give speeches Which is we are actually in our first year of marriage and didn't really see each other for that entire year so um All my gratitude and love to him for all the support that he's given me because none of us would be up here without the Support of partners and family um, and I am very very fortunate to have his support. So thank you to howard Wonderful Thank and thank you very much for giving me the opportunity and for all of your really kind words and um, again It's a pleasure and got another year left together. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right So well that gives good segue right into the meeting. So, um I have a few announcements and then we'll move on to our regular meeting Today's meeting is broadcast live on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website city of santa cruise dot com All city council members can be emailed at city council at city of santa cruise dot com If you would 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 Include it 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 All rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left It's my job to keep the meeting running without disruption and we ask that you respect your fellow citizens when you are inside or outside of the chambers I want to comment too inside of the chambers. You might notice some artwork around the backside of the uh chambers This year is the 150th anniversary of our library system And when you have a chance, please take a look at some of the artwork from the library collection Some of the faces in that one frame in the back are the people behind the street names in our city And then you have josephine macracken who is one of the people that Kicked off kind of saving this the redwood's sempervirons is in the back. It's a painting by andrew hill And it's beautiful artwork in our library collection And it's a really nice way to to begin our 150th recognition of our library system So now we'll move on to the statement of disqualifications Are there any statements of disqualifications from council members today? Seeing none, we'll move on to the additions and deletions Are there any additions and deletions? No In regards to oral communications oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak with us On items that are not on our agenda Oral communications will generally occur at the conclusion of afternoon business around 5 30 p.m But may occur before or after 5 30 p.m We're going to do our best to try and be at 5 30 according to some prior council discussion Now i'd like to turn it over to the city attorney for the report on closed session Yes, thank you, mayor trazis members of the city council this afternoon the council met in closed session at 2 p.m To discuss two items. Um, the first is a liability claim the claim of power synergy solutions ink on behalf of mercy housing ink council received a report from It's risk manager on that item. There was no reportable action, which is also item 10 on your consent agenda Second item was real property negotiations involving the property at 11 o 1 fair avenue Which is the location of the west side newly community markets Um, the council received a report from uh, the public door The public works department and gave direction in regard to potential property acquisition there. There was no reportable action Thank you. Um, now we'll turn it over to the city manager for the city manager report Uh, thank you, mayor. Um, just have a I have an update and then i'm gonna on the bench lens and i'm gonna turn over to tony who has an update on he just wanted to clarify some, uh, council meeting procedures Of which there were some questions at the last couple of meetings. So then he'll do that update after I've complued mine So I wanted to just give an update on the bench lens and the homeless campground next to the steps So by way of background, um, just to to describe the big picture, um, what we're working on long term Although hopefully this is within the next couple years If not sooner is to develop a A permanent day use around shelter facility in our community or facilities throughout our county actually is the goal Yeah, much like the navigation center model that the other communities have developed However to get there in order to address the current situation The there's going to be some transitional facilities that will have to Develop to to be able to address the current emergency situation And that would involve some lease buildings Because we want to be in a in a more appropriate facility a building That might be Leased temporarily as well as what we're working on now, which is a temporary tent facility as well on a on a vacant city parcel All of these models the focus is to include services to help individuals who Are at these facilities to try to exit out of homelessness as much as possible and to connect them to services So that's a common Part of the approach that we're taking So with respect to the current situation and in the temporary tent facility What we've done up to now is identified a city parcel what we call the boneyard on river street as a preferred site We have a city staff team That's focused on the implementation and much of what we are doing is Following what san diego has done and san diego did this in large part because they were They had to do with some very large encampments where they had you know some significant Issues there particularly health issues with hepe and other other issues much like we are experiencing And so they really made a conservative effort to as quickly as possible to try to address that situation And so we're trying to do the same their scale what's much more bigger than ours And we are actually like working with them and talking to them and learning pretty much from them So the goal is is to implement as soon as possible. And this is no no easy task and But we are moving forward in proceeding with that at this point Like I said, we're working with the alpha project in san diego as well as talking to local partners On identifying an operator. We have many agencies that are very much willing to provide services Including the county the county health and human services department various social services agencies that provide services But we identifying the the primary operator is really has been the biggest challenge So we're working on on how to do that right now The other part of the equation is preparing the site. So we're actively doing that as well Again to just talk a little more in depth about the san diego model what that involves It's not I think many people envision of a site or a facility that Is not very well managed or that's comparable to what we see down at the bench launch Which is somewhat managed, but this is not what the new model would envision. It's actually much more highly managed facility Like I mentioned earlier with on-site health and human services On an ongoing basis with 24 security with appropriate, you know, sanitation facilities as well as other resources for individuals and it also has a limited occupancy term for the individual staying there people just can't come and stay You know, indefinitely The expectation is they'll come they'll be connected to services. We'll try to get them Support and help and then hopefully they can they can move on And then we can help other individuals as well The of course the other thing that's open now is our shelter that's open now is a winter shelter And that is operating out at full capacity the 110 The report I last heard is the the latest occupancy. They were about 87 They have about 110 spaces, but they were at about 87 So there is still some additional room there in the shelters for people to Take advantage of So we're working to like I said get this completed as soon as possible And so hopefully here we'll we'll we'll have something in a month or so But it's hard to really have a definitive date at this point because we like I said, we just don't have all the pieces in place yet And I think just to To really to reiterate to reiterate some of the overall considerations in terms of the issue that we're facing Which you know, I think I've mentioned these things before as well, but we are tackling a complicated issue And we're learning as we go along Trying to respond to a really growing public health Emergency that we see in our community as well as many other communities throughout the The state and country and again the challenge is that you know abating a campground Without having placed people to go just simply moves it over and so that's just not a viable solution And so we're trying to sort of move to a better direction there And you know thus far in terms of what the the experiment that we've been undertaking It has been showing that there is some positive aspect to it However, again with the weather And the just the growing conditions it is a difficult thing to to Continue without having a more appropriate facility. That is the key to have more capacity and more an appropriate facility And we need to get that going as soon as possible Again, we ask for the community's patience and we will continue to keep the community informed as best as we can and we had a lot of Express a lot of individuals and community groups like I said have expressed support We were grateful for that and we're reaching out to make those connections So with that I'll be able to answer any questions related to this Or if not, I'll turn it over to Tony. Are there any council member questions? Council member chase so I know that it was Inaccurately reported that we had scrapped our storage facility idea And actually that article was pretty inaccurate in regard to a lot of things because we've made progress and Actually all of the 20 recommendations in the homelessness coordinating committee So could you update us on what's actually happening with the storage units and what's actually going on or in regard to that? Thank you. All right. So, uh, we uh, what we did is It we originally were going to operate a this independent program At the river street facility, but once we've determined that we really needed to have a more Appropriate facility for the bench lands. We incorporated it into that approach now in the interim. We have been using it in conjunction with the Bench lands through our parks department and they've actually stepped up and provide that so as you've Seen we've done some Cleanups at the bench lands and we've had to move people and so the storage is used in that capacity But we do hope to Fully implement it again in conjunction with the more with the tent facility And then beyond that as well where people can come and bring things on a more structured basis So we're just incorporating it into the program because it just made sense to do that in in the interim Are providing the services through our own staff council member crown just follow up to that was um the Bench lands Do we have any report on how things have gone with the rain and If the shelters full how many folks are at the bench lands and will The new facility be able to accommodate, you know, if you put the two numbers together, you know Will there be enough spaces that we can feel relatively sure that we have enough space Um with respect to the current conditions, I mean, they're not ideal as I understand individuals are making do And I think that's well, that's one of the big advantages of a better facility That there'll be proper drainage and proper facilities so that people aren't having to reside in You know flooded or just muddy conditions So it's not ideal, but people are managing. I mean the alternative is that for many of those individuals They'd be dealing with it in any case, I suppose With respect to the the number of the shelter spaces There there isn't, you know, even with the added 10 facility It's not going to be enough. I think long term we need a larger number of Spaces for all the individuals that are out there Um, so that's always a challenge the other aspect of this too is that You know the homeless population is not ubiquitous. I mean, there are various segments of the community That will take advantage of different facilities In the San Diego example for in San Diego, for example The the these 10 facilities really Were very important for those individuals that were ready to Move on who Felt that they needed a more secure more Sort of clean environment And again, we're willing to accept the The the parameters to being there because it's it's while it's a low Entry type of facility You still have to abide by you know some regulations and rules and be able to to live with others And so I think that's the other piece that Is that we'll have to look at is what are some other facilities that can also Support that other things that are occurring for example. I think I mentioned that We are working with the The vets on trying to do something at the vets hall for vets to provide that support for them And I think when we look at the longer term Facility in the navigation model that I think Really ideally tries to provide those services in a more directed way to the various sectors of the community As well as the day use services. So this you know temporary facility isn't going to Provide enough for the full scope of what we really need, but it's it's a it's a start Last question was the timeline you might have mentioned it. I didn't get it when we might We were using the 15th. I guess midway through january that We begin a sort of transition. Is that still in the cards? It's probably going to be longer than that We are working like I said with the sand eagle alpha project group. They're actually coming out here So we're getting them to come out here to help us to facilitate and we're working with a couple of non-profits to see about operating the facility in the meantime. We're doing all this What's needed for the site preparation. So it probably will be longer than that I I don't have a definitive date for you. Our goal is to get this going as soon as possible But again, that is the challenge to get the an operator in place as soon as possible Councilmember Narayan The question I had relates to our Are working with the county on doing this because you know a couple months ago They said well, we'll work with you and we'll find a shelter this year That's in a more permanent building or permanent situation and then later they said no the timing It's just too tough to do it this quickly. Do you feel that they're still In this with us in terms of a partnership and going forward to finding A better solution than what we're doing now Yes, and and that was sort of somewhat inaccurate too. I think you know, we have been continuously Working with the county on not so much on the tent the the tent facility aspect of it But the least building aspect of it. So That is a separate process. I didn't necessarily report on that today on the status of that, but we have they've Engaged their real estate folks who are having discussions with property owners in the harvey west. We are as well And to look at the various options with respect to a temporary building facility They also own some property there. So we're looking at the various possibilities to again get from that tent facility to a temporary building while we Move towards acquiring and preparing a permanent facility and that's the piece we're working on as well. So They have been actively involved and we are meeting with them to actually talked about even with respect to the tent facility The the focus and discussions with them are about providing the services and the connection to services And the support services for the facility, which again will carry on to the future facilities as well I have one question and that has to do with not so much this particular location But we've talked a little bit about some of the caltrans properties throughout the area And we're seeing kind of spillover in different areas. How are we working with caltrans to address these Issues. Um, so we've contacted caltrans. Um, and I certainly encourage some members of the community to do that as well directly and they've Said that they would expedite In some cases there are some abandoned Camp sites and there's quite a bit of degree particularly in the fish hook. So they said that they expedite And they didn't give us a definitive date. We can try to find out if they have a more specific date But we have asked them to Help with cleaning up those sites. So when a date is provided, would you can provide that to the full council? Sure. All right. Thank you. And I would also get encouraged members of the public that they have actually an online Request form you can go to the caltrans website And fill it out. Uh, and you actually do get a response back from them. Is that on the city's website? It's it's on the caltrans website. Is there any way to put a link on the city's website? Oh, we can look at that That's right. Thank you. Um council member crown I have reasons to use that bike path alongside of uh, Holy cross and something's going on. I don't know what it is, but that's a caltrans property there And they have cleaned it several times and they've got the campers Working on cleaning it too. It's it's it's interesting. I don't know if it's an experiment or what but the tents remain But they get they come and go Okay, all right. Well, thank you for that update. Sure. You also wanted to there was going to be an update from the city Attorney as well. Yes, I'll turn it over to tony now who's prepared Yes, um, this is a presentation requested by the mayor a few weeks ago after There have been a couple of instances in the past several meetings at which, um The actions taken by the council and the direction given has been somewhat difficult to ascertain after the meeting and um, most recently um In the discussion of the relocation assistance item the the planning director and I spent a good bit of time Just making sure that we got the direction correct um, so this is a brief overview of some of the provisions of the The council member's handbook with which sets forth the rules of procedure for adopting motions from my perspective the two most important, uh things to to ensure when the council takes action is that um Is that the action reflects the will of the council first of all and secondly that it's Clear so that it can be recorded accurately in the minutes and provide a Guide for direction to staff or or whatever the specific action is taken So so i'll refer to the council member's handbook the three items that I will go over are the procedures for motions to amend or for bringing a substitute motion Friendly amendments and motions to call the question I have not, um I did not intend to spend more than a few minutes and I did not intend to go over all of the Procedural rules and tony if if council member has questions regarding these they can contact you directly by all means or I'm happy to try to respond. Um this afternoon as well Uh motions to amend or substitute motions are exactly what um, they purport to be a motion to amend would be To modify an existing motion that's on the table A substitute motion would be to replace the motion that's been made with a different motion for the council to take take action on These motions can be made by any council member except for the presiding officer Uh, the presiding officer may second a motion. However Um, both motions to amend and substitute motions are debatable, which means the council has an opportunity to um To discuss and debate, uh, the the wisdom of or the the appropriateness of the motion uh, the mayor has the uh, right as the as the Officer in charge of of running the meeting to decide if the motion in question is a motion to amend or a motion to substitute and and um, and And and give that direction if necessary Um, if seconded the there are two Steps involved in adopting either a motion to amend or a motion to Substitute and one is that the council votes on whether to accept the motion So that's a separate vote that's taken on whether or not to accept the motion This the next action. However is uh, should that Motion pass then the council then votes on the motion. So um, so it's a two step process Both for motions to amend and substitute motions A friendly amendment as you know is uh, when a motion is made And a member of the council that did not make the motion or the second then proposes a friendly amendment which if Is considered friendly if it's acceptable to both the maker of the motion and the maker of the second Um, if that is not the case if the neither the maker of the motion nor the maker of the second Uh, accept the amendment as a friendly amendment a substitute motion can be made or a motion to amend can be made And then you revert to the process that we just went over with regard to those types of motions um Again the mayor has the prerogative in this case to decide whether or not to allow or limit debate on a proposed friendly amendment That's somewhat different from the the rules regarding the initial motion Which is debatable In this case the mayor's prerogative as to whether or not to allow debate on a motion Or on a on a friendly amendment Lastly motion to call the question this came up at a meeting back in the late november, I believe there was A motion to call the question and the council voted on that and that was not the appropriate procedure under your rules Any council member first of all except the mayor may make a motion to call the question The motion is not debatable meaning if the council if a council member requests Or or makes a motion to call the question If that's seconded then the council has to vote on whether or not to call the question So if that motion passes Then again all debate must be halted and then the count council must immediately Vote on the motion so again a two-step process somewhat Redundant I suppose But that's the way the rules Required be done presently Obviously these rules are adopted by the council for its own purposes in facilitating the conduct of business and And should the council have any questions or concerns with regard to the wording of an existing rule Um Simple process to to modify those by council resolution. Thank you. Tony. Are there any questions council member brown? Yeah, it seems to me that some of the challenges that we had were related to Substance rather than process. So I appreciate getting the Summary on the ways that motions can be made um, but Some of it is related to substance. So I just if you have any thoughts on how we might Better address that well, I do think it's it. I agree with you first of all I I think the key is it seems to me like we've we've dealt with a lot of issues that were that were very complex and that had a A bunch of moving pieces and so the council has given some direction In in the past several meetings somewhat unusually In my experience at least in that there have been you know, eight ten or more Parts to a single motion Which is is perfectly appropriate 22 but again the challenge is to make sure that That that first of all all the council members know what is being voted upon second of all that we get it in the minutes and so um I mean I I think the key for that is if a council member is going to propose that type of an action um Then bring it in writing so that we can all see it Uh, otherwise it's just more work to make sure that we have everything covered Um, if if it's just verbal direction that's given And then you know, it's really two pieces one is is as you say the substantive issues that are being dealt with and then others Is the motion is made there's extensive discussion. There's discussion about amendments friendly or not and um, it's not clear whether They're accepted by the council and so I mean I try to pay attention to that and and call it out if if I think That there's a question about what is actually being voted upon, but um, yeah, I see it as both things Thank you. Are there any other questions council member crown? Thank you mayor and thank you, tony for Tutorial, uh, it's very helpful And so I just want to get clear the mayor can't call the question But when the when a council member calls a question it has to be seconded and then voted upon Yeah, it's about debate and that I mean I Frankly overlooked that the last time because it was a there was a A statement made I'd like to call the question and the council voted on the motion so And again, there was that happened uh at a prior meeting and I just think this clarifies it Even further so it makes sense Uh in so far as You know One council member may think that the item is ready to be voted on and And that might not have unanimity on that. So it makes sense for that to be voted on Are there any other uh discussion on these items? Thank you martin. Thank you, tony for bringing this forward and Again, if there's any other questions, please contact tony to for to clarify any other questions you may have So now we'll take it over to the consent agenda These items are four through 15 on our agenda All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion Are there any other council members who wish to pull an item from the consent agenda? council member crone I'd like to pull two But I don't know if Anyone's here to speak on number 11 Number nine. I want to pull for sure. But number 11 is a business license tax So number two and number nine and you're not sure about 11 or no not two just just um, excuse me two items two items, okay Number nine and number 11. Okay. So number nine and 11 Any other council members wish to pull an item from the agenda? Okay, seeing none. Is there any member of the public that would like to speak on an item other than nine and 11 from the consent agenda at this time Seeing none, we'll bring it back to the council Move to approve all the items on the consent agenda except for items nine and 11 Okay, motion by council member noret uh, noroyan second by council member chase all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye Passes unanimously Okay, we'll bring up number nine Which is the community housing responding to the housing crisis item This is an agenda item that's brought forward to provide further direction in regards to the 22 recommendations that came through at our december fifth meeting in regards to the ad hoc city council blueprint subcommittee Council member crown Yeah, I just um, I want to take another stab at it because I'm As I looked over the 22 recommendations Or actually I see 19, but there could be more. Um It just seems like an unbelievable Daunting process for the committee and I'm wondering if committee members could just say a little bit about how They're gonna approach this work. Maybe they haven't met yet. I don't know, but it just seems like wow, you're you're gonna take a lot of these things Uh, people have spent a lot of time on uh, just individual ones and so for the committee to take it on Uh, and as folks knew from my remarks last time I'd like to see a little more public input on this and and actually using the expertise of our community in this group So it's it's a question if anyone from the committee wants to um, has it has a sense of How this it's going to take place in a timeline. I mean, I know the timeline is It's going to come back in march Okay, those that are on the committee are council member chase Council member brown and vice member walk in so does anyone want to respond to that? This this item is really to kind of help prioritize some of those things So they do have a list of framework to bring back so then is is less daunting so they know that not everything may be acted on But um any other Add a little bit to it and I know council member brown wanted to as well Yeah, I would just say that so first of all we have our first meeting scheduled and so we'll be reporting back about the process that we kind of can Come up with um, but The I mean my understanding is that there are some items that are already in process That will be coming before us. So the the workload Yeah, it's a daunting list, but I don't think that we're going to probably get to all of them And some of them will just come our way. So we'll can we maybe just report back with a prioritization list And whatever else you all want to say Um, I agree with that and so it's 19 because we took action on three that evening So there's 22 total recommendations three. We already took action on as a council 19 um were referred uh to the committee and this item um In front of us item nine that I joined with council member brown and and mayor trazas on is really sort of reiterating I think what we stated our intention was was we're going to come together Prioritize and then come back to council. None of these things are going to be done within the committee Itself the committee is really going to be working on helping to prioritize those recommendations and bring back items to council That also includes continuing engagement with the community not absent that And certainly informed by the listening session that went on for most of last year So I think they're all really coming together and this item is really just to solidify exactly what our first steps are when we meet this week And my thoughts were um, you know the wassak. I think there's unanimity that that worked well Uh, the vacation rental committee, you know, there's mixed feelings, but I still think both of those Committees on two really huge issues one One of our biggest issues water and the other one a little Seems like one of the issues of the 19 would be would fit under the vacation rentals really And that's why I'm worried about the the workload In addition to council and three other four other committees just everybody sits on And then adding this one I'm just I noticed that I did a friendly amendment last time. I'm just going to try to try a motion Um, my motion would be to play seven Santa Cruz residents one chosen by each council member on an ad hoc committee with The effect of getting a more comprehensive and fair and timely recommendations to the city council Given the potential time and effort involved in the work of this ad hoc committee Adding additional members will aid this committee The council uh committee informing subcommittees that will that can work on specific areas within the 22 already mentioned items All nominations to the committee should be given to the mayor no later than wednesday january 17th agenda review meeting And selections will be should be made Uh, or will be made on january 23rd council meeting I'm not seeing a second. Um Is there anyone who'd like to put a motion on the floor Council member matthews. Oh, yes. Well, I was just going to second for the purposes of discussion But Anyway, okay the motion on council member crones and second by Council member brown. Is there any discussion on that council member matthews? I think i'll just continue the statement I was going to make is that I was really impressed at the First of all the um recommendations that the mayor recommended At our previous Council meeting devoted to housing and this distillation the recommendation for how the committee would approach it It's kind of a triage According to urgency and resources required and complexity um, I think what's different between the uh wassak and the vacation rental is that the the water The city runs the water district the water department and the city establishes ordinances for vacation rentals And so that's entirely in our own um Decision making however it however it goes But the housing issue has so many partners. It's so complex Some things are within our immediate jurisdiction as a city to do and others depend Enormously on our relationship with other partners. So I think that's just reflected in the way this is done to my mind the public process on this was heroic and you reference that virtually all Cynthia chase's year as mayor was devoted to this issue and it involved a huge number of people Both as individuals and organizations. So Um, I really do support the idea of a committee that's gone through all this studied it all heard it Now now bring back the prioritization of what we can tackle immediately midterm and Next way, I think that is a good recommendation. So I'm going to vote against the motion on the floor Good council member chase so, um Thank you. I mean, I appreciate the comments that council member Matthews made on that because What is what I think is competing here is that there was a year worth of engagement with the community That brought that delivered these 22 recommendations to us. This committee's job Is to then prioritize the remaining 19 and bring them back to council one of which Explicitly within the 19 is ongoing engagement with the community and what that will look like in terms of an actual process and procedure And you so we're kind of things are at odds here because we can't be asked as a committee to come back in march with prioritization And simultaneously do a committee Certainly not one like wassack or like the short-term rentals, which is a pretty long process Detailed process would need facilitation and all of those kinds of things I think that there is going to be continued engagement with the community, but we can't do that by march So really all we're being asked to do as a committee is look at the 19 recommendations Figure out how we would prioritize those Given what was heard from the community given what is available in terms of resources and staffing given what is already in the pipeline Given our partnerships in the community And return to council with recommendations on how to move forward One of those things being how we would continue that relationship with the community So given that I also will not support the motion on the floor because I feel like we have a very focused Project here in front of us the three of us are on this committee And that is really to very very quickly prioritize those things and bring them back to council And then as a community continue to move forward Okay, seeing no other discussion on this We can put this item to vote all those in favor of the motion public comment Is there anyone from the members of the public that would like to speak to the motion on the floor? Sir, would you step up please? Ed Silver representing the branch 40 district I think some of this These issues that were brought up by chris Is as some legitimate concern, especially regarding community input We've had a lot of faulty processes regarding community input And a lot of the community input felt They got the short end of the stick So I think by giving the community more of an opportunity To have input into the process is extremely important And so losing this opportunity again Is is sort of short sighting the community which we hear often That you want to hear from the community and when there's opportunities for the community interact more Then you want to just slam the door in our face I think that this is a Not a good process you're doing right now. I think you you need to to um We would appreciate you considering this Request more seriously. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Silvera. Okay. Are there any other members of the public that like to speak to this item? See now we'll bring it back to the council. I'll just have to say that uh, you know I am not going to support the motion on the floor. I think Just look at the record and we saw a tremendous amount of public input that went took place over the last year And I think at a certain point There's a time when we do say hey It's it's up to the council to take action to look at the information we received and move forward and do something about the information We received so in my my uh, my sense is I will not support the motion on the floor And uh, if anyone else would like to speak, um Just quickly remember vice mayor matt walkins I will just quickly echo what um councilmember, uh chase mentioned earlier that I don't think necessarily Moving forward with what is proposed by councilmember crone Um, that's necessarily Negates the opportunity for us to continue in a way of engaging the community I think it allows for the subcommittee group to Identify strategies that will most meaningfully engage the community while continuing to add to provide action on some of the Various recommendations. So I think in light of the original sort of earlier comments that outgoing mayor chase or uh councilmember chase as Former mayor mentioned that I think we all agree and share common value of community engagement particularly Around this topic and I I look forward to identifying the strategies that are going to be the most effective And it might not necessarily be very different from what was proposed earlier So I too won't support it at this time, but look forward to working on how to move forward Councilmember crone just last thing i'll say i want to beat a dead horse, but um I'm i'm just uncomfortable leaving the public out of this And if the meetings the three person meetings aren't going to be open either to the public And maybe some of them will some of them won't at the discretion of the committee I think um More input from the from the public is better than than less input and when you have more people in the room I think you're going to get Perhaps a messier process, but I I really do think at the end of the day It's a better process because it represents The community more than just um, you know a subset of the council Which recommend I know they'll be voted on by the city council, but I I think that it's better having more more input Okay, we have a motion on the floor by councilmember crone second by councilmember brown all those in favor, please say aye Okay, um, no, I think I heard you say so councilmember um crone Okay, um votes. Yes all those opposed. Please say no. No Okay, so, uh, it fails with one in favor councilmember crone and councilmember brown Neuroian vice mayor wattkins Councilmember chase and councilwoman matthews and myself, uh opposed Okay, now we have the main motion on the floor number nine I'll move it Oh for the motion itself. Yes the motion itself And you go ahead. I was going to move as recommended Motion by vice mayor wattkins Second by councilmember chase is there any discussion Is there any member of the public that would like to speak to item nine on the agenda? Seeing none, please step up You already had Excuse me. Well, it was on the motion. I thought but Um, I'll allow you to come up and speak please Mayor for allowing me to speak my name is Ian cruel that I am the government affairs director For the santa cruz county realtors association I just had a quick question of whether or not the ad hoc committee meetings would be public or private Okay, thank you. Have you finished your comments? Yeah, okay that that issue is just discussed and this is a um ad hoc group It's it's not brown octet. It's it will be in existence for up to six months But the direction is that they'll come back by march This year 2018 with our comments. So it is not a public meeting Okay, so We say not necessarily not necessarily a public meeting So we have a motion on the floor by council vice mayor wattkins second by councilmember chase Is there any further discussion? I just want to make one comment because I Just to clarify There's nothing in this motion that doesn't preclude us from having more community input. Absolutely. So that's why i'm going to be supporting it um Hey, thank you. I wanted to clarify Okay, so seeing no, um Further discussion all those in favor of the motion. Please say aye. Aye. Those opposed. No passes with um councilmember Cron voting no all other council members voting yes Okay, so now we'll move on to item 11 councilmember crown Yeah, I was just hoping that um we could get an explanation. It seems like uh, I've been talking to offline in conversation with city attorney today it Struck me that this business license Fee tax is not a fee. It's a tax and It would be really nice and then then is it per employee? Is it extra? Is there a 145 145 dollar flat and then you pay per employee? And then there's different classes and I was just wondering if um marks might be so kind is to Just clarify a little bit not not any sort of treat us but you know a few minutes The action in front front of you tonight is just a cost recovery fee added on to Applications for new business license and renewals the business license tax structure remains unchanged So the the rates per business the employee rates those we're not talking about any of that It's just a a fee on top the city has never had a fee on top Just a processing fee many other cities have fees much higher for processing. We've we haven't historically So it's not in here. I don't think but everybody pays. What is the the baseline fee? It varies depending on your business and that's a different conversation. That's the tax rate for the business license The administrative fee is just a would be a flat fee if it's a A new application would be 24 dollars plus the state's for dollar pass through for 28 dollars processing fee and then a renewal would be 12 dollars Total so we are so what is the basic? Tax on the business license way Is it a 145? Is that a floor or is it it varies depending on the type of business you have 145 is the starting place some others have other types of businesses coin operating machines have different type of fee structures And there's also fees that can add it on for employees. Again, that's the tax side of the equation We're not talking about the tax side in this action In how many categories are there in that? Like which categories that's what i'm trying to understand and how many employees do you have to have and how much is charge for each employee and There's a I think it's a three-page schedule on our public website a fee schedule that lists all those fee categories individually That's probably the best way to go look Do you have any other questions councilmember councilmember matthews? If i'm prepared to make a motion unless there are other comments I'll open up from the public first. Is there any member of the public that would like to speak to this item? Seeing none i'll bring it back to uh the floor council or to the to the councils Yes, this seemed to me just consistent with the direction we gave about cost recovery and Coincides with a new fee established by the state as I understand it. And so the idea was to Institute a cost recovery application fee and marry that up with the state fee and that's why it's So I will go ahead and move the recommendation before us Okay, motion by councilmember matthews. Is there a second second second by councilmember brown I'll just say um, I Questioned and spoke with staff beforehand. Um, and our fees according to staff are less than and also Or at what other competing? Jurisdictions are charging. So I feel comfortable supporting the motion as presented on the floor Um, so there's no further discussion all those in favor. Please say aye. Hi Those opposed passes unanimously Okay, that concludes the consent agenda So now we'll move on to the um consent public hearing Up next the consent public hearing these items are number 16 and 17 on our agenda All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion Are there any council members who wish to pull an item from the consent public hearing agenda? Seeing none, um, I'll ask any member the public who would like to speak on this Consent public hearing agenda Yeah, I'll bring it back to the council for action Move approval motion by council member matthews second second by council member neroyan all those in favor Please say aye. Hi passes unanimously Thank you Okay, next up is the Moving on to the public hearing portion of our agenda. This is item number 18 afternoon mayor and council members lee butler planning director and this afternoon. We are presenting a couple of modifications to title four of the municipal code that would Relate to cost recovery for our code enforcement services And we're excited about presenting this to you because it offers a couple of opportunities one to Get cost recovery for certain portions of our code enforcement staff time that we currently do not have the opportunity to get cost recovery for And two it establishes a process whereby we can more easily recover those costs If a property owner is not Completely willing and cooperative in providing that money to the city And so it sets up an opportunity for us to put that as a special assessment on the property taxes Which is a easy and efficient way for us to Collect those funds when property owners are uncooperative. So I'll turn it over to laura landry who will present the details on this Good afternoon Good afternoon Mayor terasas and city council members The following amendments to chapter four will provide the city with authority And tools to enforce the city's municipal codes and obtain the cost incurred by the city for code violations The chapter four amendments are clarify the enforcement authority for code violations What code violations or what code enforcement costs may be? And the methods for recovering cost per state law Additions of code sections four point zero two zero eight zero and four point zero two zero nine zero Clarifies enforcement authority for code violations Sections four point zero two zero eight zero states It is unlawful to enter or occupy any condemned property as defined in section one zero eight of the international Property maintenance code and section four point zero two zero nine zero states All violations of this code shall constitute a misdemeanor and may be charged and prosecuted as an infraction amendments of chapter four point two six clarify what code enforcement cost may be recovered sections four point two six zero one zero through sections four point two six zero eight zero States that the fees may be collected when a notice of violation has been issued and the violations identified have not been corrected in a timely manner The fees are to include all administrative costs and legal fees And fees incurred when time has been spent with non cooperative violators And the fees collected will continue to be deposited into the code enforcement civil penalties and cost recovery fund The amendments for sections codes four point two four zero one zero through four point two four zero six zero and addition of section code four point two four eight zero eight zero Revises methods for recovering um cost per state law revisions have been made to allow for more efficient cost recovery while maintaining due process rights California sections codes eight three eight seven seven one through Three eight seven seven three point five allow that local jurisdictions to recover unpaid administrative costs by lien or property tax assessment For example, if an individual has not paid in full within 90 days of receipt of Of invoice an assessment is placed on the real property The paid assessments is then forwarded to the city for deposit and written notification is sent to the tax collector stating the special assessment has been paid in full These amendments to chapter four to chapter four will clarify the enforcement authority and provide additional tools to recover the cost incurred by the city for code compliance cases and the fees paid deposited into the code enforcement civil penalties and cost recovery fund Includes their presentation Thank you. Are there any questions? Seeing none, we'll turn it over to the public. Is there any member of the public that would like to speak to this item? Okay, you have two minutes Two If you'd like you could use less generous um I'm pretty horrified by this this proposal. Um, we went through this years ago with a commission that uh wanted if they didn't like The idea that you didn't paint your house The city would get a contractor and paint your house There's also rules that if you if you don't take care of your weeds In a side yard. I'm talking locals long timers some of the elderly people that sort of manage to still stay in this community They don't get talked about too much, but we're still here There's still some that are still here long time family members that help make this town what it is What it comes down to if you put in a burden on somebody that's elderly That some neighbor or some city official can say you're not taking care of your weeds We're going to have somebody come out and take care of them for you and we're going to send you the bill Now you're saying if you don't pay the bill You're going to put it on their property taxes, which probably the family members are helping to pay anyhow I think this is a very serious thing. You're doing putting the screws To long timers regular people that are trying to get by and the community they built I think you really ought to uh show some heart here and some consideration for The long timers that made this town what it is Thank you for your consideration. Thank you, mr. Silvera Um, um, is there any member of the public like to speak to this item sir If I know in the council, my name is Peter, but to and anyway, uh, I understand that once you reach about the age 65 or so Uh, you can postpone your property tax payments to whoever Takes over your property once you die. Okay Seems like the city's not going to have any costly recovery if you go through this process Until who knows when so maybe you should come up with a different plan. Thank you. Thank you Okay, see no other public comment. I'll bring it back to the council. Um, is there any member of the council like to move this item? Um, I really appreciate the way this came back to us really triggered by a specific issue um The planning department and the attorney took time to really review a package an ordinance Category that hadn't been updated in quite a good long time And I think what this does is give a lot greater clarity to definitions and process Um, it establishes consequences particularly and it's not aimed at senior citizens. I think we know that this is really Specifically necessary as staff mentioned Where there are recalcitrant property owners who have properties that are Grossly substandard and dangerous and refuse to act on them. So it has been frustrating for many many years Um, um the lack of enforcement ability or consequences or rather paltry Uh consequences. So I think this is a good step forward for clarity and process um, and so, uh, I I think it's a Good direction to move in I'm going happy to go ahead and move the motion the recommendation Thank you. Um motion by council member mathews second by council member neroyan Council member brown Yeah, I want to say express my support for this as well and just clarify that we're talking about Code enforcement violations for serious public safety and health issues not Whether or not Somebody has weed whacked their yard or so. I just want to make that really clear this the point was to provide some relief for tenants Of these properties when they need to be abated. So Happy to support Council member neroyan. I'm very happy to support this too. Um, and there have been several cases where A homeowner or a landlord just doesn't reply when the city sends letters about Dangerous situations like gas leaks. So I just want to really make it clear to the person who got up and spoke This isn't motivated by somebody having too many weeds in front of their yard It's motivated to address Really unsafe situations for people who are renters. So thank you for doing the work on this Thank you or a general public Right for yeah, everyone involved Council member crown Just taking up from what council member neroyan said would would the city then fix the gas leak? And then charge the landlord or the owner of the property depending on the violation. We do have an abatement process Only when they fail to do it. Yes, only when they fail how long do you wait and that Well, it's really depending on the type of violation for something that it's considered to be life and safety Issues and at that point we do there is the process of posting the property If there's a life and safety issue So at that point we notify the property owner and there isn't going to be Say inoccupant and our attendant on the property because we posted that notice So we are able to work with the property owner so that they are able to take care of the issue Is anything here and I know item 16, I guess is is continued But is there anything here that's protecting the the the tenant that offers them some relief if they get kicked out evicted? What I would say is that For property owners that are not willing to address the Violations that they have oftentimes, you know serious life safety violations. What this does is it actually Requires that once a notice of violation is issued. So first there's a courtesy notice and for those that address the issue After a courtesy notice is provided. This Does not have any implications for them But if it goes to a notice of violation Which happens after the courtesy notice time expires Then the not only are there the fines that are the typical fines You know the first fine may be a hundred dollars in the second one and maybe A few hundred dollars more than that and a third a few hundred more than that They are also paying for the staff time that is spent after that notice of violation So as we're coordinating right now as we're coordinating with the attorneys as our team is talking with the property owner and trying to convince them to To improve their property and bring it up to par None of that None of that cost is being recouped And so the idea that now they're not only going to be responsible for that one hundred or three hundred or five hundred You know those those fines which you know are They have they carry some weight, but they're also responsible for all the time that we're spending On addressing that violation that additional cost is certainly an incentive for them to To make those upgrades sooner rather than later and hopefully that will Create the situation where tenants are more protected because the implications of Not addressing the violation upfront are Have a carry a larger dollar sign with them So i'm just wondering you're going to come back to us with the the money for funding the location assistance program So i mean that's this is what we're talking about right hill crest terrace I think it was called that's not that people got kicked out the from the november 14th meeting And so really concerned about the tenants So so this is a one item from that same discussion The relocation assistance that is a separate title 21 amendment And that was the item that was continued to the january 23rd meeting. Thanks. Okay. Thank you councilmember matthews That was my point. Okay So then we have a motion on the floor councilmember mathews and was seconded by councilmember noroyan All those in favor please say aye. Aye those opposed Seeing none pat motion passes unanimously Now we'll move on to the item number 19 the general business for the cannabis retailer and license fee As a reminder the order will be for this item a staff presentation followed by questions of staff from the council We will then take public comment and then return to the council for deliberation in action Um Will you be presenting this item as well? Thank you Oh again mayor and councilmembers leave out there with planning director and um This item is related to the recently adopted Cannabis retailer license process that We went through last month and ended up granting three new licenses And what we did to expedite that process and get it done Before the state began issuing licenses is we went ahead and estimated the amount of time that it would take to process these licenses From each of the departments involved in that and there Is a panel that reviews all of those licenses and it's discussed between the police department planning and economic development And then there's some involvement with finance and the city manager's office as well And um based on the hourly rates, we came up with a fee for that Application and that fee was established at $1,596 And this afternoon we're just requesting that council formally adopt that fee for future Cannabis business retailer license applications. Thank you. Mr. Butler. Are there any questions regarding the presentation from council? Seeing none, just a quick one. Um, do we know about any other bay area cities and how they're dealing with this and what their fees are? So, um, our process is is somewhat unique and that we've got the panel and um, the council directed us to um, grant, um, those licenses based on a series of factors. Um, women and minority owned businesses the businesses paying living wage and, um, The use of organic products and so forth. So all those factors are considered. So it's somewhat unique However, we have done some research into just the license type and in the The license application fees. We were the lowest I believe the county came in at 2000 or 2800 and seaside was 4 000 or so and Catherine is coming up here who did the research and she can tell you more precisely what this Catherine Donovan our senior plan I just did a quick search today to see what I could find. We had I've talked at different with different people in that different panels and um, I I knew from those discussions that what we were proposing was quite low but um council member croon had asked for specific numbers and of course I didn't have anything on the tips of my fingers. Um, so I did a quick and dirty search the county is at 2000 or 2800 if there's an amendment involved They're doing a fee study right now and expect that that will go up But they didn't because the fee study isn't complete. They don't know how much Seaside is charging 7 000 Monterey county is charging four thousand four hundred seventy four dollars The city of oakland is two thousand four hundred seventy four And those were the only ones that I could find on their websites today Um, I have a couple of calls and emails out if you wanted more But the numbers that I remembered ranged between 2000 and there were some that were as high as 10 000 So some people are charging a lot of money. Thanks Catherine Well, maybe when you get those updates through lee you could have those distributed as an informational item Be happy to do so. I appreciate that follow up question was um, do you have a feel a sense of why? I mean, I'm all for if we're putting in the work to collect some more money Why the others are are they padding their bills or does it not clear right now what that is? I think nobody knows how much this is going to cost cities because it's so new and um Right now We're putting in a lot of time that we're not getting any cost recovery on and I assume other cities are in the same boat Thanks. Thank you. I would just add Mary if I could that the The follow-up item to the license is an administrative use permit and While our flat rate for the administrative use permit is substantially less than most other jurisdictions the We have about a two thousand dollar charge and others are You know four or five times that amount that I've seen What we have talked with the police department and the fire department about is Based on the individual applications Identifying how many inspections would be needed You know, will the police need to go out there three times this year or four times this year and and putting in conditions of approval that require those fees to be paid and if additional inspections are required that those inspections are paid for as well And the penalty for not paying those inspections is revocation of the use permit So there's a large motivation to make sure those inspections are paid for thank you. Lee Is there any member of the public who would like to speak to this item? This is item number 19. It's the cannabis retailer license fee See none. I'll bring it back to the council council member matthews. Yeah, I think once again, this is consistent with our direction for reasonable incredible cost recovery And I'm pleased that it was conservatively estimated and honestly, it's a small number five times whatever is not I'm going to balance our budget and this can be raised in the future If at some point we find that as has just been described our our costs For the permits or or the use permits Does increase but I think this has been Approached well. I'm glad we're ahead of the curve. So I'm going to go ahead and move the recommendation Okay, motion by council member matthews. Is there a second all second second by council member chase before we take it to vote I also like to call out city manager martin burnall Yes, one of the things that the mayor and I talked about was Really just acknowledging the tremendous amount of staff work that went into putting this together because it was really incredible And to get it done so quickly And and what it needed the complexity of it and just to tremendous You know to put it all in place and we wanted the first obviously in the state to get it going And we'll see how it goes But they really deserve a lot of acknowledgement and I really want to thank them and I think the council feels simply so Thank you very much All the planning staff and other staff in the various departments have worked on this I know Mike might be watching from home But Mike fairy catherine and donovan and all everyone that was involved in it Not only just this but also dealing with the housing work that was going on at the same time. You did a tremendous job. So thank you Okay, so we have a motion on the floor Council member walkins. I too No, no, that's I I want to also I want to I'm glad that you had I had took a moment to thank the amount of work That happened. I want to echo those comments I also know that and this could be a A future conversation or a future agenda item But you mentioned the panel and how you were able to assemble the panel and identify those that applied And I felt really strongly at the time And I still feel strongly about increasing the amount of minority and women owned businesses Particularly because of the failed war on drugs and the negative impacts that has had on our communities nationally and at some point I think as we monitor the progress of kind of cannabis coming into our community and our state I'd be interested in learning how that process was done and how we're monitoring Identifying those populations or even if they're applying. So I think in terms of future updates along with sort of tracking sort of reasonable fees Kind of where that fits into the conversation And and maybe that was already forthcoming and I and I'm jumping the gun, but Council member thank you council member matthews That's an interesting point that I think you could also mention to diana at the league of california cities and get that on their radar screen On the bigger picture. I'll be fantastic. Just just directly with her So we have a motion on the floor by council member matthews in a second by council member chase All those in favor of the item, please say aye. Aye those opposed say no So passes unanimously And that brings us up to our next item, which is number 20 And I'd like at this point just to take a quick maybe a five minute pause We're so that we can in the interest of being present and not having people get up and down during the discussion This is going to be a fairly long Discussion presentation and then questions that people have So I'd like to just take maybe a five minute break while they're setting up We can go out and then come back and ask if people not get up during the presentation and kind of stay present In the moment right on cue Council member matthews Uh-oh your your name and names Okay, okay, I think we're ready to begin Okay, good afternoon Almost could even good afternoon council members. Can everyone hear me all right in the microwave the microwave the microphone Um, it sounds a little quiet. Hello. It sounds quiet. Yeah, maybe what yeah, we might need to Okay, so continue on all right assistant city manager tina shull and with me we have staff going to go over the Yeah, is my presentation up Thank you The mission and background from staff Talking and we'll also talk about the evaluation process and then we'll invite the county to come up and Do a discussion of the redesign as much of it impacts Their organization and their service delivery Then it will come back to us and we'll talk about fiscal impact our recommendation to you and then turn it back over to you Um, so here is a timeline of key actions and I recognize this looks very small on the screen There is a hard copy with you But what we'll do is we'll march along this timeline to track just the history of the program It's evolution where we got to where we are today. So I will start right off April 2014 the DAP program Downtown accountability program if some of you I remember its original name Came into being and there is a story behind the genesis of that and so for this I will turn it over to susie O'Hara, um, you may not know this but susie was a city staff person involved in the 2013 City citizens public safety task force that gave rise to the recommendation for the top offender program She then went on was tapped To actually serve as a program manager for DAP then packed up until about mid 2016 about a year ago So susie really has been the city's strong connection. She has intimacy with the model and how it's function. So with that Susie, thank you. Thank you. Tina Susie O'Hara principal management analyst with the city manager's office Along with our county partners. I wanted to recognize some of our packed team that are here As well ran him manage and past queenie mark briscoe. I'm not familiar with you, but I know that you work on the program too I've been off for about a year Thank you for being here and so As the program continues we continue to have very strong support from the pack team and and that's really part of the You know the evaluation and excitement about where we're going So as yeah, I'm going to interrupt for just a second if not now at an appropriate time I would love for the individuals to stand up and say their title and what I mean It's a rare occasion see put a name and a face together We we did talk about that and I think that as they begin the presentation they'll do an intro then Okay, yeah, okay All right, so um as Tina mentioned I did have the good fortune of Coordinating the public safety task force and that really did give rise to the downtown accountability program that was renamed to the pack program So I'm going to go walk through a little bit of that process To give you some foundational context for the redesign There are many elements that are remaining and we're very excited about that and there are elements that are changing And we're we're going to be talking about that as as well as the county So back in 2013 When hillary bryant was mayor Some of you are aware probably all of you are aware, but some of you are here Through the 2013 citizen public safety task force And in that process six months 14 members of the community walk through a six month process coordinated by myself and also Facilitated by fred kealy to examine policies systems and factors contributing to public safety concerns one thing that I wanted to note was The overarching theme of our conversations was really about the root causes of public safety in our community What was what were the major contributing factors to that and one of the Major findings that came out of that as what led to the downtown accountability program So a report was presented to the city council on december third of 2013 Um, there, you know, we had full council chambers. I think we had three Board of supervisors members A lot of public input and interest in these recommendations. I think there were 80 recommendations and one of those recommendations that led to the downtown accountability program was A repeat offender program that was focused on a small number of individuals With wraparound case management services. So i'll talk a little bit about that But the report really focused on this One finding that looked at a small number of individuals that were disproportionately Contributing to a high number of calls for service arrest citations and emergency medical needs The report included in its appendix Finding about where findings about where these arrests calls for service citations were happening This heat map shows 20 2009 to 2012 Calls for service and as you can see this handprint That basically is on top of downtown santa cruz through our san lorenzo river corridor as well Those were where we're seeing the most the highest level of calls for service In addition to that there was a finding around A distinct number of individuals This 146 individuals the findings were that These individuals were arrested 10 times or more in a period of about 26 months And as you can see they were responsible for nearly 3600 arrests That's a huge drain on city services. It's a huge drain on our Our partners as well, you know with the county jail system county health and human services as well as our medical partners And you can see that Disproportionate number of their arrests were associated with drugs and alcohol arrests with about 16 related to drugs 35 related to alcohol so over You know the majority of the arrest focused on substance use disorder issues what the Public safety task force learned from that is for us to adequately intervene with that cycle of recidivism We really needed to focus on the needs of the individuals around their substance use disorder and mental health and other other needs that they had so Really spearheaded by the late district attorney bob lee with many other partners including the city attorney's office our police department and others The city decided to move forward with an eight month pilot In february of 2014 You authorized participation in the top 100 100 offender program That was later renamed to the downtown accountability program As i mentioned spearheaded by bob lee with a number of partners and it really established a new partnership model with various agencies across the city and the community That were working somewhat in silos on these issues from the police department the city attorney's office superior court The jail district attorney probation public defender's office county health services and nonprofits We came together as one team And developed a model to help with this intervention strategy We also in may of 2015 so about a year later. We renamed the program bob lee after program initiated Passed away with from cancer So we renamed it in his honor to the bob lee community partnership for accountability connection and treatment So the program mission i wanted to talk a little bit about what we really focused on at the beginning Because you'll as you'll see through the conversation with tina as well as our county partners Though that mission really does continue with a new redesign, but foundationally When packed When dap started and as it translated to packed our mission was to reduce local ordinance drug and alcohol offender recidivism in downtown santa cruz And other designated geographical areas by providing substance use disorder treatment in an end or intensive court supervision While holding the offender's accountable for their criminal behavior One thing i wanted to note is that balance of accountability and case management and treatment services Was really what ended up being the crux of our success with early success with the downtown accountability program As well as packed We it was important to maintain both of those and as we think about the redesign Tina will go into more detail about how those elements are preserved But that was something that was very important for the team as we thought about how to intervene with You know some really tough cases folks that had gone You know for many years without access to services You know, we were able to intervene successfully with a lot of people So packed was designed to deliver short term crisis intervention and sustainable solutions to reduce recidivism Increased public safety and improve the quality of life of individuals in the program and the community. So that those were our program missions I'm going to talk a little bit about the offender DAP intervention strategy This isn't complicated graphic, but I can give you the overarching philosophy behind what you're seeing here DAP intervened with two very distinct methodologies. One is through the case managed clients Those folks were vertically prosecuted through one misdemeanor court with one specific judge The same public defender the same district attorney The intervention strategy focused on nearly immediate assessments. So we would do An assessment for it's called an asan assessment for drug and alcohol mental health You know, what are the needs establishing the needs of the individual? And with that assessment our case manager who would eventually walk Alongside our DAP clients is their in their path to recovery Would report out to the court as to the recovery Progress those case managed clients had the vertical had the good fortune of having the vertical prosecution model For probably many years in offenses before that They were likely to go from department to department not necessarily seeing the same same judge or same Attorneys with this with the PAC program. They saw the same Attorneys as well as the same judge. So we would understand that person's narrative and have a better, you know chance of intervening knowing their history those case managed clients Would get about a six month case management program Meeting their recovery needs as much as we possibly can talking about housing employment Strategies getting people tied in with benefits that they are eligible for and then hopefully Transitioning them into other types of house housing modalities once they gained sobriety In the recovery In addition to that we had a coordinated model Those folks were not necessarily eligible For treatment services, but still did benefit from the vertical prosecution model So our designated da from the district attorney's office Gretchen Brock would follow those folks through the other departments and ensure that there was continuity In assessments and availability of other services as well So while those folks were not in the PAC court We we were tracking them for their arrest and citations and you know intervening is through what other other resources were available So before the evaluation PAC did Look at their own our own evaluation and reported on data Back to the city council and the board of supervisors to ensure that we are on track to meet our objectives So the first 12 months results We focused on 70 program focused offenders 27 of those receiving case management services And what we reported out for the first 12 months was A 68 reduction in arrests Citywide and because of our data source that was also including Watsonville and capitolah A 70 reduction in citation rate citywide including Watsonville and capitolah And an 80 reduction in a r a m r runs And as you can imagine when we reported this out, you know in in 2015 We're very excited about these results You know, we were meeting the objectives that we set up with the team It was you know, we were We were really focused on recidivism recidivism reduction and and having those Beneficial impacts to the hospital as well We were meeting those objectives and as you know shortly after we reported out on this We moved into the next phase of the evaluation in which Tina will be reporting on Thank you for that history. So you can see there really was an Uh, level of coordination and support and care about the person and their personal history that really didn't exist before So moving back to the timeline. So again DAPS started or top 100 started in april 2014 and council authorized an eight month pilot program staff came back to the council in September and said results look good Will you fund it the rest of the fiscal year the council agreed? So that got funding through june of 2015 and that takes us to the orange bubble here in the timeline moving forward And at that time is that the council and the county the county board felt that we have this promising data That susie just discussed, but we want to do A more rigorous and more robust evaluation to find out. What are really the results? Looking at pre adjudication post adjudication outcomes as well as cost and so The city and the county agreed to fund an evaluation process So um the program evaluation then really started um the fall of 2015 And the city worked very closely with the county in putting out an rfp and selecting an evaluator california state monterey bay ended up being the entity performing this work And they got right to work in early in 2016 and one of the program parameters was there should be a 36 month Span and i'll show you that in a subsequent slide where you have a year of pre adjudication data In year of post adjudication data in order to get that for a reasonable sample size You need 36 months worth of data and the evaluation goals you can see here on this slide It's really capturing the characteristics of the program describing it because it did go through some evaluation This this program got up and running very very quickly There was a lot of interest a lot of marshaling from susie to make it happen And it did go through some evolutions really describing the program Talk about the clients and the participants kind of their histories prior to entering the program And then looking at pack short term impact on reducing criminal justice and emergency medical interventions So and assessing effectiveness and then importantly providing recommendations for improvement We're very interested in looking at other models of literature learning from what's working in other communities So that was part of of this research and work So the first part of the evaluation and i will note for the council members of the public who might be watching this Is all of these materials are online as part of this agenda item And so maybe you've read the full packed evaluation is about 50 pages. You can read it about 35 minutes I think pretty thoroughly But the study found that there were 153 participants and in a year prior to entering packed Similar to what susie was referencing back in 2013 with just looking at the data around the intensity of certain users on our systems these 153 people racked up 1500 citations Over 500 visits to the emergency room 500 transports jail bookings lots of nights in bed So they're very very high intenser group intensive user group on our system So as I referenced in a moment ago The evaluation sample was about 60. So although there were 153 in the program The evaluators dr navarro settled on that 60 who were adjudicated between march 2014 and march 2015 So I kind of have this red circle around this you can see the analysis window So going back and gathering data from march 2013 all the way up to march 2016 And the report also lists the data sources There were six data sets that the researchers Collected and emerged into a data set and they checked it across names to ensure the data were accurate So they really would be looking at these specific 60 people and of the 60 33 were in the case management, which again is the more intensive program where you have the treatment options And 27 were in the case coordinated So then turning to the outcomes Looking at the sample size of 60 63 percent of these individuals had a reduction in citations 78 percent reduction in jail bookings 40 percent had a reduction ambulance runs 37 percent reduction emergency room But there was an increase in nights for jail and that's something that the report does talk about is that Is this attributed to the 180 day sentence rule? And I'm sure some of you read that and we'll talk a bit more about that But that was this is overall how the population The results found them so similar to the results that susie and the team found after the 12 month mark There was a reduction in a lot of these violations Then also looking at as a group the same the 60 participants reduced their citations. This gives you More numbers attached to it. So their citations came down by 364 133 fewer ambulance runs 118 fewer emergency department emergency room visits 239 fewer jail bookings But there was an increase in about 1200 in nights in jail And I will note too the bolded part at the bottom of the slide is that All of the pat clients were homeless coming into the program And when the program concluded it appeared they mostly all were still homeless And so that is something that I know the the county as well as the city and the researcher where we are interested in looking about So some of them might have been in a treatment either in a sober living environment or in residential treatment They might be in jail There about a third of them. We didn't have any data for them at all But the present or maybe we're just kind of couch surfing or with an acquaintance or a partner But it didn't seem like there was a strong housing outcome So costs in savings. So as the report goes in some detail about the basis for calculations, which I won't do Costs and savings were calculated on the the cost of issuing citations the cost for transport ER visit jail booking cost of night or cost of a night in jail But I do want to point out that not included our social costs or benefits or opportunity costs And those are tremendous if you think about what is the greater community impact to have one fewer arrest in our downtown How does that feel, you know for not only like our resources but For impacts on the downtown area the merchants the residents that those are substantial But they were not part of this. So this is purely a calculated cost from we know that doing this particular Function creates a direct cost in this amount. So that's the scope there. I want to point out that limitation So the direct cost per participant was about Six thousand seven hundred and seven dollars and as I note here and I've referenced a substantial cost driver was the increased nights in jail And that plays into the recommendations that you'll see in a few moments The savings per participant was about three thousand four hundred and sixty three Although I will note here that a lot of savings actually accrued to insurance providers medical Medicare I believe because of the reduction in the emergency care transport and services So at the conclusion of this the CSUMB report came up with eight recommendations And the recommendations were provided so that the city and the county the partners could Could move forward with if this program follows What are things they recommend to make it more effective a more cost effective? And so I'll run through these quickly the first is looking for additional sources of funding and tied to that is also aligning with Drug Medi-Cal expansion for treatment And I'm the county may reference this but santa cruz county was very aggressive and very forward thinking In becoming one of the first if not the first counties in santa cruz to get this drug medical expansion Which allows for coverage for indigent people into some of these programs that was not available before So you would have had to have found Private funding or some other public funding to get you into treatment and case management Which now through really heroic efforts of the county team We're able to do that So we've been very aggressive and this will be a net benefit for the county once that comes online The third is considering your vision of the 180 day sentence rule and um susie can correct me But I believe that this was not a hard and fast rule all of the time But what it was it was that was the the stick to the carrot if you will saying like you A pact would approach a client and There would be an option you would have 180 180 day sentencing or treatment And that was a significant enough deterrent or incentive that you would want to go into treatment And that might also lead into why there are more jail beds as well So the the evaluators here Questioned whether or not 180 days was necessary to instant treatment. Could there be a lower number of A lower sentencing guideline that would be just as effective and might lead to some cost savings Item four clarifying graduation terms and conditions. So this is when you're leaving the program This one might be focused on case coordination You're leaving it being very just clear about what is it that you meet and how is it that you leave the program successfully And similarly clarifying dismissal terms and consequences if you aren't successful with your personal accountability program What happens with you? The fifth is improving data assessment and tracking and actually even tying into the health county health electronic record keeping system I'm summarizing that appropriately Item seven was considering treatment alternatives such as harm reduction approaches And number eight was engaging clients before adjudication to enhance diversion opportunities So As you can see this is a lot to a lot to to think about there's a lot of programmatic a lot of policy implicit in this And so what happened here? I'm going back to the timeline. So the the middle dot that we didn't go over was The evaluation was completed march 31st 2017 We gave it to the council and the pact executive committee said Well, okay, we have this We have these recommendations. What do we do with it now? And one of our first decisions was that well, we can't do it alone So Well, let's form some work groups and call on some experts to help us do this work So this is just a quick table of the model we came up with So the pact executive committee and who that is is myself on behalf of the city We have carlos palacio. So county administrative officer Uh, jeff rizal district attorney We have director new in of the county health services agency Attending those and then maybe some supporting staff But those are the core people who attend and we said we we want to get some help some experts to assess these recommendations And and come back to us and say how do we best operationalize them? And so three working groups were formed one was about you know supportive housing And again that comes from an outcome being that not many folks who are none Ended up finding successful housing successfully. So this is something that we wanted to prioritize I'm secondarily is behavioral health services And the director of behavioral health eric riera convened this group and you can see the participants The criminal justice services DA jeff rizal as well as judge denine guy who is the pact presiding pact court Judge convened this group and in the susie participated as well as deputy chief martinez as well And so we said here's the evaluation here the recommendations. What do you recommend? And so these teams worked diligently through The fall and summer and we got their recommendations back. I think in november Of all these groups and so the pact executive committee had to synthesize that information And come up with a redesigned model And then we also had meetings with the pact executive committee that included the the elected representatives So we have councilmember matthew chase as well as supervisor McPherson and coonerty came and we met a couple of times and talked about the program model so With that i'm going to do a quick Overview of the redesign and then ask the county if they would come up and talk more about it Because a lot of the changes have to do with their service delivery and their organization of clinical services So the the pact redesign recommendations The redesign program do retain a lot of the fundamentals and the things that make pact so effective and make pact such an important tool It retains the accountability and i have you know, pact you can follow that there So the accountability was that vertical prosecution model where you're seeing same courtroom same judge same da same public defender You have continuity people know your history they you people to keep track of you That's going to be retained as well as having treatment availability We know that's very important for this population The need is great and it's a very useful tool for us And it will also retain the referral and strong coordination of scpd in the city attorney Now a change in this is that it shifts the connection and treatment part To a collaborative interdisciplinary team at the county based in the county and this is called the hopes team And you'll hear more about this model from the county I'll introduce them in a moment But I just want to summarize something that was powerful to me when thinking about this is that it creates a no wrong door entry right now And correct me if i'm wrong when you come up But there are a number of programs that have dedicated staff from protocols and while we all do our best There are times where there's maybe not Perfect coordination or collaboration or people can fall through the cracks And so what this will do is have a single entry point for all kinds of people who are in need And then this team will assess track and then funnel people into the appropriate tracks for service connection So with that, um, I am very pleased to invite up Two speakers. We actually have three people from the county here. We have um I'm jayna win the director of the county health services agency there We have eric riera who is a director of behavioral health and we have ham rogers wyman Who's a director of adult mental health services? And we the city have worked very closely with all these individuals Through this process. So thank you very much for coming Thank you, tina And thank you city council for providing an opportunity for us to not only meet with you this afternoon, but Also work with your staff in a very collaborative way to create a program that I think will be very beneficial And meet our goals of improving the lessons that we've learned with the dap program and then the packed program And now it's latest iteration into the hopes model Are my presentation to come up So part of our goal and and part of my role on the executive committee was to take the various recommendations from the csu and b Evaluation and tina went over the eight different recommendations And work with each of the three work groups the criminal justice the housing and the clinical work groups To formulate a Different type of model that would better meet the goals and objectives of both the city and the county through this hopes program And looking at the recommendations and the work of the different groups We made several Key assumptions and and several observations in terms of of reflecting on the csu and b evaluation The first is tina mentioned was that Based on our experience with the packed model The majority if not all of the participants in packed were homeless And it seemed like an opportunity for us to develop a model that would more effectively address the issue of homelessness in our community And look for ways and opportunities to improve services to that population We also noted that the current approach to working with individuals who are homeless Whether they be court involved or not court involved is really not an integrated approach currently It supports this model of care that's based on silos And depending on which door that a particular homeless person enters in through or gets connected to Often dictates what type of services they get access to A broader approach Can increase access to a larger array of services in the community And also serve many more people who are homeless needing services Our plan drug medical expansion which we went live on january 1st Will provide access to not only more services but access to new services that hadn't been previously available under the medical programs such as case management We also had a clear goal to maintain the idea of having a specialty court Um and specialty court processes to support the unique needs of individuals served by this program and the resources those court programs offered And therefore made a recommendation to create this new specialty packed court And we also looked at how we could redeploy existing staff to the ports for more efficiencies Creating new positions for oversight and management of services in the community was also a key assumption that we had going into this redesign So there are several key principles which I want to review with you this afternoon before we go into what the actual program model looks like and I'll have Pam Walk us through the new hopes model The first is that we want to improve collaboration among service providers through the creation of this new multi disciplinary team Which will meet two to three times weekly Or more if needed to coordinate services and referrals from the community local businesses the court and law enforcement Right now. There are a number of different programs that are touching the homeless population in our community But they're not well organized or well coordinated in terms of the work that they do and that's our our One of our key goals in this process is to increase Collaboration and communication between these different service providers and groups Second is that we maintain a home focus on the homeless population in the community With a special emphasis on homeless individuals in hot spot areas throughout the county for example the downtown sanacruz area And third we want to maintain and formalize the bob Lee packed court as a specialty court program Fourth we want to support a broader more efficient focus on working with the homeless And design a system that links homeless individuals with the right services at the right time Including court involved individuals who have repeated contacts with law enforcement Next i'm going to turn it over to pam who's going to walk us through the proposed hopes model Thank you for this opportunity to explain the work done by the clinical committee The sanacruz homeless outreach proactive engagement and services team This would shift is eric has said the name of the team to From packed to hopes and it really reflects the broader view that we want to take with this particular population That it doesn't require an individual to be involved in the criminal justice system to get access to services But rather by virtue of the fact that they're homeless and need any kind of service they would be eligible for participation So the first step in the process is we want to kind of create a one-stop Arrangement for referrals for individuals that are homeless so as eric mentioned a business could make a phone call to The the hopes team to make a referral the downtown outreach workers that are already in the downtown would be making Referrals are the county's mobile emergency response team the mert team who comes downtown regularly to do assessments for individuals They could make referrals. There really is no wrong door for making referral to the team And The initial thing for some of these referrals would be there could be immediate crisis response So if a call comes in and there's an individual in distress As we do now we would be deploying our mobile emergency response team But the mobile emergency response team after they have dealt with the crisis Now has a group of people to wrap around this individual to get them to the next step So as they go to this next step the next step really is about assessment outreach and engagement of the individuals Many of the individuals are well known to all the systems. That's already been pointed out Health services sees them through various parts of our department Homeless persons health project may be providing medical care our mobile emergency response team may be seeing them in a mental health crisis Substance use disorder services may have had experience with them in a treatment facility But the current system is as we've discussed somewhat siloed and we're padding different parts of the elephant And so what we're saying with this model is we want a wraparound comprehensive model where we form a multidisciplinary team of these existing resources So this is how we're leveraging existing resources Take this to a broader approach And that um, we're doing an assessment and we're looking at the person's mental health issues We're looking at their health issues. We're looking at their substance use disorder issues We're looking at whether or not they're benefited Some years ago. I worked down at the homeless persons health project actually running a mental health program down there We had a very large generous state grant And one of the things that I learned wasn't just having all the money But it was really being able to approach the individual with their basic needs What do they need today and forming that relationship and engaging that rapport They may be more willing to have their medical need met today But that relationship and the wraparound services will move them towards the substance use disorder treatment that we want to get them to So that's a key part of the outreach outreach and engagement process The other thing is there are evidence-based practices in terms of using outreach and engagement One of them is the stages of change for people with substance use disorders, you know Is this person kind of are they pre contemplative now? They even thought about maybe Recovery from drugs and alcohol or are they thinking about it their life has taken a bad turn and they're not really excited about it Or they're absolutely committed They've hit bottom and they're ready to take the step And so we would do we would use assessment tools and engage the people around those structures and be able to Bring people along through the process very much in a harm reduction approach Um, we would also be assessing treatment readiness. As I said someone might be ready for Counseling and mental health care, but they're not quite ready to deal with their addiction yet So we would be constantly assessing treatment In addition, um, we would be engaging support We um support to get these difficult people into treatment By continuing to engage We know with a lot of these people in pack has had this experience that some of these people are extremely reticent to any kind of service Or any kind of change And so one of the things that we want to do is not turn our back on those individuals when we have failed to engage them in a program once twice And times they need to constantly be involved in that engagement process we need to be working And so how that's going to be accomplished is really through the hopes Discipline multidisciplinary team. And so the members of the hopes discipline multidisciplinary team are going to be the homeless persons health project mental health services through behavioral health substance use disorder services the veteran advocate located over the veteran service office They have their own set of issues with homeless veterans. They will be part of this downtown outreach We're going to be wrapping these services and the meeting that would be taking place two or three times a week would be inclusive Of all of those disciplines and we would be talking about these individuals that we're engaging So if we're talking about a particular individual And the homeless persons health project has made some progress on a health issue And they're a little more stable at the time for the other members of the team to try to engage them in the other services um, and So the the core of the work will happen through this hopes multidisciplinary team once the person is Stabilized once we have them engaged in services once we feel like we're ready to Pass them off to another service delivery system. There's essentially four service delivery systems that the person Engage in one would be people who have mild to moderate mental health conditions substance use disorder, but are not court involved Okay, those people potentially would be eligible for our integrated behavioral health program Down at the health the county health clinic where we have mental health services health services But additionally with our drug medical they would be eligible for substance use disorder services The next category would be kind of the same mild to moderate mental health conditions a substance use disorder But they are involved in the criminal justice system. They have picked up some nuisance crimes They have been charged with crimes misdemeanors And that would be the basically the pac court the department two court That would be providing kind of that oversight in the criminal justice system to incentivize people getting into treatment The next category are individuals with severe mental illnesses. Those are the individuals that qualify for specialty mental health through behavioral health They have mild to severe substance use disorders So these are people with pretty serious co-occurring disorders that are non court involved That would be through county behavioral health services as well as our substance use disorder service provision area And finally those individuals that have a specialty mental health diagnosis substance use disorder And have gotten involved in the criminal justice system They would continue to be served through our most program that some of you are familiar with and our behavioral health court So those are really the three steps to treatment under the hopes model Yeah So really overall what we're trying to do is is fold a prior Packed program into a broader system of care Leveraging additional resources Increasing the numbers of clients that we serve and establish a new packed specialty court It remains a focus on priority cases, particularly those that did not fit into the previous packed model Now we're both investing or proposing to invest a considerable amount of funds into this new program We've had a significant investment over the last several years in the packed program and the DAP program before that And we felt it was very important to be able to articulate A clear set of outcomes so that we can further evaluate the effectiveness of the program And make changes over time to continue to improve the program So what we've proposed is a set of actually there's 28 different outcomes In these five different global domain areas We have a set of system level outcomes health related outcomes Individualized outcome measures criminal justice outcomes and then finally community outcomes to measure the impact on the community What we're proposing to do next if this advances and moves forward is that we will take that list of the 28 proposed measures And we will narrow them down into which ones we consider to be key priority ones to measure And make sure that we have the data available to be able to track and report on those over time Our next steps is to again finalize those outcomes and reporting domains We're proposing to launch the multidisciplinary team meetings the hopes meetings in march And begin recruiting for positions in january With that i'm going to turn it back over to tina Thank you very much And so i have a few more slides for the council per agenda and then We could open up for any questions if that's acceptable All right, so um you just heard it more in depth about how the hopes team would work particularly how behavioral health would reorganize Its care to move forward and and how packed fits within that So Eric just went over this a bit to reiterate the next steps if the council has approval Of this model is that we would begin that evaluation indicator and goal setting work We you heard an aspiration to serve more clients And so putting some goals and setting some parameters around that would have to happen As well as working sifting through that list of 28 indicators and looking at their measurability and How that data wants to be collected and reported back And that is proposed to happen within the packed executive committee with the two council member appointments And with the motion you took earlier this afternoon, I believe that would be mayor terraces No Act yeah for the pact i'm trying to make it's actual it's actual councilmember chase and councilmember neroyan Thank you councilmember chase councilmember neroyan would be part of that process going forward as well as the board would have elected representatives or elected representatives from the board Another component is also operationalizing the program What we're presenting to you is a higher level conceptual program But there's a lot to work out in the details how you heard about the the massive collaboration across a lot of entities and people So how is everyone fit into this new model? How do we establish roles and responsibilities and coordination and other protocols? So that will be some work And then from there would be launching the program tracking those indicators and reporting back on an annual basis as being proposed So there is a sufficient length of time With which to collect and analyze data. So I also wanted to go over the packed budget I know this was a topic of your conversation back in july So I put in this slide a table so you can see the city's direct contribution Over time so back in fiscal year 14 this launched again in april. It was a partial fiscal year So the city put in about 39 000 for that year The next year fiscal year 15 the budget was about 200 000 and that was an entire fiscal year I also noted in the notes column is that this is plus sip There was a sip contribution on top of this but sip was kind of to the side even though there was commonality of clients and even discussion and some coordination and The sip contribution was about 75 000. It dropped down to 65 000. I think in f y 16 So in f y 16 there was an increase to the budget to three about 300 000 And that was motivated by an interest in the county as well as in the city council to Think about geographic expansion Before this it was very focused right on the downtown area and there are other needs in our city sound lorenzo park Other part you saw the intensity map from susie earlier There are some other hotspot areas in our city as well as the county had interest in some hotspot areas across the county Such as up in a felton covered bridge park. I believe was an area some places in livo. Am I getting that right? Another thing too is this council requested that there was a shift for the project manager That's the p.m. To become a city position. So that position came over Here as and became an official city position So in f y 2017 The council authorized really a status quo budget. I know it says 363 And that was due in part to some re characterization of budget We were spending anyway So we were spending some money to support some of the paralegal services through our city attorney's contract And that was coming from a separate set of money. Um, so when we did the budget that year We said let's re characterize that because it's actually money coming out of the city. That is a direct cost um 363 and then for f y 18 the current fiscal year we're in When we came to you during budget hearings back in may a very long time ago We had put forth a placeholder suggested that and the council approved that to put in $300,000 for packed and sip And the reason why was we were involved in that evaluation It had just come out in late march early april Which was about a month before year in budget hearings the packed committee the technical work groups hadn't had a chance to Really assess and say where do what's the redesign going to look like? Where are we going to go? But there was a there'd been a strong commitment from this the city and the council for this program So it made sense to instill a placeholder and I will note that actually the current year budget Had a net reduction overall because there wasn't a separate pot set aside for sip It was just 300 thousand dollars a flat contribution. So it already is Under what we paid out last year And so next I I just have two more slides The fiscal I know uh the fiscal impact of approval, you know, this is a significant issue This council has been grappling with a budget reduction to the current fiscal year. It's it's a tight fiscal time And so I wanted to talk about kind of what has been happening with the program and it's it's cost and what can what could happen going forward So in july with the adoption of that placeholder budget There's also a decision that we would close packed to new entrants meaning that the the outreach drawing new people into the program to start to To get adjudicated and go straight through the program would be suspended until it could be determined what to do However, people who are midstream who already had been entered into the packed program who are in their treatment and their accountability programs It didn't feel right for anyone to pull the rug from underneath them and to stop that. So we have had People I think it was 10 maybe down to four now or so Yeah that four who who've been Working through their programs and by attrition that the program's been declining But I know there are at least about four as of um a couple weeks ago So there has been some costs that have been incurred because we are a part of that that partnership in helping those individuals And the second bullet is the timing of the hopes packed redesign will launch wheel drive costs as we just heard from eric There's an intention for march So if you think about you're looking at a whole fiscal year at three hundred thousand dollars if we're now starting in march And our fiscal year ends at the end of june that's it's a much shorter timeline So the overall fiscal impact in this budget year We don't know it but it's expected to be much much less than three hundred thousand dollars We would work on that we would report back And then the question is as well Then how do we fund that in a time where we were making cuts councils making reductions We're concerned about our reserves and what we're suggesting giving The likely smallest amount of this no longer multi hundreds of thousands of dollars But smaller than that and also just the timing the fact that Budget hearings will be upon us in just a few very few months for next year is if council approves this What we would do is just have the general the general fund balance do a short term funding of it And whatever that amount is we would cover that carry that over into our deficit for f y 19 We would resolve it within the bigger context of the budget So that's what we're proposing and that means we're not proposing cuts you make today to offset this Which as I know some of the decisions that have been facing you in the past few months So then a final slide I just want to recap the recommendation as you see this is this history as Is very deeply rooted in the city. We were a very strong motivator for its creation We've been very involved from staff financially to coordination Our PD has been very involved a city attorney's office. It has been something We've been very much in partnership with the county and the superior court and the district attorney on And we do recommend that the council accept these these redesigned recommendations And direct us to go forward working on the evaluation and also to fund it for the rest of this fiscal year Um, but I do want to point out something as you see the second bullet point on this slide is that In taking this action, I I would hope there could be a discussion and a conscious Acceptance that they're you're signing on for a longer term commitment to this program because it wouldn't it would be Deleterious to approve this Today have it get on board on march have it be defunded three months later And just disappear That would be deleterious to the population of people that we're trying to serve And it would actually really impose a very big burden and cost on the county who as you saw from their presentation Are we organizing or adding positions in someone in reliance of the partnership with the city of santa cruz And in fact the county board of supervisors in their action on december 12th said they would accept this condition upon city funding So I think the county's interested in partnership But we would have to consider this as signing on to a continued commitment Defining this program at least through fiscal year 19 the amount of which we would come back and talk to you about But I imagine it would be substantial And so with that I will conclude my presentation Thank you for your patience and for listening and we're happy to answer any questions But before we start opening up to questions, you know First of all, I'd like to just say that I thought the agenda report was outstanding and the presentation was excellent In terms of providing the context for these changes I mean we didn't have this before and I think it provides us a really good kind of framework for where Packed was and now where it's going. I know that I was on the council at the time I think I'm the only council member that was on when we had the public safety committee And also went through the recommendations that went forward to develop the DAP You know that first was the downtown 100 in the DAP and now the pack And I can tell you that the pack program if you look at the results from the also excellent CSUMB report I mean was successful and we saw a really good success in terms of the reduction in citations in the downtown And we saw good opportunities for treatment. And so really kind of moving forward It's really kind of about what are the types of outcomes we want And I think perhaps maybe just in the effort because we're at 5 15 right now And we still have oral communications. Maybe I'll open it up to public comment and then bring it back for questions and take action that way So if you don't mind, I'll take that step You want to introduce the pack team that's here before we jump into that? I'll let you I'll let you introduce them real quick. So as Tina mentioned, even though we have stop ringing and new new clients We do have an existing caseload and there is a small team Of pack staff that meet weekly to discuss court cases and discuss clients So I know they're going to hate me for this but given Cynthia Matthews request Ray and Jen and mark would you mind coming up and introducing yourselves and giving the Giving the council a little bit of background on your uh, look at that. Look at that glare Come on just just because there is a time constraint. Yeah, and and they may have individual comments as well Good afternoon. Ray and he managed Um, currently working with county of Santa Cruz health service agency. I began working with packed Um, when it became downtown accountability program I was the first case manager and helped develop that case management protocol for the pack program and then transitioned over to the sip program Continue to work side by side with packed up until well even now Thank you Good afternoon, I'm Jennifer Pasquini. I'm the packed paralegal out of the city attorney's office and I've been with packs since April 2014 Hi, I'm Katie Bayetta. I am actually the court clinician I am a new position from an innovation grant For the court that now in criminal court We have a licensed clinical social worker that is supporting and doing assessments and screenings To ensure that people are getting their needs met and so I'm a new addition to the pack team But I used to work into the community. I was the clinical director of jannis And so from the provider side have been working with pack on a different capacity And I am excited to kind of take that experience and kind of move it into The criminal justice and really supporting within the court system to Ensure we're doing the appropriate assessments and also appropriate level of care for the people who need it the most Members my name is mark briscoe. I'm a deputy public defender for the county of santa cruz And I'm not technically a staff member of pack Volunteer got drag gooned into this by judge denine guy He told me to put my mouth to put my actions where my mouth was arguing for years for alternative services With counsel's permission. I have about a minute of things. I'd like to say go ahead if I could do that real quick This program is a unicorn and I mean that in the most positive sense You got to understand something when I got pulled into this. I was not a supporter of this program You have to understand what my role is as a deputy public defender My job is zealous advocacy for my clients and it's a short term thing So we are in a situation often where I have clients in the box in custody and they've got three options Option one is take a plea deal right now. You'll be out in a week You know the jail doesn't want to keep people in custody Option two you can stick around you're looking for services stick around six weeks to 12 weeks We'll find you a bed. You'll stay in custody, but you can get your county bed or option three Read work in this program and it's been dramatically successful. Oh, it's all I can say I've been here for 11 years I was in san francisco for four years prior to that We never had a program like this. I worked on an ad hoc committee in alameda county and set up a program like this Save the county 45 million And that was in reducing when there was a global look at total things including ambulance use and ER use So I am very much on board to with this program right now And I speak not just for myself, but for the entire defense bar when I say This is one of those weird situations. It's I was just commenting earlier to katie. It's a little bit like Uh winter 1916 in the verdun forest where at christmas that germans and british got out of their trenches and sang christmas carols together It's an adversarial system I am I work with my counterpart at the district attorney's office gretchen brock and it feels like that Most of the time we're at loggerheads and this program is something we all agree on highly successful highly effective And I hope it's something that uh, you agree to continue to support. Thank you. That's quite a visual, sir Yeah, that is So that closes out the presentation portion of it. Um, is there any member of the public that would like to speak to this item? Please step right up There's three four of you come right up over here start line up on the right hand side. Um, mr. Silva Mayor david um city council david metton silva Um, I saw the beginning of this presentation in bed at home and then I had to come down here Uh, I really am really I'm quite quite impressed with it. I I would Don't want to put any sour grapes, but I would say that we we have to be cautious When something uh is sounds too ideal I start wondering how my how idealistic it is You know if we're just really fooling ourselves too much I could see that, you know, it's nice to see positive results And I've lost a lot of money betting on people that I could turn the round just by giving them some money And there's a lot of things that you guys are doing that really need to be done I I question um those hot spots If those since there's a large number of homeless people that are included in this I question If those hot spots are a reflection of um survival Survival behavior that that's criminalized If there's any survival that behavior is criminalized I would recommend of course that you wouldn't target that and it sounds from everybody I've heard talking in this program There were since they'd be sensitive to that if somebody needs drug help they need drug help But they don't need drug help then they don't need drug help Thank you next speaker, please Next speaker, please Step right up Hello, I just want to say that this looks like a really good program with some alternatives to what we were doing before And uh, you know, what we really need to do is Take people that are otherwise labeled as uh Is outcasts drug users and give them better programs for dealing with the problem. Um Well, that's about it. Thanks Thank you next speaker Evening counsel love the the big screens and or when I watch the Super Bowl this year um Pact that that sounds more serious than not clicking on uh Use your license agreement on software. Um I I guess I I feel like 360 000 last year Uh, I think you can come up with a solution for this for you know, uh, uh, a fifth of that If you look at have you looked at like the number of students that are getting like uh, uh, Posted up here on campus. How many of them want to be social workers in the future? Why don't you just Do like some kind of buddy system, you know, like hook them up with some of these people downtown Who have the you know, whatever persistent issues. I I went to uh, um Uh, it was a civic engagement uh conference at stanford last year uh for aspiring physicians and um You know some of the programs they had up there. I mean, I mean, you know, if you just you know, I don't know just like Pulled from that playbook. You could you could really, uh, you know use some of the energy you have with with the university um to uh, you know very at a very low cost deal with some of these social problems We have in the downtown. I feel like there's very very very little civic engagement. Um On the part of ucse students Um The accordion buses are kind of cool though the new new buses they have. Um, so maybe that'll you know, I mean, uh, That'll reduce some of the tension. You know, I experience as a bus rider getting to the west side. Um, anyhow, thanks very much. Um, Yeah, it's uh Packed packed is kind of a bobbly was a great guy. Um, jerry christensen uh thought very highly of him It's interesting that you've named the program after him Thank you next speaker, please Sir, uh, my name is damon brooder. Um, I spent a lot of time on the streets of santa cruz. Uh, as an addict and homeless I'm not a prison. I've been fortunate to pull myself out of that with a lot of help from, uh, Judge calcy back in the day A lot of a lot of support from the community. Um From what I understand packed is a very successful Uh, uh program I like the fact that it has the incentive the carrot out there. Um either do this or suffer the consequences I like the fact that it has the consequences that follow through if it wasn't for me going to prison If it wasn't for me going to jail multiple times, I wouldn't have had any incentive to turn my life around I think it's very important that there be There'd be consequences and accountability for your behaviors whether you're using or not Um From what I've heard tonight I really like the idea of the the hopes program But I do not think it should replace the packed program. It seems like It should be a separate program all on its own and the packed program should continue As it's going it's succeeding. It's having success. It's working. Why change it? Why? Why throw out a broader focus? Try and get more clients I didn't understand the terminology that was used a broader net getting getting a tighter focus kind of thing All right. I sort of lost my my place there I think that packed is working Of course it needs changes. They always we always need to change for uh as we learn about things I'm I'm here as a a concerned citizen to let myself be available to the council If there's any questions that they would have of a person from my perspective from someone that's been on the streets Someone that's been addicted in and out of prison someone someone that's been successful with the programs that are offered Thank you. Thank you, sir. Um, who else would like to speak on this item? Okay, please step forward. Okay, this you'll be the last speaker on this item Um, how much time are we given given on this can I said two minutes? I believe that's what's on the clock Can I request an extra minute? No, sir. You can request it, but um, I'm going to request it Uh, I'm representing the uh, Brant's 40 community district um, and um We support this project um, it's a long time due and uh We heard earlier that live oak was mentioned and Brant's of 40 is in between that Uh, there's a lot of focus on here in town, but the issue is that Uh, when they're asked to leave San Lorenzo river, they of course go up Brant's of 40 creek and the la viega park And to the Brant's of 40, uh neighborhoods Uh, so so, um, we feel that in this consideration That our Brant's of 40 town be considered in this process equally equally And what I mean by equally for an example when the parks You work with the parks regarding the parks rangers Uh, the rangers are here in town, but not in the Brant's 40 area when we only have one officer that that represents us in the Brant's 40 Uh, district We like to make some, um important, um recommendations One is regarding the, um Call ins from the community and businesses Just like you have here. We have uh, we have homeless sleeping in the front of the doors and the businesses It's quite intimidating for the owners or the employee that comes to open up the business And sleeping on the sidewalk in front of businesses that kind of stuff It would be good something a process to where This program assists, uh local businesses and residents. Thank you, sir One other thing you're willing to provide you if you'd like you can submit your comments and writing to us and we'll hand those out I need to I need to close the public. Sure. I just want to put one more comment That's it. This is a bargain for 300,000 if you pay this this commission Okay, 300,000 to improve a golf course Restaurant that uh, if you're willing to do that for a restaurant 300,000 is a bargain for this process. Thank you You're welcome. That closes the public comment period. Um for this item Um, let me just ask because it is like five 29. Is there anyone here who's uh, Would like to speak at oral communications? Okay, if you don't mind, I'd like to just uh Complete this item and then we can uh, we can hear your oral communications then Thank you for your your patience. We're Um, not too long Thank you for your patience. Okay, so let's bring it back to the floor if there's any questions We'll um, we'll um, take it from there and hear if there's a motion council member norion. I have a process question So the recommendations that were presented to us from cs umb If we vote on the proposal tonight, are we saying we agree with those recommendations? Or are those recommendations going to be fleshed out by the executive committee and then brought back Thank you for that question. Um, the The recommendations that came out of the report were the subject of study by those three technical working groups And each of the working groups came back to the path to the executive committee with a certain set of recommendations Based upon them to operationalize the program like for instance, the housing group said Bring on some housing case managers and find some stability beds at some place So people who are immediately homeless can be placed. So some of those were already integrated but um, But by approving this program, you're not accepting or validating those recommendations You're validating this conceptual remodel of the hopes team with the pact still embedded Knowing that many of that will have to be determined as part of the next step Just to follow up. So the executive committee will have the opportunity for instance to look at the 180 day Recommendation in regards to whether that should be shortened or kept the same That we're not setting that in stone tonight No, and the criminal justice work group Did not actually when they came back did not actually Affirm or recommend changing the 180 day sentence rule, which again is not a hard and fast rule for everyone It is a kind of a guideline and maybe susie can fill in more But it's not like that was the iron cloud rule It was a way that was used but the da and the public defender really iron that out with the judge as well So the criminal justice group didn't come back and directly opine on that particular number of days What they did recommend is Looking into probations. I think it's a response grid the Thank you graduated response grid Which is a way to look at the severity of the violation and the risk of the individual and based upon that table You can come up with what's a better response. Is it flash incarceration right now? Like what's going to be the best Tool rather than a one size fits all so to answer your question I think that there would have to be more talk and conversation around that if the council wants to register a policy perspective on that That is certainly something that we could accept and take back and work with the clinicians in the criminal justice group Okay, and so that I just wanted to make it clear that we're voting for the redesign process not necessarily This the the specific recommendations. I just that has to be made really clear The other thing I wanted to mention just a few policy issues I I would question the 180 days because I believe this is a program that needs a carrot and a stick It needs both and so and the judges are already using their discretion Not everyone automatically gets 180 days, but I think it's a tool that should still be available for the judges The other thing I'm really concerned about is funding going forward I support the city putting this funding forth But is both the county and the city have to look at budget shortfalls because of pension liabilities And rising health care costs I think it's really important that we actually really need the county's help on this because they have more access To these types of grants than we do as a city One looking at can can some more pass through money be transferred to this And two looking at other grants looking at foundations and I really really hope that we get prop 47 money this time That was a really huge blow because I think this is funding and this program is specifically goes to prop 47 goals So, um, I'm hoping that there's there. There'll be a much more vigorous Look at how to get funding for this because I don't want to see us fund this and then find out G we have to defund it after a year because of of upcoming budget Shortfalls that we know of so, um, I also just really run a stress. Mr. Bruder mentioned it We received a wonderful letter from Sharon Dijon. I think we really do need the Recovering addicts voice at the table, especially somebody like mr. Bruder who actually Survived on our streets as an addict and has been very successful at being a recovering addict And I think he has a perspective that a lot of us maybe only have You know in a more technical or academic sort of way We don't we didn't live that life. And so I'm really hoping that We we also consider having that voice at the table as we are revising this program Thank you No, I just want to Get to the vote. Thank you vice mayor Watkins I'll just I don't necessarily have questions. I just have a few comments, but I'll keep them short in the interest of time I just want to thank staff for the presentation. It was really helpful Coming in sort of mid a program to understand the history and then also understand where we're going to be Going in the next year I want to thank our county partners for spending their afternoon with us and also sharing their perspective and and helping us better understand Just their work that they've done to help inform this new redesign. I frankly think it sounds fantastic I think somebody who works in prevention It's really important to think about how we can prevent some of these things prior to them actually entering our system And I really appreciate that aspect of the redesign Um, I have specific just questions that I can definitely talk to you offline about in terms of just general specific interests around like data sharing and Other things that I get excited about but aren't necessarily necessary at this moment Um, I also want to acknowledge what stood out to me in the agenda report was Really clearly identifying that homelessness and basic needs were not met and how how that feeds and fuels um Long-term success and change and viability of a of a person Um, I appreciate the opportunity to leverage services and I think it's a really great Model and a way to look at what we're already providing and how we can work together Internally and externally to identify where and who offers what and how that can best feed and fuel What is necessary for the individuals going through the program? um, I'm just interested in and um Understanding the long kind of ongoing evaluation of the program How do we track and and I know it's sort of elusive to try to identify how to track some of those social outcomes But I think it's so important to understand as mentioned in an earlier slide that there are things that aren't financially necessarily tracked but do have a huge impact on our community and I Know a line with what our work plan is for the next two years in terms of just inclusive community and well-being and and And it's hard to to monitor that in data, but it's important to acknowledge and and fill in the role as well as just cost benefit I think you know understanding where you know, there are obviously it's hard to identify And I am And track what you didn't what you prevented from happening, right? And so how do we do the best we can to identify those cost savings for prevention? Um, but I'll leave it at that and I'll talk to you more about some of my member chase I just want to really recognize the work that went into bringing this report here to us tonight I've been on the packed committee for as a council member for the last three years and have been really involved in The evaluation process and kind of how we've looked at this and Was baffled at the decision that was made in the council meeting I wasn't here to defund the program given we knew this report was coming back with such extensive work put into it to redesign it and really be responsive to The needs that we actually have in the community I'm in full support of the hopes model that was presented to us tonight and will support the recommendation and also want to acknowledge that The redesign really is taking into consideration what we as a council have been making a priority This redesign is meeting directly three of the 20 homelessness coordinating committee recommendations Directly and in addition to that is probably addressing at least three or four other ones So this is clearly targeting a need that we have seen in the city and as a council have made as a priority So i'm just really grateful for the presentation tonight. We've been looking forward to it And knew it was coming for a while I'm happy that we are able to have so many folks who actually work directly on this here tonight And i'm happy to continue to be a part of the committee that serves with pat unpacked And I am in support of the motion that's before us There's no motion right now But the recommendation and the motion that I believe is forthcoming Okay council member matthews Which I am happy to make So I will move the recommendation before us which basically has four parts accepting the um Partnership redesign recommendations and process directing staff to work with the pact executive committee Including council members To finalize the evaluation and outcome indicators To restore the pact funding for 2018 and to make a continued commitment For the coming year as well as others have said I think this speaks Strongly to council and community priorities It's a major investment. I cannot say How much I appreciate the the intention that the county has brought to really looking at this is not A turnaround or Leaving behind and doing something it's an evolution and we committed to An experiment and an evaluation and an improvement When this was launched and More than ever. I think we do have the potential for a really meaningful collaboration and Improvement of a model from our partnership with the county and the courts and And all the other players Only to mention that In business people always talk about Continuous improvement continuous improvement and this is one of the government doesn't always do it But I think this is an example where he said we have a really gnarly Hard problem to deal with and let's let's take a crack at it and continue to try and make it better So that's what I see this effort as having done. I think I really want to thank the staff also for the quality of this report There are council members who haven't been involved in it and it Maybe it seems abstract or expensive or whatever And this really gave context and numbers and background And so I think that obviously was very helpful and going forward I think it would be helpful for the pact committee to report Regularly even if it's not finite and I think maybe that was one of the problems because I know Several times in the council feedbacks. I would say we're meeting and we're having good working meetings, but What does that mean? You know, it was true but So even to the extent that a sense of Progress and achievements can be conveyed that will be helpful to other council members who aren't there and also Um Rachelle mentioned seeking other funding or pass through Maybe that doesn't come to the city per se, but to the extent that the county Is many departments are Able to bring in additional funds or resources to the extent that they enhance this program I think we will want to know about that as well. So Those are just my comments. I'm so happy to see this come to us in this form Did I hear you say that you made a motion also? I did make it. Okay. Good. Okay. There's a motion by council member Matthew second by council member chase council member crone. Do you have any comments? Yeah, thanks. Um, Thank you to all the folks from the county who came and presented I really appreciated your your comments and helped hammer home some of the things I am new around the council And haven't been a part of this longer term process uh, I support most of the things that are in the That were presented to us and and I think it does get at the at the issues that we're trying to get at Um, I do have a just a question on the motion that was made In december on december 6th. How does that motion? How does that change this and I notice are we Are we backing away from the $15,000 for legal services that that were approved that that day too? Not at all So i'm looking at 7.2. Is that right? This is pretty much we're going along with that Uh, I'm sorry 7.2. Is that a page number page number from the minutes 33 to 39? $15,000 won't be touched. It will still be available Could you go through the motion that we made on on december 6? How is this motion different than that motion? It's in our minutes. All right, and I'm sorry. I don't have the minutes in front of me So I think I think that let me just say that because I was there And I think that what we did was we um supported the funding of the $15,000 and we used these resources to fill Kind of the the budget discrepancy. What we're saying now is if with approval of this it'll carry over to the full budget to Identify uh resources to to pay for this. So we're going to have a broader budget discussion to look at this It's not coming from uh surplus funds at this time, but we are going to We're going to we're going to look at the the broader budget to fund this if there is approval right now And the 15,000 says for uh f y 19 instead of 18. Is that different? Well, I think that this is going to start in um March or april is what we're talking about. So it's going to go out a little longer Essentially we we're using the the the consistent approach with what the council did uh last time, which is whatever Gap remained uh, you did you know you made some ads And then there were some items that didn't completely cover the deficit and so that gap Uh, what are the net differences the way we're going to treat that is we're going to temporarily Borrow from reserves from reserves and then we'll address it in the context of next year's budget. So You know, that's just the way we're treating the whole the whole thing. So this is consistent with that. It's just uh adding this number to it now And and then we'll make that adjustment. We're going to be doing a mid-year budget update to you Um actually in february So we're coming back to you pretty soon and you'll see the The numbers and the latest but also i'm happy to sort of sit down and go through it with you So we are preserving the first law and patrols the existing youth team trail and camp cleanups loud Nelson activities. Yes Thanks I'll bring it back here and say that you know one i want to recognize the success of the pack program I thought we saw some tremendous benefits from that work and the coordination and know that from the cs umb report There's opportunities to kind of reform that in a way that we can look at how we can maintain those same successful Results in our city because we've seen that if you look at the results two percent of those people that Counted for about 10 of all of our citations in the city We saw that we saw an overall reduction of citations by about five percent that really benefited our city in terms of Freeing up resources to address other things So I think it's really important to me as far as how we look at our outcomes moving forward and how we identify What are measurements of success? Um, I think that having this presentation which we didn't have the benefit of last time Helps to see the direction you're going to see how you coordinate the services in ways that address What has been a challenging situation for our city? And I think we want to continue to work with the county to identify those opportunities for further improvement So that we can work in a way that leads to results And I think for me as we start to look at this moving forward Having I think it was in the county action. You're going to bring back details regarding the The program changes back to the march board of supervisors meeting I'd like to make sure that our council also received those same changes And then as we look at sort of measurements We look at reporting systems that are consistent with how we had in the past with PAC Where we actually saw what those issues were who were enrolled and kind of I want to make sure that our City employees have a role in kind of making sure they can identify these these individuals as you mentioned Through the improved collaboration that we'd have Local law enforcement and the courts help coordinate those in ways maybe that we can improve on what we've been doing So that we can make sure that we're not decreasing the kind of attention to And the results that we've seen in the past those are things that I really want to see moving forward I'm thankful very thankful that we're looking at moving this forward I'm thankful for this presentation because I thought it really kind of addressed the questions I had because it was really open-ended as far as when we had a successful model where we're going to go to next So I look forward to hearing back from the committee to see Where those results are and how we can kind of improve this collaboration moving forward I want to say that our downtown really needs this attention We need to make sure we're focused on the downtown and some of the areas of the city and It's important that as we start to look at these programs that we really kind of are mindful of the direct impacts that people have And the individuals that are in need of these services so we can make sure that we're creating program that that builds on our past successes so That standpoint i'm going to support this motion and Ask that you know as we start to move forward that we bring back, you know these updates on a regular basis So we know where we're going and we have full information Of you know what we're investing in and that it's a commitment and it's a shared commitment And those results that we want to see are ones that we are conscious of and we're fully in agreement with that We're looking to achieve together So on that let's put it to to a vote all those in favor of the motion on the floor Please say aye. Aye. Aye those opposed Passes unanimously. Thank you again. I thought that was an outstanding presentation and I really appreciate that work Okay, now we have oral communication. Thank you for your patience Again skipping an item Um the calendar. Yeah, let's carry the calendar over for tonight Okay, 21. We'll move over to tonight And then so we'll open it up for oral communications Uh, excuse me while you guys exit i'm going to keep talking. Thank you Oral communication is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not listed on today's agenda Um any members of the public who wish to address the council? Again, those are the three here Please line up to the right and you will have Two minutes to speak. Okay, there's four of you. So these are speakers tonight. Nathaniel if you'd start Yeah, I do. Thank you Hello, i'm natalex dot kennedy gmail.com also, uh, three four six nine eight eight eight if you ever want to get a hold of me Uh, the big thing I want to talk about tonight is that yes money does not grow on trees It grows on hemp And not only that it's worth more than gold um One of the big things I think the city needs to do is start up a seed bank keep seeds of all different plants And especially with hemp we need to uh make it so people don't have to go to the black market when they want to grow their six allotted plants Also along those same lines I think it's important that we let people grow as much as they they want to maybe limit that to industrial use Which is a quarter of a percent THC instead of what often people are using that's like 25 percent The difference of a hundred to one Also, I think that the city itself should be Open up areas where the city is growing hemp. I think that's really important and uh Have it so that uh, like I remember back in 1996 when medical marijuana first came to be that uh The city of san francisco started growing their own just so that there wouldn't be a problem with supply um Gosh, I've just got so much. I've been thinking of it. But now that i'm on the clock. It's hard to remember everything um another thing with the the Uh Just the medical marijuana distribution being able to finally legally sell to everybody. Well, I think what we need to do is have the uh Okay, that's it. I'm not extent. Thank you next speaker, please Uh, don't uh, thank that kiddle santa cruz I have a sign here. Uh, oh we aren't on tv are we? um Okay, fine Hey, could you face us mr. Kittle, please mr. Kettle. This is basically We really need to be talking about this and uh, you guys wait till i'm done talking and then act like you've never had an opportunity To speak for yourselves, which is kind of silly since Who has a better opportunity to speak than the city council? At any rate, you can badmouth me after i'm done and I can't respond for now. I'm just going to point out that Um, there is overwhelming evidence that israel was primarily responsible for doing 9 11 Uh, that has a serious bearing on all of our lives Both internationally nationally regionally and statewide and locally has a huge bearing You guys are ice scrapping for funds How many people really know that obama gave a little over a year ago? He gave israel 38 billion dollars 38 billion with the b on top of everything else we do for israel that maybe was a Hey, uh mayor, if you don't mind listening My ears were still open. Uh, okay. I guess you can multitask, huh? so israel basically Owns our politicians nobody gets elected Unless they are seen favorably by the israel lobby and We're about to go to war with iran and Trump's doing everything he can with the israel lobby to stir that up. I encourage people Bolin calm bolin calm. Look it up. Thank you next speaker. Please mr. Mittensilva Mayor city council david mittensilva Um lately it's it's been kind of nice to have homeless people come up to me and say What are you talking about david here? Would you put on pause for a second? Um, sir, would you keep the sign down below? Please? It's just we it's as a rule we keep signs below please Please it's editing my comment. All right. Thank you, sir So to hear hear back from uh, so many homeless people. Oh david, you know, what are you worried about? You know sleeping bands are not being enforced. There's no more. There is no more sleeping band I keep hearing there is no more sleeping band. So that's really really great. I'm here to celebrate unfortunately It's still a law on the books You know, we still have the rolling fast to repeal the sleeping band going on one person each day Fast and calls you guys and let you know that they're fast and repeal the sleeping bond real real simple Kind of protests is better than me fasting and killing myself like I tried to last year. So um, it's it's Something I hope it'll take care of real soon because this is the best time to get rid of a law That's obsolete and and no longer in use and to begin to think of using it means that you're beginning to think of doing something wrong It's because it's a morally it's a morally improper law. We don't need to have it on the books anymore I hope that when I get back from Mozambique March 5th, you'll have it all taken care of for me Thank you very much. Thank you next speaker. Please add a bit of a cold. So it's hard for me Okay, sometimes A few things I want to talk about um Uh First, uh, I was noticing how to crepe it uh seabright beach is getting um for a long time You know, I was very disappointed when the walkway out to the point Was uh pulled up and I don't know how long ago that happened. Um, but actually down on the beach itself. Um Well right now, I guess it's probably loaded up with driftwood. Um, C cliff was very recently. So I'm just assuming but um In terms of the fire rings the fire rings are just absolutely pathetic compared to how they were in the past um, if you want as a comparison if you want to go up to, um Uh shamanod Uh behind the pool, there's a little, um grassy area with a single fire ring that's really deluxe It's as large as this area here. Um nice wide, uh thing to sit on and place, you know, your picnic items You know, it's just the right height. So anyways, that's um, that's my suggestion for seabright and get all the the showers and the in the in the water working and And spruce things up make it nice. I know it's uh the stake, but you know, you guys can write them a letter the other thing I talked with, um An administrator of the stem center at the community college about an idea for like a circular intersection another one in the city She's a huge fan of of the circular intersection. So it was kind of preaching to the choir, but um, moracy Uh moracy is you know, I think something in the future the city should look at as as for a circular intersection I think it would actually be kind of amazing. Um, my third thing I want to talk about was Uh, so the development down here in the benchlands this, uh, I mean, I've just heard called that recently But the the the encampment and all the tents if we had had flooding in these recent storms, uh, you know, that would be A just a god-awful mess a huge amount of cleanup But the main thing um to think about um first and foremost would have been like an emergency plan Like involving the red cross seeing if we could open the civic Um evacuation Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You know, um christin are you about ready to get up? Maybe if we can have five minutes before the sixth that closes the oral communications for the evening Let's see if we can if there's if you'd like to do item 21 now So we don't need to carry that over in regards to the uh council calendar um Everyone knows we have um next uh next week. We have our um advisory body meetings. You have that on your calendar It interviews uh, it's a meeting and um Anything else any questions on the calendar council member matthews? Um, I didn't see here the feedback from our committee assignments Feedback usually go around and we talk about you know what I do and um, that was something I had spoken with a few other council members Is that's on the agenda? Um, I'm going to carry that over every other meeting So we're not doing it every meeting And I think that's one way where we can ensure that at least if you have a meeting that month You can get it at some point. So we're not calling it out as an agenda item and that's in the interest of time savings Yeah, so that's why it's not on there, but thank you for noticing Um, so see no other Comments on the calendar will uh adjourn until the 7 p.m. Uh session Or adjourned Call the meeting to order A roll call Council member. It's crone You're so funny matthews is currently absent Chase Brown is absent norion here Vice mayor Watkins here and mayor terrapin here Good evening everyone. Welcome to our 7 p.m. Session of the january 9th 2018 meeting of the city council I'd like to um welcome everyone here and also go on to um the only item we have on our agenda Which is a public hearing uh number one Um regarding noble drive. So i'll turn it over to the presenters To begin Evening mayor and council members lee butler the planning director and i'll just do a brief introduction this evening We have a wireless communication facility that is proposed in the public right away off of um, noble drive and um We uh typically have these um at the planning commission and this particular item was appealed the Planning commission's approval was appealed to the city council And um, we have our city attorney here with us heather She provided a um a great series of um federal and um state Criteria that frame the city's ability for what it can and cannot regulate She provided that presentation to the planning commission and it was really great background information So we've invited her here today to also um present a portion of that information to the council And to the community here in advance of the staff's presentation on the item itself. And so Heather will provide that introduction in advance of mike ferry our senior planner introducing the project itself Good evening Heather lehnhardt americ council members, so i'm just going to do a really brief primer overview. Um, try to not take too much time But if folks end up having questions, i'm happy to answer any questions So what we'll do is just do a um an overview. There's a complex web of laws federal and state And so we're going to go over generally the federal legal framework some of state laws at issue and then the bounds of local authority So when it comes to the federal legal framework, you can just go ahead and click it all the way so that it's the full Um, the primary federal statute is the telecommunications act of 1996 um, and in particular sections 47 usc section 253 Which preamps local and state regulations that prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the ability of an entity to provide telecommunication services But also protects nondiscriminatory right-of-way management and compensation And then section 332 of the telecommunications act that generally preserves local zoning authority, but imposes some substantive and procedural limitations There's also what's commonly referred to as the spectrum act. It's the middle class tax relief act codified codified in 47 usc 1455 it's also referred to as section 6409a that deals with insubstantial Colocations or modifications of existing facilities and there have been seminars Um entirely devoted to that section. So because it's not relevant to the appeal I'm not going to dive into that but wanted to keep that on your on your radar and then to round out the federal legal framework There are FCC regulations and decisions that interpret those federal statutes When it comes to the telecommunications act Congress sought to promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure lower prices and higher quality services For american telecommunications consumers and encourage rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies On the other hand congress also sought to preserve the authority of state and local governments over zoning and land use matters Except in limited circumstances And so section 332 c7 is the section that preserves the local zoning authority So it provides that accept is provided in this paragraph nothing in this act the telecommunications act Shall limit or affect the authority of a state or local government or instrumentality thereof over decisions regarding the placement construction and modification of personal wireless services facilities Now section 332 c7 sets forth Several limitations on what a locality may and may not do Locality may not regulate siting or deny an application of a wireless facility based on radio frequency emissions If the facility satisfies FCC rules and we'll go into this a little bit more in the presentation A locality also shall not unreasonably discriminate among providers of functionally equivalent services Now what this means is that zoning rules and permit approvals can't discriminate between similar technologies or facilities That are similarly situated in terms of structure placement or cumulative impact An aggrieved provider would have to show that the discrimination was in fact unreasonable some discrimination among providers of functionally equivalent services is allowed But the discrimination needs to be reasonable So one piece to keep in mind is that discrimination based on traditional bases of zoning regulations such as preserving the character of the neighborhood and avoiding aesthetic blight Are reasonable and therefore permissible A locality also Shall not prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the provision of personal wireless services And a locality also must act on and then those are the substantive limitations. The last two here are the Procedural limitations that a locality must act on a request within a reasonable period of time After the request is filed with the locality and these are what you've probably commonly referred to as the shot clocks There's particular time frames within which the agency has to take final action on an application depending on the nature of that application And the locality must make a final decision to deny in writing and supported by substantial evidence contained in the record So section 3 3 2 c 7 b 4 Sets forth the limitation on rf emissions that no state or local government or instrumentality May regulate the placement construction and modification of personal wireless services facilities on the basis of the environmental effects Of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with FCC's regulations concerning such emissions The agency may Regulate if the facility doesn't comply with those FCC standards Now the telecommunication act also mandates that the regulation of the placement construction and modifications of personal wireless facilities By a state or locality shall not prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the provision of wireless services So what does that mean? It's several things that you can't outright ban the provision of wireless services You can't effectively prohibit the provision of such services For example imposing restrictions that would amount to a ban And you cannot prevent a service provider from closing a significant gap in its service coverage So a local agency may violate the telecommunication act's effective prohibition clause if it prevents a wireless provider from closing a significant gap in its service coverage To make this determination the courts have adopted a two prong test Requiring the showing of a significant gap in service coverage and some inquiry into the feasibility of alternative facilities or site locations The significant gap prong is satisfied where the provider is prevented from filling the significant gap in its own service coverage And the feasibility prong is evaluated under the least intrusive means standard Which requires that the provider show that the manner in which it proposes to fill the gap is least intrusive on the values that the denial sought to serve So what is a significant gap? It's this is really a very fact in context specific inquiry There's no bright line rule, but some of the factors considered are up on the slide Such as whether the gap affected a significant commuter highway whether the facilities are needed to improve just weak signals or fill a complete void Whether it poses a public safety risk things of that nature So once the provider establishes the existence of a significant gap Then the provider has to show that the manner in which it proposes to fill that gap Is the least intrusive on the values the denial sought to serve This really this hinges on the availability and technological feasibility of alternative sites The applicant has to make a prima facie showing of an effective prohibition And demonstrate that it's made good faith effort to identify and evaluate less intrusive alternatives Now the city isn't compelled to accept the provider's representations But to but in order to reject them the city has to show potentially available and technologically feasible alternatives And then the provider would have to have an opportunity to dispute the availability and feasibility of those city favored alternatives Now shifting over to the california laws There's um, there's several laws dealing with two general buckets the public right of way and um facilities on private property The california public utilities code section 7901 that deals with the right of way management Then there's government code section 658 50.6 and 659 64 Those provisions deal with particular types of co-locations and also impose some limitations on what types of conditions of approval A city may impose on a wireless application And then government code section 659 64.1, which was enacted via ab 57 fairly recently That imposed a deemed grant remedy So section 6901 grants certain rights to telecommunication companies, but those rights aren't absolute Section 7901 provides telecom Companies with a right to construct wireless facilities in such manner and at such points as not to incommode the public use of the road or highway And then section 7901 point one provides that municipalities have the right to exercise reasonable control as the time place and manner in which roads highways and waterways are accessed So all in all section 7901 and 7901 point one Don't grant the telephone companies unlimited rights to install their equipment within the right of way The the right of the telephone companies to construct their facilities in public rights of way is not absolute this this These two sections specifically contemplate potential conflicts between the rights of telephone companies to install facilities in the public rights of way And the rights of cities to regulate local matters such as the location of the poles and wires And section government code section 659 64.1 This was enacted via ab 57 This created a new deemed grant or automatic approval remedy for new and substantially changed wireless facilities So a local government must approve or deny an application within the applicable federal shot clocks And those those shot clocks are For co-locations And substantial modifications to existing facilities. That's a 90 days from submittal of the application And then for new facilities the shot clock is 150 days from submittal of the application So the application would be deemed approved if the city fails to approve or disapprove the application within that applicable shot clock Accounting for tolling The the shot clock may be told via a couple mechanisms a mutual agreement with the provider with the applicant Or going through the process of an incomplete application and providing the requisite notice And there's a complex set of rules dealing with those incomplete applications Then the applicant also has to provide all required public notices required Regarding the application before the deem it would be deemed approved And then finally the applicant would have to provide notice to the city that the reasonable period is lapsed and that the application is Going to be deemed approved. So other than imposing this deemed grant or automatic approval remedy This government code section doesn't limit or affect the authority Of the city or county over decisions regarding placement construction and modification of wireless facilities. It just imposed that remedy So now look taking those and looking at what are the bounds of local authority Considering this federal and state framework There's the like I mentioned earlier. There's those two buckets the regulation of private property That's where you're dealing with zoning looking at the location height setbacks and appearance and then right of way management That's where you have the time place and manner regulations, which can include aesthetic considerations neighborhood character So some limitations on discretion First the agency may not reject an application if the agency does so based on rf emissions Where the evidence shows that the proposed facility will meet federal standards But here again the agency may deny an application if the facility does not comply with FCC standards And you also will have conditions of approval That indicate that the facility has to continue to comply with FCC standards and document that That compliance Some additional limitations on discretion that the agency may not reject an application if The rejection would implement a ban effectively constituted Constituted ban or create a significant gap in the provider service as we discussed a little bit earlier If the rejection would constitute an unreasonable discrimination among providers of functional equivalent services Again looking at those that are similarly situated But that not all discrimination is unreasonable that discrimination based on traditional bases of zoning regulation Such as preserving neighborhood character avoiding aesthetic blight. Those are reasonable and therefore permissible And also an agency may not reject an application if it qualifies as an eligible facility's request This is a if it's an insubstantial change modification or change under that section 6409 framework agency also may not Unlimited unreasonably limit the duration of the permit for the wireless facility So limits of less than 10 years are presumed unreasonable And the agency may not require the wireless facility to be limited to sites owned by just particular parties And you may not require an escrow deposit for the removal of wireless facility But a bond or some other form of of surety is okay as long as it's rationally related to the removal costs Now what may you do the agency may impose detailed application requirements that are reasonably related to a review of the project There are some restrictions for section 6409 applications where they're But otherwise, uh, there's I won't go into but um, otherwise you can you can require a detailed application Require public hearings on the application require approval or review by the planning commission exercising discretionary decision making Again, this is all subject to those shot clocks making sure that the final action is taken within that reasonable time frame Um, the agency may also impose requirements to meet aesthetic concerns and impose facility maintenance standards Now some permissible bases for the decision are aesthetics requiring visual impact studies screening and other types of camouflage Issues dealing with community character neighborhood character historic considerations Environment such as slope stability soil erosion and things of that nature hydrology as well as generally accepted building and safety codes ensuring compliance and conformance with those The public right of way some permissible time place and manner rules No unreasonable interference with the public's use of the right of way Discretionary permitting is allowed You can also require insurance bonding and indemnity requirements may be imposed And require compliance with building and safety codes And there's also you are allowed to have aesthetic considerations So some typical provisions to protect aesthetics are listed up there Screening and camouflaging landscaping when it's appropriate noise and lighting limits Discouraging new poles Preferring undergrounding of equipment where feasible And encouraging preferred locations And I know that was a speedy primer on the wireless legal framework, but I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have So it's I'm sorry you think that's a bit more right Is when people say community character in this case, what would be a legal definition of of Character or is that as um subjective as I think it is it's very subjective And you're looking at the particular neighborhood that you're operating within in the specific considerations I mean ocean views Sometimes there's a particular components of Of a neighborhood But it is very subjective. Okay. Thank you specific Any questions council member chrome What Talk about the shot clock thing again If Say we ask Them to find another place or to do something different or change The layout of the box that's going to be on the median What where's the shot clock in With that with the relationship to that if we ask for changes tonight All right, and I understand from looking through the material that the the shot clock expires tomorrow Is that correct? Right. So final action Needs to be taken by tomorrow. Um, and that that final action is either a denial or approval With conditions imposed Yeah, right there there is the I mean and this is based on whether or not the parties come to mutual agreement There is the possibility of tolling the shot clock That would need to be the mutual agreement with the applicant in the city What is tolling the shot clock mean extending it? Yes, so you can you can essentially Agree via an agreement a letter agreement is what we've used in the past Saying that both parties agree to extend the shot clock to some date certain in the future And that's permissible to essentially stop the clock as of that day and and put it on pause and Find that it won't expire until the date that the parties agree to the issue of a significant gap Is that exists right now? Is that why that this is being placed in this particular neighborhood? Um, my and I can let mike and the the staff Comment on that, but I I believe that that that that they identified a significant gap Um, have we turned down any cell phone towers? In the last five years or so Have we denied application? Not applications. Yes. There have been applications denied. We've recommended denial of some denied I've got some slides to show you that'll respond to that question Thank you mayor. Okay. Thank you. So I just have one quick question And that is how does the appeal process factor into the shot clock, you know time period I mean, is it something where even when an appeal that the do the timelines remain constant? The appeal is included so it's kind of an all-in so the appeal has to be completed within the applicable shot clock Okay So I could see that being something in the future that we'd need to look at in terms of I'm just timing as we start to look at these types of applications Yes, especially when it comes to those that have the shorter shot clock the 60 day 90 day Okay, so I mean we're still part of the staff presentation So I don't see any more questions from the council and let me just repeat that This is the sole item on our agenda to public hearing and so what we'll do is we'll have the continuation of the staff present their report Then the appellant will have 15 minutes to speak and present evidence in support of their appeal And then opponents or or the responding applicant will have 15 minutes to speak and present evidence And then we'll have public comment Um, and then after that the appellant will have five minutes to rebut the public comment And then in the end, um, we'll return to the council for deliberation and action And for those that were counting it's a six part process and we're still in part one So I'll turn it back over to staff to continue their presentation Thanks, uh mike ferry with the planning. Uh, good evening So This is a new type of animal. We've been dealing with it about two years. It's called a distributed antenna system and it's a Smaller variety than what we're used to which is the large monopoles that are usually constructed in commercial or industrial areas So these are have been designed to fit into residential neighborhoods because the demand in residential neighborhoods has increased in the last seven or eight years because everybody's using cell phones cell phones so as the the capacity is Limited and the coverage is limited This new system Has been designed and we've seen them for about two years now So our current zoning ordinance didn't anticipate this and We're treating it just like we treat a commercial project If it's a monopole, which these are even if it's on a light standard It requires an administrative use permit and a design permit If it exceeds the height limitation of the zone district that it that it's in and in this particular case The height district is the height limitations 30 feet If it exceeds that then they have to get a special use permit approved by the planning commission specifically for telecommunication polls that exceed the height limitation of the zone district So that's where we are with these sites Planning commission reviewed this as well as three other sites and I've got some slides and they unanimously recommended approval of Three of them. They did recommend that the applicant look for another site On a location on high street that was adjacent to the Meadow the ucsc meadow and kind of close to the historic barn And the applicant did find an alternative site directly across the street on the south side of high street And the planning commission heard that. I think it was december 21st and approved that location um So let me show you the slides Excuse me. Is that an alternative to the one we're talking about the high street one? It could be either there or the this neighborhood. No No, the high street one When it first came to us was located on the north side of high street right about here And that affected the view of this meadow and the historic barn that's right at bay and high And the planning commission continued that item asked them to look for an alternative site they looked at three additional sites And because of the coverage they were after which is generally in that area The best site that they found was directly across the street So these were the four locations that the planning commission heard These three were approved and this is the one that was appealed that we're hearing tonight So when these applications first came to us These next three or four slides are examples of what was presented to us all of the equipment was going to be placed on the pole itself In this uh, you can see the PG&E meter a shut-off box Switching equipment Same type of equipment located on here a meter switching boxes the uh rru's they call it radio remote units And then on this one, there's a like an outrigger arm coming off of the pole with the antenna on it Other example with all the equipment on the pole and outrigger arms with the antennas Kind of hanging out over the street This is a great example of a really bad looking one. Um, I believe these were all from the city of san francisco So when we first got applications submitted, um, they didn't look like this But all of the equipment was on the pole and it was a different, um carrier And it was a different, uh consulting firm that presented those to us And we sort of argued back and forth for several months that uh, this wasn't Something that we could recommend approval of and they said it was impossible to not have all of the equipment on the box And so we wrote a staff report and uh, with a recommendation to deny in the day before the hearing they withdrew And um, they eventually just went away Um, a new consulting firm has come on board and they've come up with designs that meet what we currently have Which is a design like this. So this is the the unit that we're looking at today the appeal It's a city, uh Standard light, um pole you can kind of see the lights right there They're going to remove that pole and replace it with a new pole that's engineered and designed to carry the loads They'll put the antenna on the top They'll run the cables inside of the pole and then underground to the equipment cabinet, which will be located in a vault It's a subterranean vault So it won't be visible The only thing that will be visible, um, and this is an ongoing, um Problem with pg and e they won't allow their meter to be under grounded. They either want it bolted to the pole or in this great case they agreed to let it be A pedestal meter So it's a pg and e meter on a pedestal. It's about 18 inches square. It's about three and a half to four feet tall So as I said the height limitation in this zone district is 30 feet the existing Top of the pole was 31 9 And the proposed replacement pole with the antenna on top to the top of the antenna is 35 feet nine inches So that requires the special use permit approved by the planning commission This is the location. It's an immediate Um, when they first presented the proposal to us the cabinet wasn't vaulted. It was on the ground It's about four feet tall and it's about yaoi and about four feet deep and public works, um required that it be vaulted so that it didn't cause a sight distance problem for cars And this is a photo simulation of what it will look like. This is the existing street light standards And this is the new one with the equipment and vaulted underground and you can kind of see the pg and e meter So the coverage mapping that they provided looked at these sites these are all either approved or All been approved with discretionary permits And they'll either be under construction or they have already started construction This is the study area that they're looking at to increase the coverage And all of those Many sites or da das sites Traveled to a main hub and in this circumstance the main hub is off of mission street And it's behind one of those old brussel sprout packing plants and it's a big Monopole with an antenna array and there's I think two different carriers on that So this is the coverage maps Green is good coverage yellow is poor coverage and Red is no coverage and there's two different bandwidth. This is the 700 megahertz band So all of this yellow is poor coverage See any no coverages. So this is with this is the the existing coverage The existing plus the proposed With all of those nodes installed and operating you can see the Increase green all around that improves the coverage for this entire location These units that are proposed That's the 700 megahertz band in the 21 megahertz band and both of these bands combined provide self-service One moment Councilmember crown I sense you you want to ask something. Okay, so maybe we can we'll go through whole questions until after okay, okay um So this is the existing coverage and as you can see it's either no coverage or very poor coverage and then again with those das units installed it increases the Good coverage in these areas and Those from no coverage to poor coverage in these areas that's the Gap analysis they also included an alternatives analysis and one of the alternatives was to place a standalone poll on the opposite side of the landscape island public works doesn't want just Random polls going up, you know if they're carrying antennas they prefer to have a city polls Replaced and have the antenna on top of that just to keep the clutter out of the neighborhood So I'll kind of quickly go over the appeal issues. I I think the staff report Touched on all of those pretty thoroughly The health issue. We did have an rf analysis done all of these Applications will require a rf analysis a radio frequency analysis. It's done by a licensed engineer in the state of california in this particular one They they model these facilities Based on the highest power densities that the unit could operate at if it was operating at 100 percent and the the model predicts that The rf exposure on the ground would be 0.82 percent less than 1 percent of what the federal government allows and seven percent What the federal government allows to the Next adjacent closest building We also require that Because this is a modeling exercise. We require that they come back 30 days or within 45 days after the installation has been installed and fired up and been operating and they physically go out And measure the site to make sure that it's operating in conformance and they all come back with measurements that are Very close to what they're predicting The other issue was proof of the necessity and that was the Coverage mapping that I just showed you That's the other appeal issue There was a safety and hazards issue and public works and the building department both review and approve these plans when they come in for an encroachment Permit public works department make sure that the polls engineer to carry the loads Wind loads all that stuff. It's installed under the direction of public works and it's inspected by The building department and the public works department Prior to finally in the permit Noise was an issue and we did ask for a sound study on the One of these items not this specific one, but we did ask for one that was up on Western Drive and that study They had to hold a hair dryer to get the fans to come on a hot hair dryer It's triggered with a thermostat and Got thick walls. It's insulated. They don't expect it to to require that kind of Cooling but with the fans going It was if you were 35 feet away At all of our noise requirements and I think the closest house to This one is 70 feet away Invasion of privacy was an issue in the appeal letter and the applicant testified that The machine would be maintained once a year and it would take a little bit less than an hour and other than an emergency like a Tree falling on it or something like that. That's that's what you could expect for maintenance So in the general plan I or in the staff report I list a lot of the general plan policies that encourage us to support telecommunication facilities I think the applicants shown that this facility will provide coverage where they're currently lax coverage There won't be visual impacts to the residential neighborhoods and the rf exposure levels are well within what the fcc allows I Did get Only one phone call on this Since the appeal was filed and that was today from somebody that was generally concerned with rf emissions and health I did also receive And you folks received that additional letter from the applicant's attorney It was like 18 or 20 pages or something And So that's the only additional communication that I've had on this so staffs recommending that the city council deny the appeal Uphold the planning commission's acknowledgment of the environmental determination An approval of the administrative use permit the special use permit and the design permit Based on the findings listed in the draft resolution and the conditions of approval that are attached as exhibit a Thank you, mike You know at this point i'll um ask now the appellate will have 15 minutes to speak and present evidence in support of their appeal But we'll set the timer when you're ready You ready? Okay, good evening. Thank you very much. My name is xiao wei chun. I'm a professor of chemistry at ucsc I'm here on behalf of the no bare neighborhood To request to ask the city council to revoke the approval by the planning commission on this project Or the seven tenor owned on bare price This petition was also cosigned by 43 neighbors their name are shown on the screen right here they account for They account for 40 more than 90 percent of the households They account for more than 90 percent of the household in the closed proximities Or the proposed side of this antenna is shown the map right here So we list seven reasons in the petitions saying I'll give for our case that this antenna is not needed Reason number one. There's no proof that this antenna is necessary When you look at our neighbor is already currently fully covered by four major wireless carriers Including Verizon as shown on these covers maps. These are downloaded from their official website from the company I just did it this morning. Okay Check the gang. Let's look at something And so I don't see any need for the new antenna at this point in our neighborhood So the cities will simply reject the application right away because of the city ordinance saying that why this kind of communication Should not be allowed in a foreign district including for example single family residents and multiple family residents And to a bare minimum the city's request horizon to do To provide evidence that there's a significant gap in coverage They included these two figures right here at the show mic that show a moment ago And this kind of country this is very confusing There's a lot of contradiction with the what the coverage makes shown on the company website Third party assessment is is needed to do this kind of assessment at this point Reason number two the proposed antenna poses serious safety of her head just to the density population neighborhood Town council has a history of Self-tower collapse in the past as you shown the screen back in 2013 There's a tower collapse in st. Louis and causing damage to nearby buildings How was owned by count council? This is the thing that we know From the documents this antenna going to be mounted this antenna is 42 pounds It's got a mounted on top of the light pole 30 feet above ground Okay So we are in an earthquake we're living in the earthquake countries So in a severe weather conditions or an earthquake this thing could fall off And damaging private nearby property or hurting people nearby In addition this location nearby they have been flooding Happening In multiple times in recent years And I just realized that actually this thing is not really about this thing. I don't know this is more dangerous in this case I'm going to show the picture right here in the next slide Okay, this is the picture I took this morning This is the picture I took this morning So there's a drain very close to this light pole and when you have a drain meaning this lowest point in the neighborhood So during the rainy day all the water will accumulate to this point and go into the sewage system And personally when you look at the right hand side, this drain could be black Fallen leaves And create water accumulation in this area actually in fact last year we had a lot of water had a lot of heavy rain days And the water level actually even reached the garage door in my house At that water level the the cabinet would be immersed in water This would create an extremely dangerous situation where somebody could be killed Simply by walking into the water See the planning commission arguing that well this thing will be done the construction will be done by by qualified professionals it will be Unfortunately, we're not leave. We're not leaving in a perfect world Real world accidents do happen and they will happen Number three the variation of network properties due to the erection of the cell phone antennas In fact, this has been manifested in a number of situations. For example in a lawsuit 1996 in the lawsuit against new york power authority Had been reported in mainstream medium. For example in new york times back in 2010 And also academic research publicly for example in the article published in 2005 In the pleasure of juneau saying that the the property could be varied But up to 20 percent are next to emf facilities cell phone facilities The planning commission argued that we cannot use this Referred to this city ordinance section to argue for this diversion process We respectfully disagree. We look at there were a copy this thing right here Okay, that the legation contained hearing are designed to protect and promote public safety community welfare and the athletic quality of the cities and We understand this thing is a community welfare to include the protection of of property value Notice that the part the the planning at the planning commission also acknowledged that the court The courts appear to recognize property values as a potentially legitimate consideration in regulating the siding of wireless facilities And I think there's a very very strong legal precedence in this regard In region number four the noise pollution In fact, noise level was several antennae harms and on site maintenance had been cited repeatedly As reasons to keep these cell phone towers out of this thing so area so The planning commission did as I might say he did they dig a study and management noise level at the corner of Costco terrace and high streets A toxic spot every single day on my way Public is heavy and noisy significance person to this is meaningless After a very noisy environment, he said the last thing seemed to contain that what that means. There's no number involved What's the decibel in case in this case More noise will be generated when the wireless remember the the wireless container will require access to maintenance 24 hours a day 365 days a year and the maintenance typically down at night It will bring trucks with a lot of stuff or a little lifts radios lights And these single propagates along all directions They will impact the neighborhood immediately and this impact will be more significant during summer night Only have our windows open So the noise pollution is real. It's not fake Therefore this commercial activity should not be allowed in the less than so neighborhood number five is invasion of personal privacy We look at this picture right here. Okay. This is a picture This the proposed antenna site and this is the house next to it And you can see the only way the only thing separating the house the back room from the antenna is a glass window Big bags this summer sitting on top Doing the repairing work on the antenna to easy to see through the back room in the next door on the neighborhood In addition when they're doing emergency repair They don't have advanced notice and that means the bathroom were exposed to the work at any time of the day Number six is the visual nuisance and obstruction of view We have been living in this neighborhood for 14 years my wife and two kids We pay top dollars for this house because there's a nice open view on the second floor With this antenna sitting on top right here the antenna is four feet tall You will be eyesore to my house properties It will devaluate my house as well And this is another thing that with a with the antenna next to the house You're going to create problems to have a negative impact or the property evaluate Number seven is about the radiations In the application they incur a lot of numbers Okay, but it failed to incur the situation where in the different during peak uses of the cellular services The back room on the second floor might be exposed To a radiation that might exist the profit or exposure limit In addition in the calculation that not taking into account the baseline radiation level coming from existing Services existing antenna existing towers in the neighborhood, okay In addition The calculation based upon nominal data sheet coming from the antenna manufacturers And we know that in real case To real any any real antenna always have deviation from this nominal data And that means the real in the real situation the radiation coming from the antenna could be existing The public exposure limit Yes, in other words, there's no the application is not taking into account the worst case scenario in the calculations So because of this series Because of these serious issues we hear about respectfully request the city council to revoke the approval of this project cp 17 0091 At least moving to a location that's safe for the for the neighborhood Okay, actually indeed the city has the authorities to do so and look at section 24 12 14 15 The city may impose such conditions as it deems appropriate or necessary to further the purposes of this chapter including but not limited to requiring the redesign or the location of I say that they talk about two different alternatives one is basically this few step away from the existing the proposed side The other one kind of they argue that too far away from the location. I don't see any loss now Are having these two alternative sides They are plenty in between these two points when you look at the map. I think we're all smart We will put our smart minds together. We should be able to find a spot That's good for everybody. They will make everybody happy Finally, I recognize in the section 24 12 14 25 It says the wireless telecommunication facilities are prohibited within 1000 feet of any public elementary school I interpret this as a measure to protect our children We have a lot of children. We have a lot of the large number of school children living in the neighborhood including two of my own They should be protected too Understand the city will receive $1500 a year or by for lease or one streetlight I do believe the well-being of the citizens the well-being of our children is worth far more than $1500 a year This the main reason this only reason I'm here tonight To do everything I can to protect my family to protect my child And I hope we do the same thing as well Thank you very much Thank you, sir At this point opponents or the responding applicant will have 15 minutes to speak and present evidence. Is there someone? From the responding applicant that will plans to speak now Good evening, mr. Mayor members of the city council. Thank you for your time Michael shana felt a legal counsel for crown castle. I'm here to present sort of an overview although it's hard to Really improve upon the city attorney's presentation and that of mike fairy. They did a very thorough job But I would like to sort of maybe highlight some of the things that are very important that you should We think you should keep in consideration for this application I also want to Tell you that we have a pretty good team here of resources if you have specific questions Being a lawyer i'm probably not going to be the best one to talk about technical things or engineering Or radio frequency, but we have a team here who can speak to the significant gap in some technical detail We have a team here or an individual here who can speak with respect to health effects While we understand the federal law precludes those from consideration We also understand that the community has concerns and we would like to be able to address them anyway um One of the things that the city attorney discussed were a list of what federal law is is is Doing with respect to the level of discretion that local boards like you local Uh government can have over applications like these Some of the some of the limitations imposed also by state government But one of the things I think that really needs to be understood sort of at a higher levels Why these are why these uh constraints are in place? Why is this not a normal situation like for instance a regular land use case regular c up case it's because This is telecommunications Technology for the 21st century. This is going to be replacing land lines Uh very soon as a matter of fact as my letter of december 22nd 2017 makes clear Uh these facilities um now provide Uh telecommunications basic telecommunication services for um over 50 percent of households in the nation That number is increasing by the month Uh so that this is the sole basis the sole uh source of infrastructure for just basic Telephone telephone communications Now as the uh years progress we will we'll see probably land lines fall by the wayside completely Without these facilities there will be no telecommunications service and that goes to basic 911 calls And these wireless devices Make up 75 percent at over 75 percent of the 911 calls that are that are connected Um throughout the nation so it's not just a factor of of communications and basic You know Technology from that perspective, but it's also health safety and welfare being able to have a robust and reliable Telecommunications network so that 911 calls can be at adequately addressed Um on that front too Um that's why the telecommunications act the federal law has put some prescriptions on local control That act was signed in 1996. That's when the telephone companies were deregulated We used to have incumbent carriers before that 18 t etc. And it was kind of they always went to public works to put in their polls Now there's a deregulation and uh the polls and lines are going away. They're being replaced by these So this is critical infrastructure. This is critical infrastructure like your sewage water or any other kind of critical infrastructure And that's what crown castle deploys. So it needs to be thought of in that way and for that reason the state legislature itself even urged Local governments to remember that these are not just a matter of municipal concern, but also statewide concern and there's a quote in my Right from the legislative declarations of government code Section 65964.1, which was very recently enacted and I will just read it It says quote the legislature finds and declares that a wireless telecommunications facility has a significant and economic impact in california And is not a municipal affair as that term is used in section five Article six of the california constitution, but as a matter of statewide concern So essentially the federal law is designed to keep networks from stopping at the border of for instance one state Robust for instance a robust network being built in one state and then the adjacent state maybe has tougher Strictures or regulations and you've got a patchwork quilt of a network nationwide And in the state with respect to the state of california state legislature They don't want that happening on a city-wide basis where for instance you've got Pasadena Has a great network, but it ends at the border of alhambra or something of that nature. So the local Control is important as the city attorney pointed out, but it also has some constraints and that's This is why would they these constraints are in place as for this particular facility We like to use street lights. We and that's to avoid the need to install new vertical infrastructure There was concern many years ago about a proliferation of poles in the public rights of way If every carrier is going to stab a new pole So we looked to existing Poles street lights that are already present so that we're not creating a net increase in in poles This is a pretty nice structure or facility because it's a streamlined canister on top of an existing street light We it is also in the median so it's set sort of buffered away from immediate adjacency next to homes We scouted out this location very thoroughly The constraint that we have here is that das networks distributed antenna networks have fairly small Radiuses that we're they're designed to address. This also goes back to years ago when we used to work on monopole sites That I think Mike fair reference monopoles monopoles and macro towers Frequently I would hear from city councils that they didn't like the size of those facilities They're large looming facilities and the call to us was always make the technology smaller That's what we've been doing and in some 15 years later. This is as small as it gets This is the technology on its cutting edge We don't see the tech. We're not really putting the towers in as much anymore. They're still there But they're not sufficient for addressing 21st century 5g technology communications So We're reducing the size of the poles the networks through this technology This is about as small as I said as you could get and we're also utilizing existing poles so all in all a very Minimally intrusive design and going Around getting outside or moving too far field of this is is very difficult to do because of the small radius that we're trying to address Das networks are kind of like chains and a link Or links in a chain links and chain So each each node is a link in a large chain Whereas macros used to beam over a large area now we fill in the gaps through through the links in a chain and if one link Is not sufficient or robust enough The chain tends to suffer the under the integrity of the network as a whole and this is just one link in that chain again it's a very uh it's We take the concerns of the citizens out here very carefully, but we can't make these disappear We can't make them invisible we where we can we try we put the equipment underground But as for the antennas they have to be line of sight because this is They're broadcasting a signal So we think this is a very good The best at least intrusive means of filling what has been demonstrated to be a significant gap here Both in 700 and in the higher and the other bands Morgan hunt is our radio frequency engineer who can answer specific questions about the significant gap and I've got other members of the team here if you need if you need their Input aside from that. I'm happy to answer any questions you guys have Thank you any questions Council member chrome are there was there a priority list when you came up with this particular site like what was wrong with the others or Was this the only one that would work? Yeah, we we rule out anything that would be more visually intrusive that we would suspect would be More visual that would require for instance the installation of a new pole that might For instance increase an existing pole to a To a significant degree this one didn't Some of the other sites that were outside the search ring against a small search ring because there's a small technology These are low power antennas and they only reach about You know, maybe a couple blocks as far as the radius So anything else that we looked was outside that ring and this was the best location It's again, it's in the middle of the right away an immediate and it's set apart set away from the homes Yes, it's visible But again, if we could make these invisible we would do it. Um, that's just not technologically feasible So this is the least intrusive technologically feasible means of filling that gap that we found and Not to get personal but politics is personal. Um, mr. Chen referenced his line of sight and Fact that he has two kids. Um, would you have no Compunction or any worries about living across from this pole? I I live very close to poles Already, so yeah, they're these are in residential areas And I already live close to them and they are visible. Um, yeah, so that's not a compunction As for concerns about radio frequency health Uh, we you know the science and the data Demonstrate that these are well Significantly below what the FCC has determined to be a threshold, which is already very conservative threshold for health safety These are designed to be Very low power and so no concerns Uh in that area, but we also can speak to that. I don't want to dismiss those concerns out of hand either Thank you an expert for that councilmember chase Could you articulate for me that um held the significant gap was determined? Sure And I think I can try and then I'm so I can set it up But morgan you may want to come up here and and sort of discuss that Matter of fact, I think I'll defer to morgan who is our radio frequency engineer Hello, my name is morgan hunt. I'm an rf engineering manager for crown castle And uh, so yes the uh, sudden The existing coverage map that um mike showed in his presentation uh shows uh, that was determined by Uh, physically measuring the signal drive testing in a car driving the streets In that uh in the coverage target area Which includes uh this particular site um It was physically measured So I guess I'm I was a little confused about some of the maps because some of them showed yellow I I guess I was confused in the series of maps that showed The strength of coverage, so I don't know if you could address that Uh, we're putting those images back up for you. You can see this two different frequency So it's the amount of frequency. Yeah, that's right So there's there's two bands or frequencies of interest that that's being utilized in 700 megahertz band has a different coverage level than 2100 megahertz And there's actually a more existing coverage. So you could see That there's a more there's a more yellow and green than the 2100 where it's Basically not existent in that band right now Did I answer your question that answered my question Just to follow up on that like what what's the difference between poor coverage Equals gap in coverage. Is that I mean is poor coverage coverage or is is gap in coverage? No coverage or poor coverage poor coverage is is adequate for outdoors and on street Good coverage is good indoors provides in good indoor coverage Thank you. That's especially helpful Are there any additional questions? This is our public comment period How many people in the audience wish to speak to this item in the public comment period? You okay, you'll have two minutes if you'd please line over to My left, you're right and we could begin for speaker for speaker You all have two minutes Yes, my name is drew lewis On number three of rules and procedure for conduct city council business It says be honest and truthful. I think it'd be honest and truthful to Mention that these federal law procedures for health concerns Are based on the telecommunications act, which basically is written by the telecommunications industry So that's why they prohibit us from talking about health and safety Concerns because there's been many studies since the 1950s showing serious health adverse effects The many city staff are all good at citing sections of the telecommunications act written by the telecommunications industry And city governments from protecting us all from known radiation You may be protecting your job and benefits, but now we will all You I and our children will suffer and pay dearly when this increased radiation exposure affects the vulnerable population I encourage you to resist Because this our lives depends on it and and I like to mention here Here is a publication by all the corporations that do wireless Verizon his Mentioned to their stockholders and it says I quote we are subject to a significant amount of litigation Which could require us to pay significant damages or settlements our wireless business also faces personal Injury and consumer class action lawsuits relating to alleged health effects of wireless phones or radio frequency Transmitters and class action lawsuits that challenge marketing practices and disclosures Relating to alleged adverse health effects of handheld wireless phones We may incur significant expenses in defending these lawsuits in addition We may be required to pay significant awards and settlements I think this is only the tip of the iceberg that we're looking at this is going to open up like a rotten watermelon. Thank you Thank you, sir If those that are waiting in line as you come up if you'd please sign in as well, sir, if you haven't already and next speaker Thank you for this opportunity to speak My name is Jim Warner. I live on the west side 400 feet from the closest cell tower I work at UCSC, but these opinions are mine I'm also on the leadership team of the central coast broadband consortium A group that promotes installation of all forms of broadband services UCSC has 10 Verizon sites on the campus 13 team mobile sites Six sprint and 11 from AT&T All were installed started starting in 1995 by next g So the university's experience with DAZ is a lot more than two years. It's more like 22 um Now through the the sites were installed by next g and now Through acquisition managed by crown castle as part of my work I review plans for proposed changes in the cellular infrastructure and help resolve problems with coverage I've reviewed the plans to enhance the Santa Cruz coverage And I want to commend the planning officials for their diligence in shepherding this excellent project The one point in the appeal that I wanted to address is that I have a somewhat different view of what a coverage gap is And it's based on the california public utilities commission has standards for what Coverage is either served underserved or unserved and the cpuc Sends guys around in trucks to measure broadband at 2000 locations Every year in the state and generates broadband coverage maps and essentially all of santa cruz is underserved and so the area by By virtue of an expert who is not employed by Verizon is believed to be underserved and that to me says coverage gap So thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Warner Next speaker, please Evening everyone. My name is peter tomson. I work for qualcomm a small company dealing with telecommunications and i'm actually privy to some of the Testing that we've been doing specifically for cell phone towers and for mobile phones And having carried around cell phones for the last 20 years You're actually much more trouble holding your phone right up to your head than you are from the cell phone tower Honestly, there's a lot of nimbyism here and a lot of scare tactics What we need to do is Remember we're in a university town We should be looking at the facts That have been discovered rather than saying. Oh, what may happen? What will happen? No, let's see I mean you guys have done a great job. I've really appreciated it. You've done a good job Investigating the aesthetics of it Honestly, if you saw the trucks that were parked at that house before that picture was taken This is an improvement That's all I got to say. Thank you. Thank you sir next speaker, please Good evening. I'm catherine herndon. I live in santa cruz. I'm sorry. I this is the result of a cold I had Um I just want to say That I support the appellant I do not want to be covered. I don't want coverage No matter how much anybody in this room loves their cell phones It's dangerous It's not okay to Just deny the health and environmental impacts because the corporations wrote the legislation that an ignorant Or paid off congress voted for This is all government. I mean, I'm sorry. This is all corporate propaganda I reject the premise On which they base The need the so-called need for this for this industry Cell towers and cell phones rely Fundamentally on electric power on electricity Telephone lines do not land lines don't need electricity to operate So, you know the idea That you have to have cell phones to have emergency services Is ridiculous and outrageous This is dangerous technology that we Some of us think we do know enough about But a lot of people don't know enough about Please reject This corporate takeover of our public right of way. Thank you. Thank you ma'am next speaker, please It's time. My name is gary curry and I'm a part of I guess, you know the homeless community and I have Filled out a lot of applications using the internet and a lot of times I don't have access to a computer because they're either being used at the library or Can't get to a friend's house. So it's good to have a device On me. It's also good to have internet, you know, as a furniture trying to receive emails or send an email Watch a tutorial video on something that could make me some money Anything I mean, I need strong internet and I can usually only get the internet if I'm at a coffee shop Or if I'm inside the library and it's really frustrating because I'm not always allowed in these places, you know There's a lot of judgment. I look like sometimes I look like people that I'm not and people think I'm someone I'm not and I get kicked out of places all the time and I cannot use the internet because of that. So I understand that there are people who have already, you know progressed in life or who have already made it Have already, you know bought their properties and have their families and don't need to worry about You know using the internet I'm trying to be a part of the corporate world and not be a homeless degenerate like, you know Only wants to make me look So I would prefer if you guys definitely installed something that would make the internet move a lot faster Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please Excuse me, ma'am, would you pause pause for a second? Can you move the microphone so that you're speaking into the microphone? Thank you Can you restart and yes It's not restarting Well, you started we're giving you time from there And so one fact I want to mention is like the area the the furthest area they want to cover is like If I assume it's about a thousand feet and the strength of the radiation in our house Is easily can be 400 to a thousand times stronger than that Covered area where the signal is still strong. So that's just one fact I want to say and what I think there should be some alternative ways to put that in a safe place Which has less impact on people's life and as a mechanical engineer With a phd degree in fracture mechanics What I want to say here is about the safety issue the the health the health hazard Because failure can be an oh no failure Can occur in all designs and structures even with the most strict regulations by federal governments such as aircrafts and we know that the For this proposed structure and the attachment part is a very weak point And my daily work is actually to evaluate the reliability of different kind structures And this structure is very weak and there's potential of a lot of fillers and risks post Because of this design and also like when you when you say you're going to do the inspection by the Structure and all those things. What are you going to ask them to inspect because it's going to be attached to the existing structure Which has a lot of potential issues after After years of usage and the exposure exposure to different kind of environmental conditions such as there could be internal cracks There could be defects. There could be like corrosion and all those things Britain is harness whether it's suitable to be to to have an add on it Thank you, ma'am next speaker Good evening. My name is Dan Aldrich. I live at 101 Donna court I live down about 110 yards from where the cell tower currently would be placed I would like to indicate that I appreciate the work that has been done by the planning commission and others But at the same time, I don't understand. There are multiple sites. There was referenced another site that was out I don't understand where the cap Would be because if you look at the total map The map would suggest that the new site that is being proposed is at the edge rather than more central to that Which is the area in which there was a gap that's there. I don't understand that number one number two Is if you look at Nobel there's an L and there is water collection right at the point Okay of where the water comes down and where you're going to put that new box Okay underground there is going to be water accumulation because I get up there walk up there run up there used to run up there And you will find when there is rain water collection there So you're going to add additional challenges to your siting there if you ever walk there and been there in a ring storm So I thank you for this appeal and I hope that you will consider Denying Thank you. Next speaker Hi, my name is glenn chase. I'm a university professor of environmental economics I'm an expert in environmental toxins. I've taught in eight countries in the world And of course, I've taught here locally. I've taught at the naval postgraduate school and I have extensive background I've been in the laboratory with the EF emf radio wave frequencies all the different words that relate to this As a city council, you can't take my word or people's word even if you believe there's a problem You need A government health department or at least a significant reputable corporation To come out with new information since 1996 the FCC and in other countries where I've taught and lived and Testified I've seen now the balance is changing. They had equivalent FCC's and the courts are standing up against their FCC's Well, better than any individual corporation I have the most relevant industry that exists the insurance industry will no longer ensure Companies that transmit radio wave frequency radiation just on you can google this. It's not a special document, but I will give it to you insurers exclude risk associated with electromagnetic radiation Insurance no longer covers electromagnetic Radiation Lloyds of london excludes liability coverage for harm from rf With this information from the insurance companies who won't cover This company that's here today That now stands up against 20 year old FCC information in countries around the world And if your heart is into doing the right thing I'm not a lawyer, but now you have the impact these people have never been in a laboratory as I have They're just repeating what they've been told So uh I'm going to give this to you can pass it around it also has the FCC doc the securities exchange document Where verizon admits the problem and it has some others, but the main thing is insurance comes So if you let them proceed last finish my statement I'm allowing someone that can't get liability insurance for the product that they're putting on the polls in your city Thank you. If you hand that to the clerk, she'll hand that out to us next next speaker. Please. Thank you Hi, my name is linda pierra I'm A flight attendant with a major carrier for the last 32 years And I vote So I want to actually I second so many of the things that have been said here I should also add that I live at 329 no bell drive just down the street 50 yards from The location of this tower from my second story I will be in the line of sight as well as some of these rf transmissions that are Emitted from that second story. They don't go down to the ground level. They emit from that level where the antenna is But I'd like to offer a little bit of back history on the no bell drive Median strip. Maybe some of you are familiar with this, but maybe some of you are not We bought our house in 99 and within a few years The no bell drive and the woodrow project got underway where we had some trees that were diseased They took them out. They wanted to I mean the median is there to slow down traffic because it's a large street So the idea was to beautify it So back in maybe early 2000s A tree project came along and I was at that meeting back in the early 2000s where we voted on The jacarandas and the cork oaks that were to be put into that project and I spoke with leslie keedy today She confirms that there was 80 000 dollars Allocated for that project. So that happened and they had to Along with george linguist. They had full irrigation put in backflow sprinklers New box-sized trees were Installed woodcloth and a grass a low drought tolerant low maintenance drought tolerant grass which Ended up being ineffective because we had workers come there every two to three months weeding. It was absolutely insanity So the grass got pulled out and four years ago More money was allocated for this project to the tune of 25 000 dollars where they redid the drip system need weed fabric boulders mulch and plants were And and and drought tolerant plants. So my point is I don't understand how this tower and this underground facility with the water Is going to be congruent with the beautification project that has been you can actually Submit your comments if you'd like to put your written comment to hand it, but thank you for your comments next speaker, please Hi, i'm silvia skeppich. I'm a resident of the city of santa cruz on kayuga street What dr. Chase says leaves the liability in in the city's hands if there was ever lawsuits and the lawsuits were not covered Because you guys are complicit in getting this Radiation, but that's not what i'm here to talk about When I first heard miss chen talk about her peak of the ocean being obliterated with this Tower and the moderate rise that is within like limits I thought that is putting her particular property their particular property At a devaluation which is a different scenario than property devaluation from cell towers in general or or das antenna in general So um when a neighbor i'm going to just read because i wrote some notes here When a neighbor needs help either from large corporate entity devaluing their property by Obscuring the only peak of the ocean from their bedroom window as previously stated or for any other reason I consider it my duty as a neighbor to come out and support of them Interestingly the role of government is to look after the rights and protections of the people as well I understand the legal and financial limitations that the city is in with these negotiations However, I ask the city council members to reverse Your historical stance and waving in the telecommunications companies and denying the people When they have a specific need There is such a thing as the letter of the law All parties involved in these negotiations are well aware of the legalities and the the stipulations But part of the legalities is you cannot devalue a particular property with something that the telecommunications does And their peak of the ocean being completely changed Is is by the letter of the law not legal if they decided if you if they decided to create a lawsuit over that It's my opinion based on my consultations with people who bring things to litigation that they would win Those are my main points. Another thing is that the reason why the telecommunications cell is so big I cannot get a landline on kayuga street. It is not supported And I can't use a cell phone either. So my parkinson's dad, I have my phone off that night I can't hear if they call from the hospital. Thank you, ma'am Sir, you're our last speaker Okay, ma'am. You're our last speaker. So you can begin Yes, hi, uh bruce tanner I think that we're facing A literal holocaust from the effects of the microwave technology in particular The effects of it are going to be increasing Geometrically over time the council for castle crown castle mentioned that They're interested in putting up 5g technology 5g technology The top frequency is 90 gigahertz. That's 90 billion cycles a second. There is no precedent for the exposure Of living organisms to this kind of radiation We don't know what it is and none of the frequencies have ever been tested by the industry The industry has created a situation where there is Just a general concession to the ongoing march of this technology 15 years ago nobody had a smartphone and somehow we managed to struggle on but now When they talk about the gaps they're talking about Gaps in extreme wide band speeds for these mobile devices for video and things like that Do we need this? Is is there a cost benefit tradeoff for this? When they turned on 4g technology around the world There were many people who were literally incapacitated the day that that was turned on They have done testing on people who are electrosensitive and on people who are not And they've found that the people who are not electrosensitive have exactly the identical biological responses that the electrosensitive people do The effects of emf radiation are cumulative. They build up Toxic in the system and they eventually overcome people Thank you, sir Miss Garrett you're our last speaker I was gonna say I want to encourage other people who came and haven't spoken to Speak the main problem here is the corporate power Stranglehold over any semblance of democracy And here we have the telecommunications industry Who portray themselves as gods to bring us coverage? We never communicated, you know Before the telecom industry came here with their microwave radiation Our ancestors didn't communicate. We didn't talk to each other until I mean, it's really ludicrous You have been given this before Neurobehavior symptoms near cell towers. I'm not I can give you another copy in here. Also, it shows how the bird deaths Mortality around cell towers is in the the millions Each year and much of it is not just from crashing into the towers It's from the radio frequency radiation. You have that document. You have the fact that the FCC Violates their limitations All the time and I want to also leave you with a copy of the former county health officer Dr. Nam Khan who did a report on health risks associated with smart meters and other technologies And she says and also I resent that you give everyone two minutes instead of three minutes Probably had thousands of hours with the telecom industry all the time In summary, there is no scientific data to determine if there is a safe radio frequency level Regarding its non thermal effects the question for government agencies is that given the existence of existing and potential harm Should we err on the side of safety and take the precautionary avoidance measures? You're the only one who can protect us from involuntary toxic exposure. Thank you. Thank you That that closes the public comment period of the hearing We'll now turn to the period where the appellant will have five minutes to rebut And just let me note that the appellant can rebut but cannot bring up anything not mentioned by either the public or the opponent during this period Do you understand? You can rebut during this period But you cannot bring up anything that was not mentioned by the public and or the opponent during this period Do you understand? Okay Again, I'd like to thank the city council for the opportunity here tonight for me to speak here at the hearing I'd like to reiterate my argument about the petitions It may concern for me about this project is basically the The devaluation of properties. We are the closest house our houses closest one to the proposed site and the impact is immediate The impact is significant The devaluation house property is real It's manifested in a number of litigations academic research and main media I'm sure a lot of people in this room owns a house This rate of invasion by the wireless industries. I'm not sure what the next victim going to be Who's going to be the next victim by these invasions? I hope the technician count when you understand when you analyze these petitions The other thing is the safety issues Evolved is a very underground. That's why I know I only understand this thing tonight In that area that I said the area is prone to water accumulations Last year I actually said the water level leased the garage door in my house And at that water level the whole thing would be very underwater Last thing on the sea the city would be in liability lawsuits when people got killed because of electrocution coming from the instance And this potential lease cannot be ignored cannot be brushed away cannot be covered by the corporate interest I'm a citizen 10 years ago and I've lived every single time when I become a citizen. I cherish my right Because I like the way I look at it is I'm part of the communities. I like to be involved. I like to contribute I love my life in Santa Cruz Yeah, the last thing I have I work extremely hard As an academic I work all hours The only thing I have the main goal I have is to have a bright future for my kids You want to put in this name the situation like this with these things with the coming bound taking next to my house Who's why who's not what gonna happen? Technology we are not against technologies However, I don't want to sacrifice my quality of life for new technology. We're very comfortable. I've already why we sacrifice What this new thing gonna bring to us? I don't need horizons Why these things impose on me We'll give it the right good. We'll give them the right to impose this thing on top of me on top of my family I don't need that obviously the council consider the petition As the way Because the laws on your side you have the right you have the authority you have to power to deny the application from the applicants Still it's written in the city ordinance You had to write To remove these things from the applications Scientists as I said, I'm not against technologies We should try to find a way to find a solution that's good for everybody To not sacrifice one part of the community for some other things We should make everybody happy. We should make the community harmonious In harmony and people will live happily ever after It's what we're looking for. That's what Seneca is all about Thank you, sir Okay, now we'll turn back to the No, no, that's the closes out the public hearing. We're returning back to the council for deliberation and action. Okay, there's We can ask follow-up questions. We can ask questions, but you did on us. You're you're not mr. I just I just want to make clear that the applicant doesn't have chance to provide rebuttal No, you don't okay, uh, because we have bill hammett from hammett and eddison eddison who can talk about the health effects Which appear to be a very emotional issue, but on that I understand I defer. Thank you for their questions. We're here. Thank you Thank you very much. So now we'll return to the council for deliberation and action Council member math. Yes, I have one. I think probably technical question. Uh, it's been mentioned about, uh, the Storm drain and the water accumulation getting into the vault Disabling it It's gonna have this question. Yeah, whatever. I mean who can speak to that the integrity of the subterranean vault from water Good evening. John Griffiths with crown council and project manager for this, uh, in response for the construction um In regards to a couple items with the vault The vault does have some pumps and it's redundant some pumps within the vault as well as a rock bed drainage underneath when it is Will be installed We've worked with public works in the design And we'll continue to work with them, uh, you know, again With the drainage there and ensure that it doesn't impact negatively to that, um, we have circuit breakers within the vault That obviously if there's any type of water that rises to the point that would touch any electricity, they would automatically trip, um There was also mentioned about the the Hole itself We actually will be replacing the pole with a new pole that will be designed and we'll have structural reports on the pole as well As the foundation based upon our design Ensure that it meets all requirements for the city An answer question Okay, council member crown Um folks have complained about noise and a humming sound. Is that is that gonna be the same thing with this? The only noise that the the vault would generate is cooling fans, which, um Again, we did a study with a vault that's already been installed here in the city Uh, and at 30 feet 35 feet it does meet all noise ordinance compliance for those fans. It's the only active Component in the vault that would make a noise is the fan itself the radios don't make any noise are passive the antenna is passive There's no noise from from the to generate from them And the insurance companies are are you all insured was that uh, is that a true statement? I mean, I there's other people who can speak better to that, but uh, we wouldn't be in business if we couldn't be insured Thank you. Are there any other questions from the council another one council member matthews someone mentioned, um, not understanding the, um Disparity in fill-in of coverage And I didn't fully understand the question, but as I looked at the map. It's that there are a number of transmitters and this Is to deal with one small area And the others deal with the other small areas Correct that I understand that correct each one is is is basically that that chain that was spoken as part of that chain To provide complete coverage and the map you're seeing is the before and after with you know, all the sites working together I don't believe those in I can have more can come back up, but I don't believe the map Actually has it where we've removed one site or another site to see What that change would be I have a question So in regards to like general facilities, do you is by practice do you normally? construct these underground or under what circumstances do you decide because we saw different examples and how I mean Frankly, I mean for a lot of the city you see a lot of old infrastructure that's kind of sitting above ground And what's the practice as far as you know constructing below ground facilities like these? Yeah, vaulting is actually not a common practice It's a fairly new practice and we've worked with the city to come up with a An alternative which is the vault our normal practice would be pole mounted We also do cabinet infrastructure surface mounted cabinets Those are primarily probably 95 of our installations are cabinet or pole mounted the vault is is generally Not used unless You know required due to the fact that Being underground again, you just you'd have more difficulty there's maintenance You know you're they're installed in sidewalks a lot of times in this particular case It isn't but in other cases they are which then blocks the sidewalk if we have to do any maintenance or repairs to it Yeah, and then in regards to the height the antennas They you know based on the height of our light poles. I know they extend beyond that Are you seeing that there's other types of antennas that can be mounted alongside the poles so they don't extend beyond or do they have to be Above the the pole like you've described. They don't have to be above the pole. I know our rf engineering has Will design based upon a height, you know coverage and then sometimes determine the height But we have installed where they're side mounted antennas Visually they're they're not as appealing as that Kind of continuation of the pole versus side mounted square antennas on either side. Okay. Thank you Got some member crown make sure I'm understanding I see two pictures that we have one with a vault above ground and but it's going to be below ground is that The application that came into us included an at grade cabinet that's above ground And they were required by public works to vault it so that it wouldn't cause a sight distance problem for cars Okay, and is there anybody the um They did a bunch of work one of the Miss pierra mentioned They're ripping up this area to put in the vault is is our is the city going to be made whole are we losing anything or Are they destroying any of the landscaping that was put in that island? Yeah, some of the grass will be removed the vaults there's no more grass anyway, but There's just but there's there's trees and rocks and things there won't be any impacts to the trees There's not a tree close enough any um plumbing That's there would have to be replaced or They'd have to work around it. I know the applicant told told us about A study that was done on land values and there's there's no do you know of anything um as far as Uh cell phone towers and in land values the first thing I'd ask that the applicant respond to that the first Study that I saw was the one that was submitted yesterday Thank you, and you all got a copy of that. I think it was dated. Yeah, I don't know if the uh that pellet don't know if the Appellant got a copy Just a couple more questions No, that's it. That's that's what I got that that that covers it I just wanted to know I'd like to see us all get along like the Appellant was talking about and if there is a possibility of moving this or looking at another site I mean obviously people in neighborhood who around that area aren't that happy with it You know he went out and got 43 signatures. Um, I recognize some of the names on the list So I just would uh Wonder if if we could go if the shot clock can be extended be told and um Look for another place to uh to site this this tower where it's not a disturbance in the middle of a neighborhood Councilmember Matthews. Well, I'll bite the bullet I think we all appreciate the sensitivity to unknowns that are out there for all kinds of Products and Forces in the world That are controlled by corporate interests and it's good to have a very healthy skepticism about those things So I I accept that And endorse it. Um, I think the at the introduction here. There was um Very clear case made about what is and is not in our jurisdiction to rule on And um to the extent that facilities meet the FCC Uh standards and are maintained at those standards. Um, as I understand it that is not an area for us to Uh regulate That's correct. Okay uh, we are We do have the authority to real to uh rule on Aesthetics and on where there's proven that there's a credible gap in coverage and where other um Options are not as aesthetic or functional And frankly, I think the case has been made here that there is a gap in coverage I looked at those maps and it was instructed Instructed for me to learn that Poor coverage Doesn't just mean so-so coverage in your home. That's outside and for those of us who have called 911 from our homes The ability to do that inside is a concern So, um I think the idea of Strengthening what's a clear current gap in coverage is In the public interest in the 21st century And the aesthetics Of this of the single pole Without side arms or anything else on what's basically an existing pole location, although it would be replaced is Very benign Really makes No New impact in the aesthetics. So given all of these Factors, I would be prepared to deny the appeal and uphold the planning commission decision I'll go ahead and make that motion make that motion a motion by council member matthews. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay second by council member chase. Is there any further discussion on this item? Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that um council member matthews after our attorney like we we do have the power to um uphold this appeal, right? I mean do it through aesthetics or uh There there's some like our hands are not tied completely No, you have you have the ability to to rule on the appeal Yeah, uh Council member matthews was was inquiring about the FCC um piece and if it complies with FCC standards But you are correct. You have that you still have the regulatory ability to evaluate and rule on the appeal Well, I I if people want to talk about nimby ism I mean, I don't think this is a a typical nimby issue if there is such a typical nimby issue I think most people probably have cell phones who live in that neighborhood Um, if they're not Clamoring to come to us and saying oh my coverage. I mean, I haven't heard that tonight anybody in the neighborhood saying I can't make a phone call It seems to me that we should be listening to the neighborhood the the neighbors and and folks who live there No past And I just don't understand why you know you you remarked correctly I I agree with you that our skepticism for the corporate world Should be on high level and you know the the corporation. This is where it doesn't live here and um Our neighbors do live here and this is why I would um I'm not going to support the uh the the motion because I think that we have not explored all avenues all alternatives um, I don't think there's anything wrong with Tolling the shot clock if that's what the proper vernacular is and Going back and either relocating Looking for another place to put the pole I mean people are coming to us saying that's not the place we want it seems to us like we need to represent The neighborhood I'm not I'm not representing, uh, you know Crown Castle or Verizon or you know, I I'm going to represent the people of Santa Cruz The people of Santa Cruz are coming to us saying no don't do this. This is not a good thing Okay, thank you Is there any further discussion? Okay, we're going to put this to a vote Um all those in favor of the motion on the floor motion by council member matthews second by council member chase Please say aye. Aye Those opposed please say no Okay, that passes with council member, uh, crone, uh, votes and no And uh, council member matthews chase ryan, uh Myself and watkins in favor Thank you party And brown absent council member absent. Thank you. Okay. That was the last item of business the meeting is now adjourned