 All right welcome everyone to today's city council meeting will be we recently had a closed session Which we'll talk about later. We're going to have a stay session At first though I'd also like to introduce Magali Teyes Who is the executive director of low Cn and she'll be doing the council sit along with us all the way to the end tonight, correct? She's smiling now Mr. McGlynn you want to introduce this item Yes, item 3.1 amendment to memorandum of understanding MOU between the city of Santa Rosa and the Santa Rosa City schools to allow Alternatives to construction of affordable housing or school facilities on fur ridge drive lot f apn 173 dash 6 to 0 dashes 0 3 0 assistant city manager David Gouin presenting Thank you, and good afternoon the mayor Schwedhelman members of the council So as the city manager just mentioned We're here as a study session to discuss a piece of property. It's a six-acre site up on fur ridge drive that is Subject of an MOU between the city of Santa Rosa and the Santa Rosa school district There's a lot of long history on this project. It dates back to a subdivision that went into place in 1987 called fur ridge north at Fountain Grove was the subdivision that went in that started this process and put this piece of Property in the mix for use for school sites So I have a little bit of history here on this slide I'm also in the staff reports as an attachment that has a much more detailed history that goes along with this But just to highlight a few of the items that have happened over the past few years since 1988 Was an agreement between the city and the subdivision developer was established for that property The thought that the site was to be held for construction of school or low and our moderate income housing There was a negotiation period between the school district and this the site There were a number of timelines outlined in that holding agreement And then the thought would be that if nothing did happen the the city could bring that back into the city If the school district was not able to move forward with it some key points on that history between 1988 and 2015 Just as a note it wasn't mended 12 times So it's been in front of the council a number of times over the years the two two main pieces are two main Important dates that happened in this timeline was in 2003 Which changed the agreement and which allowed for the site to be developed as affordable housing for its employees Or the city could develop that site and then develop low and moderate housing with preferential use for at least 50% of the district employees in 2016 it was modified again and essentially what happened was that they extended that for three years extended the agreement for three years Authorize the city manager to extend the agreement if progress was happening The intent there was assuming that things started to move forward a developer was chosen in the site was starting to be developed that We wanted to make sure we extend that MOU and had a flexibility with the city manager be able to do that the other thing that MOU did was a formalized agreement Partnership between the city and the district and that was an important piece to make sure that the city and the district were working together To try to figure out how to make sure this site was used to its best value so a little bit of location The site we're talking about is in the northeast part of Santa Rosa and Falungrove area It's right off of for forage drive is a little blow-up of that It's six point three acres. There is about an acre size parcel that came with this back in the 1980s That's just north of this parcel that was converted into a park. That's for forage park On that site. So the site we're talking about is Identified here in red. It's again. It's about a six acre site in the Falungrove area So where we are today and why we're back in front of the city council The current MOU and the extension of the three-year agreement is coming due pretty In the early next year So the city and the district have been working together over the past Basically a year looking at what we could do how we can help this project move forward We've met with multiple developers for the site to try to figure out if there's a way that that site could be developed as originally intended Per the agreement addition to that obviously we had the fires that happened that had a big impact of this area and that did change how That site was looked at viewed and also on the developer the developing this ability of that site in terms of cost as This is council is well aware. There's a number of lots up there that are being rebuilt this site is Basically, it doesn't have any infrastructure to it. It doesn't have any water sewer The tentative map that was approved for this site has since expired so that would have to be redone as well So a lot of work would have to go into developing this site So one of the things that the city and the county did or I'm sorry the city in the school district did was look at what options What do we want to put into an amended MOU if the council wants to extend this to try to give as much flexibility as possible To to realize the intent of this site to support the city county city district The center was a district's employees So we came up with three three main options with a couple subsets One was to extend the terms the existing terms and those existing terms and we'll talk about each one of these one by one Essentially means to develop that site as was originally intended Second option was if this district found that they couldn't do anything with that property It didn't have a band with their capability. They could have revert that back to the city Third option the district tend to sell the site and then use those proceeds for a couple different options Potentially one is to build housing on another site or potentially partner with another developer That's building housing for instance near transit in the downtown area to try to leverage those funds to go further And then a new option that has been discussed was Creating a revolving fund down payment assistance program for district employees so that the money would continue to provide benefit over over the life of of that fund So I'm just gonna go through each one of these real quick And again the the intent is to get to have a discussion here at the at the council level to Hear from the council if you'd like to include all these in a revised MOU if there's ones that you specifically want removed Have that conversation and then we will take that feedback and then bring that back at the joint meeting So walking through these items the first one that we talked about is extension of the existing terms Which again that existing terms really solidified the Partition between the district and the city Towards utilizing this site Basically what that means is the district would need to establish a new subdivision map for this site the original map is expired And then internet and contract with a developer to develop that site So we have language in their existing agreement about timelines when that would have to happen When the notice would have to be I didn't send to the city to make sure that progress was being made on that option So this option again is essentially developing the site giving more time and allowing that to happen The second option again if the district decided that they did not want to do anything with that site Or there's they ran into some issues in terms of the potentially selling it or developing it that it could revert back to the City to transfer the title back to the city For load of moderate income housing on the site So that's the thought and then the city could either build on that site or potentially sell that site for doing other creating creating housing Option three is has two parts to it. The first part is selling the site And then using those proceeds proceeds as I mentioned before either partnership with the developer on another property create creating housing on another property or potentially working on a downtown property and a transit-oriented development project and Option 3b would be to sell the property use those funds to establish a down payment assistance program the thought again would be it would be a revolving fund to Allow for ongoing payments to help with district employees get into home ownership The other thing this would do would allow the district to leverage and potentially additional other grant funds to increase the size of that Funding to make that funding go further than what the just the sale price of that home or that property would do one of the things that we found when we started talking about this option is that the As part of the MOU the council has the ability to put in some provisions or boundaries on a Program like this a loan program and then the the boundaries that we came up with where it was essentially the eligibility threshold so does the council want to provide Some guidance in terms of who's eligible to participate in a loan program such as this And so we have a couple options here that we threw out One is not don't provide a threshold you know let the district come up with that program and Implement that program based on what they feel is appropriate through a public process or we set some Some thresholds so to load a moderate threshold from 80 to 20 150 AMI or look at a district schedule and actually look at what two teachers make on a certain at a certain See senior seniority in the school district And so we took these three options in the district ransom analysis And there's a letter attached to the packet that does Review of these different analysis to show the potential impact to district employees to give some sense of scale in terms Who would be affected if some of these were picked obviously the no threshold? We don't have any data on that because that would have to be formed that the program would have to be formed by the district the traditional low Low to moderate 80 to 120 There's an anticipation about 382 employees potentially would be eligible 150 AMI look looked like about 748 And then the other approach which again was looking at what a typical to teacher household I believe that is has a 10-year experience Would would make and that opens up the door a little bit more to a broader subset of of employees And so again, there's an attachment to this There's more detail in the letter from the district and the district is here in there We'd be willing to answer questions. We have district staff and president close and superintendent Konemara here in the audience as well So that gets us to the the discussion points So the the big question is one do we want to extend this? Amin the MOU to allow more time and options if the city council wants to do that then there's The question about what options do we want to include in that MOU? Do we want to provide a number of options or do we want to have a very specific options as we move forward in the last Question that I'm going to ask is how well how long do we want that term to be to allow those options to happen? So those are the three main questions that we have today that we want to walk through But the slide up here so we go just to make sure that we address all these items These are the items that we just went through extend the terms Transfer allow the transfer allow the district to sell the site to create housing off site or Create a down payment assistance program If that's an option that the council is interested in do you want to have an income threshold? So if we don't mind it like to just stop there and get some feedback on these options before we talk about the term of the Agreement and if we want to move forward on extending this agreement Great, so before we get the feedback. Let's first see if there's any questions about the presentation. Mr. Vice Mayor Thank you, Mr. Mayor So with number two that'd be just a regular RFP process once the city takes on the Correct if it was transferred back to the city we would have to go through a surplus process Thank you Miss Gomes Thank you. I have a couple of questions Do we have access to hazard mitigation dollars to purchase the property so that we don't have people sleeping in a high-fire hazard area? At this point at this time. No, we don't have those funds Do we anticipate in the future applying for funds for hazard mitigation for purchasing property? That area Did the state has not released a program that would afford us the opportunity to do that? Can we legally create? Something else on that site such as RV parking safe parking any campment under the concept of Ownership can we put? Can we use that for some of our homeless folks? Again right now. It's there are no improvements on that site So prior to utilizing that site improvements would have to be made I'm not sure what the cost of that would be to make those improvements I guess I'm trying to figure out if it's an agreement for construction or an agreement that the person's house There have income levels I'm sorry. I don't think I understand that question I'm trying to understand and The agreement was established that the site be held for construction of school low and or moderate income housing And I guess I'm trying to ask Exactly So I think what we're we're showing here is that the council has ability to give additional Guidance on how that property is used so as we showed here Here's options that we came up with so if it's additional options or interest of interest that you want to include in this we could do that if we were interested in Using percentages of units based on income level is that an option? I'm not it look as if the choices we had involved This level or this level or this level if we wanted to specify percentages Based upon for example the percentage in the district of persons who needed housing in those levels First specifically for the down payment assistance program. No specifically for the units Like would we could we specify? 10 of the units are for moderate income 20 of the units are for Low income and 12 of the units are some percentage of the units are for Workforce housing level like up to a hundred percent a.m. I sure so that would fall into Option number one which is essentially construction of extending the existing terms which has elements and the existing agreement about what the Affordability level is so if there's interest in changing that that would be something we would look to adjust in Revision for option number one in terms of if units are built here's the expectation of the city of how those units are built I guess I thought it might also involve option 3b Well three 3b would be more towards who's eligible for down payment assistance program Okay So so let's ask answered that piece also which is can we do it as a percentage or do we have to go all our So couple couple options here the the right now the district Isn't set on any of these they need to go through a public process to determine what they want to do If if a down payment assistance program is something the district is interested in the way We looked at that is that they would need to create a program that tried to address How what the need is and so we could we could provide that guidance or we could leave that up to the district come up with That program and present that to the council Thank you Thank you this questions up for our city attorney Is there any impediment to us transferring the property to this at the school board and With the request that they use it for housing and letting them figure it out the current agreement under the current agreement the property is in the hands of the school district and Under that agreement they can develop for Either school facility or low and moderate income household Are you is your question my question has to do with you know, is it possible for the city to To No longer be a party to this MOU and say to this school board you guys are elected officials and adults and Go forth and figure this out and so that way it doesn't continue to revert back to the city And we don't continue to go through this process and use your creativity and Abilities to make this happen and leave us to you know manage some of the other things that are more typical of a city The this agreement was a condition of the subdivision of that particular portion of Fountain Grove and These conditions Again are part of that original approval It sounds like you're asking if we could just simply relieve them of all those obligations and hand them the property it would be our recommendation that that To be consistent with that original approval and the original conditions of approval that this property or the proceeds from the property be used for Housing you know some sort of affordable housing and or for school Facility purposes And the options that are laid out here all do that through one mechanism or another and As we you know, we've been working closely with school district staff in developing these So there has not at this point been a request that we simply Relieve them of that obligation. There would be some findings that you would need to make in order to Undo those original conditions of approval, but again, it's our recommendation that it stay in the general Theme of the original conditions of approval. Okay. Thank you for that Given that and given You know the 3a 3b and all of the conditions That have been proposed does the do those conditions? Put any responsibility on the city in terms of enforcement. Do we have to sign off on a contract or that sort of thing? if the schools are successful in In one of those options We would be signing an MOU With the city and the school district and the the discussions we have a preliminary draft I do have some triggers in the process where the school district would be making some decisions within certain period of time and If they Failed to do that the property would again revert back to the city. So there's some mechanism built in but that's all still subject to negotiation As we go forward But last question We take a recess Sure, let's take a five-minute recess. We're good Okay, we will reconvene mr. Sawyer is there some an introduction you'd like to make before we continue Yes, I would I'd like to introduce Amy Ricard. She is with leadership Santa Rosa class 36 and taking advantage of this opportunity to sit with a council To prepare for their government day. So welcome Amy And just clarifying mr. Sawyer your class what Mike I was class 13. So This is not it's a treble Fond me three times that Okay, miss Fleming. I think we you saw the floor So I wanted to follow up if the city puts all of the conditions On the school board. Do we have the capacity to monitor that you were mentioning that it there were certain triggering events that would Perhaps precipitate our participation and wanted to make sure that we had the bandwidth Internally to deal with them a really detailed Conditions of sale. Yeah, and I'll answer that one very quickly and then I'll go back to your prior question regarding okay the The triggering effects are not complicated and I think we do have the capacity to address those should those occur but going back to the the more general concept of Releasing the property from these restrictions at all and and allowing the The district to proceed on kind of unencumbered by the holding agreement or by any of the mo use the original holding agreement did also Involved the developer and the original holding agreement provides that if the district Fails to perform The property can revert back to the city if the city then fails to form perform The property can then revert back to the developer and be free and clear of any of these obligations that was again back in 1988 we would have to track down where the developer or their successor is But it does put a cloud on any any proposal to Simply walk away from the holding agreement it would not be it would not end with the city walking away from that and How would we measure a failure in this situation? If it's not developed in accordance with you know the original Plan had some deadline the original holding agreement had deadlines by which the the district was to either build School facility or housing that those deadlines have been extended by the series of mo use that director Ewan mentioned earlier So so the the timing has The the deadlines have just been extended again and again again And what we're looking at now is some other options to move forward Maintaining the spirit of the original holding agreement and the mo use it followed. Okay. Thank you Mr. Davis, thank you mayor that that's helpful I was actually my question was going to be around the history and you helped explain What our obligations are to perform so this doesn't revert into the hands of that that developer from that agreement But what how did the property actually come about did it come into the school districts possession? Did it come into ours a gift to both? I'm trying to get to the root of the history here because it's going to shape some of my comments Going into the comment period But I think it's fantastic that we're working together with the school district and getting to kind of you know Figure out what the best pathway for it is for teachers getting to live here, but I also don't want to overstep our grounds as far as What rights and claims do we actually have to this property because my understanding is this was essentially a school district property? So put this the history because this is a short version of it But again, it was originally between the city and the sub subdivision developer and so that was to be held and then then it was Negotiated there was a negotiation period for the school district To take that on and then there was an agreement later on. I don't believe it's listed here But in the history there's agreement when it did officially get transferred to the school districts The district has possession of the site to do those elements and I can I can clarify that actually the original 1988 agreement did include both the development company and the city of Santa Rosa and It did provide for Transfer of the property to the school district upon Recordation of the final map with the final map. That was the specific. Yeah, thank you And then my second and final question is actually either for the superintendent or the board president But what is your preferred use of this going forward? I want to make sure we ask you that question before we So we have president close who's up at the top Hi, I was planning to do this in public comment, but I can I can Just give you my comments now and answer to your question So first of all mr. Mayor and council members Thank you for having us here and for engaging in this conversation And I really appreciate the work your staff has done with our staff to come to some Good resolution here and figure out kind of the highest and best use of this property that serves our district in a way that Ultimately serves our city because that's what we do as a district is serve the citizens of our city We you know this property is hard to develop for us It's expensive to it was despite expensive for us to develop before the fires and now it's even harder and more expensive after the fires But we have a need to make housing easier and more accessible for our staff We have a teacher shortage and we have basically a hiring crisis in our district because we have a limited pie that we get from the state as you know to pay our employees and we have expensive housing and Housing that is not super available in our community. And so we need to make that easier So there are other ways and we appreciate again your staff's creative problem-solving around this and talking to us And some of the ways that would help is either to sell the property and use that money in order to piggyback on another development that's possible and the school board will have to discuss that or We did a survey of our all of our staff members and said what would be the most helpful for you With respect to housing and 67% of them said down payment assistance because even if you're at the top of our pay scale It took you 25 years to get there and you didn't get to save a lot along the way because it's expensive to live here And so they said down payment assistance and so for the best thing for the district would be the flexibility to do One of those things sell the property and use that money to get on to another development or sell the property and use that money to Create a down payment assistance fund that would benefit the district in perpetuity because it would be a revolving fund And so that's what we would ask this council for is basically to give the district the most flexibility to serve Our staff so that they can better serve our community. Thank you for the question council member Tibbets welcome One one more follow-up question, and we may not be able to talk about this outside of closed session But what was the most recent appraised value of that property? I? Don't have that number and anything we did actually I don't think there was an appraisal before even before the fires that we have So I at this point we don't know we'd have to go through that process. Okay. Thank you And if I may I'm sorry. I did miss speak a little earlier At close with the recordation of the final map the property did come to the city And it was a couple of years later that then it was transferred to the district in accordance with the terms of the holding agreement That was recorded in 1988. Okay. Thanks Any additional questions from council? All right, mr. Green. I know there's several other slides But I'm interested in maybe taking a public comment now because aren't all the other slides just in response to what council direction Yeah, and I could I could finish the slides real quick before we go there if that's okay Because I think the one other element so again input on this in terms of what if we want to extend this MOU and Do we want to include these options? The other important piece of this is the time of the MOU So this is the situation where how much time does the district have to satisfy any of the requirements in that MOU? In terms of notifying us what direction they're going or some other trigger threshold So that's something that we've had the current one is three years We've you know, we're we've looked at three four five years in terms of what what's possible But again, we want to see something happen I think the district wants to see something happen and we're all motivated to see something move forward on this site But again, we also we're also here and we don't want to keep coming back to council over and over again If we can't get something to happen and so the final slide here really was to just let you and the public know What the next steps are so we're our goal here is to receive feedback from from you and the public Get some guidance on what you would like to see we will take that feedback Craft modified do whatever we have to do to get some document in place that has the input that you have Given us and the intention is that we to bring that back to the joint City Council school board meeting on October 14th And ideally we would take action there on that night with the school board and this The city council to to get this project moving forward Great. Thanks for additional information a couple cards George Uberti followed by Anne Sealy Thank you council members. I think What's very clear here is that very clearly what we need in Sonoma County is more affordable housing I mean period that's what we need And affordable housing housing is by definition not profitable I think that we're profitable it probably wouldn't be affordable So it's something this city needs to do particularly if the school district is going to pay people low income wages If we're going to pay them a rate that they can't possibly afford housing at we're gonna need to do something about that I mean we have a responsibility that much is clear Now what is also I think incredibly clear Is that these three options are a very very flawed way of examining what our options are The first one is to extend the terms now I'm looking at this memorandum of understanding and it's saying that between 1988 and the present This memorandum of understanding has been extended 12 times now. That's 30 years We've been doing something with no results. I count for bullet points Over a period of 30 years one of which is to issue a request for proposals to obtain a developer But we've just heard city staff say that a developer was part of the initial Holding agreement in 1988, right? So What's that bring us down to three actions that have been taken over the last 30 years. That's one action a decade now this says that The district has acted in good faith in attempting to I don't think one action every ten years is good faith. I Think that we need to make take a real look at why we have consistently done zero things All right, we can't just have done nothing for 30 years. I mean literally not I mean Show me what's happened a request for proposals To request for proposals for something that the we already had. I mean this is nonsense All right now I think what we can do right and an option that we haven't explored is Taking a real look at what we're trying to do is make sure that people who work for the city have a place to live and Not just that they have a place to live But that they have a way to eventually raise themselves out of a social position where they're required to live in affordable housing, right? Let's get a plan together along those lines clearly. We need to build affordable housing But that's a component in a larger plan of Elevating people out of poverty of giving people the tools to work their way to a better social position. All right That's what we need. We need social mobility for low-income people, right? Not just 30 years of pretending to sort of kind of do something that results in nothing And then we're just going to sell it to somebody who's going to turn a profit off it That's not an option. Okay. What is an option is that we take a meaningful look at how to fulfill our responsibilities Get a get a meaningful MOU. I mean Thank you, thank you and Sealy followed by Dwayne DeWitt and Sealy speaking for concerned citizens for Santa Rosa The bottom line on your decision today is This property must not be lost for low and or moderate income housing Any of you long termers there on the council and the staff know how difficult it's been for us to address Placing affordable housing all around the city and the loss of this parcel would be a tragedy So please keep that in mind whatever option you choose. Thank you. Thank you. Dwayne DeWitt Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt. I'm from Roseland and I'm a part of the Sonoma County Housing Advocacy Group Which was formed over 22 years ago because we have a lack of affordable housing in Sonoma County I Remember in the 90s when this matter came up and it was pointed out that it was very important to make sure and have affordable housing I Think it's really important to not use the term low income anymore that bothers people They don't want to hear that they want to hear housing. That is perhaps of Modest means for people of modest means Something that's more temperate so they don't feel bad up in Fountain Grove by having somebody who might not be in the same social strata The school district is actually the people who should be deciding this without losing that property That is an asset that they have and if it goes back to anyone else the housing will never be built I can tell you that right now from just watching over 30 years and I bring it to a point with Bellevue Ranch 1994 95 96 they said they were going to put in 64 Affordable multi-family housing units and broker to deal with the city saying that yes This is how we'll get it done if you'll give us the approvals City gave them the approvals and lo and behold they said they couldn't make it pencil out So guess who paid for the housing the taxpayers? And it was built by Burbank housing and everybody applauds that because wow a low income Development got put together But it was the taxpayers that paid for it And then they were sold on the open market and those people were allowed to make profit when they resold them So the taxpayers didn't even get a return in a sense upon that investment Now the dilemma here is that the school district is not necessarily in business to make a profit But they are in business to educate all these kids that keep wandering in here right now and Making sure that they have a place to live here in Santa Rosa in the future So I think the best way to handle this is to look to the school district and say like Miss Fleming said hey You guys got the knowledge the skills and the talent now step on up and give us that affordable housing for the instructors and the school district employees and some interns and some Teachers and training people at Sonoma State heck maybe even a really good senior in high school Somebody that might have had to be out of their house living in a garage Let them be up there on the hill and fountain Grove They can see what the future might hold having a really nice place up on the high hill instead of part way down Anyway, you get the major drift school district. It's on you. Thank you Thanks one. Do we have any other cards on this item? Yeah, Jenny you said what you wanted to say right? Great back to counsel any additional questions based on any of that feedback Okay, mr. Sorry, would you like to start and give your feedback to staff? I'm looking for the flexibility as well, but I'm also looking for that a Kind of three years is probably and there's been enough time I know that there there's always something new on your plate And you notice the school districts have lots of challenges and so all of a sudden the three years is gone Which we know how fast three years can go But I would like this to come to fruition. I'd like this to be the last Extension, but I think offering as much There's many possibilities as much flexibility as as is necessary for you to do what you feel is best for the district This comes I think my answer is none of the above I Continue to say about the high-fire district in Fountain Grove that we should not add sleeping facilities Into the high-fire area and I appreciate that we very much need housing and we very much need affordable housing That said if there is any mechanism we can use to transfer the property directly to the school district with Conditions I think that we should let them make the decision about how they configure the affordable housing on the site And that it we should not be involved in the conversation once we've given them the housing for teachers I appreciate we need teacher housing I am disappointed that we do not have available hazard mitigation money so that we can buy property so that We can Eliminate the property from housing availability and put their housing in a much safer place for teachers. So, thank you It's funny Okay, go ahead. I'm gonna jump in All right, I wanted to just express my deep support for with the district requested and that's option two or three I think if we go forward and we focus on those two options both through an MOU Expressing that I want to stay in partnership with the district on this and continue to work with them I think that's the best pathway for it I understand that it might be easier just to say hey, you know, let's walk away and hand it to them But the reason why I'm really concerned is I think there's a real underlying opportunity here that the school district Is tapped into and that is this concept of doing silent second down payment mortgages to help people Build equity in a home and I think in this came about during the housing bond conversations We were having but to construct usually our skin in the game as a city for a new affordable housing unit today is between 120,000 and 150,000 per unit that gets leveraged between four and seven times and then you get a unit But when you do the silent second down payment assistance programs The cost of the city is actually closer to 50 to $80,000 per unit to get somebody into a home and not just into a home but into a true power or a true Empowered position where they're now building equity and a stake in physical property in this community and I think when we talk about social equity and social justice That's the real I think key that the city has to drive for and if this the school district is leading us on that Then we need to join them in that if we put the proceeds of this property To help achieve that goal Then I really think that that we need to also work with them to do that from the city side because God knows We're with all this development that we're doing specific area planning We're gonna have anti or we're going to have gentrification and we need to have anti gentrification Methodologies in place to counteract that and I think this concept of the silent second is a great way to do that In the best bang for our dollars, so I I would say I hope this council can embrace that I hope that the school district can embrace that and we can work in partnership to bring that together in the next year That's funny. Thank you. I First of all, I want to make sure there are there are three things that you wanted to know about timeframe Options and there was a third one. Can you reiterate so I make sure that I get I think the third one was if if there's Interest in a down payment assistance program are there eligible or income thresholds that we want to include or leave it open to the district to Come up with the program. Okay, so I'd like to Again give empower the school district as much as possible and take the feedback that we heard today from president close In as much as possible and crafting what will come back before all of us in two weeks time I'm certainly not a fan of Options one or two I would like this to be something that the school board handles and then I would like to not see this again if possible But I would like to extend the timeframe to five years for both for two reasons one is to give the school as much time To execute an agreement and also to save staff time I think that that extending the timeframe will give everybody the greatest chance of success here and then I do echo what councilmember tidbit says around the down payment assistance in the the second The silent second. I just want to be really clear that the The final question around the the limits. I would again defer to the school board this is something that is supposed to be for them to use to support their teachers and if that's the spirit of it we expect them to Carry that out and I can't see any reason why they wouldn't want to Mr. Tibbets you had some other comment. Yeah, I just wanted to add David that I forgot to give you direction on the thresholds. That's something I'd want to work together on with the school district as I mean, I think the next step is going to be we hear what the school board wants whether that's option 2 or option 3 If it's option 2 then let's discuss 2 if it's option 3 let's discuss 3 But I very much want to have a conversation about income threshold limits. Maybe maybe not pertaining to their staff That's probably best determined by them, but if this morphs into something larger I want us to be actively involved in our own conversations around that okay And can I clarify when you say option 2 and option 3 or do you mean option 3 a and b just to yes, thank you Go ahead Following on what mr. Tibbets said I'm trying to understand is there is it possible that the school board would be able to use this for anything other than housing for affordable housing for their employees So the way the agreement is would be set up would it would be for these elements So if it was something other than these or they would have to come back the council would have to come back to council to get that direction Okay, thank you mr. Rogers Thank you mr. Mayor You know I was joking with John when we came down here that when the school board first started working on this I was nine months old, and I don't think it's because they've been sitting on their hands I think it's I think I'm willing to believe them when they say that this is an extremely difficult property to actually develop I think we've seen that from other projects in the area in particular Normally my inclination would be To go with option 2 and try to assist them in that But I do think providing them the flexibility that option 3 has is actually in the best interest for everybody It's not just a school board problem to not have teachers able to live in the community It's also a city council and a community problem as well And if giving them that flexibility to determine for themselves how they're going to use the funds from that property Actually ends up seeing some form of units come to fruition I'm happy to to support that as it comes to the income threshold question For for subsection b on 3 You know I know that a lot of the times the funding that's coming to them and the wages that they're able to pay their Employees is more tied towards what the state is doing and how they're tying their hands And so I don't know I'll need a little bit more information when we go to our joint meeting with the school board on What that looks like because what I would hate to do is tie their hands on the housing in a way to where the state then reacts And hopefully Hopefully the state reacts in a way where everybody would become income ineligible because they'd make too much money But I don't want to hold my breath on that. I definitely don't want to tie the school district's hands until I have more information And can I do a follow-up on the the length of the agreement? So do you have any input on that? Well, I mean I'd certainly say less than the 30 years that it's been so far But hopefully, uh, you know if you're proposing a three-year and if they think that that's feasible that seems fine for me I didn't hear your comment to mr. Sorry, but I was thinking that we're even alive when we started this discussion. So for me my Preference is the maximum flexibility. So I guess it'd be option 3b And I'm not not really interested in the threshold. You know, I appreciate the reach Reach out that the school district did to its employees to find out. What is that need? And I would just I'm comfortable there and continue that process So I would you know if I said a threshold is be very arbitrary Let the data drive, you know, I get the intent. We need the housing For their employees. So whatever that make makes that work. And I do think three years Should be an efficient timeline to get this thing done So with that, do you have any other questions? Did you get the information that you needed? I believe I got the information I needed and I think we could take that and We'll we'll we'll work with the district and bring back an item on the 14th for you and just to To let the council know the district is also going to be having an open public meeting on this topic at their october 9th School board meeting to discuss this prior to the joint meeting And for those that don't know that's an open invitation. It's in this very chamber october 9th correct And what time does the meeting start? At 6 o'clock p.m. This chamber october 9 school board meeting. All right. Thank you Okay, we will now transition to a regular council meeting Mr. McGlynn, do you need some setup time for item seven? Yeah, we're gonna go item. We'll go out of order. So Let's start first with announcement of the roll call madam city clerk Thank you. Mayor Schwedhelm let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of council member oliveris Great. Thank you. And mr. Vice mayor would you like to introduce your guest? Yeah, absolutely. Mr. Mayor. So I also have a ride along today. I believe also From our esteemed program that's having government affairs day the other in like two weeks Yeah for lsr my guest is melissa stewart with chops teen club and She'll be sitting back here for the entirety of the meeting as well I think until about what nine o'clock when we think we'll be done Consciously optimistic. Okay, we are going to go out of order here Okay, so as soon as they're ready one of the reasons item seven we're going to get a Update from the city manager and it may require a different presentation. So we wanted to try to do time specific on that So let's go to item five then Madam city attorney, would you like to report on closed session items? Yes uh, yes Council met on item close in closed session on items two point one two point two and two point three And on each of the three they gave direction to staff and to council members. Great. Thank you Are we ready to roll on item seven? item 7.1 Fire recovery and rebuild update I'm going to have adrian martins and introduce her to colleagues for this update Good afternoon. Mayor schwedhelm and council members with me to adrian martins communications intergovernmental relations officer With me is paul lowenthal assistant fire marshal and dan marin sick lieutenant from the police department So good evening council. Um, we're excited tonight to introduce two things One is the public release of our evacuation planning Phase one of our evacuation planning. We'll get into what phase one and phase two are and also our high low sirens Following the tubs fire. Obviously we like many other agencies across the The area learned a lot from what did and did not work that night There's been a lot of improvements to our system and our ability to Provide early notification detection and alerts to our community But with that it's always been our goal to increase our public's awareness on evacuations locally we saw Most recently the county Roll out one of their evacuation exercises In the cave dale area and they're working on a second evacuation Program and project for the heelsburg area Originally, we looked at that as a potential concept here locally to focus on an individual neighborhood We decided that we would take a different approach and ultimately roll out evacuation planning and education As well as a comprehensive checklist for our entire community of santa rosa There's been a significant amount of work that has gone into this Program from both the police department fire department city manager's office GIS support from it as well as transportation public works it's been a Pretty impressive project. It's really good to see all the different departments come together With the intention of really providing a good evacuation program For our community so phase one Ultimately will be the release the public release, which is what occurred today of the evacuation Um Mapping and checklist phase two will eventually be an early 2020 actual exercises for our community All right, so yeah, we're good. Thank you Sorry Give us just one sec here to pull up the website um, but building off of what the process that uh, paul just described staff have put together An evacuation toolkit that has a number of resources That are available for residents to help them better prepare In the event of an emergency evacuation all of those resources have been made available on a new public website Which we'll hopefully load in just a moment Um, the url for that website is srcity.org Forward slash know your ways out kno w know your ways out We're having it issues one moment, please Um, and while we're waiting for the website to load I'll just say that while all of the resources are housed in the website This is really day one of pushing out all of this information to our community Um, we have released a press release this morning announcing the campaign We put it in our citywide newsletter, which goes to over 60 000 residents Additionally, we did a visit with a couple hundred oakmont residents just this afternoon to share the information and the new tools that are available And we'll continue to meet with residents in different neighborhood areas And push this information through all of our channels For our residents that are watching at home and the people in the chambers The website works. We're just getting having trouble getting up on the screen, but really The website itself will allow residents to physically go in and map their individual locations We looked at our ability to Really like I said provide the comprehensive evacuation routes for all the different parts of santa rosa Originally what we looked at was the actual Areas within the wildland urban interface. So we broke those areas out into specific Zones not to be confused with evacuation zones. They're geographical areas that we designated to help with the mapping So ultimately a resident will be able to click on their specific zone They'll get a printable pdf that will show all the different ways out that we recommend Based on our evaluation of their specific locations that they could print out as well as that checklist We focused originally on the wildland urban interface areas and then the areas immediately Surrounding some of those wildland interfaces We ended up with approximately 25 different geographical areas And then anything that was essentially left over that wasn't in one of those areas was included in a larger geographical Zone that show the major travel routes that would be used during an actual evacuation All right, so um when you get to the landing page Uh There you can access the resources and the buttons at the top the evacuation checklist. We have preparedness tips There's also frequently asked questions on evacuations And then the searchable map itself you can type in your address To locate your neighborhood area or you can click into the map and that will bring up a link to your evacuation Planning area for your specific neighborhood which shows all the potential routes out of your neighborhood And this is a printable document And so there's a total of 29 different printable maps for different neighborhood areas or geographical locations So definitely a lot of effort went into this and thank you to Our it gis staff all of our communication staff that were involved as well as our public safety folks in traffic engineering And then finally uh on the evacuation alerting tools area and we do have public education To inform residents of all of the ways that we would Notify them in the event of an evacuation and with that i'll let paul add a couple words So one of the things we heard pretty frequently after the the fires was people not knowing the the need to evacuate Like we've talked about at previous council meetings Our ability to detect fires earlier is improved now with the addition of the fire cameras Those fire cameras allow us to activate the tools that we didn't necessarily have the access to back in 2017 That we do now that includes the wireless emergency alert system the emergency alert system Obviously still co-alert nixle all the way down to facebook twitter and our radio stations We're really excited now to Officially announce the new tool in our toolbox, which is the high-low sirens Yeah, the high-low sirens is one of the tools that we have added on the police department and we have Added a high-low siren to our marked patrol vehicles, which includes 52 patrol vehicles that now have access to the high-low siren And the high-low sirens a european style siren that produces a different pitch than most normal sirens And we're using that with our public education campaign Peace as a tool for evacuations um We've coupled out on the police department's end of providing internal training to our employees on the use of the high-low sirens What to expect when they're used as well as worked towards an external communication piece Towards educating the public on the use of the high-low sirens So with that I am now going to get up I'm going to walk over to the side of the council chambers and we'll activate the high-low sirens We currently have a police patrol car as well as a fire department sv We've outfitted our fire department staff vehicles with the high-low siren as well All right, that concludes the presentation any questions Thank you for that presentation. Tell me you're not sweating when you open that door, please babe So usually it's the fire department that comes to the rescue this time it was it so yes, I was worried that something was not going to work Thank you so much for this presentation. I know the hours Of work that went into that We'll just keep talking when we don't hear that But I really appreciate the effort there and I think you guys your whole team is on that cutting edge It's really going to help our community as was evidence on Sonoma ready day I think our community is ready to figure out that they need to be part of the plan I think this information totally Accentuates everyone's own responsibility to have a plan in the event of another disaster So council any questions on the presentation mr. Tibbets Thank you. I just have a quick question about your public education campaign What mediums are you using is this going out in mail? Yeah, so step one was just getting everything live and up today and making the big announcement through social media through our newsletter and to the press But we are talking about doing a water bill insert with the evacuation checklist letting people know about the resources that are available online And we'll be looking at some more targeted ways to reach residents as well. Thanks Any other questions or comments mr. Vice mayor? Thank you, mr. Mayor and just a huge thank you. I know right after the fire we talked a lot about Community siren and horns that I know we'll talk a lot more about that But one of the concerns that we had immediately was how do people know what those sirens mean and how do they know where to go? I do notice on the checklist, which I think is really good by the way that there is Recommendation on here about not taking shortcuts because you don't know if that is going to be blocked Is is it the intent that by providing These solid evacuation routes for folks that we can also begin to Plan our response around it as well that if we know more people are going to be on these streets We can put more resources towards it and try to make sure that those are proper evacuation routes Yeah, so one of the the common questions we get is what what is my actual designated evacuation route And the reason behind the the methodology that went into this is that there's potentially multiple ways out And until we actually have the condition that requires the evacuation We won't know which way we're actually going to take but we want people to become familiar with all the different routes the We actually just rolled this out shortly before it came here to oakmont residents knowing that that is one of the hot topics with evacuation routes as well as the the fear of Knowing when to evacuate and then obviously tying into your original question the siren issue We got through that conversation specifically around this evacuation planning With the way we would utilize those routes with flow of traffic coordinating with law enforcement All the way down to the high low sirens and actually had applause from that from that group there So it's it's effectively rolling out really well and Doing what we wanted to do and if and councilmember vice mayor Yes, the the the work that will now you will actually be entertaining an item Later this evening, which is about undergrounding of Utility work, but that's exactly right. This this becomes a framework under which we can have other conversations about where we need to make sure that those areas are clear of Potential hazards and get into the conversation about very directed with our partners about where they might need to underground utilities that Or build other types of resiliency measures to make sure that those paths are free and clear Yeah, and I appreciate that I hope going through this exercise has informed us a lot on those infrastructure improvements that we need to do And i'm sure the public will see that over the next couple of years as we move that ball forward as well So thank you for your work on this Any other questions or comments? Thank you. Um, mr. McGillen. Do you have any other items on this item? No, just a tremendous amount of thanks to the team They've spent many long hours Working on this particular toolkit for the community. So thank you guys I agree All right, let's move to item six proclamations Our first one up will be domestic violence awareness month. Ms. Combs. Could you handle this item? Thank you And i'm looking for Madeleine O'Connell Or jessica provost Are you coming on down good come on down? Hello So i'll read the proclamation Whereas the city of santa rosa recognizes that domestic violence affects one in four families in our local community And that the crime of domestic violence violates an individual's privacy dignity and security Based on the systemic use of emotional physical sexual psychological and economic control or abuse And whereas the y wca sonoma county is a community-based Not-for-profit organization affiliated with the y wca usa Y wca sonoma county embodies its mission to empower educate and advocate for domestic violence survivors and their children Who find they are unsafe in their own homes? Y wca sonoma county operates our community's only confidential safe house shelter The only 24 seven domestic violence crisis hotline the only therapeutic preschool Serving one of our most vulnerable populations children ages three to five years old As well as short and long-term trauma-informed therapy services And whereas domestic violence is a serious crime that affects people of all races sexes ages sexual orientation and income levels Stopping the the cycle of vicious criminal assault in the home Requires a coordinated effort between the criminal justice system and the agencies that provide services to victim Primarily reliant on the strong resolve and immense courage of survivors And whereas only an informed community effort will put an end to the cycle of domestic violence Members of our community are encouraged to participate in y wca's scheduled events And programs to support their mission to eliminate domestic violence in sonoma county through awareness education and empowerment Now therefore be it resolved that tom schwed hell mayor of the city of santa rosa On behalf of the entire council does hereby proclaim October 2019th as domestic violence awareness month Thank you Well, good afternoon everyone. I am madeline keegan o'Connell I'm so fortunate to be the ceo of ywca sonoma county honorable mayor and members of the city council We're so grateful to you that you would kick off the very first day of october as domestic violence awareness month And on behalf of our board of directors our staff our volunteers and especially the clients at ywca sonoma county Thank you so much for your proclamation We're grateful to be here again, and I certainly wanted to give our personal and professional Grateful sincere. Thanks for your financial support in the past year You've helped us expand our safe house shelter by five beds, and that is very significant. So thank you so much Members of our team are here today, and I want to pause and I want to ask them to stand They're a shy group, but they're right about there They are as you know the real heroes of the ywca and recently they voted us A best place to work according to the north bay business journal. So thank you. Thank you so much We're also so grateful. You know one of the things that you said in the proclamation. It's the coordination of effort, right? So we're so excited that chief ray navarro and his team would be here Representing our tremendous partnership. So chief ray and everyone at the santa rosa police department our heart felt Thanks. I understand we've been working with you almost daily this past past week, and we're very grateful for your partnership So big shout out You know regrettably earlier this year last march in fact our community experienced the loss of life When a wife at the hands of her husband in broad daylight was shot at a shopping center here in santa rosa And that was followed by the accused gunman taking his own life only blocks away As we know our community struggles with domestic violence and the ywca is here to answer their calls for help 24 7 365 At that crisis hotline that you mentioned five four six one two three four Um, I wanted you to know that in the past year or so ywca has also become highly engaged in providing housing solutions to families in our care And i'm so proud to share with you that we currently own and manage two single family homes and a duplex And we're working very hard to house families as they come out of our shelter Funding specifically earmarked for the community's sole domestic violence service provider ywca Has been directed to us by HUD and we are now actively involved in rapid rehousing right here in sonoma county As you can see ywca is on the move And i'm here to remind everyone that we've been here since 1975 And we're going to be here as long as you need us to keep santa rosa and sonoma county families safe from harm I want to call your attention to our awareness calendar I know that you have so many weighty and very crucial and important agenda items tonight I'm so grateful that you would take a moment for the proclamation for domestic violence awareness month We've partnered with a group called moves that's minimizing occurrences of violence in everyday society for their day of non-violence later this month And we're thrilled to have our friends at treasure house create an open house For us, um with proceeds coming back to the ywca I want to thank you so much for your gracious time and attention to my Comments tonight and of course for your proclamation and let's look forward to another successful year together Thank you so much Great our next proclamation is for active aging week. Mr. Tibbets. You have this item. Thank you, mr. Mayor Um, so I think we have this big bride. Yeah, come on down So whereas age friendly sonoma county and the council on aging would like to formally acknowledge international day of older persons on Tuesday October 1st 2019 and whereas international active aging week is recognized October 1st through 7th 2019 and whereas Monday, October 7th is recognized as active aging together day And whereas active aging week is recognized nationwide to celebrate positive aging and encourage health well-being and active participation and safe Age-friendly activities to share all that active aging encompasses And whereas the theme for this year's active aging week is redefining active And active aging is about a broad engagement of physical social cognitive spiritual professional and civic activities And whereas to commemorate active aging together day on Monday, October 7th 2019 There will be a 30-minute walk through downtown immediately followed by a rally in courthouse square for the community to support all persons aging in sonoma county Now therefore be a resolve that mayor tom schwedhelm of the city of santa rosa on behalf of the entire city council Does hereby proclaim the week of october 1st through 7th 2019 as active aging week Mayor schwedhelm councilmember tibbetz the rest of the council On behalf of council on aging and the 130,000 Seniors here in sonoma county. Thank you for recognizing this week of the 130,000 seniors the vast majority are healthy Active volunteering here in the community and basically supporting our community in so many other ways So it's great to highlight that contribution Um, we hope that you will come out and walk with us on monday morning leaving from the plaza Ending in courthouse square and we will celebrate the 41 population Represented by 50 year olds and more. I think a few of you join me in that category. Um, so thank you for your recognition council or sonoma county is a age-friendly community And um, this recognition also demonstrates santa rosa's Belief in in having an age-friendly city as well. So thank you Where's our iti? Thank you. But wait, there's one more proclamation fire prevention leak Mr. Sorry. You have this item. Thank you mayor Mr. Lowenthal Assistant fire marshal low and fall actually and group Thanks for taking the time to be here this afternoon I read the proclamation Whereas the city santa rosa is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all those living in and visiting santa rosa And whereas fire is a serious public safety concern both locally and nationally And whereas the home is the location where people are at the greatest risk of fire And whereas house fires killed 2,630 people in the united states in 2017 According to the national fire protection association and fire departments in the united states responded to 357,000 house fires And whereas the majority of fire related deaths in the united states four out of five occur at home each year And whereas when the smoke alarm sounds residents may have less than two minutes to escape to safety And whereas santa rosa residents who have planned and practiced a home fire escape plan are more prepared to Prepared and will therefore be more likely to survive a fire And whereas all residents of santa rosa should practice different escape routes And whereas the community has been responsive to public education measures and are taking action to increase fire safety Especially in their homes And whereas the 2019 fire prevention week theme Which reads not every hero wears a cape plan and practice your escape Effectively serves as a reminder that we all need to take personal steps to increase our safety from fire Now therefore be resolved that tom schwedhelm near the city santa rosa on behalf of the entire city council Urge everyone to be aware of their surroundings look for available ways out in an in the event of a fire or other emergency Respond when the fire when the smoke alarm sounds by exiting the building immediately and to support the many public safety activities And efforts of santa rosa fire and emergency services during fire prevention week and do hereby proclaim october 6 through 12 2019 as fire prevention week signed by the mayor on this date Thank you very much mayor members of council for recognizing this proclamation for us in the fire department A very important week obviously the theme has a little humor to it, which is great But the message is very important as well We focus primarily our education where we get out into the community With the elementary schools to drive that message home at that level And we know that that's going to have a ripple effect to the families and that's going to reach the adults as well So for us, it's a very fun time to engage our younger members of the community Through the assemblies that we perform during this next week So from the 7th through the 11th we'll be visiting 11 different schools and we'll conduct 21 different assemblies So reaching a large number of our population at that elementary level But again, the focus is really to help them understand what we're trying to build in our community Is safety and awareness and if you begin at your home and you can share that message that gets passed on to many other people So for us, we're very excited to have this read in front of our community and have it shared with you as well So we thank you and greatly appreciate your time Tony, where's the staff photographer? Thank you guys. I have nothing to report I was waiting for the chief to uh On your time Okay, no city manager report. Uh, madam city attorney. Do you have a report? I have no reports this afternoon. Thank you Do we have any statements of abstention by council members? Seeing none mayors and council members reports who would like to start Ms. Fleming I uh had the pleasure of attending the hispanic chamber of commerce Mixer that was put on here at city hall organized by rafael Herrera And I wanted to thank our economic development team for organizing that it was a pleasure to get to meet Some of the many business owners in our downtown and in our city and more broadly in sonoma county And also it was a great use of our space here our courtyard Transformed into a really charming space And I think that we sometimes take for granted that it can be a really pleasant Place to entertain and to spend time together Additionally, um short of getting a picture up for you guys. I wanted to hold this up today We made contact with space just a couple of blocks from here It was really fantastic the sonoma county libraries entered into Competitive process that they were successful in in being awarded a ham radio or amateur radio On the international space station Which meant that 10 students from santa rosa middle school got to ask multiple questions and We were up next to answer some questions And you got to see the space station just float out of range and hear the But at any rate it was a fantastic opportunity You could see how much care and thought the students put into the questions Far more than most of the adults who asked me if they could tag along with their Very basic potty humor questions. So these students are to be commended as is our sonoma county library Great. Thank you for that report any other reports? Go ahead mr. Tillis. I actually have a quick question relating to the use of generators I I should have probably asked this in advance in this meeting But mr. McGlynn at the next fire recovery and rebuild update Can we include what we're doing vis-a-vis generators in the decibel ordinances? I'm getting a lot of questions in the community about that Um, I'll probably need some more specifics from you to council member But I'll follow up with you about about that question, but absolutely. Okay. Thank you I just have a couple things report out on on wednesday september 25th We had a special meeting of the economic development subcommittee The subcommittee received information on the public-private partnership feasibility analysis update And we provided feedback to the consultant on that and we also had a brief discussion on the minimum wage ordinance Additionally on thursday september 26th, we had a home sonoma county strategic planning session We pretty much heard from the consultants about what the process would be and how they'd be gathering feedback to hopefully Provide back to the leadership count council for a more efficient and effective team I also attended the Thursday September 26th Hispanic chamber congress mixer. It was a wonderful use of our courtyard I'd never seen it like that before I do appreciate the efforts of rafael And rise del Rosa and the other city staff including our city attorney who appeared there really appreciate your attendance there wonderful event Okay, with that we'll go to item 10.2.1 This is direction from the council To the mayor regarding letters of interest received for appointment to the following vacancies and Basically, I think there's just one position. It's the north bay division league of california city's executive board Term expires two years from the appointment We had a letter received from susan harvey city catati and she withdrew that letter on september 25th And then we received a letter from mike healy from the city of petalema So I would entertain any motions mr. Vice mayor Thank you, mr. Mayor and just as a little bit of background information because I see a lot of new people in the audience The league of california city's is a representative body of many of the cities around the state who get together periodically and talk about Issues of concerns that we're all seeing Sharing ideas and figuring out how to move forward on that We do have a north bay division that has every city in the county that has representatives to it And so with that I will make a motion for councilmember healy from the city of petaluma To fill out that position for a two-year term And I'll second that Okay, we have a motion to second any additional comments Your votes, please And that passes unanimously. Thank you Item 10.3.1. Ms. combs, I believe this is your item Thank you, mayor. This is a part of our process Tell members of the public so that they understand we have a three-part process for handling items that are not typically on the agenda Last week I requested that we agendize An item considering the revision of council policy 23 Which is how to fill council vacancies In this meeting we vote on whether to have the discussion In the next two next meeting or the meeting after that So what I am asking is that we have the full discussion Of how to revise council policy for filling council vacancies Part of my reasoning in asking for this To come up now is that We now have a number of members who are in districts And Our current policy Requires that the seat actually be vacant And That prevents the person who is from that district from voting on Their replacement Which means that a district representative is selected by no one who lives in their district The reason I'm asking for it now though is that it is possible that I will be vacating my seat And because of that, um, I would like to have a voice to In the in the vote For who replaces me Specifically because I have a strong base and I would like the seat to continue to represent that specific base Um and would like to have a voice in that I also think it's a problem for the council that the seat must be vacant and then a fairly lengthy process begun And that leaves a considerable gap in having a full council So I think for a variety of reasons it makes sense for us to have a conversation Regarding changing the policy for filling council vacancies Does anyone have any questions of miss combs? We do have one card on this item before I ask for specific motion in a second any questions See none. I do have one card duane duit Thank you, sir Duane duit from the unrepresented district of roseland Currently in the city, but not allowed to have representation until the 2020 election And that was a deliberate move on the part of a number of council members It has essentially handicapped the district of roseland and south park also During activities that are Affecting them in a negative manner So i'm hoping that you'll put this on the agenda That you'll have a robust discussion as you'd like to say or in the words of the city manager That's a conversation we need to have with the community So let the community participate in this also I do believe in the past miss combs was one of the highest vote getters at times And I think it's really important that what she said about having her base represented should be Also respected by the sitting council members I don't know how it would actually affect my district But it's really important for the future as you set this precedent that you perhaps allow The leaving person if they don't die if it's someone that says i'm resigning because of health That they get to pick who might replace them and that if someone does die in office or as Has to leave for malfeasance perhaps something trumpy and like that That maybe what we could do is actually have an election so that the district gets their person To be representative instead of somebody that comes from the chamber of commerce and the good old boys sector that we've always had before Thank you for your time Thank you for that Um, so miss combs, would you like to make a motion? Let's get a second and then we can have a discussion Thank you, mayor, I move that we Agendize an item to consider the revision of council policy 000-23 procedure for filling council vacancies That we agendize that sometime within the next two council meetings And I I hope you will consider having that conversation. Thank you And is there a second for that motion? I'll second that motion. Okay, we have motion to second anyone like to make any comments Mr. Vice mayor Thank you, mr. Mayor You know and for me this has been an interesting discussion I've been lobbied pretty hard by a number of folks on it on whether or not we should make those change Make these changes I do think that we're going to have to make a number of elections changes relative to when we're in districts I think we're going to have a conversation about an out-large mayor I think we're going to have a conversation Certainly about the vacancies, but also about Whether or not cab members and planning commission members should come from a district as well We're going to have to have that conversation holistically And I will tell you by way of background one of the first policy areas that I worked on when I was in sacramento Was on election reform. It was my favorite topic. It's something that's very interesting to me And I've always had this belief that you don't make your election processes based on Understanding what the outcome is going to be and trying to force the outcome that you want And that's where I struggle a little bit is because councilmember combs. You have been a great colleague And I hope you don't leave But and I know that your perspective would be valuable, but at the same time there's so many questions about Creating this opportunity for somebody to announce that they're going to be leaving and then backing out if they don't like who's Actually the person who comes in I think we need to have those conversations I'm just not willing to put it Above some of the other things that we have coming in the next couple of weeks Whether it's the all-electric or the evergreen conversation or Even our inclusionary housing policy or excuse me our rental inspection program Conversation, so I will not be supporting the motion tonight Any other comments mr. Shore? Thank you, mayor. Well, I agree with the vice mayor The the process that we have in place. I have gone through We do have a very robust Experience with the community coming forward lots of different people apply they are interviewed And it is a combined decision by the entire council as opposed to any one council member And I think because of the the the various changes that are coming on the horizon That there will be a number of conversations about how to how to respond to the new district election Model and I'm not interested in in this time at Changing the this particular policy, which also mirrors state law Any other mr. Tillis Thank you, mr. Mayor This is actually a question a question for you councilmember combs because I just heard John bring up an interesting point. They have a process that processes has worked in the past But the term that you used councilmember Sawyer was was full body And I think and while I support that too, I'm I just want to make sure we're all Talking about the same process that I think you have in mind I am not suggesting that I appoint My replacement I am suggesting that I can take part in the conversation So you would be one of seven I would still be one of seven votes And I would also question whether or not We have had success in our past appointments, but Because sometimes it has swayed the council one way or the other significantly Okay, well, I thanks. I just wanted to make sure I was understanding where this could go and I appreciate the clarification Mr. Sloney Yeah, this the issue around districts is of significance in that it is our First stop gap toward making sure that we have a representative democracy Well, I appreciate the vice mayor's comments about needing to appreciate to approach this holistically I don't believe that we can wait to do these things and to that end I have appointed everybody To my boards and commissions from my district in hopes that if we don't get to it in time because things come up That we don't overlook the opportunities to increase representation And if we go by the assertion that this process works in the last 10 years the last female mayor we had was Let's see in 2012 she left office So it's been seven years If you look on the board up there, it's almost all white men in Sonoma county There has never been an african-american woman elected to office. This process does not work and And if we want to pretend that it does we're fooling ourselves The lat in the last 10 years. I'm not sure that we've had we've had one female vice mayor I mean this Councilmember combs has been one of the highest vote getters, but has never been permitted to be the vice mayor If we think that there is not sexism racism and classism at play Then we're diluting ourselves and i'm not willing to be a party to that Any other comments? My only comments because I would disagree it In my recent memory. We have had to our process has been a place and they have been in my opinion too very effective Council persons and also This position if you were to vacate it is an at-large. It's not districts I agree that once we do become all districts after november of 2020 that this is something that we'll discuss And right now given the competing interest in priorities because staff is going to have to be involved I don't want I don't see anything that we'll be discussing wanting to be dropped to a lower rung because we need to Further develop this so I won't be supporting that this motion And so we have a motion in second your votes, please And that motion fails three ayes three noes with myself vice mayor rogers and Mr. Sawyer voting no, thank you for the opportunity to have the conversation This week, but not next week Okay approval minutes Uh, we have the minutes from september 10th any adjustments to those from anyone See none. We will accept those Mr. McGlynn consent calendar Yes, item 12.1 resolution professional services agreement for investment advisory services with pfm asset management llc item 12.2 resolution contract award design build for audiovisual system at utilities field operations building item 12.3 resolution amendment to the city classification and salary plan creating the classification of stormwater and creeks manager and Reclassifying one vacant supervising engineer position to stormwater and creeks manager Item 12.4 ordinance adoption second reading ordinance of the council the city of san rosa pre-zoning the properties located at 4200 and 4224 sonoma highway also identified as assessor's parcels numbers 032-010-023 And 032-010-005 Respectively to the cg general commercial zoning district file number prj 18-050 Item 12.5 ordinance adoption Second reading ordinance of this council the city of san rosa amending the san rosa city code adding a new chapter 1 0-4 6 housing anti discrimination code Thank you council any questions I do have a question on item 12.2 The audiovisual system at ufo could you introduce your friend kill kenny city it. Thank you. Um It's my understanding the source of funds for this improvement are the peg funds That's correct. And could you just explain what those are? Uh, yes, they come from the uh cable subscriber franchise tax fees And they're presented to the are given to the city for providing a government meeting spaces Broadcasting our meetings in section I attend a lot of meetings at the ufo in that first screen It always seems to be um some visual challenges and i'm wondering would a fix to that Screen be included in this upgrade Yes, the screens are going to be replaced the projectors are also going to be replaced We're moving from 6,000 lumens to 18,000 lumens. So it'll be considerably brighter I'll trust that it'll be considerably by our weekend or my desired outcome is that we can all read it when we're At one of those meetings. So thank you. That was the only question I had Any additional questions? Okay, we have one card on this item. Mr. Dwayne do it You're good Hello, my name is doing to it. I'm from rosen. I'd like to thank you for 12.5 in which you be helping veterans This is very important right now because hud bash veterans are frequently not being allowed into units This is really uh the time when it's necessary because the rains are almost here With the rains coming i'm also concerned about 12.3 And I'd ask that you would explain better what this storm water and creeks manager might be doing Specifically because in 2004 there was a rosalind creek concept plan that was done with the neighbors in rosalind We talked about it for years. It was finally approved in 2007 and we see nothing go forward upon it We'd like to be able to know if this will be the person that we can work with to get the rosalind creek concept plan Put into some sort of action It was a hundred thousand dollar plan that was paid for by the taxpayers that now sits on a shelf We need to help you find the funds that will get the actions undertaken The community can do that. We've been talking to the sonoma county water agency We've talked to the laguna foundation and there are funds available We just need to have you as the lead agency give us one employee who will be that person I'm hoping it's going to be the storm water and creeks manager And last but not least if there's any money left over from 12.2 Please put that money into putting back the overhead projector here So that the public can give you evidence that everybody sees at the same time That would be the ultimate in democracy and participatory approaches That's community engagement at its best instead. You've taken it out You've had years to repair it and you're not putting it back in apparently So take that time it wouldn't take that much extra money on such a big contract to get the overhead projector back in here You've got all this other stuff. You could get it going. I think it's one of those things that's about Having a conversation with the community. Please do that as soon as possible Thank you John All right, mr. Rogers. You have this item Thank mr. Mayor I'm actually going to take this in two motions out of respect for councilmember Sawyer I'll do item 12.1 through 12.4 and wave further reading of the text He voted no on it So we have a motion in a second I'm concerned because we only have four people here. Do we need four votes for Passing this item or use the majority sufficient Looks like we've got another councilmember. I I'm delaying till we get another councilmember All right, we have a motion to second for items 12.1 through 12.4 your votes, please That passes with five Yes votes And then I will move item 12.5 and wave further reading of the text Do I have a second for that second We have a motion in a second on 12.5 your votes, please Modern technology we're working through it Maybe we should use some peg funds on this We're oh so close And that passes with four eyes one no by mr. Sawyer and mr. Tibbets abstaining. Thank you We are going to take a one minute recess before we take public Five minute recess. Okay, we're gonna take a five minute recess. We'll take public comment and move on to item 14.1 Okay, let's reconvene our meeting we'll Start with item 13 public comment on non agenda items. Mr. Dwayne do it followed by cathleen miller Thank you Dwayne I wanted to come and talk with you today Wait a minute Hey folks All right Do I get my three minutes up here? Keep talking Dwayne. It's your three minutes. It's not on the clock, sir. There you go Thank you, sir. My name is Dwayne DeWitt and I'm from rosin and I came today to talk with you About environmental justice and social equity Those are going to be components upon the upcoming general plan and I don't believe santa rosa has ever Addressed either of those topics in any way shape or form that has been realistic or authentic There's something called authentic community engagement and I ask you to do that But before that I'd like to go into the way back machine and today I brought you a report from 1993 Called the final report of the southwest area plan financing plan At that time the city of santa rosa was preparing to annex roseland which took them All these years just finished two years ago In this it points out the city had a park standard of providing six acres of park For every 1,000 residents according to the park standard This would be to the general plan the total can include five acres of parkland and one acre credit for open space After this was put into place Different folks came forward and said, you know, that's too much And what we're going to do is we're going to make it so that we'll count schoolyards We'll call we'll call plazas and cement areas open space also essentially taking away a bit of social equity for the southwest and South park also because they didn't have enough green space already And as a matter of fact you just turned in a grant application to the status And you asked the state department of parks to help you because my area of roseland Only has less than one acre of park for 1,000 residents So we're in a deep deficit for those social amenities that we need for true social equity And yet we won't get them unless you folks make the decisions to work with the community on what we'd like to have We'd like to have a roseland open space system in which we can actually call out the spots along the roseland creek corridor Where there is still a chance for nature to exist Actually, what we hear is when the city or the county talks about park development They're interested in spending money to put down Hardscape to actually sometimes kill the nature that we would like to have our children see We're in a real dilemma here because that's also environmental justice Roseland is the most polluted area in the county The roseland brownfields area along sabastopol road hasn't even been addressed by the city yet Even though the county went and got a grant for 392 thousand dollars from the us EPA Come to find out the city and the county haven't really been working together on it So i'm asking you here and now to step up to it and get ready for environmental justice and social equity And the next general plan. Thank you. Thank you. Kathleen miller followed by pat nitchell Thank um, can everybody hear me i'm a little uh nervous. I don't usually do this sort of thing, but um The reason i'm here tonight and by the way, I do support the 15 dollar an hour wage increase I had to throw that in there Is because i'm a new citizen to santa rosa even though i've lived in the county a long time And when i moved here, I wanted to become an educated voter and an informed citizen I reached out to my councilman member and um, I wasn't able to connect And i'm feeling a little frustrated and isolated. I realize i'm not wealthy Or politically connected or powerful But I would like one hour of time to ask my questions and learn his views So i'm hoping that my council member can respond to my request to meet And also another council member who represents smart train I have some questions about that before that comes up for the vote as well. So That's why i'm here. I tried my approach. It didn't work. So i'm here tonight trying a new approach. Thank you Thank you pat nitchell Okay, so let's begin. Um My problem seems trivial in the face of all these enormous issues that you're faced with today Um, so I almost feel like I should apologize for being here But I handed these out. Hopefully you all have a copy of this This is um 40 90 walker avenue, which the city of santa rosa owns that property And uh, there are damaged rotting leaning trees threatening my home 40 60 walker avenue There are fire hazard. There are real danger The neighboring house is shaded. That's my house in fall all fall in all winter Even at four in the afternoon and it in the morning And there's a picture on the other page of that in the um, this costs us homeowners my husband and I High gas bills to heat our house these trees need to come down. They're rotten. They're dangerous if there was a fire We would have no chance. They're right next to us And um, this is my fourth request. My first two requests were two employees of santa rosa city My last request was to you the council and now this is the fourth request I'm asking again That you eliminate these trees that are a fire hazard and a danger to me and my family. Thank you Thank you. Those are all the cards we have for item 13. We're now going to move to item 15.1 Oh, do you forgive me? I just Go ahead thomas Um, I was going to address this issue the last council meeting at the end, but uh, Well, there there was no one here, but but I would have preferred to to address it at that time Uh, but now the chambers full Maybe this is a benefit So a few weeks ago the council was looking at, uh, affordable housing There was a conversion of housing existing housing with, uh, a tax credit financing and the affordable housing contractor owned the housing and wanted to Essentially refinance that housing So I just want to point out this is really really costly It's not costly to us There was no cost to the city But the cost is with the tax credit So in the financing the the developer the owner Stood here and said they wanted to get the most return from the federal government that was possible Meaning that they refinanced the most that was possible on the housing. It was 88 million dollars and the total expected valuation 22 million dollars probably would be the equity portion of that which would be the tax credit financing So the 22 million dollars nine percent tax credit would be about two million dollars a year in tax That would not go so they would they would Shelter that would be the tax credit and it goes immediately to their taxes that does not go in for 55 years That's 110 million dollars. It's very straightforward 110 million dollars does not go to the federal government For that 22 million dollars of financing over five times as much as the as what was financed So it makes it very expensive It does shelter income that 110 million dollars of tax would shelter over a billion dollars of income So it's extremely expensive. That's at the federal level Again, so it's not at the state level. There might have been state tax on it depends on how they actually do it But the point is is that kind of financing? This is a wrong way to finance Existing housing that is already affordable. We need to use those credits Very uh diligently. Yes, maybe that housing Affordable housing contractor or owner would then invest another housing they might not do it here Okay, so there's no guarantee that they're going to do it here. They're just Making our housing more costly Right, so that's going to be the actual price and sale price and everything about that would Would be up there at 88 million dollars to be refinanced at that And can potentially make our housing more expensive and yet not benefit us So it's it's critically important that you Act on those things that are local and produce housing for us not not necessarily refinancing somebody else's housing Thank you very much. Thank you All righty Move to public hearings item 15.1. Mr. McGlynn item 15.1 public hearing ordinance adding chapter 10-45 to the Santa Rosa city code to establish Minimum wages to be in played but to be paid by employers Raya Sadella rosa economic development manager presenting Good afternoon. Mayor Schwethelm and members of the council At its core this item before you calls the question of expediting within Santa Rosa the $15 Minimum wage state timeline by two years for small businesses in 18 months for large businesses So by way of background and to recap what was presented at the july study session SB 3 was signed into law in 2016 Setting the stage to raise the state minimum wage by set amounts each year Over the course of six years for large businesses and seven years Excuse me and seven years for small businesses starting in 2017 Come 2023 under this formula both large and small businesses will be at $15 plus cpi w For the purposes of the labor code I'd just like to point out that the state defines a small business as 25 fewer employees and a large business as those with 26 or more employees This split in terms of size of business is consistent with the vast majority of input we received Both from a survey conducted in with the help of the Santa Rosa metro chamber as well as from meetings We've held with various business groups and labor and individuals So in at some point in 2018, I believe North Bay jobs with justice and the north bay labor council began working with cities Particularly in the north bay proposing local ordinances to expedite the state timeline In february of this year during council's goal setting session Addressing a local minimum wage ordinance was set as a tier two priority That could be addressed and put on the docket as soon as resources permitted As luck would have it resources eventually did permit and as mentioned a study session was held on july 27th At which the north bay jobs as justice proposal that you see on the right Of the screen Was introduced recommending the tiered implementation starting in january 2020 of an expedited timeline Then in 2021 Small businesses would match large businesses at $15 per hour plus cpi using unlike the state The bay area cpi index It's again a better understanding of the effects of labor's proposal Part of the study session included a presentation of analysis by one of the authors of the uc Berkeley labor center study And what we learned then was that of the county studied and that was uh, Sonoma marina napa and solano Only 36 percent of north bay workers would be directly affected by the expedited timeline Of that 36 percent it's estimated that santa rosa's portion of the affected workforce is about 13 percent Or around 25 to 30 000 workers Those workers then would see an average increase of in earnings of almost 16 percent Some of the other main takeaways that day I think contrary to popular belief are that mostly older workers with at least some college education Are the ones who are currently making less than 15 dollars per hour Also, uh, the most affected workers by industry are in retail food services and health services. So Knowing that this of course means that the businesses that will be most affected are retail restaurants and health care services The study pointed out that in order to offset the cost of business the most common response to increase response by businesses is to increase prices on goods and services And or to reduce staff and or reduce services That said the study found that while restaurant costs increased by two percent Prices increased only by about one percent Whereas for retail and the general economy the study found that there were minimal cost and price increases Well, uh, this study is not specific to santa rosa alone the data and research sources in this study were pulled from Many different areas and are available for further review We have put the study on our website as our city.org slash minimum wage And the sources included and these are some of the sources that I looked at when studying this issue Are the borough of labor statistics? public use micro data areas as well as Other studies from such places as american economic review the federal reserve Journal of human resources and the economic journal many more were sourced for that At the end of the july study session Direction was given to move forward with an expedited minimum wage ordinance using the bay area cpi w council also expressed a desire to remain as consistent as possible with other regional ordinances as well as with the state labor code And lastly based on questions asked during the study session I did dig dig deeper into the issue enforcement as well as data That staff can easily track and use that could provide indications Of the effectiveness of this proposed ordinance Because we knew where labor stands on the issue I spent most of my efforts post study session reaching out to and engaging as broad and inclusive as spectrum Of businesses as I could between july and actually to be honest with you until yesterday In addition to the dozen or so business group meetings that I attended and presented to and got feedback from the draft ordinance was also Discussed at public meetings via the economic development subcommittee and the downtown action organization board meeting And furthermore We created a policy document. I think you've seen this That has a number of policies, but we Tried to highlight the fact that minimum wage is coming up as a discussion and we Made this available to a broader spectrum of stakeholders in the community all of the policies on that document have a Specific website or contact information list available Also in collaboration with the center as a metro chamber we developed a survey That the chamber was very proactive about sending out As well as sharing with other groups to send out to their constituents Including the Sonoma county alliance and the downtown action organization That survey was open for almost two months and promoted throughout and ultimately received about 100 responses Lastly on engagement we the the city chamber and engaged stakeholder groups Were relentless in encouraging folks to weigh in either by writing or showing up to council And by last count we received I believe 49 written correspondences thus far and I have to say as a staff person who's worked in Government for quite a while I'm very enthused and invigorated to see people who haven't normally participated in government come and participate So getting into the meat of the ordinance elements or a little bit more into it First I'd like to start with key points on the state code that the city will continue to adhere to I call this out because in most of the meetings I had there were questions about Changing things locally that are actually under the state purview So it's important to note that in the case of labor and wages If there are conflicts between a state and local minimum wage policy the policy that is most Beneficial to the employee is the rule that must be followed that said It's really only the condensed timeline toward the $15 per hour minimum wage and the specific cost of Living adjustment index at Santa Rosa Santa Rosa ordinance addresses So the state already clearly lists and defines exemptions to the minimum wage requirements The Santa Rosa ordinance stays consistent with those so for example As listed on the slide learners are People who are new to an occupation To for which they have no previous experience they can Then they can be of any age They can be paid at 85 percent of minimum wage for up to 160 hours So those kinds of exist exemptions still exist disabled workers and non-profit organizations that hire disabled workers are exempt Assuming they have the proper license and approval from the state That's the same with apprentices And what does not need special approval from the state to pay less than minimum wage Are exemptions for immediate family members such as children spouses parents of the employer There were many questions and comments raised from restaurant tours in particular about the possibility of tip credits And i'd like to be clear on this This is a state level issue in that the state code expressly prohibits any wage reductions related to tips Or known as the tip credit for tipped employees in california And while it's not listed on the slide the question of health care credits was not raised by any in any of the meetings And we did not receive any comments on those and we did not address that at all in the ordinance So because council asks us also to consider regional efforts This chart shows what other jurisdictions have that have past ordinances have done And before i get into that i need to point out that I made an error on the chart on the slide and therefore an error in the staff report and the attachment three And that is that i fail to insert In under the city of santa rosa column, which is the orange ish column up there I failed to insert the that of course we would Be subject to the state minimum wage increase occurring on january 1st 2020 So the 13 dollars for large and 12 dollars for small Should be in the column right above the the circled portion up there so Let's see so if you approve the ordinance as is santa rosa's minimum wage would rise from a base of 13 dollars for large And 12 for small as opposed to the What's shown there is 11 and 12 dollars So getting back to the other cities Sonoma which came out of the gate first with their ordinance and the vato the most recent city to pass an ordinance Are uh more of the outliers to both state code and the north bay jobs with justice proposal in that Where sonoma expedites their 15 dollar Timeline to 2021 for large businesses in 2022 for small at this point They do not Sink large and small to a single rate. So that's the the first thing And then the second is that sonoma city council decided to continue to raise By a dollar per year the minimum wage by size classification Until 2023 when small businesses will be at 16 dollars per hour and large at 17 dollars At which time they'll revisit the issue and I understand decide on the cpi and I think can address The the parody issue with the size difference A novato on the other hand implemented a third size tier to their small business A third size tier to the size of the businesses so that small businesses remain 25 or less employees Large is now 26 to 99 And the category they added is very large, which is 100 employees or more Furthermore each tier reaches 15 dollars per hour a year With a Reach 15 dollars per hour a year apart starting in 2020 for very large businesses January 1st 2021 for large and January 1st 2022 for small So they do not reach parody with because with each year the bay area cpi w is added to that wage calculation So at this point it seems as I understand it they'll go forward with three different rates Most similar to us is pedaluma Though they implemented their ordinance the they will be implementing their ordinance starting on january 1st 2020 Whereas for us oops as noted We will have Uh Waited to implement ours or proposed to wait to implement ours starting on july 1st So due to feedback we received and uh in acknowledgement of The angst around the cost and preparation needed from businesses perspective to plan for an increase Our ordinance begins implementation starting july 1st 2020 allowing for nine months of preparation Starting july 1st 2020 minimum wage for small business would then rise 14 percent from 12 thousand hour to 14 dollars an hour and large businesses would go from 13 to 15 dollars an hour Which is about a 13 percent increase Six months later on january 1st 2022 both small and large businesses will be at 15 dollars an hour plus bay area cpi w Another thing to note is that uh like the state Santa Rosa's ordinance does propose a cpi cap at 3.5 percent Of course the state uses us cpi w and again we're proposing bay area cpi w This was done as another concession to help businesses with their budget planning And the original north bay jobs with justice model Ordinance does not propose a cpi cap. However, we also discussed this with them As well as the proposed six-month implementation delay Just to see if they had any issue with it at the time they did not So it became a talking point for us as we've been reaching out to To businesses and the community So about the consumer price index So during the study session and to a smaller degree during discussions with the community There were questions about the various consumer price Indices that could be used The consumer price index is a measure of the average change over time In the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services And indexes are available for both uh us and various geographic areas So firstly it's good to understand the difference between cpi you versus cpi w cpi u is a more general index that tracks retail prices as they affect all urban consumers And cpi w is a more Specialized index. It's a subset of the cpi u that tracks retail prices as they affect urban hourly wage earners and clerical workers Secondly, I want to point out that there is a difference between us cpi and bay area cpi Or more specifically when I say bay area According to the department of labor that means san francisco Oakland and hayward cpi And that is our region So this difference is because the average price for goods and services nationwide is of course Different than the average prices within specific geographic areas So you can see this difference in this chart where our region is relative with a our region has a relatively high Cost of living and so this is reflected in the average cost of goods and services tracked here Between 2009 and and 2018 Uh, oh before I go back. I want to just point out. There is an attachment in your packets that shows a more comprehensive look between 2001 and 2018 And I point this out why I don't have it on this Screen, I do want to point out that there are only two years on that attachment When the bay area cpi w was higher than 3.5 percent and those were in 2001 and 2018 So once again in listening to the broader community and with the support At the time of labor we added into the center of the ordinance a cpi cap of 3.5 So that the adjustment will always be the lesser of 3.5 percent And the bay area cpi w so Just to round out this discussion examples of policies that use very cpi's to adjust the cost of living Because I know this came up in the study session social security uses the uscpi w State labor code also uses the uscpi w and then of all the regional ordinances that I've reviewed They use the bay area cpi w And the last thing I just want to point out in the ordinance Under section 10 45 point 0 3 0 beginning on october 20 Beginning in october 2020 and then annually thereafter the city would publicize the cpi w and the adjusted minimum wage Affected for the year the next year so it would begin in october when we would notify businesses Enforcement was identified as a concern before and during the study session In doing some digging. I was very pleased to stumble across and read 2016 20 the ab970 which came into law in 2016 This bill amended the state labor code to authorize the labor commissioner to enforce local labor laws And to issue citations and penalties for violations when deemed necessary So it takes a lot of the burden off of us As the sole enforcement arm for a local minimum wage And we can now then partner with the state on this So while this codifies the state rule states rule in local labor policy To have an effective minimum wage ordinance the city should also plan to do its part and So in speaking with other jurisdictions who've had more experience or have had higher minimum wages for longer We know that the bulk of the Issues that come before them are in fact directed to the state And then Those cities that we talked to either have a defined program or they contract for services with a specialized vendor who can provide assistance to To address specific labor issues So our recommendation is a combination of all these options. So what isn't Referred to the state either automatically or by staff Which we understand again, it would be the majority of the complaints We believe that economic development staff can manage the remaining issues either by You know working with the business Or by if we need to bringing in a compliance consultant that we could contract with and we likely wouldn't do that Until the next fiscal year These next few slides are really just examples of the type of data or really data sources that we can track That can help indicate the influence Of the minimum wage ordinance over time The question of tracking and metrics came up during the study session and short of commissioning periodic studies specific to santa rosa I believe these should suffice as General indicators, so i'm just going to page through them The bureau of labor statistics puts out Santa Rosa area economic summary, which is where these graphs come from But they also give us a An occupational employment and wages overview, which is attachment seven in your agenda packet Unfortunately, we don't have the means as I said to restrict tracking to santa rosa specifically So I do want to point out that the B less data that you see on these slides is provided either By the metropolitan statistical area or by county Or by the western region as a whole So some of the charts I think would be helpful for example Our employment rates by sector Average weekly rates as tracked by county the annual spending graph by category Which is tracked for the whole of the western region actually and then The over-the-year changes in selling prices received by producers on select industries, but that's nationwide Lastly I think other indicators that I think will help track and of course, I don't have them on this slide But just to point out licensed child care slots and average fees we noted in reviewing this that It's a good indicator in that licensed child care the bulk of their Costs are related to labor And then also the number of santa rosa business tax certificates, which we year-over-year which we already track so Finally getting to the survey that was distributed fairly widely by the santa rosa metro chamber What you have in your agenda packet is an earlier pull of respondents showing 69 responses In total the chamber actually received 93 responses and we're kind enough to share the data with us I've only selected a few of the results to share in the slide, but it's an interesting read in the comments and Are interesting and the the generally it's a it's a very good document to sort of review and and See So 55 of the respondents Represent corporations 10 or so proprietors But we also received responses from nonprofits llc's partnerships and a couple of government agencies support for and against the minimum wage increase was Truly evenly split with just one vote separating or one, you know, I guess they're a vote separating the two of them Other things to note most employees of the respondents get paid above minimum wage There were 66 of the respondents said they paid their employees above minimum wage was only 34 Paid at the current minimum wage of those paying minimum wage on average 62 of the employees If i'm reading it correctly hold part-time positions 99 of survey respondents Target compensation at or above market rate Though the survey didn't really define Actually, what is market rate by industry sector? In reaction to what the impact might be on staff in terms of staff benefits nearly 60 percent said that there would be No impact, but when it came to potential reductions in staff 48 percent said That they expected some reduction in staff levels or hours Whereas 39 percent said there would be no change On a positive note 70 17 percent indicated they would That this minimum wage increase would provide staff greater stability or a higher quality of life So the while the survey was helpful in in gaining general understanding of the business community sentiment Regarding the expediting of the minimum wage I will say that the more in-depth discussions with business groups and individuals was Most helpful in understanding how we can help mitigate some of the identified issues within the ordinance So lastly, I'd like to spend a moment on compaction Compaction occurs when wages for jobs that carry less responsibility get too close or even overtake salaries for higher positions With more responsibility This issue was brought up most directly and most recently with meetings that I had with restaurant tours Who pay The example they gave me their front-of-house Who are tipped employees at or closer to minimum wage whereas a mostly non-tipped back-of-house employees earn more so An easy way to explain this is as it relates to the city during the study session I presented some information that that can compaction for the city is not an issue While this remains true for the permanent employees within the city We did find that we have compaction with our seasonal part-time workers with rec and park so the number that we presented did not factor into compaction as I just defined it and taking that into consideration We estimate for the city for example Compaction costs to the city would be closer to about 350 thousand dollars starting in fiscal year 2020 2021 That concludes my presentation And so it is recommended by the planning and economic development department That the council introduce an ordinance adding chapter 10 dash 45 at sec to the san rosa city Code to establish minimum wages to be paid by employers Great. Thank you for that presentation. I as in I also really want to compliment you and your team for the outreach As you've done both I know meeting with council members but out in the community getting all that feedback So this um very obvious is whatever decisions we make will we will not struggle with the lack of information So I really appreciate all those um outreach efforts Council questions on the presentation. Mr. Tibbets Thank you, mr. Mayor. Uh, I I want to echo what the mayor said that this was has been an incredible job that you've done to go out and get information and incorporating all the perspectives and And I definitely appreciate that I have a question and it was I was meeting with a group of students yesterday and he asked me to ask this So I'm asking on his behalf For employees who are working under the table Usually back of house What recourse and typically undocumented what recourse would they have in this environment? Um to kind of earn the minimum wage That's a tough one. I had a hard time answering because I thought well that kind of implicates a tax crime most likely Yeah, I was gonna say but a number one But I would say One of the first things I would like to point out that the state code expressly states that immigration status is not a consideration In the right to be paid minimum wage So that's Number one, um anybody regardless of immigration status and that um the way the code states it You're not supposed to ask that Anybody regardless of immigration status may wage a complaint with the state And they should okay great. Thank you. I'm hoping he's listening. Thanks, mayor Explaining Thank you, and I want to echo that I Cannot appreciate enough how much work went into both your work with Our local businesses and our labor community here. I do have a number of questions about the ordinance itself I'm curious to know Under a b9 70 What enforcement capacities? Does the state have that? Are the state enforcement capacities limited to the extent to which we set forth? Our our fines or our punishments No, I mean um basically Uh it a b a b9 70 authorizes a labor commissioner to investigate and upon Uh a request from the local entity to enforce local laws regarding overtime hours or minimum wage provisions And to issue citations and penalties for violations Except unless we have already done so so um they have um all the rights to enforce our local Requirements plus the um Plus those dictated by the state. Do they have the right to revoke a city issued business tax license? Yes And that is in the ordinance. Okay um I'm wondering why collective bargaining units were exempted from this ordinance That was taken uh from the north bay jubbless justice Model ordinance and we kept it in Okay, um, do you have a sense of who the workers are that are most affected by uh Who are union members who are making less than the proposed minimum wage? I don't have that but I have to say I don't I don't mean I don't anticipate you you'd have to uh If I if I recall correctly They'd have to be told and understand what they are agreeing to in order to accept less than minimum wage My sense is that it's hotel workers and women of color who are cleaning rooms who are going to bargain for better working conditions and or panic buttons to avoid sexual assault and by having this in there we uh, we are Attacitly making it harder for them to both be safe in our no living wage um I'm wondering why uh, we capped it at 3.5 percent of cpi w when um When it goes above 3.5. It's uh a good year for everybody. Additionally, um, we have Uh rent stabilization bill coming down from the state That's likely going to be signed if hasn't been signed already that does not cap at five percent increase per year plus 3.5 cpi And my additional concern embedded in that is that if we have a few good years We're going to be out of sync with pedaluma and cause greater challenges with enforcement that have been seen in san jose Well, uh 3.5 cap was um something that was recommended or uh I don't know how to say this like it was a um in recognition of um some degree of certainty That it could provide two businesses in planning for their budgets. Um, and so that was one of the core reasons That we that we went with that so sticking with that if i'm a business owner and i want to be able to plan Let's say it's october now and not in this kind of a year where we're looking at This ordinance but in a couple years from now and i want to know when i'm doing my pro forma a quarter out or six months out for january or You know How would i be able to track what the cpi is so that i could have the predictability in my business expenses regardless of Whether it's 3.5 plus or not right so um the bureau labor statistic well for one thing I i think you have to be a savvy business person because i have to say i don't think many people I should pay attention that much attention to but um the uh the bureau of labor statistics um Provides or keeps a running tally and it is uh available Again for the uh san joseco oakland hayward region So you can look uh at the averages as they're gaining through the i think they release the figures every other month and so you can Begin to get a good indicator of what the uh Year and annual percentage will be okay, so it's fairly easy to predict early on is what you're saying Or in advance well, it's easy to begin to understand what the uh percentage would be or the data is available Right the data is available. All right. Thank you It's going do you have a question? Okay Thank you I have appreciated the learning curve here and um The amount of information materials you have provided has been outstanding. Thank you. Thank you very much Uh, it concerns me to do something different from petaluma Um, what were the reasons why we would not coincide with what surrounding individuals in the county Are doing i just wonder what what how do we justify? Making it that confusing for businesses that may have like a site in petaluma and a site here Well, the only difference between as in petaluma is the is the potential cap to cpi otherwise There is no consistency either with sonoma But there is with that cpi cap that is uh, though they use Us cpi w it is consistent with the state. So the direction I received specific to that item is find consistency with sp3 and consistency with our regional Cities of the other cities and thus far we are most consistent with the exception of that 3.5 cap with petaluma and Help me because I may have misread Um, is the small business Uh timing different between us and petaluma also no that is consistent. So, uh centers a petaluma and the City of sonoma all recognize the sp3 or the state labor code definition of small and large business. Okay It I will just say it concerns me That rent can go up cpi plus five percent But that wages are limited to under To the lesser of cpi or three percent, which is not the same as adding We're talking about a significant difference in increase between rent and wages. It does not seem to me to be appropriate to Um Put our low-income workers in such advice Thank you Mr. Vice mayor Thank you, mr. Mayor I want to piggyback on councilmember tippitt's question a little bit and first if you could go back to that soon Also point out to him. I think it was about three years ago assemblymember mollin passed legislation Actually making it illegal to blackmail somebody based on their status. So that helps in some regards Raisa you and I have had a conversation multiple times actually about Wage theft type ordinances at the local level and understanding that that's an important component In making sure that everybody is playing on the same level playing field And in particular for folks who are undocumented or or uh minority status It's not always just the wage that We sometimes need to step in there's this ordinance and the tools that are built with the labor commissioner's office Also allow us to talk about overtime. For example trying to Not pay overtime in order to get under the per hour wage that we're putting in place here Yes Okay, and then the other types of complaints People can still come to you and get that assistance as well, right? That's correct. Okay. We've also talked a little bit about The ramp up to 2020 and one of the things that you mentioned to me is that the city would also be looking at ways to assist businesses that are Legitimately on that margin and just need a little bit more time Can you talk a little bit about what assistance there is out there from the city's perspective for those businesses? Yes, and I'm finding more You know as quickly as I can but the most common ones are looking at At the at the base level at the business plan And business conditions and so we work with the SBDC small business development corporation Which is a state agency as well as our partners with the economic development board centers of metro chamber We're working with hispanic chamber of commerce Loci and we've talked to a number of different people About what opportunities exist to reach out to businesses who? Who need assistance with business plans, but also we are looking at microloan possibilities and so I've just learned of a new one which i'm totally blanking on but it's a national organization That helps with microloans. We also have the Gosh, I can't remember any of them. I think it's working capital or something. It's Managed out of the economic development board Um From the from the county So we're and then of course spdc has a number of small And microloan possibilities on our website src.org slash business. We also have a number of Loan programs and lending resources and so we're trying to be more aggressive or we're planning on Being more proactive about what those resources are and how to get them to people again using our partner community organizations Great. Thank you so much Mr. Sorry Thank you, mayor I'm curious about a couple of things. Was there any conversation given to the impact on young workers like that are you know in school 16 years old And how this you know if you've got two two Individuals applying for a job when a 16 unskilled perhaps first job And then um an 18 year old who may have had may or may not have some experience. I would assume that 18 They probably have some experience under their belt Um, I would think that there's going to be a tendency To hire the older worker and to hire the perhaps the more experienced one because the only advantage might be for an employer To be able to pay less to a sick to an unskilled 16 year old as opposed to an 18 year old Is any any thought been given to being able to carve out that age group because I am concerned with what what may happen to their first jobs um You know, I don't remember I can I can look it up quickly. Um, if I have it within my bandwidth right now, but There was uh, the uh, UC Berkeley, um center for labor Did address that? To a degree in their presentation again, um, I think it was something like 96 of the people are Who are affected by minimum wage are actually 20 and above and the majority of that is actually 30 and above So it's a small segment of the minimum wage population that we're talking about who are You know 16 to uh to 20 I Actually did some research on some of the studies and I I can look also quickly and get back to you on this Because I have cited some sources that did talk about what those impacts might be and again, they're they're minimal But uh, yeah, that's all I have for you. Thank you. And I and I also agree with my colleagues. I really appreciate this Amazing amount of research that you've done to help help guide us in in our decisions here today One other question I have um, they the governor or the in the development of sp3 They did add a clause that allowed the governor to Pause the increases if there was a major downturn in the economy Was there any thought given to that if if something severe were to happen uh to be able to Mitigate some of the some of the pain of a of a dropped economy on the employers right before the increase happens Uh, so not for this ordinance. Um, the if I recall correctly the governor has only uh, the ability to use that off-ramp twice If there is I think what we had discussed here and during the study session is if there is a negative cpi that There would be no change, but we did not discuss and nor did we consider An off-ramp. Okay. Thank you Thank you the only question I had um, I couldn't find it in the ordinance about third party complaints Who do we accept those or how would we investigate those? Um, I did look that up and Anybody has the ability to make a complaint. Um, and they would go to the state Said with confidence. Thank you I was trying to look at my notes real quick Great. Thank you Okay, those are all questions we have from council. We have plenty cards here So you'll have two minutes of opportunity to share your views with the council don't feel like You have to use all two minutes. You could also just acknowledge what previous Speakers have said that you would agree with them So first up is dwayne dwitt followed by daniel pablo Did dwayne leave? All right, daniel pablo followed by valerie Hingham, okay Is dan there you go dan? Yeah Hey everybody, my name is daniel pablo and I actually serve on the board of trustees and I serve as a student voice But beforehand I like to apologize to the city council. I know I'm a little short So I know it's some of you can't see me But the fight for 15 is an issue. I've been fighting for a year for And I'd like to thank you I like to thank jack tibbetts Especially for joining our student government meeting at 3 p.m. Yesterday listening asking questions and actually hearing the student perspective at the junior college as well But I would like to ask the city council as a recommendation for the voting process To actually approve this I know a lot of students and a lot of friends who first handedly go through homelessness And just working at starbucks barns nobles or any other place 12 dollars is barely enough For a lot of these students to make Have money on for their side Some gas for their car going to class Feeding themselves every day in school So this would be great if we could pass the fight for 15 And this will just be a slippery slope Santa rosa is one of the biggest cities in sonoma county The city's sonoma actually passed it first the city of paloma fell in hand as well And if we pass it it's just going to be A chain of commands. It'll be Eventually sought out to the city of skeelsburg Every other city and will be the ones to actually fight that on So I would recommend to the board to approve this. Thank you for the time Thank you valerie hinshaw followed by susan lamont Good evening. Mr. Mayor and city council members. My name is val hinshaw. I'm a resident of san aroza And i'm here on behalf of the sonoma county democratic party as well I'd like to read a letter into the record which has been distributed to all members of the council From our chair pat sable Dear mayor schwedhelm and members of the council The sonoma county democratic party is writing to voice our organization's support For the north bay jobs with justice proposed ordinance to raise the citywide minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 With an annual bay area cpi chain each year thereafter in a time of skyrocketing cost of living and stagnant wages We believe that local government should do everything in their power to address this imbalance directly by implementing policies such as a minimum wage increases The sonoma county democratic party passed a resolution for support of a $15 an hour minimum wage in 2014 The california state democratic platform includes specific and direct language supporting a statewide $15 an hour minimum wage A number of you council members read this platform and pledged to support it when seeking the democratic party endorsement By increasing the minimum wage and Santa Rosa to $15 an hour by 2020 and including an annual relevant cpi increases Not only do we give our poorest residents some measure of economic security by putting an average of $2,900 annually in their pockets But we also improve their health Better their educational outcomes stimulate the local economy at the same time Low wage workers have been found to spend a significantly higher portion of their income Locally on basic necessities and the increased spending power of these workers would return to our local economy Providing a boom to our small businesses sincerely pat sable chair of the sonoma county democratic party Thank you So I do uh before I get yelled at by the city attorney I do have to open this public hearing. So this is a public hearing that is now open So we have Susan Lamont followed by debbie mccon Present the green party of sonoma county and to add its voice in support of the north bay jobs with justice Proposed ordinance to raise the citywide minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 The green party stands with labor and believes that the prosperity of the city of santa rosa And the county of sonoma cannot continue to rest on the backs of poorly paid workers Everyone in this room knows that working people cannot live and work here without struggle and precarity if they can live here at all Everyone in this room knows that rents have skyrocketed while wages have not kept up Everyone in this room knows that we are in the midst of an environmental crisis And that it makes no sense to force workers to live hours from their work and with inadequate public transportation Everyone in this room knows that economic instability creates stresses affecting health Relationships family education and so much more Everyone in this room knows that income inequality has reached levels that are obscene and inhumane Everyone in this room knows that past minimum wage increases have not destroyed local economies But have boosted them because those increases are returned to local businesses But this is not just a monetary issue. It's an ethical one Though you will hear protestations to the contrary Everyone in this room knows What the right and ethical thing to do is and that is to support the people who make this county what it is That is to share the prosperity That is to recognize that the worker using the vacuum cleaner the worker carrying The tray and the worker behind the cash register are just as valuable as workers and as human beings As the worker wearing a suit They have been waiting far too long Their struggle is real and they are desperate The green party of sonoma county asks you To please Act on what everyone in this room knows and raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars per hour by 20 Thank you. Debbie mccown followed by george eberti I'm debbie mckay and i'm here on behalf of the league of women voters And we sent a letter to the council members to each of you But i would like to read our letter into the record As you are aware the california cities can set their own minimum wage higher than the state which is what you're considering this evening The league of women voters of sonoma county support a living wage designed to help as many covered employees as possible Earn a wage at or above the poverty level And i'd like to add a side comment that i'm really pleased you're not carving out teenagers Very often teenagers are a very important part of low income households Making it and being able to pay their rent and buy and put food on the table So i'm glad you're covering everybody underneath this ordinance The league urges the council to take this important step towards a living wage by approving this ordinance this evening The league has long been concerned with the lack of affordable housing in our community Low wage workers cannot make ends meet in this high-cost county Particularly given the skyrocketing rents and housing costs As you know sonoma county rents have increased by approximately 25 percent from 2000 to 2016 While the annual medium income for renters has only increased nine percent Increasing the minimum wage will make housing more affordable by offsetting rising rents This is really important step that you can take to make sure that our residents can stay in our community We have lost approximately 3 000 of our community members post fire And this is an important step to make sure that people can stay live and work in our community In addition raising the minimum wage is good for our local economy Low wage workers are not going to put their money into the stock market They're going to spend it. They're going to spend it in our community on local necessities And it will boost our economy. It will help us prosper Boosting the minimum wage will help cut poverty rates and make all effect Less reliant on public assistance. Thank you, uh, george Folks we kind of have a um a practice in this chamber if you agree with one of the speakers Just wave your hands because the applaud delays the meeting and we're going to be here for quite some time Feel free to acknowledge that you like me, but please hold the applause george uberte followed by sandi reynolds Yeah, wow, what do you think here? Do the people 115? I think so. Yeah Looks like it to me pretty unequivocally I just wanted to say that I was ecstatic to uh hear that cpi considerations Are going to be factored in to the minimum wage as we go forward, right? We're we're thinking really about what a sustainable wage is going to be like for the future everything else goes up The wage goes up with it. I just want to add that uh, you know $15 an hour was not scientifically arrived at in any way It's about like 10 years ago people, you know, it was just a kind of a it's hard for low-income people to organize We picked a kind of snappy number that was higher than what we were getting and we've stuck with that for 10 years so I I think it's great that we're considering the cpi as we go forward But let's think maybe a little bit more about this 15th thing I mean, it's it's a good way of getting us all on board for the same idea But I don't know that it's enough You know, I don't know that it's enough I think that we should maybe take some time to really think about what a living wage is for this community And and something that's not just I mean, we're talking about a bare minimum We're talking about a living wage, right? We need to we need to aim higher than An amount of money that we need to realistically stay alive As a side, I mean, I don't know that that's our goal as western civilization to, you know Put all these people here on life support and And you know call it a day, right? Let's think about really elevating civilization Let's think about calculating a wage That's not just a way for us to organize what we're asking you for Right, let's think about a wage that is what these people need Right, let's be a government Okay, and let's think about what our people need and find a way to give it to them before they have to beg It's for 10 years Um, so that's that's what I think I have to add to this discussion I'm happy to see everybody here. This is what we want Thank you Sandy Reynolds followed by Lee Pierce Good evening. Good evening, mayor and city council members I address you tonight on behalf of the santa rosa democratic club The largest membership of democrats in santa rosa who are activists your constituents Regarding the uh proposed Ordinance by the north bay jobs with justice Last week you received a letter from me on behalf of this organization Which directed me to write you with unanimous support Giving clear directions to you as your constituents To raise the minimum wage in santa rosa to $15 an hour in 2020 You've heard from a lot of people already tonight, so you're aware of the reasons that this needs to happen And you know that in the coming two and three years to postpone this raise $15 an hour is no longer worth the value that it is today That's not really progress more is needed now It's important that you do what's right and what's critically needed for our workers in santa rosa You've done a good job with an important work with including Creating affordable housing and given the housing crisis However, if the workers don't earn enough to live in these homes Then a terrible gap exists between what you've created and what's possible for them to afford Tonight you can make a substantial difference in the lives of our workers in santa rosa Increased wages makes housing and other necessities more affordable The increase in income gives workers an increase in spending power right here in the local economy It's a win-win for santa rosa We are sincerely counting on you to do the right thing and pass an accelerated minimum wage ordinance tonight Thank you. Thank you. Lee Pierce followed by natalie Siller's oh Good evening, mr. Mayor members of the council. My name is lee pierce resident of district two council seat um I'm the president of the north bay black chamber And that's what I rise to tell you this evening that the north bay black chamber Supports the 15 dollar minimum wage I sat there at the dais a year ago As a candidate for that district two seat And I made it clear that I support that wage But I also thought it was too minimum Uh, I think there are people out there Who would argue that While the increase to 15 dollars In 2020 might put a few more groceries in the in the food cart Or a little bit more gas in the tank But it's not going to touch rent and mortgages and that kind of thing Black and brown people are typically typically at the bottom of the economic, uh Schedule, uh, there are statistics here tonight That will support that and I'll leave that to the folks who have done that work I urge the council to do all green lights tonight That will show that you have done your homework and you studied this issue. Thank you Thank you. Lee natalie Siller's oh followed by susan mcdenna Good evening, mr. Mayor santa rosa city council members. My name is natalie Siller's oh I'm the co-owner of russian river brewing company at 725 fourth street with a second location in winzer I would like to start this by saying that I do support a minimum wage of 15 dollars It may not seem like it as I'm speaking, but I want everybody in the room to know this In 2004 we opened with 28 employees when minimum wage was 675 an hour We now have over 200 employees 80 of whom are employed at our santa rosa brew pub and 33 of them are paid A base hourly rate of 12 dollars per hour the current state minimum wage 100 of these employees earn tips either directly like bartenders and servers or indirectly by being tipped out We also have known for a long time the minimum wage is not a living wage in our community And have been paying our next least paid position at least 15 dollars per hour My point is that no one in our company earns the current minimum wage Each year since 2017 california restaurant owners have been required by state law To provide raises to our employees who need at the least I would much rather be handing out larger raises to our dishwashers cooks security and other non-tipped positions As a minimum wage increases year after year We must respond accordingly by raising our prices to cover increased costs of not only wages But payroll taxes and workers comp insurance There is also a compounding effect of raising other employees wages to offset the increasing inequity We would also need to raise minimum wage for our Windsor employees for equal pay for equal work Therefore if santa rosa passes this ordinance as it is about 70 of our employees will receive A two dollar an hour per raise or 15 increase the financial impact to our company is upwards of 200 thousand dollars Not including taxes and insurance I am in support of 15 dollars per hour minimum wage But please consider a moderate modifying the proposed ordinance to keep tipped restaurant employees at the state minimum wage Thank you very much Susan mcdonough followed by tom woods Yes, good evening. My name is susan mcdonough I am speaking tonight on behalf of a businesswoman in Santa rosa who was not able to make it so I will quote her words I am olivia walton owner of live fashion boutique in santa rosa I have had my boutiques for 13 years now and i'm proud to say I do and have paid well above the minimum wage for my employees I've found that even being in retail and employing young people the longevity of their careers here at live Are much greater with a higher pay. I always start at least one dollar above minimum wage If there's no customer service or retail experience and then raise them after probation to 15 dollars I continue to raise them higher as they take on new tasks and I give raises each year Most of my employees start in high school or college and stay until graduation and move on to their final careers I also have employees move away from college and come back during the summer and winter breaks Although retail is tough It's a tough business I find offering a higher base pay and commission when they hit higher sales Has really paid off for both my store and for my employees Please pass a minimum 15 dollar minimum wage by 2020 tonight and thank you. Thank you tom woods followed by tom amato Council thank you for this opportunity to speak to you First thing I want to do is I want to look around this room And I want to tell you how proud I am to be a part of this group labor and community organizations It's great to be on the side of righteousness I want to point out that we're talking about the minimum wage We're not talking about the living wage of 23 dollars an hour. We were talking about the minimum wage people that are earning So little that they are not able to pay their bills week to week These people are not saving. They're not putting money in the bank. They're not saving for a future They're not taking their families to Disneyland. There's people that are surviving hand to mouth When we're talking this minimum wage here All of this money every cent of it is going to be recycled right back into the community and into local businesses They're not leaving. They're not traveling They every every penny every penny that they get Get spent right back at the same stores that we're talking about that don't want to raise that minimum wage We need to do it. We need to protect our workers. Thank you Thank you. Tom Amato followed by Erica Galera I'm Tom Amato and I'm Really happy to see first of all so many oak miners here because this is an issue that a lot of oak miners are concerned about And I'm chair of the oak mine democratic club And we strongly support raising the minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour I'll be very brief because you got a lot of speakers here Um, coincidentally, I had a conversation this morning with one of the catholic priests who serve this area And one of the things he was uh, lamenting was the high cost of rents and the low cost of wages And and the relationship between the two and how many Members of his parish have a time hard time making it to the end of the month Because the wages just don't match the rents And particularly like a young couple how can a young couple get by with like a one bedroom apartment? So, uh, we asked you tonight to consider that and consider the young families in our city and to raise the minimum wage Thank you. Thank you. Erica Galera followed by Maddie Hirschfield Hi, my name is Erica Galera and I'm a long time resident of san riza And I currently work for a very small nonprofit called food empowerment project, which is based here in Sonoma county We are encouraging a yes vote for 15.1 As a vegan food justice nonprofit a part of our mission is working for equal access to healthy foods and black and brown communities And low-income neighborhoods It is a very complex issue and one that varies from community to community However, as part of our focus groups one consistent issue that continues to come up Is the individuals living in these communities emphasize that cost is a huge factor as they don't make a lot of money Which is why we strongly support this effort Also, although we are a very small organization with a staff of four We feel it is imperative that businesses take the responsibility of paying their employees at least $15 an hour starting in 2020 If not sooner I hope you will take a minute to digest that this equals before taxes 28,800 a year with that salary is difficult to live in Sonoma county Paying your employees at least $15 an hour and increasing it each year should be A part of your budget every year should just be a part of your budget A small nonprofit like ours pays our employees much more than 15 Not only because it is the right thing to do But because we value our employees and we know how difficult it is to live in this area. Thank you. Thank you Maddie Hirschfield followed by Marty Bennett Hirschwood home and council members Maddie Hirschfield on the political director with the north bay labor council I'm with those groups that did some of those studies So i'm going to be talking to you about that one of my least favorite sayings is studies show But i'm going to be saying that to you a lot tonight Um, I want to address first of all one of the concerns that always comes up when this is discussed And that's about small business Being exempt It should first be noted that none of the 27 cities in california that have past minimum wage ordinances have exempted any size business Including the following cities that either went to 15 this year or are going to 15 january in 2020 That includes santa clara richman el serrido Fremont almeida san liandro redwood city billmont los angeles city and county San mateo san francisco berkeley and emory vell Of those cities only la and santa clara and fremont gave an extra Year for small business to phase in santa rosa Most certainly can and should phase all businesses in the 15 plus cpi together in 15 months on january 2021 The second concern is that res restaurants will struggle to keep up A study of restaurants across san azea as well as a separate study of los angeles san francisco Seattle chicago dc in oakland found that above all businesses restaurants are able to absorb minimum wage increases the best Because they spend the most money Then other businesses on constantly replacing their their staff and the the tips that was mentioned are Considering tips against minimum wage or as part of the wages against california law so that just can't be done Studies also show that since low wage workers Um are the most likely to spend increased wages They also tend to spend it mostly locally which you've already heard and in restaurants eating out as a luxury Workers who work hard to serve and feed the middle class at their restaurants Want to also enjoy eating out and studies showed they do when they get a raise in their wages The only Okay, that's it. Thank you marty bennett followed by jack buckhorn marty bennett north bay justice And we have three consecutive speakers Who are all presenting on behalf of hasis guzman masters of public policy From the uc berkeley goldman school And the author of the state of working sonoma 2018 And i'm the first speaker I come before the council To offer our assessment of the research and evidence with respect To the minimum wage and its effect on the local economy Uh begin by addressing a point of concern That claims that the effects of the minimum wage will Exorbitantly increase business operating costs and prices The empirical evidence would suggest otherwise An accounting of operating expenses would obviously show a rise in payroll costs However, what the accounting often fails to calculate is the positive effect of an increase in a minimum wage Which is reduction in turnover and subsequent next savings We know from industry reports that even in a labor intensive restaurant industry That labor costs constitute about one third of the operating expenses The uc berkeley labor center 2018 report on the economic impacts of 15 minimum in the north bay Estimates a seven percent increase in payroll costs due to the 15 minimum wage that accounts for three factors one the increase in wages two changes in payroll taxes workers compensation and three the net savings from reduced turnover It's that last factor which an increasing minimum wage reduces and helps prevent That can be difficult to account for but which empirical research has shown time and time again Can significant net savings for business? Thanks, marie jack but corn followed by mara ventura The point here is obvious pay workers and they'll be less likely to leave For the restaurant industry that in recent years has reached an almost an average annual turnover rate of more than 70% Those can be significant savings on that turnover rate A 2014 paper by erin dubie found that within nine months after a minimum wage increase of 10% A corresponding 2% reduction in turnover occurs with teens and restaurant workers Studder a study by uh, heather bosley and sarah gwen in a in 2012 paper estimate That the average cost of losing and replacing an employee earning between 30 k and 50 k annually Is between 16 and 20 roughly speaking a $30,000 employee who departs for a better paying job For example would cost that firm about $4,800 to replace Given a tight labor market at around 2 to 3 unemployment and a turnover rate of about 10% Almost twice as high for workers ages 19 to 24 A reduction in turnover turnover as a result of a minimum wage increase can mean significant savings for business Especially those with high turnover rates and persistent job vacancies The remaining difference in increased operating expenses Are mostly passed off to the consumer in terms of marginal increases in price of about 2 to 4% This range in price increases increases actually very consistent with the 2013 study Measuring the effect of a minimum wage on the restaurant industry in san jose In the study, they collected menu prices from almost a thousand restaurants from inside and outside san jose They then measured the effect of the minimum wage increase in san jose pre and post Comparing san jose to surrounding cities. They found that the restaurants increased by about 2% on it Marvin tera followed by miles bergen Hi, marvin tera executive director north bay jobs with justice So should the minimum wage be staggered by business size and perpetuity as jesse rosting at uc berkeley has noted There's good research to suggest that larger businesses have greater flexibility To increase payroll costs than smaller businesses in the short term Giving smaller businesses a bit more of an on ramp through a staggered minimum wage schedule a year So after large businesses to adjust to the minimum wage can be can be helpful However, it doesn't follow that there should be a long term or permanent staggering of a minimum wage that differs by business size Doing so may only further compound the disadvantages smaller businesses face by allowing them to pay less wages Which rather than helps them actually makes them less competitive and attracting talented employees to help them run their businesses In a tight labor market over the long run Why would an employee choose to work for a local retailer for example that offers a lower minimum wage than a business like target That would offer a higher one Rather it behooves the council to create a level playing field in which smaller businesses are giving an on ramp to adjust To the minimum wage increase in the short term, but then merge the wage levels to match that of a larger business in the long term There's robust research demonstrating the net benefits for a local economy of putting additional dollars in the pockets of low-income workers Given their marginal propensity to consume Increasing the income of low-income workers has a much higher multiplier effect and helps increase local consumer demand Given that the likelihood that both a low-income worker will spend that dollar And the statistical likelihood that they're going to spend that dollar locally is significantly more impactful than raising wages for high-income workers Given what we know about the average price increase of goods and services as a result of the minimum wage There is no evidence that consumers discern a significant price increase Especially not one when a cost-benefit analysis is done between Small price increases for a good and the relative price and transportation to go get that burger at another nearby city That's it. That's my time. Thank you. Miles Bergen followed by a felt beard Good evening mayors who at Helman members of the council. My name is Miles Bergen. I'm here in a couple different capacities today I'm on the board of Sonoma county conservation action and wine country young democrats which have both endorsed unanimously Incent letters of support for the ordinance in front of you, but also as a member of the job to justice committee for san aroza Specifically, I want to dive. Well, first let me thank you for bringing forward this ordinance tonight And hopefully we'll be taking the first step for making san aroza a more deliverable place for everyone The one concern that we have with the ordinance is the 3.5 cap on cpi The whole point of putting a cpi chain in this ordinance is to make sure that the wages that our lowest wage workers make Keep up with inflation every day or every year Keep in mind that over a third of the cpi percentage is based on housing costs And according to a study done on Sonoma county's housing costs in 2019 Our housing costs here are rising faster than any other county in the bay area including san mateo county and in san francisco county We don't implement any cap on cpi for landlords being able to raise rents on renters under rent stabilization ordinances Including those in the mobile home park ordinances Yet for some reason we decide to have a 3.5 cap on the wage increases that our lowest wage earners can make This is inconsistent with the goal of keeping our minimum wage ordinance Which is designed to help low-income residents be able to keep up with the rising cost of living And it's something that we should look at when we pass the final ordinance tonight In my last little bit of time, I like to talk about enforcement and predictability The biggest lesson we learned from santa clara county where every city has the same minimum wage Is that we need to be consistent in terms of what we pass petaluma did not cap their cpi Now that is the county cap their cpi for their county workers or do we cap cpi for our rent increases By putting a cap in the ordinance We're going to create a more difficult job for the state and local labor and commissioners office to help our cities and the county enforce their ordinances We also make it more difficult for business owners who do business To know what to pay their workers where thanks philip beard followed by gabriel matcha bansky Good evening. I'm philip beard I'm here on behalf of the senate the friends of public banking santa rosa And i'm here to report that my organization Enthusiastically endorses the proposed ordinance raising the minimum wage to 15 dollars per hour. Thank you. Thank you Gabriel mashabansky followed by colin williamson Um, my name is gabriel matcha bansky I'm the associate director at the great and day labor center as well as a member of the north bay jobs with justice steering committee I want to present to you tonight Just under a thousand petition signatures These were collected around santa rosa To support the 15 dollars by 2020 ordinance proposed by north bay jobs with justice We spent hours having conversations with everyday santa rosans All across town as well as members of the great and Great and day labor center most of whom are santa rosa residents And their concerns with losing valuable residents due to the rising cost of living Overwhelmingly people agreed that 11 and 12 dollars are too low For our community and want to see the 15 dollars as soon as possible So I ask that you please accept our almost 1 000 petition signatures in support of the ordinance. Thank you Thank you Collin williamson followed by dr. tony ramirez Hi, i'm collin williamson About three years ago. I opened up a restaurant here in santa rosa I've been in the restaurant business for most of my life. So I feel Pretty comfortable. I know how to run a business and know how to run a restaurant and I know what What my expenses are and how I can deal with those expenses and I just think Like madly said, I'm not against 15 dollars an hour I just don't want to see it ramped up that quickly You got to give me some time to make some adjustments to my business to be able to Be able to adapt to that I think The studies show that, you know, it's only going to be a 2.1 percent increase It's going to be a lot more than that I'm a pretty small business and I think that I'm going to have a harder time dealing with this than the bigger guys the mcdonald's apple bees Those guys are going to be fine because they're going to just come in and figure out how technology is going to be able to help them cut labor And so I think the local independent restaurants are the ones that they're going to suffer And you're going to see more and more of us go out of business downtown santa rosa is already Littered with a lot of empty storefronts tex ristavi just closed their doors yesterday I think you're going to see more of it. Um, I I know that We have a responsibility to do the right thing for the community and I feel like I've been trying to do that all my life in this business And I've got some long-term employees. I've got some people that I think really like working for me And most of the people that you're trying to help are already making more than $15 an hour in in my business the only ones that aren't are The servers the bartenders the hosts the ones that make tips So it's not really going to help. It's going to I think hurt In the long run Thank you, uh, dr. Tony Ramirez followed by laura larku Good evening council. My name is tony ramirez and i'm a family doctor here in santa rosa speaking on behalf of hp So along with my colleagues here are other health professionals in santa rosa We're a local health professionals advocacy organization that encompasses representatives of all health care delivery system In the county and we are here in support of the ordinance So one of the most common and most important questions I ask patients is Are you concerned about being able to afford your medications or food that you need? health care health care providers do not exaggerate when we say that families are making decisions between medications foods Roof above their heads are going to the emergency room versus waiting it out If health care providers do not ask patients about their financial circumstances We are failing them and thus advocating for moving people out of poverty is an obligation of ours And this minimum wage ordinance can have incredible meaningful impact on the health of our community A 15 plus minimum wage is an antidepressant. It is a sleep aid. It is a stress reliever It is a contraceptive preventing teenage pregnancy. It prevents premature death. It shields children from neglect Poverty can be unrelenting shame inducing and exhausting Some people live so close to the bone a small setback can quickly spiral into a major trauma and cause significant health effects From evidence-based studies and ucsf center for vulnerable populations We find that when patients have a bit more money in their pockets, they exercise more They are less stress and can quit smoking their mental health improves pretty dramatically Their sleep gets better and people start eating healthier almost immediately Sure, we doctors we can prescribe a new expensive heart drug that the industry spent an incredible amount of money on But if we increased wages by even one dollar, we'd save more lives You could save more lives and we are with you raising the minimum wage rights prescriptions rest in broccoli But it also provides something less tangible dignity. This translates into empowerment in a better community for all Please consider passing this including Removing the cpi Thank you. Laura Larku Followed by Isabel Fisher Good evening major and members of the council. My name is Laura Larké and I am here representing the faculty All faculty association Which represents all of the faculty of santa rosa junior college We are here to encourage you to consider Approving the 15 dollar minimum wage an hour Given that many of our students work full-time go to school full-time and have family responsibilities It is difficult for them to focus on their classes when they have to work full-time and they are making only $23,000 a year that is before taxes making only 12 dollars an hour We know that the majority of our people who are making 12 dollars an hour are people who are poor and who are people of color Pockets of poverty we can find here in Sonoma county and santa rosa is the largest city in this county We cannot argue that the Minimum wage of 15 dollars will bring Harm to people who own business Because how can a person who makes 12 dollars an hour can pay a rent of more than $2,000 a month? That is only a very small apartment plus. They have many other responsibilities. I encourage you along with my peers The faculty of santa rosa junior college to seriously consider raising the minimum wage Thank you. Thank you. Isabel fischer followed by judef gaipo Good evening. My name is isabel and i'm here speaking on behalf of north bay organizing project to urge you to pass This $15 minimum wage in santa rosa Say a single person is working one 40 hour a week job and making the current california minimum wage of 12 dollars an hour That means they're making about $1900 a month if you're not including taxes or if they're funding their own health care, etc Let's say the single person is living in a one-bedroom apartment When the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment here in santa rosa is also about $1900 a month Well, hold on that scenario is already impossible But for the sake of this example, let's just say that they were able to find an apartment for $1400 a month They're still paying almost exactly 75 of their income towards rent 75 They've only got $500 left per month for additional expenses like utilities Groceries Groceries extra medical payments or anything else they might need finances for It's the constant cycle of barely making ends meet month after month without the ability to save money This is why people get second and third jobs And let's not forget that women are still making less on the dollar than men are Data from 2017 and 2018 show that in california White women make 80 cents on every dollar a white man makes as do asian-american women African-american women in california make only 60 cents on the dollar Native american women only 49 cents and latinx women only 41 cents on the dollar It couldn't be more necessary to pass a $15 minimum wage at this time It's an important step in the right direction It's essentially raising an unlivable wage to a slightly less unlivable wage But it is still an important step For working people your constituents. Thank you. Thank you. We need a gapo followed by logan harvey Hello, good evening mr. Mayor and city council members I'm here to basically emphasize what she just said Making most of the people make $12 an hour some of them. They still make $11 an hour in the city Uh, that makes them to 1920 a month out of that if they're lucky they can get an apartment for One bedroom if they're very lucky they can get to an apartment for 8 50 But let's say we get an apartment for 1400 Out of that you have 520 left So if you can figure it out and send me a letter to let them know how they can pay their bills because they have to decide Out of that 520, they have to pay federal taxes state taxes insurance health insurance car insurance food electricity is like What are you gonna pay? So like I said, you can figure it out. Let us know. I think it's more than than fair to To raise this minimum wage because a lot of people they're already feeding their kids with mac and cheese if they're lucky with water and milk And with hot dogs does no nutrition Not only that but they already gave away their um Being able to to live by themselves, you know, basically they gave away vacation is out of the question You know, so they have given being given away Too much stuff privacy And now they're give some of them. They're giving away their dignity because like single mothers making minimum wage They have to sell their dignity or give away because they're living in a sometimes in a living room And people telling their kids don't do that. Why are your kids? That's hard for a mother. That's heartbreaking So please it's a necessity and I'm asking you as a human being To raise the minimum wage to 15 that will give them $500 more per month Thank you. Logan Harvey followed by dana bellwether Thank you, um I'll do my best to stay within time. I've had a time limit in a while one thing I'd like to point out i'm the i'm logan harvey on the vice mayor of the city of sinema The one thing I'd like to point out with regards to sinema's minimum wage is that we do have a 3.5 Percent guaranteed wage increase At the moment it wasn't listed on our website. So that's no fault of your staff But I I would like to address that first and then we'll be coming through with the cpi as well Another point I'd like to make is that you know, we heard a lot about Tip credits as well during our minimum wage fight Our city attorney determined that it was illegal under california state law as did the your city attorney The north bay jobs of the justice city attorney also declared that it was illegal under california state law and The california restaurant association was active during our minimum wage campaign And if it were legal they would have argued that it was legal So they didn't believe it was legal either. So there's no way that that is a legal Proposition for you In addition, you know just remind you who these workers are they're making Sub 25 thousand dollars a year. They're living completely hand to mouth These are not workers that are capable of going to their boss and demanding a raise These are not workers that are capable of standing up for their own rights And it's up to the city government to stand up for them to support them That is where you need to be and I I really hope that Santa Rosa does not become the first city to say no To their low-wage workers and I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Dana bill there followed by fred alabak Hello, I'm Dana bell weather. I live in santa rosa I think that $15 an hour is the minimum that anyone should be making in this county $15 an hour 40 hours a week enables One adult to support him or herself and one child Not easily but without Having to live in a place that's so ill maintained. It's not warm enough in the winter It enables them to have a lifestyle that is At least helpful for them When people are in good health and at ease they work better and If They have enough money to know that they will be able to continue To afford their apartment. They're going to be a lot more relaxed um if you don't want Tourists to see So many homeless people on the street The thing to do is not to emulate the medieval prince who had his soldiers go out and kill all the beggars The thing to do is make sure that everyone can afford their apartments. I think that's in keeping with the the council's overall vision for the city If there's no rent control it must have been decided with the idea that Wages would be rising. So this is the opportunity To allow the wages to rise so that people can earn Enough to keep themselves and their children housed um Please do pass the $15 an hour minimum wage. Thank you. Thank you friend alabak followed by lori fong Good uh, good evening mayor and council. My name is fred alabak and i'm here representing the sinoma valley housing group And i would strongly encourage you to adopt the uh north bay jobs with justice template ordinance And i agree with the people who are saying to take off the uh cpi limits And i also agree with the woman who was just up here that said it was more than fair To raise minimum wage and i had thought that maybe that i would save some time saying who i agreed with But there were so many people here. I would just like to List the people that i did agree with uh strengthen numbers The north bay jobs with justice the green party league of women voters santa rosa junior college student council county and Santa rosa democrats and young democrats lee pierce north bay black chamber I agree with lee all green lights tonight. Please. Uh, jesus guzman and the state of working sinoma is an excellent document that i've looked at a lot The great and day labor center the health care folks santa rosa junior college faculty and the north bay organizing project 15 is going to put three thousand dollars more in in the pockets of low-wage workers That's a north bay jobs with justice figure and that's money that will ripple up into the economy We've heard of for years about trickle down. I think this is a great opportunity to ripple up Some effects into the economy and uh, I think that's a great idea affordable housing It's not going to what what these workers really need is 28 to have a real living wage in sinoma county But it will help with housing and affordable housing is an indicator that brings on a lot of other indicators with it So if you have a good roof over your head Then you're in good shape. So i'd encourage you to uh do the right thing tonight And uh pass 15 and ripple it up to the people who needed the most Thank you. Lori fong followed by louise to rato Have to see you Mayor swelledham said santa rosa city council members My name is lori fong and i'm representing the santa rosa city school boards as the vice president We consider the city And all businesses and all nonprofits are partners in preparing our students to be life ready learners The santa rosa city school board passed a resolution at september of this year In support of the city of santa rosa's ordinance raised in the minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour As we all know and are working on together the cost of housing in our area is one of the highest in the nation According to the bureau of labor statistics and zillow a real estate data firm santa rosa is the fifth Okay, listen to this santa rosa is the fifth most expensive city in the nation for teachers in rent as a percentage of salary Our strongest thoughts Were that this would help our families santa rosa residents As over 50 of the students we serve are eligible for free or reduced lunch 50 percent Even though single wage earners need more than 15 dollars an hour to meet basic needs much less thrive This would improve the lives of families and helping our students While the schools are exempt from the city ordinance We have our own intent And timeline to raise our classified employees wages to 15 dollars an hour and are working within our means to do so With a target date of july 2021 We honor the city's intent And moral imperative to support our most vulnerable citizens Therefore the santa rosa city schools board of education has presented to you the resolution that we passed in september Thank you Thank you. Luis turado followed by peter rumble Hi, thank you for for the opportunity to talk Yeah, I um I'm a student at santa as a junior college a political science major I'm also president of the students for bernie sanders club at the jc and a former member of north bay organizing project um One of the reasons why I um support bernie sanders because he was the first presidential democratic candidate to support the $15 minimum wage in 2016 He was the only candidate willing to go as far as $15. I remember hillary clan was only um capping it at 12 50 But I think that um, let me just tell you a little bit about myself. Um, I was I was brought to this country. Um at the age of three By my mom who migrated From mexico to here without knowing a word of english And I got to see firsthand how much she had to struggle to put food on the table I remember how much she had to work two jobs for 20 years. She didn't have a single day off And like the things that we were able to afford that weren't even like the best of quality things Like we had to eat like macaroni and cheese and stuff like that To this day minimum wage, I I would say that it's not Enough to be able to afford a decent standard of living here in sinoma county And I just wanted to say that Increasing the minimum wage is um is super important as um also for the economy It's one of the best ways to stimulate the economy. Um when you put money and disposable income in the hands of Working-class people They they they will Buy here in uh locally um Yeah, to this day i'm a student and um like You know one of the guidelines for for um attending classes. Well, I ran it Thank you. There's peter rumble followed by thomas ells Good evening council peter rumble from the san rosa metro chamber of commerce I want to start by being absolutely crystal clear that The san rosa chamber is not here to argue against a minimum wage indeed Increasing income and wages in a community is fantastic for all of the reasons cited For being able to pay living expenses for the health reasons that were cited all of that is absolutely true And workers are extremely well represented here tonight I do want to make sure to be as crystal clear though about Some of our businesses here in the community particularly our family owned restaurants We have restaurant owners who have literally paid themselves zero for the last several years While trying to pay their employees as much as they can Including health benefits in some cases and for those small businesses that are able to pay more like we heard from Liv that's wonderful. Uh, and they will often do that. They care about their employees like they do family We do not have the same levels of turnover as We're cited in studies. We do not have the same levels of personnel cost. I think we'll hear greater data From that more specific data But there will be very real negative impacts for our businesses including closing and laying off workers Uh, I just want to be sure that we are making this decision with that Fully conscious fully in mind That that is also not good for the community This is a I know a difficult choice But because of those negative impacts the chamber's advocacy committee has voted To recommend staying consistent with the state and not moving out in front of that taking on more debt and doing business plans Is not going to help uh when there's zero revenue for Thank you. Thomas Ellis followed by Gary lens Thank you for the opportunity to speak and uh, and thank you for taking up this issue This is really important and I want to point out that uh The cpi is uh, is a cola everybody has heard of cola as a cost of living adjustment So those were yanked out of seniors and various things. It was attempt to take it out of of social security and and That was not allowed. But in many places in for workers It it was taken out even for workers that cost of living adjustments were taken out of their income It was a very concerted effort The bureau of labor statistics Creates a basket of goods that looks at the cost of living and it's based on sale prices for for Workers baskets for consumer baskets. It's based on a sale price So if you look around and you see at the store you see a sale price and you go, wow, that's really low That's really great. I should buy that That is used at prices. You're not the regular price That sale price is what is used to create the basket of goods to create the the cola And the cpi whichever cpi is going to be used they're using these sale prices And not everybody can afford to stock up on the goods at that price because it can be six months before that Good is on on sale at that price again, and you can't buy With these wages you can't buy six months worth of goods So it's really important to have that understanding of that adjustment that it shouldn't be cap to 3.5 And that you should come back is very important to review this statistic within six months And i'll explain that in a second as to why Marginal propensity you consume in the end the velocity of money is really important for local stuff, but There was just on the 17th. There was a 10 Overnight rate on a money market and what that's called is a as an inversion of interest rates That was a huge inversion of interest rates From a real very lance and followed by michael hersberg Hi there I think it's you know, obviously a worthy goal to want to help Our less advantage citizens people who are making 12 dollars an hour to make more And if we as a community decide that this is something we want to do I guess I wonder why we want to do it on the backs of business owners who are the people that hire them It's a very difficult decision to start a business. I've never done it Because i'm scared. I mean it's very difficult to meet a payroll and to make a business profitable And I worry that we're going to make things worse because While you can pass this law What you can't repeal is the law of supply and demand economics If there are fewer businesses in business or they're cutting employees That's going to hurt the people you're trying to help What what makes people make more money is when more jobs are chasing fewer people if we have more people employed They have to raise wages to bring those people on board or else they'll reject the wage that they're offered So if we as a community have decided this is a problem we want to solve I guess I don't understand why we want to do it on the backs of businesses Why don't we as a community decide to give money out of our? You know city treasury to folks to help them out What I mean why put businesses out of out of business? I mean that's what's going to happen. Unfortunately, so I you know there's lots of ways to solve a problem But do it on the backs of the people that have the courage to start a business. I think is misguided Um, I I think it's a very worthy goal. I I hope that you know everybody can be lifted up And we can have more money circulating in our economy and people can make their rent and their medicine payments and everything Trust me. I think that's a worthy goal. I just think making fewer Out of business signs in our downtown and more restaurants going out of business Is not a great way of going about doing it and that will Happen, unfortunately, so thank you for your time. Thank you Michael Hirschberg followed by Merlin Good evening. My name is Michael Hirschberg and I have owned restaurants in Santa Rosa for 30 years and for the last 15 years I've been a partner in a company called central books, which is a bookkeeping company Exclusively devoted to doing the books to restaurants And so as you may have noticed the only trend here the only people speaking In any way against the minimum wage increase or people in the restaurant business I wanted to explain that to all of you who don't really understand the restaurant business And it's something it's probably the only thing I can speak about Authoritatively and that is that 40 to 45 percent of the money that comes into every restaurant goes out to labor Restaurants controlling their labor costs is the most important factor between being in business and being out of business All of my clients and I'm talking my clients. I should say right up front are Our restaurant tours who have tipped employees and that's what's throwing this whole thing out of whack And we all realize that the council here cannot change that But I want to just kind of educate everybody as to what this really means All of these clients all of these restaurant tours who are running tipped employee table service restaurants are all in favor of Everyone making $15 an hour and all of their non tipped employees for the most part 95 of all the employees are making the minimum wage already But because of of the minimum wage the only people that receive minimum wage are the tipped employees and That means when the minimum wage goes up the tipped employees are the ones who are all getting the raises The tipped employees are already making 20 25 or 30 dollars an hour So this is a hardship for for restaurants and I wanted you to understand why and so It is going to have an impact an increase of 25 percent To the minimum wage, which is what 12 to 15 dollars represent Is going to be a four or five percent hit to the bottom line of restaurants And it's not that they're worried about their profits It's so worried about their viability and their ability to pay off loans and things like that So I just want everyone to understand that as that's the counterbalance to this picture. Thank you Thank you. Merlin followed by carrie fugit Business owners Coming in here and showing us that they are the only ones who don't understand basic economics Go back to college guys and take something past econ 101, please We're increasing people's wages and they can buy more that creates more demand Supply and demand my ask Minimal annoyance You guys are just barely keeping up with the other Uh major cities in the area not quite And taking us as tiny tiny tiny step towards getting back to the kind of minimum wages that we had back in the 1970s Good for you Do better All of these excuses for not doing more For capping the cpi index increase For exempting certain employees They're cowardly It's ridiculous. You're taking whatever excuse you think you can take To push everything down to what will just barely keep us from getting out on the streets and demanding more And shutting things down Well, we can still do that I've got about 40 seconds left and I would like everyone who's been shut up by the mayor to be able to express their gratitude To the great speakers before me that were here and deserve your apology Deserve your applause Please take 20 seconds of that to give them your great applause because it won't take up more of these city council members time I don't appreciate being shut up by an authoritarian Dismercineries with guns that came over to me and said you cannot use your freedom of expression. Fuck you I Carey if you get followed by lisa fackowski Liz fackowski I want to thank you mayor and members of the city council for having this conversation tonight and my name is carey fugit I want to quickly draw the link between climate resilience for our community and The importance of having a $15 minimum wage or higher Um our community we know is ground zero for climate impacts from droughts fires and floods And we know that the impacts of climate change are only going to get worse based on the ipcc reports We have 10 years to avoid catastrophic climate impacts We know that the cost of food will rise the costs to stay cool will rise during heat waves And that the related health costs, especially mental health will rise This decision today to support a $15 minimum wage is a critical first step to help us adapt to climate change Adaptation means looking to lower the risks posed by the consequences of climate change on our most vulnerable populations We know that our low-income workers are going to be the ones most hardest hit by climate change our farm workers Our teachers our youth and our communities struggling with mental health We need to make sure that they don't have to pick between turning on the air conditioner during a heat wave Or buying groceries so that they don't have to live check to check hoping that the next disaster and fire doesn't hit them There are so many reasons tonight to support this and I just want to make sure that we make sure that we recognize The growing instability we're going to be facing due to climate change and that the additional Financial support this offers can help mitigate that and have a large ripple effect on our community as a whole Thank you. Thank you. Liz fikowski followed by sonu shandy Good good evening mayor and council members I'm speaking on behalf of the north bay labor council and also as a resident and a Pro living wage person We've heard from quite a few Restaurant owners and small business owners who were afraid of the viability of their Businesses after a $15 an hour wage goes into effect And I I just want to speak to that. I'm actually finishing maddie hershfield's Notes, but we felt that this is such an important Point that we wanted to make sure it got made The there the only data that correlates Raises to wages with failures of small restaurants was done in santa clara in 2013 and the study showed that Restaurants that closed Earlier than the owners would have expected Were on their way to closure anyway in other words there is no correlation between an increase in the minimum wage And a failure rate of restaurants Most of the customers who were surveyed Of restaurants that were closing or had closed talked about Customers said talked about that their their satisfaction was lower and that Even though the restaurant was able to pay more Perhaps pay more money or workers were quitting less often because they were getting a higher wage The restaurant was still the customers still expressed dissatisfaction So we understand the position of small business owners, but the ordinance is evidence-based And we want you to pass it Thank you. So new shandy first Thank you I I can see this issue is such an important to our community and all of you know We hear one of the key things we do is is As a company is do whatever it takes to make sure that we're doing the right thing for our community And supporting many of these folks that I've seen spoke speak today. We have supported them With you know from our businesses various businesses one of the key things I think the Through what santa rosa has been through in the last two years with the with the destruction We've seen many businesses close. I know the the restaurant issue Many of our employees are already paid a lot more than Minimum wage because of the because of the tip That tips that exist So one of the key things I really like the council to look at if there could be a modification can be done I think the state that this the plan that is proposed by the state Timeline would be more sensible because increasing if we're shifting in july 25 increase Which is more than 40 of our employees are in the front of the house What it does is there's no way we can increase prices by 25 And the time as we're looking at the downturn upcoming in future I really would like to I appreciate the staff all the study that they the the reports that they have done But I think it's important to consider that the the restaurant industry cannot All the sudden increase 25 percent on their on their Prices and that's the key issue that the adjustment is too quick that it would be a hard for many businesses I do want to say that I support minimum ways to go up. I want our living wages for employees to be Where they do they do have their living space that they deserve, but thank you Thank you Patrick side on Hello, I would just like to say I'm strongly supportive of $50 minimum wage and a lot of businesses close just because they suck like All right, those are all the cards we have this is a public hearing You don't have to fill out a card if you would like to address the council Is there anyone else who would like to address the council on this issue? Please please identify yourself My name is josh silvers. I'm the owner of a Jackson's bar in oven and I I also support a minimum wage And like all the other restaurant tours here. I have to be honest It's a very huge hit for us all our staff makes More than the minimum wage in the back of the house. It's all the front of the house people And I employ 40 plus people Which is a huge chunk. I've been in the restaurant business in Sonoma county since 1999 And I actually have An employee who started the second day. I opened so the idea of turnover My general manager worked for me for 18 years my dining room manager Who's 35 started when she was 17? It's not it's not a real thing. I'm sorry. I've just been doing this for so long And it's just such a huge hit for a small restaurant I mean we're classified as a large restaurant, but we feel like a small restaurant We have one location And and to just put that big of a hit on us is is rather a difficult way to go You know every year we get a rent increase every year taxes go up We pay taxes on Equipment that we bought so you have a use tax We pay $400 every time we go to the Staples to get supplies You know we get asked I'd say in a week 30 times for donations and a lot of times we give money When the fires happened my restaurant alone We clumped it came out to about $30,000 with the food and wine for people when they lost their house We just said we're going to take care of you. You're part of our community We're not going to charge you just eat and enjoy You know have a little relief we went out and we bought phone chargers so people could charge their phones We feel like we're part of the fabric of this community. We I lost the house in the fire. We're rebuilding now But it's just more and more difficult to do business here Um, I don't want to be It just you know Thank you. Would anyone else like to address the council? Please sir My name is uh, Richard savage I grew up in a family that uh, ran a small business It was a grocery store that my father Grandfather built from the bottom up We supplied a lot of restaurants. You're in a tough business and so is a small grocery store To run and operate and buy equipment and hire staff and the like So I know and understand what you're going through I also ran my own business in a little county south of here And I hired employees too And it was rough running that business But I was able to in the 1980s and 1990s To pay them $15 an hour or more Yes, I was able to do that And so if we're to run businesses which are not just businesses and I know how tough small business is To make a buck For you and your families as well as your workers, but without workers. You don't have a business So at the same time you need to understand that we're part of a community socially Economically as well as in other ways And so 15 bucks an hour all you can do is raise some of your prices That's what I had to do to my customers. I know it's competitive I know it's tough, but it's the right thing to do to pay people So they'll come and visit your restaurant if you're running it well As many of you have over the last 10 20 or 30 years You'll figure out a way to keep it going and make a buck Anyone else like to address the council on this item? Seeing no one else rise. We'll close the public hearing right back to council Do you have any questions over any of the comments that we heard that staff might be able to answer who's comes I have several questions that I think staff might be able to help with Based on testimony that we heard from the public Do we have any data on Price increases with I thought I heard you give us some data on price increases As a result of Increasing minimum wage well In other areas obviously right um You know one of the issues is the studies where we're relying on are based on areas outside of santa rosa and outside of our santa rosa economy. So I'll preface it with saying there are studies that address price Increases they're mostly based around Seattle San Jose San Francisco Oakland So sort of those denser areas different kind of market right so What's the trend the trend on grocery stores on the report that I read from the international journal of environmental research and public health Said that there was minimal to no increase on grocery store prices And then as I mentioned earlier In the presentation there was a statement in the report from the uc berkeley Report that we heard earlier that I believe They said that there was a two percent Increase in restaurant prices, which I will tell you the local restaurant tours Disagree with for our local market And a one proceed percent pass through To the consumer Okay and Do we have data on turnover rates for any of the studies again data Is called mostly from Reports outside of the area There is one report that I can point to That is from the national bureau of economic research, which is a 2018 report That indicates that there is a 8% reduction in turnovers Resulting from increase Does does a reduction in turnover In some way equal Financial benefit, I would write so then they did they did equate it to A Like I just don't have it in my notes Right here, but they did equate it to a Cost savings that's a much of financial increase, but a cost savings to business and again It was not specific to restaurant or retail. This was a general study that was done Again by the national bureau of economic research Thank you for for Stretching your memory on some of these Was there data on closing? There's no data that I recall reading about on closures. Okay Is there any data on an increase in customers or an increase in income Following an increase in there may be but again that is not something that I Noticed in the research that I thought I heard somebody give testimony to that. I wondered if you'd had it What are our current unemployment figures for the area three percent three percent? Gee, I'm remembering six and nine percent Three percent unemployment is pretty much employment. That's correct. Okay, so We don't have a situation where We have a lot more employees looking for work Than jobs at this point I heard some supply and demand kind of comments about employment and three percent unemployment seems to me to not be likely to trigger low wages You don't have to make a an answer there, but I'm making a guess about that Can you tell me why we've not chosen to go to 20 in 2020? I'm just asking if you know why because I mean this was that was not a question that was asked of the council Okay, just asking because I'm keenly aware that 15 doesn't feel like enough, but I'm I'm happy to work with the Folks who are working on this project and appreciate what they think is is achievable Thanks very much Any other questions from council? Okay Mr. Sorry, you have this Item, so what I'd like to do is get a motion see if we get a second and we'll get feedback Thank you, mayor I'll introduce an ordinance of the council of the city senator rosa adding chapter 1 0-4 5 To the center of the city code to establish minimum wages to be paid by employers and wait for the reading of the text Do we have a second on that mr. Tibbetts? I'll second that Okay, we have a motion a second. Let's start over here with comments Would you accept a friendly amendment? Which is to remove the 3.5 cap on It's the it's the wage cap that i'm looking to not the Not following cpi, but the cap on limiting how much Wages can increase by cpi. No, I wouldn't be willing to accept that you would not accept that as a friendly amendment. I would not Mr. Mayor, could I make a substitute motion sure to Pass the ordinance is written with the removal of the 3.5 cap second So madam said the attorney That last one then trumps the first one Yes, you would take the the substitute motion first If that does not pass and you go back to the original motion So before we start I'd like to add a friendly amendment to mr. Rogers is A couple of them if that's possible One is I would like to add enforcement language That uh except we're prohibited by state or federal law upon determination of a violation of this chapter After hearing that affords a suspected violator due process city agencies and departments may revoke or suspend any Certificates permits or licenses held or requested by the employer until such a time as a violation of this chapter is remedied So and I do believe councilmember that that was in the latest version of the ordinance It is it was on it. I don't have to show that the version. I have does not show that. Okay. Thank you So was that was that that you're accepting it because I don't see it in this version. Yeah, I'm fine with accepting it I was Under the impression that was in the latest ordinance. It's been in all versions of it. The problem is that we call our Business licenses business tax certificates. And so if you do a search for permit that does not come up Okay, and then additionally I was hoping wait can we before we go on that Can you share with me where that language is since I wasn't capturing all the words you said there? 10-4 5.070 under enforcement c four Okay, thank you I'll let it go at that But to be clear it's in there Correct. There's an old ad. They said prego Are there any other friendly amendments on this that motion Are there any other Motions before we can have a discussion on this motion in second Seeing Mr. Tivitz if you'd like to make comments on that motion sure. Thank you, mayor A lot of the times when you deal with public policy at least in the three years that I've sat here You find that the issues that touch people's pocketbooks are always the most controversial Regardless of who's on what side of the issue So to kind of help formulate my own decision and I and I'm going to get to a punchline here that I hope Sinks in with this whole community I I looked to the own business that I helped run I looked at our budget I looked at what increasing our folks to $15 an hour would do And across the board it would cost us about $55,000 a year It's about one third of our net proceeds from from our retail sales revenues And so I I want to say that because this this does come with real impacts to the businesses And I want the businesses to know that as a one council member of seven up here. I do acknowledge that that's not lost on me But the other side of what I do is is I deal with folks that live in extreme poverty every day and folks that You know, I get choked up talking about it because they I'm thinking of one example. I'm meeting with a woman tomorrow to give her a check to leave town and You know, I I think when we talk about being a city of excellence when people are working two jobs And they are living not just paycheck to paycheck But penny to penny to the point where when they want to leave to go move to a cheaper community They can't they're trapped because they can't pay a security deposit in that cheaper community and When they come to me for the organization I work for for help to say can you help me with a security deposit to leave this town That just we are obviously off track and again, I share that because Nobody should have to go through that in this community. And so I'm I'm very eager to support this ordinance the one that you've made mr. Rogers And I hope that this council can see that see that reality and vote in unison tonight to make that happen. So Thanks for letting me speak on the issue Miss flowing Thank you, mr. Mayor I do appreciate the concerns of the business community and how much work you guys do in providing jobs However, I heard somebody speak with uh, and And I'm just very clearly over the weekend that There are false equivalencies when we do when we talk about both sides that it is really hard on businesses But when we talk about the business owners compared with the 30 000 earners in our community And in in in addition to that that we will have compaction that will pump Over a billion dollars back into our local economy here with some back at the envelope math And that we have to think about 30 000 people And that that means that there will be food on their table And their children will have maybe a few more hours with them because they won't have to work a third job Growing up I had a father who was a strong wage earner and a mom who was a teacher and Was going to school at night and I know firsthand what a difference it makes to be able to have a parent who can be around And how lonely it is for children when they don't get to see their parents I think about the fact that women of color African-American women don't earn the same amount as white male earners until August I believe that that's equal wage day for women of color for for caucasian women It's in april this is a civil rights issue And while I feel for the bottom lines and the performers of business owner business owners I get choked up Because this will mean that We here in the last couple of weeks if we're able to pass this have done some things that will house people and feed people And we look at our federal government in such disarray and we shake our heads But here at the local level we have an opportunity to come together and do something meaningful Collaborative and stabilizing for not just our women our children our family our people of color But it also will ripple out into the economy And I really do hope that we don't lose jobs and I don't think we will and I couldn't be prouder to be Part of this council that's taking on these issues. Thank you all for coming out miss comes I'm looking forward to supporting the $15 by 2020 I'm also looking forward to some time in the future Having folks come before us and talk about How important it is for all of their employees to be able to be housed in our community I'm really looking forward to hearing from all those businesses who have employees that are like family understanding that those families are struggling and speaking toward that struggle I'm Very frustrated when we have the same group of people who fight rent control Fighting increases in wages I find that I find that very difficult And I want to appreciate the work of marty Bennett Mara North Bay Jobs for Justice North Bay organizing project A variety of political entities that have shown up here today Thank you for this persistent long-term work On behalf of our population are the people of our town. Thank you Mr. Sawyer Thank you mayor Well, I was a little amused actually when I saw that I had the the Ordinance to read in front of me this afternoon being one of the most vocal council members over the years fighting an increase in the minimum wage because of the Reality of messing with labor markets and markets in general There will be there's always a bit of of fallout and some of it's Predictable some of it's not as predictable I do Feel for the restaurateurs. I wish the state could have come up with a reasonable way to deal with the reality of tips because of the Those employees are not Are not making $12 an hour We all contribute to that as we support our restaurants And I hope you continue to do that because they will be one of the largest hit In in our in our city Don't decrease your tips just because they're the minimum wage went up potentially So there are lots of stresses in our community I know that that income is one of the social determinants of health And I'm the immediate past chair of the Santa Rosa community health And we offer health care to one out of four people in Santa Rosa So I know it's it is there are so many stresses that are hitting You know Santa Rosans and many other people not only in this in california, but but nationally Stresses that didn't exist 10 years ago when I closed my business After 65 years But I know what part of what I why I fought Why I questioned the the validity of Of raising the minimum wage is because I never paid the minimum. It was always higher and we gave full medical So I was I was I know what it would have done to us We would have had to close before 2010 the last couple of years before we closed We paid the employees and the landlord And and took no draw ourselves because Because that was the right thing to do And I really appreciate the research done by the by staff I know that racy you weren't alone probably in in compiling that But we had a couple of good conversations and the the fear that I had gained over the years As a as a longtime retailer I may be one of the only retailers sitting at the dais tonight Was to me real But I also understand those stresses that are happening in our community now I can't imagine what it would be like to be a teenager or someone in the early 20s Trying to make a go of it in santa rosa given how expensive it is to live here And the the rents are just a part of that So I will be um, I'll be supporting the increase in the minimum wage tonight I know that it's it's it will come as a surprise to many but But I also you know I I always say give me a reasonable give me a reason a good reason to change my mind and There will be there there will be fallout From our businesses and and I those that are capable of making changes That are not on the on the edge We'll do that we will probably lose some and and perhaps it is true that that maybe they were challenged to begin with But again, I I realize this is um for me and for our community the right thing to do so I will be hitting that green light Mr. Vice mayor Thank you, mr. Mayor First of all, I want to just thank raise for all of your work that you've done on this I've heard nothing but good things across the board from folks about how much time and energy you've put into this I also want to thank professor guzman who I've had a chance to talk to a number of different times About the reports that he's done the additional information that he's provided He's gotten back to me a number of times on individual questions that I had as well And I know he couldn't be here tonight, but I thought he needed to be thanked as well Folks have heard me talk about this before from the dais But oftentimes what we talk about at the council is economic inequality and poverty without actually calling it economic inequality and poverty Every time we have a conversation about affordable housing and how we're going to drive Housing production so that folks can find a place to live We're talking about one side of the equation and that's on what people are spending And we've very rarely had a chance to talk about what people are making and what type of capacity that they have for that housing When we talk about climate We're oftentimes talking about systemic changes because we know that folks Particularly the those who are struggling in our community don't have the funds in their pocket to be part of an individual change They can't drive a tesla. They don't have solar panels if they don't own their home And so how do we draw them in on the other priorities around our community? And that's all talking about poverty without actually talking about poverty We currently are at the highest level of economic inequality since the census started tracking that that's new data that came out three days ago It's even worse as we heard for women and people of color And I think that that needs to be acknowledged as well What we're trying to do tonight is return the purchasing power to low-income workers To make sure that they can stay in our community and that they are part of our local economy being able to spend money We know that they're not saving money. We hear that weekend and week out And I also want to make sure that we're very clear that we're not trying to leave Particularly small businesses behind That's why I asked the question of raisa about what we're going to do to try to also help small businesses that we know Might need a little bit of help might need some strengthening From our community And there was a comment that was made to me in the outreach and I apologize I got flooded with emails and phone calls and I promise I'll get back to folks if I haven't already I know the other council members were flooded as well But one person told me it's easier for the council to help a few struggling businesses than it is to help 25,000 struggling workers. This is a systemic approach to solving what hits so many of us on a personal and individualistic level Anybody who's followed us on social media has seen these conversations wage about how great the economy is And leave things alone because the economy is great The reality is that wages have been stagnant for 20 years And I keep asking folks if not now when when is the market going to put that upward pressure? When are we actually going to see wages rise? The answer is tonight. We're doing that from the dais tonight The final comment that I wanted to make and I those of you who are here for the study session Know that this is a particular pet peeve of mine, but I enjoyed the gentleman who was Educating us on tips and how that applies And again, I want to just point out again The historic origins of tip prevalence in this country Was so that folks of color or women could make a different wage in the amount that people were paying And I as a consumer when I go into a restaurant and I'm expecting to buy a five dollar beer I already know the price is six dollars because I know that that tip is going to be in there So adding an additional amount Raising the cost of that to actually be able to afford for the service of somebody coming in is something I already expect I know we'll see it a little bit But that's just my own personal pet peeve With that I'll turn it over to the mayor Thank you, mr. Vice mayor I just want to talk a little bit about the process because I think as a community Those of us who have been on council for a little bit We've had some adversarial conversations and what I really appreciated My conversations not only with staff which they ought to be friendly, but with some of the other groups That sometimes people would think it's an adversarial conversation And I just really appreciate the amount of information that's been shared because it's a tough call up here It's it's not exactly a black and white issue because there are impacts And I you know, I think councilmember fliming mentioned it I'm proud to be part of a council that we actually do listen to all sides And I know some people say you guys already had your mind made up before you came in Yeah, not me and I don't think any of my colleagues because there's so much information And they're I don't want to say there's winners or losers, but I think each of us and for me specifically I'm going to be making the decision that I think is in the best interest of the city of sanderos at this time for our entire community And so, you know, you're very predictive if lee pierce is still here I think you are going to get unanimous consent on this because I think it is the right thing to do for this city And any of the unintended consequences that this may cause I think we are also a community that can come back together and try to address those unintended consequences if they raise up to Our level here. So with that, we have a motion to second your votes, please And that passes unanimously So with that, miss mcglenn council is going to take a Council is is there something else on that? I'm council is going to take a 15 minute break Then when we come back, we'll be on the second public hearing item 15.2 when we come back after our break. Thank you Okay, we'll reconvene mr. McGlynn item 15.2 item 15.2 public hearing ordinance of the council of the city of santa rosa amending title 21 of the santa rosa city code updating chapter 21-02 housing allocation plan To modify the requirements and incentives for providing on-site inclusionary housing units A resolution updating the housing impact fee and a resolution to establish a commercial linkage fee For new commercial development within the city of santa rosa Claire hartman deputy director of planning leading us off Great Thank you Mayor swelledham members of the city council I'd like the first to introduce the city team and the consultant team that put this package together This was truly an interdepartmental effort And for many different Perspectives so with the city team, obviously david guin our assistant city manager myself andy gustason Jessica jones our resident now in windsor Ryan sedela rosa for economic development make ambassador for housing ashley crocker city attorney's office Everybody contributed a great deal to this effort in our community outreach and the preparation of the draft ordinance Also, we couldn't do this without our consultant team heather hines and jim carney of mgroup Karen warner or karen warner associates sarah graham and bob spencer who's not present tonight Strategic economics, but the rest are here and available for questions as we walk through the ordinance So what we have before you tonight is a draft one draft ordinance and two resolutions that address fees And this is brought to you because this is part of our housing action plan So in program one of that housing action plan This is intended to address inclusionary housing or specifically the production of affordable housing in the city And looking at it from a couple of different ways Reconsidering our inclusionary housing ordinance and also evaluating Whether or not the city of santa rosa is ready for a commercial linkage fee So the housing action plan is many different initiatives that we've been working on several of these that you see here are Accomplished and in effect at this moment others were still working on But it's never one of these initiatives that's going to make housing happen for santa rosa It's really this collection of integrated comprehensive effort. So This is no different. This is just another tool in that toolbox that we're working on So tonight we're going to it's a two-part presentation The first part is inclusionary housing. We're going to look at the Analysis that set up for the draft ordinance that's before you tonight The options of building the units on site are paying a fee or both hybrids What type of project types and sizes would be Relevant to either of those options Areas and needs to address innovation things we haven't thought of or heard of Alternatives to these things and how we're going to address that flexibility is what we've heard a lot through this process implementation And then Revisiting the impact fee itself and what levels wish you set that up Second part of the presentation will be commercial linkage fee And again, how does that fit in with the overall housing strategy? So how does how do we evaluate the responsibility or the opportunity for our non-residential uses to contribute to housing? So a little bit of background before we head into the draft ordinance itself This slide is essentially just showing our progress to date Um in terms of production of housing As you can see in recent years, there's a significant decline in housing production. And so The housing action plan all the initiatives including the one tonight Needs to be written in a way that is incentivizing housing production and it works with A development market so be to not detour the production of housing. So we work with that in mind This is how we are doing In our current housing cycle. This is not unique to santa rosa, but as you can see The two different colors here the remaining need is in red and the permits issued in our current housing cycle, which is 2015 the 2023 you can see that There's a lot more to to do in our in our time And again, it's not unique to santa rosa But what is is our toolbox needs to be a fit for santa rosa This slide is Identifying what we mean by affordable housing in terms of different income groups And then this slide talks about the two primary options that are before you tonight in the ordinance one is On-site inclusionary housing, which means you're putting it on site Has pluses and minuses will go over that but essentially it's where we get typically the low income Units are just the nature of how inclusionary housing Manifests itself through partnerships and whatnot But we looked at different ways of how we would write inclusionary so that you could get other types of income levels in inclusionary And then the housing impact fee is another primary option and with that We tend to work with in partnerships and and leveraging The fees that we collect is often used to fill a gap or You sort of the last the last dollar if you will to Complete a affordable housing project So we have in the past Since 1992 have varying different Housing policies related to inclusionary housing And in the more recent cycle of our ordinance The default was paying a fee, but what we wanted to do is present So how we've done since 1992 How much housing how we produce either by fee or by inclusionary as you can see here Not a whole lot in either category But what you can see is there's 1500 in the housing impact fee and one thing I Do feel we need to recognize is Those aren't outright provided by the housing impact fee again the impact fee goes toward making those 1500 units accessible feasible so it's It's a partnership with other monies and leveraging of other monies that make that happen So with that, uh, we're going to move into and he's going to go over our draft ordinance and our outreach comments And we received a date that helped formulate that draft ordinance and andy. Thank you claire So I think you rule call we had a study session in august and that really culminated a Six-month period that we were actively Reaching out to the development community affordable housing providers community members as well as Presenting to the housing authority and planning commission to vet the ordinance concepts Uh this program was that outreach program resulted in some key issues or comments that Are part of the ordinance that will be presented to you one is that the inclusionary and uh fee Should be blended that the ordinance itself shouldn't rely exclusively on one tool or the other And that flexibility is really important to promote residential projects throughout the city We need to be able to adapt or modify requirements to fit the individual project circumstance and that Incentives are really important to promote higher intensity development particularly Downtown where our downtown specific plan is now Looking at ways of getting more housing In part of the city where we can support it most Thank you Some of the key points that the public raised was um, and I'll I'll say also affordable housing developers that the housing impacts fees are a critical tool funding source to support projects that rely on low-income tax credits and inclusionary projects Given opportunity interestingly enough for market rate developers and affordable housing developers to collaborate Um to build a blended project Each taking responsibility for the type of housing that they know how best to build and there are some efficiencies there The other concept that was brought up was that our inclusionary percentage requirement Should be tiered that the level of affordability and the percentage really should work together um and and and that way Unburdened not just be so burdensome to a developer who's contemplating building affordable units on the site We learned also that um land dedication while It it sounds good often has a lot of hidden costs so when We were if we were to accept the land dedication for a future housing development site There are a lot of costs that aren't recognized upfront that often make a future project challenging to finance and then finally in terms of flexibility there was a desire to incorporate some of the uh Flexibility that's built into the density bonus to allow for dispersion requirement to be relaxed particularly when we have a circumstance where A blended project where affordable units are mixed with market market rate units in a building Makes it difficult to finance the um Key part of this program that we went through is based on a nexus studies and a white paper That summarized the findings which really gave us a snapshot or an understanding of what our development context is um the residential impact fee nexus study took a look at the type of residential delve development that we were likely to see here single family detached single family detached 2000 and 1600 square feet each and then multifamily development apartment buildings and based on the cost of constructing those units in this marketplace and um The the the average sales price cost versus what the the the units can be sold for or rented for It was established that There's a certain amount of financial return The developer needs and on the right hand column there is the return on investment cost or or uh yield that's needed for a developer to Decide that santa rosa is a place where it's feasible to actually build so we're looking at 15 to 18 percent for products that are sold and about six to seven percent for products that are being rented and the the The challenge we have with this ordinance is to balance the different um factors or variables that come into play in an inclusionary ordinance how much For inclusionary do we require the percentage what type of affordability are we mandating and then does it apply to all project sizes all those work together to Make the on-site inclusionary requirement Work or not Likewise, it's counterbalanced the housing impact fee We need to really look carefully at the fee that we were requesting in lieu of building units on the site to make sure that we're not Dipping deeply into the developers financing to Exceed those rates of returns that we saw on the previous slide that those fees don't jeopardize the financial feasibility of a project So again, we're we're looking at the balance. That's what we're trying to achieve and In the ordinance that I'll present now those key elements We'll go through those in detail so It's kind of a good time to pause if you have any questions about those particular points of Our issues great counseling questions. Ms. Fleming Thank you very much clarin andy. I want to go back to slide 11 and um go over the Our just confirm that you are suggesting that we have an exemption for Inclusionary units or inclusion Developments that wouldn't pencil if they were required to do inclusionary housing This is on the dispersion Exemption or implementation which item are you referring to? Yeah, so the This this provision mirrors what the density bonus Ordinance provides that in certain cases the developer Would have to show that the financing that is being proposed for a project Would not be feasible or would jeopardize the project If mixed income development occurs So feasibility it seems like a financial standard is jeopardy Would that be another standard and i'm wondering because what i'm trying to understand here is that If it's not something that somebody wants to do they could say it jeopardizes my project How can we determine that it does jeopardize their Project or is this simply a financial matter and they have to prove it via a pro forma or something We would require some level of of proof or standard of evidence to show That there is a bonafide risk to the project financing We understand from comments we received that low-income tax credit financing Is challenging in a mixed income project I always hear that it's challenging right, but nobody ever says it's impossible. So i'm i'm hoping You know that we can get toward I think as andy mentioned we did hear loud and clear in terms of the direction of the council We have the realities of tax credits and what that does So one of the things we'll be looking at is working with the housing authority and the housing department to figure out what those projects are and Really make sure that that's what's required for the financing You're going to hear later in the presentation the flexibility. So this is one of the elements that did change from the original of the previous policy that allowed Projects to have units around now. We're saying that has to be mixed unless you can show this And so I think this is an extra step that we're trying to put in place. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you This comes Thank you. I'm looking at slide six Um, mostly Because it sure looks my sense of our community is that we really need to be building Extremely low very low low moderate housing, but when I look at a chart like this it Sure looks to me like Above moderate is desperately needed in our community because of the way the chart is shown using Unit numbers instead of percentage of gold Um, so I mean a quick calculation shows that for a moderate to extremely low We're falling short 80 percent In the extremely low and very low. We're falling short 90 percent Whereas we're at about 60 percent on the above moderate So it concerns me to show this without showing also the percent Of how much we're attaining just that's that's Perhaps more of a comment than a question, but I think that If I saw this and was less informed I would Wonder why we are concerned about very low income And and I think that story is necessary and I'm hoping that you'll use percentages in the future We're certainly going to look at different ways to illustrate the information. I think that's a good point But rina is Targeting specific numbers. It's a quanta quantitative exercise, but I I think it's a great point We should look at different ways of illustrating information for our public. We definitely thank you. We definitely need to meet our housing goals And it will be interesting to see the future of how our rina numbers look Because I really don't think that we're matching Our housing numbers with our incomes in the community But I'm hoping we can get there at some other meeting and not this one just In a slide. I think more than anything. Thank you Any other questions All right, please continue. Thank you. So the next series of slides will go through the Key components of the ordinance update We'll just kind of look at what the existing ordinance requires and what's being proposed here This first slide looks at the inclusionary requirement. Currently The developer has discretion to Choose to build units on the site or pay the fee What we're proposing is to basically continue that same policy But to insert a project size threshold that says For smaller projects and that should read one to six units. I apologize The developer pays an impact fee and for projects that are larger Seven and above they have a choice to either build the unit on site or pay the fee What this does is enters into and much earlier in the process a conversation about what works best For a specific project I would also like to note here that the developer who is building a small project Can through the innovative Compliance approach say hey look it works better for me to build a unit on site because for instance I may choose to couple some of the advantages of a density bonus on my project to get more concession So just because we say one through six should be Efficient shall be paid. It doesn't preclude the option for a developer to come in with you with units So that's a critical theme about flexibility That we inserted here are we are we and forgive me. You're probably about to come to this I Would hope that we're leaning toward Encouraging building on site And i'm trying to when I see the somebody has a choice My feeling about this line has to do with How we're encouraging folks to build on site So I I hope that you'll clarify that when we get to that point. Yes. I think you'll yeah I think what we'd like to do is present the whole of the Ordinance that way as you as you remember when we went through the study session These are inner of things so it's really the comprehensiveness that shows you how this is put together So we'll walk through the draft ordinance and then that's a great time to pause for questions about the elements of the ordinance and how they fit together So this this slide really talks about it really talks about Does the inclusionary ordinance apply to all residential development as it does now? or Are there built-in exclusions or exceptions Based on size and what we're saying here is the ordinance will apply to all residential development There will continue to be exemptions that we have in place exemptions for ADUs owner builder units community care facilities The types of uses which are are providing By definition a an affordable supportive type housing that we need so One of the key changes that we're proposing in terms of inclusionary requirement is a tiered approach as was Brought to our attention during the review process Currently, we have a flat 15 percent low income household requirement If a developer elects to build on site The proposal is to have a city-wide tiered Inclusionary requirement that for for sale 10 percent moderate and that at 120 am i Doesn't so overstress a project that it it doesn't preclude the developer from Seriously thinking about building the units on site and as that chart we looked at now Just previously the rena chart that would definitely help a needed housing category For the for rent category We're we're tearing low and very low at eight percent and five percent respectively This again helps to lessen the financial burden of providing on-site development and We think this is one of the key changes to the ordinance to help incentivize on-site development to your point Another thing that we heard and what we're responding to here is to provide Encouragement for development downtown so for downtown multifamily and mixed-use projects only we would Reduce the inclusionary requirement to five percent for moderate for sale products. So those could be condominiums in a multifamily type building Or for rent four percent and three percent for low and very low income households This we think might Really bring a developer downtown and and unlock potentially that Financial puzzle to make a project go forward successfully There there is a Recommended modification here that we want to be able to present to you And that is that when a project does come forward downtown at these lower percentages we want to Add a provision to the inclusionary requirement of the ordinance that says essentially If you come forward and you comply with this include this affordability You will earn an incentive or concession because without that provision we would not be able to go to the density bonus regulation and Expect that very low and low income projects even moderate income projects downtown would earn a inclusionary Or excuse me a concession or an incentive. So that's a provision that At the end when you take action on the ordinance We will Read into the record or recommended The language and you have that there in front of you in bold Before you move on just a point of clarification Because we were trying to explain also existing versus what's proposed so Currently if an applicant complies with our inclusionary housing ordinance, then they The code currently says you are granted a concession. So that is a built-in incentive And in fact the amendment before you tonight We want you to include with our recommendation would be to continue that incentive. So if you comply And I would say the recommendation is not just for downtown But to be consistent with our current policy because it is an attractive again We're trying to build an incentives not require them to do an inclusionary but to want to have them want to do inclusionary because Because of a whole package of other incentives So that that one incentive where you get a concession if you comply with our inclusionary is really key So that is definitely an amendment before you tonight Thank you claire I do and I apologize Want to note also that There was a provision of our ordinance that defined project size that we need to add to this same section And we will also add that to the record to clarify that projects with six or less units Would be subject to the impact fee And and that the larger units larger projects would Have the choice of doing inclusionary units as or pay the fee The next series of slides deal with development standards We're we're really not changing The existing requirements dramatically though we are clarifying that it's really important that the inclusionary units on the site On the outside appear The same as the remainder of the project But recognize that on the inside of the units We're we're wanting to make sure that the bedroom mix and the size are similar to the the remainder of the market rate projects Are units on the site? So that's really a continuation of policy And then here in terms of uh flexibility on how to comply with the ordinance For the inclusionary aspect currently we have mechanisms that allow off-site construction of affordable units within the same quadrant of the city We talked about land dedication And then we have an innovative alternative all three would continue with this current with the proposed ordinance But we would add something new We would allow developers to convert Existing units on a site to affordable and then also Allow credit for or recognition of preserving at-risk affordable units This will be helpful to promote protection of Existing housing stock within the city and then for something New to this city but not new Elsewhere in the state we would establish a Credit for affordable units that are built on the site in excess of the inclusionary requirement Which a developer from another project in the future Might be able to benefit from And we we can talk more about the details of that if you have questions. So Those Those elements we hope will help incentivize on-site Development of affordable units Finally We have In terms of the ordinance provisions We're recommending extending the term of the Affordability on inclusionary units to 55 years that's consistent with our density bonus and other housing related regulation and Here I wanted just to show the list of exemptions that are available to projects to different types of housing That already provide needed housing for special Needs populations in the city as well as extend that exemption to owner builders And and not apply it to additions and replacement units So that kind of wraps up the the ordinance mechanics The next set of slides talk about the housing impact fee which Evaluated the The amount of fee that would be appropriate to charge for these different housing types And and not jeopardize the financial feasibility of projects And I'm going to tell you right now the next slide is going to help explain this table visually But I just want to point out here a couple things Our for sale fee now is based on two and a half percent of the sales price We're proposing to leave that metric that unit of measure And apply a fee uniformly based on a square footage We continue to recognize in our fee structure going forward the distinction between small units and larger units Small being defined as a hundred nine hundred and nine square feet or less large is 910 square feet and above We would have essentially a fee program established that would for city-wide housing projects Be staged over five years in in three steps to bring up the fee to An amount that can be supported By development and not exceed the development feasibility threshold In addition here on the bottom line, you will see that we have also a discounted fee A reduced fee that will help. We believe incentivize multi-family type development both for sale and rent downtown Which is what is being targeted for that area? And the next chart will hopefully illustrate The first so this is the existing fee structure Which is which is based on at the Left side the smaller units is a dollar or a square foot and then beyond 910 square feet that per square foot rate increases as you see there on the graph and it caps out at I think it's 2700 dollars Excuse me two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars per unit 12,750 dollars per unit excuse me The maximum fee that was determined to be Supportable and not drive a project below Financial feasibility is ten dollars a square foot and that's plotted across the unit sizes What we were proposing is this staged fee program, which would start out at In the first years one and two For the small units would be two dollars a square foot And then for the larger units would be five dollars a square foot that explains that jump in the In that curve in years three to five The fee would increase to Five dollars for a small unit per square foot and eight dollars per square foot and then After a year five it jumps from five it goes to Five dollars a square foot For the small units and then to ten dollars for the larger larger units So you can see after five years This transition brings us up to a basis which of a fee program which could have a substantial contribution to Our funds to help support and fund affordable housing projects here in the city But it's done in a way stepwise so that Current pending projects would not be adversely impacted and there's enough time for Residential developers to factor in these increases into their pro forma Without disrupting necessary projects in the in the near term The next slide shows again the base fee that applies in this case for downtown And and this is the maximum fee The curves here are in reverse order, and I apologize for that The the first Year The fee would be would remain at a dollar per square foot downtown for the small units and it would go up to Three dollars a square foot for the larger units and then in year Three and thereafter Downtown the small units would go up to two dollars per square foot And the larger units would remain at three dollars. So you can see that it's a much lower fee Level assessment downtown again in keeping with The idea that We want to incentivize developers to come downtown and build housing Finally this slide just kind of provides a snapshot of fees that are charged or assessed in the area What I'd like to call your attention to is the center rows are proposed fee That number there reflects the current fee and for each of those items Types of units there in the top The fee would increase to ten dollars a square foot after five years on the citywide basis So you can see a ten dollar per square foot fee is right in the mix of the range of fees that are charged locally We're not an outlier That concludes The fee component of the inclusionary ordinance. There's a resolution for you to act on to adopt this Then it can take questions now on this particular matter before we commence with the Commercial linkage fee. Great. Thanks. Mr. Chibis Thank you, mayor. I'll try to be as brief as is possible. Thank you for this report One of the questions I had is you talked earlier in the slides and forgive me I'm I'm pretty brained at at this point but convert existing units that are that are um I think it had to do with extending the deed restriction But one question I know this or at least I'm pretty sure this isn't what it was proposing but Is is there an was it slide 19? Do you mind going to slide 19? Yes, this was it and I know this isn't what what it's asking for but is there a situation where in this ordinance Let's say you're a developer owner And because I understand some of the times when I talk to developers the fear about Doing inclusionary onsite mixed door is that The units it just it's they've got a mortgage and it's one of those costs Those expenses on their books that becomes difficult to deal with if you've got certain units restricted You don't have the ability to increase those Would it be possible to add to this? Uh The opportunity for let's say you've got another property somewhere in the city of santa rosa It's been paid off. There's no mortgage on it anymore To dedicate those units to to kind of meet the requirement Am I making any sense or talking gibberish? No, I think you're you're speaking of an off-site fulfilling the inclusionary requirement by identifying an off-site existing off-site project The problem with that is we're not getting new units Um, so that that would be a policy consideration If you're developing new units off-site, then then That does increase the overall housing production as well as provide affordable units I understand that we want to do both we want to produce housing a new unit to market and produce affordable housing But would that example of converting an existing market rate to a deed restricted unit fulfill the onsite Or the off-site requirement, excuse me So in that scenario, I think we would probably have to um use the innovate in innovation Policy in the ordinance and and the test there is Would would that approach further our housing element goals and policies And Megan bassinger housing and community services manager. I think the answer is yes We would use our affordability agreements to restrict the Dedicated off-site units for 55 years in compliance with the ordinance. Okay I mean nobody's actually talked to me about that But it was something while you were talking I was thinking of would that be Some way that we could troubleshoot some of these issues with developers who may not have the sophistication to be honest To do mixed income housing the mixed doors with deed restrictions. I know that's kind of a complaint that we face a lot um And also just just trying to get these these new units to market But I do know that some of the folks we work with in our planning department Own existing properties free and clear elsewhere that it might be Less of a bottom-line impact, but but help so I just want to throw that out there I hope that we have those conversations either as a council or a staff to make that option available um can we The other thing I wanted to ask is can we lock in the fees at plan submittal? Because it's my understanding that we do have some some projects in our pipeline right now and I'm recently getting experience in this field on a personal level And I do understand that it is at a certain point costs tend to increase And it usually happens the real cost incurs After you've done plan submittal. Is it possible to lock those in? At that point versus issuance of building permits And I think that timing issue is a part of our Resolution i'm taking a look at that right now when those fees come do Yeah, they're currently do when you pull the the permit. I think that's that's something we are looking at for a number of fees We have in terms of when they're due One of the things that does lock in the one that we're looking at potentially modeling is the building code cycle So when you when you submit your permit, that's when the you're you lock in at that building code cycle So we're looking at to see what that would take to change the fees potentially to that same date So everything locks in at that same point. That is a Something that we've been talking about and trying to figure out if how to figure how to address that Okay Also, I was curious to what are the current rates for capital facilities fee water sewer and park per square foot Are we are we looking at one slide? I didn't see up there was Kind of the overall picture, you know by making these increases What are we doing to the overall fee level in the city and what's that look like? So those fees were factored into the total cost of construction in the the nexus study to look at How much remains? Capacity in a project to carry the housing impact fees. So those were built in Um, I can try to point you to that in the packet, but that was a part of the analysis Okay, yes, can you You said you could point to it We'll pull that out for you. I think yeah, I think so the question is what what what impacts does this have on the overall fee impact So because we did adjust the fee so just a heads up on the downtown and others It might be a little different but we could look city-wide and give you that number Because we do have the downtown incentive program which changes those fees The reason why what I wanted to get to and I'll try to spare the effort Is because are there opportunities to reduce some of the rates in other areas? I mean one one clear example. I think is the park's impact fee that we have my understanding is that that fee is on New park development yet a couple meetings ago this council had a conversation about using new park revenue to maintain the parks that we have Which signaled to me sitting up here that we may not be have an appetite to start rapidly developing more parks So would that be an area that we could look at kind of reigning in a little bit as we try to attract new development? And I do want to note The this evening's discussion is on the housing impact fees We're not here really to talk about the other development fees that might attach to projects In I think what I'll add I think is that when we Did the impact fees the park fee and cff fees? We talked about that that this Inclusionary fee was coming And that we tried to hold those fees to make sure we had capacity to have this conversation that we're having tonight But I think we hear your point in terms of looking at the overall impact now that if this fee goes into effect We will be looking at the overall package to see what we need to do moving forward Thank you. That's that was kind of the what I was driving at David. Appreciate it Miss commons Thank you mayor and thank you for bringing this forward. I really appreciate it. I'm sorry that I did not get to have the separated meeting with you to clarify some questions that I might have so you're Unfortunately, we're doing it late tonight. Um, so thank you very much. I wanted to ask Follow-up to my colleague's question. I understand you lock in costs At time of permit application or when the permit is pulled That doesn't mean that they're due at that time So I didn't know if we were looking at any flexibility in due date Versus date when you're locked in on the amount That's correct. So we have two two different number two different dates the date when it's the fee is Locked in which is when you pull your permit We do have a defeat referral program that defers the fees till the end of the basically the end of the project So that's that's an option. No, that's a that's a defeat referral. That's open to anybody that wants to apply for that And my question is still on I think this slide 19 It looks as if we're creating a market Allowing the transfer of inclusionary units from One entity to another entity where we're kind of doing a you know This this person builds a whole lot of inclusionary units and then does some kind of market thing Sort of selling them to someone who needs extra needs units when they have extra ones. I'm just Asking if it sure looks like we're establishing a kind of market. Did we talk about it that way? I Have not looked in detail at What are the implications of creating this kind of market? I'm assuming it it's a good thing or you wouldn't have brought it forward But can you clarify the implications of creating this kind of a market? Well, what I can clarify is how we came up with the The the option what we heard loud and clear from all stakeholder groups is to To add some element of flexibility and some room for innovation because past policies on on inclusionary and Impact fees have been you you must do this and you must do it in this exact way and that has not incentivized nor has it been easy to work with because the The financing of housing the world of housing is constantly changing our markets are changing and so One thing we heard loud and clear is to have Some element in the ordinance that has a process of vetting process And so you know some of these we have never done and so we will be learning together what the implications are specifically but What this ordinance does the way it's written is it allows the option to be considered an option to be considered that That maybe is new to us. So that's where that's where that comes from. Let me clarify that I think creating a market is a good idea that the individual who built extra units Can benefit from having done so i'm more concerned About having whether or not this really means the kind of thing that happened in rona park where they get a calculation in an area And decided they had enough affordable units and then somebody who came in with a big project They didn't require affordable units Because they said the region had enough But the individuals who had built all those affordable units Didn't benefit in the way that the individual came in later benefited from their work and that didn't feel fair to me to the previous development group So i'm concerned about understanding whether what we're doing here is making a market Or what we're doing here is saying we're going to draw an arbitrary boundary And if there's enough units in it, we're not going to require the next one Did we am i clearing what my question is? Okay Yeah, and i would ask karen Warner here to maybe describe how this type of a program has been implemented elsewhere in the state But it's my understanding is we're not drawing a boundary or regions within the the city In establishing an affordability number or quota Thank you Right andy Is is correct. It's it's not Reducing The net number of affordable units But both novato and ronald park have an inclusionary credit program Where the the initial Um donor project is first And then the receiving project is second so you can't you can't have it the other way around I understand this sequence. I'm trying to understand who benefits From the initial donor project Coming in because it didn't wasn't clear to me that in ronald park the initial donor project benefited from providing extra units It seemed as if the only benefit came from the second group that came in and said Oh, there's already units so we don't have to do any So I don't under I'm trying to understand I don't like that sort of imbalance system Yeah, I think I think the way it should work And I think this is helpful helpful enough this conversation is that if a developer puts these into place that The developer would own the Those credits owns the credits. Yeah, so it's not coming to the city that we divvy those out I think the intent is that if a developer builds a project and they have another project coming they could use those credits So it's their credit. Okay, and it's it's it's an independent market from the government. Correct. Yeah So but we would need to imagine an odd person to be saying how much I like that Well, but I think but it's I think you're making a good point though That it's up to us to make sure that that is being not abused right So that's part of this innovation component that claire talked about We're trying to add flexibility in this but it's also going to take some Some oversight from from us to make sure this is done right. I appreciate the flexibility I appreciate the rural government has his oversight, but I I and I like the market idea I just wanted to make sure that it was a fair market. Thanks I look up miss Fleming So I think my my questions around that I've been somewhat my concerns have been somewhat of late But I'm wondering would the with the units in that scenario be transferable be or would they be required to Stay with that. So if I'm a developer and I build extras can I Transfer them to another developer to help them with their Development project to meet their inclusionary goals That would be the attempt that the units themselves would not Leave they would continue to be allocated under a 55-year contract, but the The credit for those units could be liberated from the site and and applied to a separate site That's what I'm asking. Are there credits transferable? Yeah from one entity to another entity. Well, so One time transfer I would assume would be allowed be but but it would land and stay at its Final destination Is it like mitigation? So I think because this is a new program something that we haven't done before I think what we'd want to do before We start to issue these credits out is to create some Some program framework to this and be very clear about it because I think these are the kind of questions We need to work through This policy is just allowing these type of things to happen But we need to make sure that we're on the same page of how we're implementing it and have a Documented program. So you're you're bringing up a good point about kind of be transferred between developers Should just stay within the same developer to stay within the same area of town Those are the conversations we need to clarify and has staff taken time to think about how the the incentive to Get earn credit could potentially incentivize Someone to build extra in order to subvert the inclusionary Requirements that are really what we're going after here, right? Yeah, so I think that's that's something we have to look at and again, these are options that we came up with during the study session to try to provide flexibility, but You know the intent is to try to Really hit on the innovative alternatives. So if somebody comes to us with a video alternative We're going to evaluate that and run it through the paces This is one of those that we would have to make sure we're doing correctly And do you do you have a metrics for how you would assess? A unit that is at risk the affordable unit that's at risk Generally what we consider to be an at risk unit is one that has an affordability agreement That's going to be expiring in the next couple years. So we can see the loss of the rent restrictions on the horizon And so we'd be looking to extend the the restrictions For an additional period of time and with that time period be 30 would be 55 55 years in compliance with the ordinance Okay, thank you. I have one more question and then I'll see the floor by going to Up to slide 21 by going to the fixed fee structure away from a percentage of sale price Do we have any Plan for what we're going to do after the maturation of the staged increase schedule because at a certain point it will be Like in 50 or 100 years or I mean after some time that that dollar value will relative to the market Not be the same Purchasing power as whereas a percentage would be This fee staged program would would hold through five years and then for for the entire city and then after that point it would adjust based on a regional index cost of Living index So on an annualized basis and we'll be reporting back to council on an annual basis to Give you a progress report on how we're doing and that would be the time for us to talk about Amending adopting resolutions for fee increases, but there is a built-in. Yeah. Okay. That's all I wanted. Thank you It just says sorry just as a quick follow up some of our other initiatives that have come out of the housing action plan Are similar We're trying new things and so a lot of them have an update in five years So we're we're going to be looking at all of these things again and seeing how have they been have they attracted development Um, are they incentives? You know, how are they working? That opportunity will be provided So question is related to the fee review What is a reasonable reasonable expectation because I've talked to some developers who've said I've owned this property for 15 years And now all sudden, you know, it's going to be graduated for five years From a council expectation level, when would we get some data that could be applied to future years in a realistic sense? Well on an annual basis we'll Talk about how many projects have paid the fee or or built the units And we'll after five years Have a better trend line to understand if if the fee is Suppressing or or not hindering development here in the city. So I think the metrics is Will will depend on are we getting building permits issues and units built? I guess my question is five years How did you come up with five years and again? Some of the experience I've had here in developers talk. This has been You know decades in the discussion. How do we come up with five? Is that too long not long enough? Because I'm sure some people may say man if you wait for five years, you've missed the boat That's I how did we come up with the five years as a solution? Well, I think as claire mentioned we have other initiatives that use the five years as a benchmark But again, we do come to the council on an annual basis and report to you on our progress towards Fulfilling the goals of this program this program and others. So we will have Check-ins Annually to be able to get a sense. Are we getting results or not and then at the five year there's no There's nothing magic that holds back the council from making a change if there's something substantial that occurs in our economy Or in the city's circumstance to make a revision, but five years is a reasonable amount of time not too far out Also, just want to clarify to the two two different times when we're talking about five years five years to review the overall fee policies and impact fees It's a typical best practice to look at fee structures every five years The other five years is the implementation phase We we did a five-year program to try to address the building cycle So two typically a two-year process So we stepped them in two years to get to that five-year mark. So I think along those lines We would be wanting to Evaluate those and fees are done by resolution. So so those fees can be adjusted You know if we need to so it does give the council flexibility to try to get in there and fix something if we see A change in the market or or some other something else come up And I guess for me just having earlier this morning have a discussion with the developer who says You know, what you guys are doing is it really working because we don't see a whole bunch of cranes in downtown santa rosa build housing And you just maybe think okay, what is that right? Time frame because I know all the efforts that we've been doing but I'm guessing we're still in the very Early stages of seeing the impact of the decisions that we've been making. Yeah, you're absolutely right It's been about a year of of policy work And we're still trying to finish up the specific plan and then these fees the inclusionary policy So I think we're getting close to having that complete package of elements that hopefully we start to see some movement And just from from our conversations with developers We know things are starting to move and some of the policy work that you've done have Have made some movement. So I'm we're with you we need to see a crane in the air pretty quick And I'm I'm hoping there's some developers behind us that are listening to this and Come come through with that And then could you go to slide 23 the fee comparison? I had a question about in one sense these are If you keep going though once with the cities the comparisons There you go In one sense is it's somewhat out of context because the inclusionary housing is just one of a set of fees that I think Mr. Tibbetts first brought up and so For me to be helpful if you we saw here's the inclusionary housing fee and here's the overall fees to see how we compare And then secondly And I know mr. Groom and I had this conversation with you are any of these jurisdictions, you know Rock stars in the inclusionary housing fee comparison world. What's getting it done? Are any of these model cities that we would want to model after because that that's somewhat out of context Because you know, I know we talked about with the inclusionary percentage. It'd be great You know, we require 30 percent, but if nothing's getting built What's the point? I had the same question when we embarked on our our process of evaluating these cities I wanted to know No Who's who's got it right? Well problem is no no one's got it right because we're all trying different things And California a lot of these well even you know, even this sampling of cities Bay Area cities, they're They're they're trying everything And they're new at it. So no one's been doing it for a while with proven results if there were, you know It would be great and easy, but we still have to fit it for santa rosa So This study doesn't have that that answer for us. So we're kind of all embarking on the same journey in different ways And I will just say that when we go around and speak speak at different events around the state, we do hear that That santa rosa is is trying things that a lot of cities aren't So I think I think a lot of cities are watching santa rosa right now To see what will work. I know cities in our region are watching what we're doing But we we don't know what's going to happen. That's why we're we're trying a bunch of different things Great. Thank you. All right, counselor. Are there any other questions on this part of the presentation? Okay, much. Please continue for the commercial linkage fee Hello So I'm just going to do an overview of some of the things that we talked about at the last study session and then get to Whatever recommendations are so Just as a quick overview the purpose of This fee is to mitigate The demand for affordable housing resulting from new market rate commercial development And as a requirement of establishing this impact fee, we commissioned a nexus study That analyzed the most common recent commercial development Types in the city and evaluated what the impact fee threshold is as well as what could be economically feasible to developers In short, the study quantifies the affordable housing needs associated with new commercial development The prototypes and then also considers other fees and policies that could affect the feasibility of a proposed project So looking at the most common Recent commercial development in the city the prototypes we use for this study were hotel retail restaurants services and business parks light industrial and the study quantified the affordable housing need by estimating the number of Workers that would need That would be associated with these commercial spaces what the estimated worker household income is As well as the affordable affordability gap for new lower income households associated again with that with those new commercial developments So you may remember this slide from the study session As a reminder the charts show the performer analysis That was tested on the financial impact of the maximum and reduced fee scenarios for each prototype So the black line is the yield needed to make the prototype feasible And the red bar show the total stack of fees by scenario And any red above the black line shows the financial capacity So where we landed is at the three dollars per square foot option Which is shown on the right of each of these Three graphs and I just have another version of that just in text Which is again by the prototypes The you can see the vast difference between the maximum justified fee and the fee option that we are recommending So, uh, also, uh, we wanted to make sure that we were in line with comparator cities and we are so three dollars per square foot Is well within the range of our comparator cities and regional cities Um So not not outside of the norm of what developers are seeing So the questions from the study session that we were charged with addressing Are mostly should we adopt a community? I'm sorry commercial linkage fee. We have not had one do not have one Should we do it? Is the proposed fee reasonable and is it feasible? And what options should we consider related to this fee? Um, we recognize that it is of benefit to our housing strategy And we do also recognize as I just showed you that it compares favorably with our comparator cities as well as within the region So we're here tonight because we do indeed recommend a commercial linkage fee at three dollars per square foot Um Excuse me We did however identify some exemptions that we would uh, we are also recommending Um, most are fairly standard, but we did include some that are more specific to Santa Rosa and to the council goals And those are two, uh, for example address our desire for uh, residential development, particularly in the downtown the ordinance exempts Misused projects consisting of two stories and more of residential over commercial That said though the commercial part would be exempt the residential portion may be subject to the The inclusionary policy We also exempt government and other public institutions public and private child care facilities and other community benefiting developments such as homeless shelters community care facilities SROs units that are specifically to be used by People with lower to moderate income households. And then we also which is fairly standard exempt churches The fee would be based on the rate in effect at the time of building up the The time that a building application is submitted And would be due at or before building permit issuance And then if a developer By chance provides affordable housing through some other means that developer could apply to the city for a credit or exemption to the fee And then lastly regarding the fee starting at the first year after Adoption of the resolution the fee will be adjusted annually each july 1st based on cpi u So i just want to be clear before I state the recommendations that the ordinance will go into effect 30 days after the second reading Which is scheduled to be on october 22nd And assuming the schedule holds that means the Expected effective date of the ordinance will be november 22nd and then the fees For will go into effect december 1st of this year Which is 60 days after the first reading of the resolutions, which is you know what we're doing tonight So before I conclude to answer any questions on you may have on commercial linkage fee I do just want to read the recommended action Which is to Introduce an ordinance as amended amending the city code chapter 21 dash 0 2 Housing allocation plan to amend the requirements and incentives for providing on-site inclusionary housing units With modifications to section 21 dash 0 2 0 0 6 0 to add section f as as stated And by resolution update the existing housing impact fee structure And then lastly by resolution establish a new commercial linkage fee And it'll take questions Great mr. Vice mayor Thank you, mr. Mayor So two quick questions one is the same that my colleague had on the first portion of the presentation How often will it be back before the council for us to be able to look and see whether this is working And what type of metrics will we use to make that determination? It's built into the resolution that we can come back and review it so Every year Yeah, so I think as part of our General plan update housing update that we've been doing in the council every year We'll be bringing back this policy and inclusionary policy Obviously the metrics in terms of the the revenue generated and what that that funding is doing with the housing authority I want to be presented at that point okay, great and And right so we just obviously heard a lot about CPIw Why is this using cpi u as instead? All right cpiu is consistent with the Index that is used for all of our impact fees. Okay All right. Thank you Any other questions from council No, okay This is a public hearing. So I will open our public hearing First speaker is dwayne do it followed by rog collins Dwayne Okay rog collins followed by kurt nickles What's that? It's on it's on I'm rog collins with evergreen development. We are the master developer For the project at yolanda and santa rosa We just received entitlements for 252 units In july To go there As a master developer, we ourselves are not planning on building The multifamily project we've been actually partnering with a couple of different developers And at the recommendation of bill rose at the city. We first approached wolf To do the development there because they had completed anondale very successfully And when wolf started the project It was in the first quarter of 2018 And when they did their initial budgets the the deal seemed to pencil About a year later 15 months later when they re-up their budgets Construction costs had gone up 20 to 30 percent And I noticed that in the nexus study that you had up there the data For construction costs came in the first half of 2018 And I would submit to you that the construction costs right now Have gone up at least 20 percent maybe 30 percent and Right now like wolf backed out of the project because it was a hit to them of about seven to eight million dollars to their budget They basically said we can't afford to even give you anything for the land To continue so we then went to another developer who looked at the deal They passed they couldn't get it financed We're now working with the third developer to try to get this done At this point, I don't know honestly today if that project's going to get done And I'm guessing that 252 units is probably the biggest project that you have going on right now in the city one of the bigger projects And honestly, I don't know that it can get built And I appreciate david Gowan working with us as far as phasing in the fees, but the problem right now is that You know in two years time those fees are going to start going up So if we can't get the project built now because of the construction costs We let those settle In two years time the higher fees kick in is that going to cancel out the cost savings we have from the Reduced construction costs. So I appreciate councilman tidbits talking about locking in those fees earlier To the extent that we can lock those in the sooner the better because in the development game When we close escrow on land we have to have all our fees fixed Usually that happens when you have your entitlements, you know what the fees are going to be We're doing a project down in morgan hill where there is a development agreement. We locked in our fees Back in 2016 So I would just really encourage you guys to look at the total fees that you're charging Right now as well as how can we lock in the fees for the developer sooner in the process and later And you know, like I say today, I'm hoping that we can get that built At this point honestly Thank you. Kurt nickles followed by bernsburg Mr. Mayor council members, thanks for the opportunity I want to focus my comments on the housing impact fee changes As you've heard this will affect projects that are in the pipeline and the original fee increase Proposed prior to the phase in provisions that have been added recently would have killed at least one project you just heard about Uh, we originally as rogg mentioned started working on that project in early 2018 and it just got entitlements here in july And has experienced significant construction cost increases that Now there's a third developer stepping in to look at it as part of that They asked us to tabulate the applicable impact fee So the total current impact fees our current fees right now in this project total eight million or about 31,860 for each of the 252 units The current housing impact fees of that eight million represent five hundred and seventy thousand The original proposal of a flat ten dollars per square foot would have added another 1.6 million to bring the total fees to 9.6 and would have clearly killed the project So I want to thank um david guin for revising the Proposed increase to include phase in provisions to address projects already in the pipeline Um, we say we need more housing But I believe we also need to be cognizant of the challenges faced by those building housing And primary among those is the need for greater certainty as to fees costs and process timing Unfortunately not all uncertainties can be addressed in the this process, but some can For example, I'd like to urge you to consider moving up the time At which the fees are locked in to earlier in the process as has been Brought up by a couple of council members in the case of This example project that's been in process for over a year and a half And the decision to proceed was based on the public published fee schedule At that time without knowledge of a significant fee increase The current building code provisions are locked in when plans are submitted for building permit reviews. We just heard However impact fees are not locked in till the end of the process when a building permit's actually pulled This is typically at least two years from when the process started with the original entitlement application It would be a big help in regard to certainty to at least lock in impact fees When the building permit plans are submitted same as the building code requirements It would be even better to lock these in when the entitlement plans are submitted Again, that's when decisions are being made whether to go or not Additionally, I'd urge you to consider the entire package of impact fees when making decisions Because they vary from city to city and their overall fees Might be different finally I'd ask that you look at the whole impact fee package Pay attention to the relative amounts of each of these fees as they relate to each other Do they reflect our community's current priorities? Or could they be adjusted to raise some with corresponding reductions to others to better reflect priorities And the reality at the total of these Have an impact on whether housing gets built. Thank you. Thanks, Kurt Bert Bangsburg followed by George Uberti Good evening mayor shadow and mayor members of the council I'm Bert Bangsburg 1809 Bella Vista Way Santa Rosa. I'm the project manager for the Caritas village Project that you're probably aware of we're going through the environmental impact statement process now. We're working on our entitlements And I'm here this evening to support The recommendation that you heard from from Claire Hartman And that is that the recommendation is to retain The mandatory incentives in the half ordinance For the development of more than 70 units of affordable housing when it takes place on the same site It's really important that when We come forward and we put these low to moderate income homes on a particular site That we get that mandatory Exception if you will If you're aware acutely aware we need the affordable housing in downtown Santa Rosa And I believe that more incentives and concessions Not discretionary, but mandatory the more you put forth I think you will benefit from getting more from the development community because it will become a known discretionary exceptions Fill out an application pay the fee go through the expensive process and hope that you get that exception But when you make the mandatory like the one is in the half at the moment Then that gives you That gives you the the belief the faith That you've got it and you don't have to apply for it Um Caritas village has depended upon these exceptions and the one on the half in particularly And we support the staff's position on the amendment Thank you Georgia bear tea followed by larry flying Thank you. Uh, I want to be clear About what I support and what I don't uh, I don't support the commercial linkage fee It strikes me as arbitrary I mean it says here if an active the fee would be applied in the same way as existing city impact fees Everything I've seen about the way the city handles its fees implies that we do not need to be hitting up Developers for more money. I mean if we're really concerned about incentivizing them Let's stop loading them up with fees and let's start thinking about how we're using the money. We've already got Uh, the next thing I would like to do is see if we can agree on what the definition of a bribe is Because what I think the definition of a bribe is is where someone pays you money So that they don't have to follow the law Right where they don't have to do something that everybody else should have to do Then I want to read what this uh affordable housing incentive thing says. This is what I see this section continues to provide regulatory or procedural financial incentives Uh in exchange for on-site inclusionary units um, so you can Use money to not have to build Affordable units, right? I mean, I don't if that's not it's way too close To what I understand the right. It's using money to get around doing something that benefits Uh, the general public affordable housing is not profitable and it's not going to be no matter what we do All right, that's why there's a city things that aren't profitable that people need That's what a government does. All right, so do it. This is ridiculous Right. I mean, I I don't even know if you kid yourself sometimes The other thing that I want to speak out against is this innovation I mean, what are we innovating because what I can see is that we're innovating ways to not have to actually build affordable units Right. I mean if what we're doing is turning an actual place where somebody could live into this like a commodity That can be traded and moved around. I mean, would there be any system? I mean if we if we've got a 55 year limitation on where a thing can be built and then it can be moved To a different place. I mean, is there any system of tracking that at all or is it just going to be something that rich people trade? I mean, even if You know the the total number of units were we're moved around I mean, we're still not building new units and based on the information that I see right here We have a serious problem with with building units. It goes down. I mean it drops in 2008 and never picks back up Um, so finding ways to not build units to move around fictional things that serve it I mean, I you know, I see a lot of problems with Changing things into any kind of economic entity that can be traded instead of actually building a place for people to live This is not money. This is a home All right, it has to be in a time and a place where someone can use it. All right, so let's focus on that Let's stop loading people up with fees. Let's get these houses built Oh, and no to the um downtown thing where you reduce That's my half no to that too. Larry flooring followed by peter helman Good morning council members. Larry flooring with burbank housing. Um The um, I came up really to address um council member Fleming's concerns, but she's not there But maybe I'll I'll speak to them anyway. Um, I do first So I want to acknowledge the folks that are talking about the proliferation of fees. It's real Um, when we underwrite a project right now at burbank We assume in Santa Rosa our fees are going to be around $50,000 per unit about a tenth of the cost That's real money when you're actually starting to write and even as the beneficiary of the affordable housing fee In most cases we have to acknowledge the fact that fees have grown A lot and are affecting our ability to build. I also by the way I just wanted to clarify maybe with the staff that we assume that 100 affordable housing Projects would be exempt from the affordable housing fee. I mean, I didn't see that specifically in the ordinance But maybe I can clarify that going forward Um, I also wanted this the specific issue I wanted to talk about with a council member Fleming had to do off-site Um versus in versus inclusionary housing Um There's we have the same goals that Observe council member Fleming does which is we don't want to segregate poor people We would like to mixed income as much as possible the reality of the financing world In the tax credit world is that you have to have a tangible asset Which means you have to have a number of units together in a building in order to be able to sell the tax credits I think what the differentiation here might be in the ordinance that you're looking at We won't touch. We won't sell it doesn't make sense for us to do a tax credit project of under 30 units So anything under 30 units is going to have to figure out its own financing support system And maybe requiring the market developer to pay for that Is reasonable And I think that's a laudable goal to try to build those inclusionary units as soon as you start to talk about tax credit units You can't build inclusionary tax credit units within a mixed income project You can't sell the credits and and you can't put you can't put it together It's just the fact of life The other part I want to quickly just to speak to is the Lack of being able to use housing authority or other public funds if you're going to do an off-site project We can't access tax credits 9 or 4 percent now increasingly because they're becoming competitive without local subsidies And so it's not a question of being able to even help us to underwrite We can't even get the credits because of the competitive nature of the tax credits That's one of the factors that's used in scoring whether or not you can get tax credits So exit so not allowing Housing authority or local funds to be spent on inclusionary off-site Which basically means you're not going to get the project built Flask fairly quickly in council member coons as well aware of this preservation is one of the goals There's three p's of kasa And so being able to preserve housing is also an important mission that I think we need to be paying attention to We thank you for helping us to buy the parkwood project, which we just did which killed 53 people from being thrown out of their homes. So anyway, thanks. Thank you layer Peter helman followed by and on this week Yes, good evening, mr. Mayor members of the city council. My name is Peter helman I currently have two projects in the planning process in santa rosa One is a 105 lot single family detached for sale project And the other is a 30 unit apartment project So I have courses in two of the three races that are running tonight The proposed changes in the inclusionary housing ordinance are well meaning And from what I understand the staff has done an outstanding job of reaching out to the building community community and incorporating many of our proposed comments and changes And I may have to hand in my development card, but I actually think the for sale requirements work I think you guys have done a great job That said, however, I I honestly don't believe there's anything you can do that will Stifle multifamily housing more in santa rosa than increasing fees Short of imposing a moratorium You gotta at least the numbers I looked at online today I I found that there were only 75 multifamily building permits issued in santa rosa A city of 178,000 residents in all of 2018. That is a ridiculous number Given the stage we're at in the environment in the business cycle as well as the desperate housing need that there is here in town Given everything that's happened The reason for that is is multifamily projects rarely pencil The relative low rents, believe it or not santa rosa rents are low compared to other areas in the bay area The sky high construction costs, which I'll elaborate on in a moment And yes building permit fees all combined to make these projects unfinanceable Just one quick number to throw at you For relative purposes a single family detached home we can build in fairfield right now for 90 dollars a square foot That same home here in santa rosa would be 120 dollars a square foot 2200 square foot single family detached home. That's a 66 thousand dollar difference in the price of the house And the cost of the house And those numbers come directly out of the land value at the end of the day. So Our little apartment 30 unit apartment project this ordinance and if we pull our permits in the first two years, which we will Will only increase our costs by 50 thousand dollars That may not sound like a lot, but that's 50 thousand dollars an acre and that puts me 50 thousand dollars an acre further away From being able to do my next project in santa rosa. It really hurts folks I mean it really truly does. So I respectfully hope you'll reconsider that part of the program Thank you. Thank you anona suite followed by christin kiefer Good evening mares what hill members of the council anonda suite santa rosa metro chamber We submitted a letter regarding commercial linkage fee a couple weeks ago So i'll just summarize a few key points. While we recognize the need for affordable housing We do not feel this is the right time for a commercial linkage fee We applaud the city's recent efforts to encourage development adding a fee at this time since a conflicting message to the development community It also creates disincentives for job creation within the city limits at a time that we need to Encourage both commercial and residential investment Should you move forward with a commercial linkage fee? We do encourage you to ensure that it's not applied to tenant improvements That you create some kind of mechanism for annual annual review so that it could be modified or suspended Particularly early in the event of an economic downturn That you would include a group of local expert practitioners to help develop the technical aspects And that you would exempt the downtown core so that santa rosa doesn't discourage the very development it intends to promote Thank you. Thank you christin kiefer Good evening mayor and members of council christin kiefer. I worked as a planner and Representing many developers in coordination with the city I am concerned about the leveraging of incentives to develop affordable housing while many of these are well-meaning changes and Labeling as an inclusionary holless. Sorry an inclusion inclusionary housing policy rather than the Housing allocation plan. I think is a good step towards the intent behind this policy But does highlight many unintended constant crisis as it doesn't consider The current state of construction fees Or construction costs I do agree with locking in fees at the entitlement permit But I would like to focus on the commercial linkage fee I do not think that applying a three dollar per square foot rate apply all sectors is in fairness embodying of the intent of this policy If the policy is to intent If the policy intent is to develop affordable housing housing need that is offset by the creation of new Commercial facilities. I do not think that this is adequately reaching into How to address this properly I think that the nexus study should Focus a bit more on the sectors that each housing Sorry that each commercial development is applicable for and Relating how many employees really would be relevant to that With this I would also ask that a concession be made for residential and commercial projects a mixed-use project that is Horizontally mixed-use not just vertically mixed-use. We hear examples of projects where they are contained on the same site Uh, but are not built Within two stories above the Commercial development, so I would ask for concession and additional flexibility in that regard. Thank you. Great. Thank you Those are all the cards we have Anyone else like to address the council on this issue? Seeing no one we will close public caring Uh council any questions that may have come up from public comment, mr. Vice mayor So David, uh, Larry asked a particular question about whether or not affordable projects would be exempt from this Uh, can you just speak to that a little bit? Yeah, so any affordable project that is compliant with our The policy that you adopt is exempt from paying the fee. Great. Thank you Ms. Gomes You have questions first and then go I have one question I have the item and so I just have questions about Making sure that I have the correct language for the item So is there going to be some Some recommended language regarding I have it listed as the original slide 17 Yes, we have the language that we would recommend adding It's two ads that we would add right something to do with project size as well for the earlier sections Yes, okay, and something we're prepared to read that into the record to communicate. Okay, so you're ready for that when the time comes I heard a request for lock-in for fee earlier Um, is there language available if we wanted to move locking the fee in? We don't have that available right now one of the things we have been talking about As the building code is moving closer to coming to fruition is to Work through that process and coordinate all of our fees and look at the the fee packages as totality So we're working on that and we're hoping if if that's a direction from the council We'll look at figuring out how to bring that to council I would be interested in application rather than at polled I'm sorry My understanding is there's a distinction between ad application and at polled correct. Yeah, so we're an ad application makes sense to me And that's the that's the point in the process where we're looking at that application Um, just to clarify that were comments made about entitlements. That's not the date We're looking at where we are looking at actually the application of the building permit is the the date just to be I Okay, but that won't necessarily be in the ordinance. It will be Something you'll come back with correct. Yeah I will bring back something to address all the fees because there are park fees cff fees Impact fees commercial linkage fees. Okay Did you say you had a question before I went ahead? That was my question. So thank you Okay, so I'm going to go ahead. What I have before us is an ordinance and two resolutions So I'll read the ordinance first Um, and the ordinance should have two language editions. Do you have that? I do and um, if you like when you're ready, I can read that language into the record. Um Will you read the language now? Yes, so a section 21 0 2 0 5 0 Would be amended to add the following First residential or mixed use development projects with six or fewer units shall pay housing impact fee as noted in section 21 0 2 0 9 0 Which is the fee Reference the second addition to that same section Would be a developer proposing to provide onsite allocated units consistent with the inclusionary requirements of this section Is entitled to receive one incentive or concession as outlined in section 20 31 0 9 0 Of the city's densities bonus and other development incentives provisions Were other benefits as negotiated with the city So just to be clear, I'm going to make the motion and I'm going to make the motion as amended And I intend the amendments to include both of those items And if I may just clarify Would those additions go at the end of that section? They certainly can uh, there's probably a better approach to the numbering of that section So I think just to be clear I think these are listed as the amendment is the first one is c would be adding a c to that with that language And the last amendment was g that we'd be adding with that language Thank you Okay, so the ordinance Uh of the council of the city of san aroza amending title 21 Of the san aroza city code updating chapter 21 dash o 2 housing allocation plan to modify the requirements for providing onsite inclusionary housing units And to establish a commercial linkage fee File number prj 1 9 dash o 3 6 as amended and waive for the reading of the text We have a motion and a second Comments mr. Sawyer any comments Ms. Fleming any comments? Mr. Weiss, ma'am Yeah, I'll just be really brief in our study session. I did bring up a conversation topic about The commercial linkage fee. I'm going to vote for it tonight I am interested down the road when we start to really see how this is impacting our community Having an additional discussion particularly around the idea of high wage jobs And I think I said this last time that it it feels a little bit like what we're doing with the commercial linkage fee is taxing Keysight to pay for housing for walmart because those dollars will go to that affordable housing I understand that high wage jobs also bring with them an additional impact on The housing market and on our community need to me That's an impact that we would welcome and would then be able to then turn around with additional resources in our community from what those jobs bring in terms of resources for us as well to put into housing So i'm not going to i'm not going to force that discussion tonight But perhaps a year from now when we do look at what the impact is I would be interested in seeing some data around high wage versus low wage jobs And for me, I would like that When you do come back with that time certainty because I could see it from the developer standpoint We do all this paperwork and then we change the rules on a midstream. So that that really concerns me Same thing about you know, I really appreciate the entire team's efforts about trying to find that perfect mix Just to get what you know, the council has been very clear Clear on what we'd like in our community. So I would ask that you come back to us sooner rather than later if you started getting some feedback about what's working what's not working because I I know we all want this stuff to work But as you said, mr. Goodwin's that we're doing some things that no other communities are trying So if we get early returns that this is not the right direction or even conversely man We hit the jackpot on this one. I would love to hear that sooner rather than later Uh, I really want to thank you for bringing this forward. I know that you have worked very hard Uh to bring this forward and I very much want to thank you for For the hard work that staff has done on this item Or these two kind of two items. It's not been easy and I think you've done a very thorough job I really appreciate the work you've done Okay, uh with motion and a second your votes, please And that passes with five ayes Thank you And we have two Resolutions that follow this I assume that I do not need to say as amended for these resolutions Resolution of the council the city of santa resa reviving Revising the housing impact fee is provided in chapter 21 o two Of the santa resa city code file number prj 19 036 and wait for the reading of the text second Thank you. We have a motion a second in your votes, please And that also passes with five ayes What a nice night We've had a lot of green tonight Resolution of the council the city of santa resa implementing a commercial leakage fee For commercial development is provided in chapter 21 day show two of the santa resa city code File number prj 19 dash 036 and wait for the reading of the second The motion and a second your votes, please And And it also passes with five ayes. Thank you Thank you very much back to the agenda will do item 14.1 Item 14.1 report approval of general services agreement number f 000 2035 for citywide landscape services gin santos deputy director parks presenting Good evening mayor schwedhelm vice mayor Vice mayor rogers and council members gin santos deputy director for parks We're here tonight to discuss the landscape contract going forward for contracted maintenance throughout the city So as a reminder currently our agreement expired as of yesterday We had an extended we had an extended agreement into september 30th, which expired yesterday A formal rfp process was started earlier this year in march an anticipation of the expiration of the contract To solicit proposals for a new landscape contract Tonight before you is a proposal Based on feedback we heard from our study session with you on september 24th And it essentially is a mowing contract only there is in the Attachment an option to come back and amend it at a future date But for tonight only we're only looking at the mowing contract, which does not include any sort of chemical Treatments weeding of any kind everything is done mechanically only And so the proposal is for coast landscape management Based out of napa The contract is for a three-year contract term with two one-year extension options And as we mentioned the contract will provide mowing services only and generally they're once a week For all irrigated turf sites within the park civic sites in some roadway landscapes These are mostly at our sports fields, etc The contract is for a million dollars and 78,056 dollars per year for a total of a little over a three million two As an analysis the proposed contract brings basic mowing services To landscape areas so we have our sports fields. We have our rented spaces Soccer baseball and also civic sites such as this building with the mowing services out front And there's just a few tiny places in the roadway where there are irrigated turf sites Bringing forth a mowing contract tonight allows us to come back and it allows us to go out to the community to solicit feedback to find out Essentially we're saying what success looks like but also what the community is seeking as far as maintenance services Meanwhile the city crews will augment landscape services While we go through this evaluation process so As of today already our city staff are gearing up renting mowers and trying to Take on some of that mowing themselves until our contract can move forward And separately in november we plan to come back with a more long-term discussion and recommend an augmentation To address the remaining landscape needs that we will have throughout the city. We are rolling into november into the rainy season and weeds and things are Dying down, but we do want to come back and address those additional concerns at a later date So for tonight our recommendation from the transportation and public works and finance departments that the council by resolution approve award of a general services agreement subject to the final approval to form By the city attorney's office to signature coast holdings Doing business as coast landscape management of napa For the citywide landscape services for mowing only in the amount of 1,078,056 per year for a three-year total of three million two hundred thirty three thousand one hundred sixty eight And any questions you have? All right council questions seeing none Uh, we do have a couple cards as dwayne in the house. He's still not here. Uh, georgia bear cheek Go ahead george I keep walking through that door with like the expectation that you'll have some kind of shame um but You don't so the Entire landscape budget for 2019 2020 is five hundred and fifty thousand dollars And we're talking about a contract Just for mowing that's a million plus I mean and then I'm reading I looked through the agenda materials one of the buildings it listed in there I'm sure you're shocked to find out is the ridgeway swim center at which I used to be employed By the city of santa rosa mowing wands at a whopping 11 dollars an hour um I'm not uh the the list in there uh for the guy that would be mowing those wands would be 58 dollars an hour uh the language in this report says, um For over 10 years the city has contracted landscape maintenance services for part civic sites in roadscape Roadway landscaping to supplement its own small crew of part maintenance staff. I was a seasonal worker So there was not an outside firm That came in and provided landscaping service because I was the the supplemental Service and I was an employee of the city of santa rosa and I made 11 dollars an hour um and Me and one other guy did that entire facility all the landscaping everything there So that's just I mean, I don't know if there's a problem with me calling it alive But I I'm blanking on a different word for that right now. That's just not the truth is is It's just not real Um, and so that doesn't bode well For the rest of those numbers, um, which don't look great. I mean I you know, we're just talking about the mowing. It's it's and then they want to continue it Every year afterwards, right? So we're just going to let of this landscaping company double Our entire landscaping budget just for mowing and then we're just going to continue it for every single get why I mean, this is Ridiculous, it's ridiculous on its face and I know it personally to not be the truth. I did this job um For 11 dollars an hour this I mean it's it's unjustifiable and it's just I mean not even close To the truth at all So, I mean I don't it's such a huge amount of money And such an obvious joke That it's hard for me to believe that you're just gonna vote on I mean this is It's just like I just I wonder what goes through your head sometimes. I really do um No, please don't I just I don't know what else to say to you stop it Just knock it off Okay, those are the only cards I have mr. Tibbets, you have this item Yes, mayor I move a resolution of the council of the city of santa rosa approving general services agreement number f002035 Landscape maintenance mowing services and wait for the reading of the text second With a motion and a second any additional comments from anyone See none your votes, please And that passes with six eyes. Thank you Mr. McGlynn, uh, mr You sitting in mr. Knutt Since mr. McGlynn is not in the room. I'll be happy to uh Introduce report item urgency ordinance resilient cities combining district amendment for mobile home park closures um Claire hartman deputy director of planning reporting This was Good evening again. So, uh, what's before you is an urgency ordinance And uh, it's a continuation of our resilient city combining district We have a base ordinance and then we've had some amendments from time to time And I'll bring you up to date of where we're at with this particular need for an amendment So as unfortunately, we all know too well on october 8th 2017 the city was hit by Um Disaster fire and we lost 3 000 homes in the city which represented 5 percent of our housing stock and within that Resource of ours and our community 191 mobile homes were impacted and that is involving three different mobile home parks Some were hit harder than others, but they were all hit hard um In particularly journeys and mobile home park lost 116 mobile home units out of their 160 So I think that's a little over 70 percent of their of their homes It was essentially unprecedented in the city So as I mentioned the city has a base ordinance that we call the resilient city combining district And this ordinance was literally drafted as we were still fighting fires And we did the best we could to try to think of how could we Facilitate the recovery that would be still involve The you know, right checks and balances, but expedite the process for recovery And we did pretty good, but over the last couple of years we've had to do Initiations of a couple of amendments. So these are some examples of where we have Issue has emerged and we've had to address it through an amendment to that urgency ordinance through an additional or urgency ordinance The item before you tonight is specific to mobile home parks So this we haven't covered this before and we've basically gotten to this point that something needs to Be amended so that we can facilitate in particular the mobile home park closure process And I'll go over the changes that we're looking at Basically, we're taking a what was a 1996 Ordinance that never anticipated a natural disaster So it sets up policies and procedures As though the residents are still there you have your h o a intact and you can work with them And so obviously that's not the case. It's been challenging over the last couple years And now we're needing to relook at that that process and make some amendments So i'll go over the Specific amendments that we're looking at Again, the eligibility is that it's for mobile home parks within the burn area We are specifically looking at Those that are most impacted so really past the point of recovery looking at looking further looking to close the park So essentially we set a threshold that would be the parks that lost more than 50 of their units Also, we're looking at some of the nuances for how you are ready to move into this stage We're ready to move into the stage And this would allow for moving into the closure process without Also having concurrently a project in its place. So basically allows the City to process a closure report As a first phase of recovery Uh the uh applicants of a mobile home park closure plan would be allowed to Um select a qualified consultant that the city would review and accept and then we would process that that consultants report through the process The amendments also include sort of a clear checklist of what needs to be in that report again into the 1996 ordinance There's modernization that needs to occur clarification of terms and so the amendment includes that The review authority is typically the planning commission. That's how the current ordinance is But one amendment was to just bring it straight to the city council So again, just thinking how can we make it very clean and Um Streamlined in terms of getting to the right review authority in this particular case We are proposing that you reduce the public carry notice from 30 days to 15 days There's we've been working with This particular site for some time And so they are quite aware of this and so this is just again to sort of look at an opportunity to Shorten the process But don't give up on the fact that there is a communication that needs to that has occurred that needs to continue to occur And then get it in alignment with our other hearing process requirements Uh, there's other um elements to the amendments one is uh that the closure impacts Are the clarification that they're mitigated by the applicant to the up to the reasonable cost of relocation But it could include compensation or benefits received from other sources Another is that and this is one of a key one is that it it clarifies that the conditions That require mitigation are mutually satisfactory between the owners residents And uh and those that are providing that compensation And then it also clarifies in particular This is probably the biggest one is just what is the definition of the owners and tenants the 1996 ordinance Is as you might imagine It's for those that are on the site while you're going through the part closure process And we don't have anyone on the site in terms of the journey's end site And so this clarifies redefines what that is which is um previous Previous tenants So those are that's the summary of the changes. It's an urgency ordinance And again, we so there's no required notification. However, we've been in communication with those that would be most Affected by this process and we've used social media outlets to Continue to educate about what this amendment in particular is It's the amendment is in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act Three different bases for that exemption Obviously, we're still in a state of local emergency responding to the fires The particular amendments don't Substantiate a project per sequa and we can also apply the common sense exemption So the recommendation before you is to amend the Section of the zoning code that talks about the resilient city combining district. So it's adding essentially this new section that takes The current ordinance which is in chapter 667 Making the necessary edits and placing it in that What is a temporary? Urgency ordinance resilient city combining district And with that there is one amendment. It's a really a typographical amendment. Um, it's just referenced. There's ones On page eight of the ordinance. There's a reference to 667 and we're going to replace that with J3 and when we get to the reading of the ordinance, I can read that verbatim And that concludes my presentation. Great. Thanks Claire council questions Seeing none I have a couple cards. Did dwayne come back at all? No, he's not dug johnson Good afternoon or good evening. I've been here since four o'clock. So I guess it is the evening uh, doug johnson with the western manufactured housing Communities association lots of words. They're wma. We represent the owners and operators of bubble home parks throughout the state of california We appreciate the hard work the staff has done on the amendments to this ordinance and we support adoption. Thank you Great Thank you Ms. Fleming you have this item I do miss harman. How would you like to proceed with the? additional language So the amendment requested is that on page eight of 12 on the ordinance subsection eight uh, the reference to section six 67 Point 030 is stricken and replaced with j parentheses three Okay, so let the record reflect that um that I accept that as I read this urgency ordinance of the council Of the city of san aroza amending title 20 of the san or as a city code section 20 dash 28 Point 1 0 0 resilient city Combining district to add mobile home park closure procedures for mobile home parks of the city of san aroza Most severely impacted by the tubs and nuns fires of 2017 and wait for the reading of the text By the motion in a second any additional comments Seeing none your votes, please And that does pass with five ayes, which is what was needed for urgency. Thank you claire. Mr. City manager 14.3 14.3 report council direction to voting delegate for league of california cities 2019 annual conference regarding council position on the resolutions coming before the league general assembly Um, and it's my pleasure to introduce keith quarka. He's the city manager fellow on this is his Windup time We offer the city manager fellows usually a chance to do a presentation To council. Um, this is keith's presentation Before he goes back to water Thank you keith for everything you've done for the city during your your six months stand in the city manager's office Thank you son And keith don't be impacted by everyone leaving just before as you come down We still have two assistant city manager the fire chief and our police officer still here anxiously awaiting your presentation Thank you. Mayor shut up council members My name is keith quarka. I'm the city manager fellow It's my pleasure to present to you these two resolutions of the league of california cities and to seek your direction for guiding our voting delegates participation at the 2019 annual league of california cities conference Policy policy development is vital to determining the league's legislative and program strategies for important issues facing cities throughout california Each member city has one voting delegate at the general assembly, which will be held in long beach california on october 16th through 18th This year there are two resolutions That have been through the policy committees, which are the environmental quality and the transportation communication and public works Resolution one Resolution one reads resolution from the league of california cities Calling on the california public utilities commission to amend rule 20a To add projects in very high fire hazard severity zones to the list of eligibility criteria And to increase funding allocations for these rule 20a projects summary of rule 28 Utilities allocate rate payer funds in the form of credits For utility undergrounding projects that have a public benefit and meet at least one of the following criteria When it was implemented in 1967 the main goal was to address the visual blight of our head cables Notably fire safety is excluded from that list Excluding fire safety from the list puts the burden of undergrounding utilities to reduce fire risk Entirely on proactive property owners or the agencies that are willing and able to cover the enormous costs of those projects We know all too well here in the city that overhead utilities pose a high Overhead utilities pose in high wind and dry conditions The goal of resolution one is to expand the criteria away from aesthetics Towards one of fire safety risk mitigation Resolution one and the state of california align in governor gavinism's wildfire strike force program It identifies that hardening of the electrical grid is critical to wildfire risk management Key component to this strategy is to underground overhead utilities Then we get to high fire and risk the designations differ among federal state and local agencies Here's a map of our beloved santa rosa The area in red shows what calfire deems as a very high fire hazard severity zone The light opaque pink Is what we call the wildland urban interface? And we believe that to be just The same a very high fire hazard severity zone In 2009 the council adopted an amendment to the fire code Defining this wildland urban interface due to the large discrepancy between cal fires designation And what the city knows Should be a high fire zone this wildfire Wildland urban interface allows the city to maintain and enforce codes and mitigate risk in these vulnerable areas Supporting this resolution. There is no projected fiscal impact of the city for supporting this resolution The resolution does call for an unspecified increase in funding for rule 20a projects We know pg and e is currently facing bankruptcy and restructuring as a direct result of the culpability in recent wildfires Expanding rule 20a will increase the cost of the rate payers in the city of santa rosa It is recommended by the city manager's office that the council by motion consider taking the position And to direct the voting delegate to approve resolution two with one addition one amendment And that is to add the term wildland urban interface along with a very high fire hazard severity zone To the list of criteria for eligibility And if I may interject this is exactly tracking to your question earlier councilmember rogers about The the need that now that we have the evacuation routes identified and the hardening associated with them That's why we would be urging the dealt this language Additional language and be placed into the resolution And for the voting delegate when we go down to the league of california cities meeting I've alerted the league of california cities about this proposed amendment resolution two The resolution calling upon the federal and state governments to address the devastating impacts of international trans boundary pollution flows Into the southernmost regions of california and the pacific ocean A little bit of context the new river flows north from mexico Across the u.s. Border into the salt and sea ending up in imperial county and riverside county in southern california The tijuana river flows throughout through mexico and along the border and in the last few miles Crosses and empties into an estuary in border field state beach san diego county These rivers carry a tremendous amount of trans boundary pollution flows that are a major source of raw sewage trash chemicals heavy metals and toxins They pollute the local communities and the environment They harm the ecosystem and they force closures at beach damage farmland make people sick One of the implications is that border field state beach has been closed for 800 days in the last five years These pollution flows have increased from the rapid growth of urban centers along the border and from the nafta agreement They generated increased pollution and although It was economic benefit the expansion of the environmental infrastructure and the water treatment capacity has not kept pace with this growth The degradation of the existing water treatment infrastructure and pollution flows exceed the treatment capacities Is compounded with the federal government's repeated defunding of the 1996 border water infrastructure program So over the last 20 years this program has been deflated from a hundred million a year to 10 million a year And this 10 million is not just for these two two rivers in southern california. This is for the entire southern border of the united states with mexico Supporting this resolution is in alignment with the california voters who in 2014 approved proposition one Which authorized 7.5 billion dollars in general obligation bonds to fund water quality projects This resolution is in direct support of the league's goals The league has extensive language on water and water quality in its summary of existing policies and guiding principles Supporting of this resolution will not directly impact the city's general fund Though possibly a decline in the reputation of our state beaches And the pollution flows in the pacific ocean could carry macroeconomic and environmental effects That ripple outside of san diego and throughout california Further compounding this the federal government has slated to eliminate The bwip program for its 2020 year budget fundamentally It is recognized that water quality is essential to the health and welfare of everyone Therefore it is recommended by the city manager's office that the council by motion support resolution two And direct its voting delegate to approve the resolution at the 2019 league of california city's annual meeting Thank you Great well done. Thank you keith for your first presentation. Thank you um questions council Don't know zinger is nothing i want to put him on the spot on Okay, uh, do we have any cards on this item? If you want to fill out a card sure Go ahead. Just get up there. Uh, identify yourself and Hold on just a second wait. There you go. You're lit up now. Sorry. I won't keep you long alex crone resident santa rosa I'm here to talk about 5g infrastructure in santa rosa. I think underground and utility pools is a great idea And I think it's probably a really bad idea to be putting cell phone towers on utility pools in high fire zones and urban Uh interfaces Great. Thank you Seeing nothing else, uh, mr. Roger. Do you have this item? Thank you, mr. Mayor, and uh, I will mention Just by way of a little bit of context. I am on the statewide environmental quality committee that did see the rule 20a Uh discussion, uh, I think uh, it's important for us to understand And I know that this is not the only intent of that language change that we're asking for but technically The very high fire severity zones are designated by Cal fire and then technically each jurisdiction is supposed to actually pass an ordinance adopting that designation as well And I will point out that there is no state agency That actually tracks who hasn't who has not accepted that designation So I do wonder in the way that it's constructed that the law is constructed whether or not the rule 20a Even if they made that one change to the high fire severity zones if that would actually be useful for most cities that So we need to make sure we put in the the wui information as well Um and with that I will make a motion to consider taking a position on the resolution Yeah, I'll make a motion that we support both resolution resolution one and resolution two at the League general assembly And give that direction to the mayor who is our voting delegate second Motion second in for clarification. Does that include the language? The additional language that was offered in the presentation. Yes, correct. Okay any other comments? We'll motion a second your votes, please And that passes unanimously. Thank you Okay, we have no written communications. We do have one card for item 17 Alex crown Is it on? Okay. Thank you. Sorry guys. I know you've been here a long time I've had a long day myself probably the last thing you want to hear It's three minutes in me speaking, but I'm going to take the opportunity. I've been here for three hours after I worked a long day You guys are really incredible You're making very important decisions that affect people and you guys have handled yourself Impressively tonight. I just want to say that I really do mean that and I'm proud to have you as my city council In preparation for what I understand to be a november Study session on the further deployment of 5g infrastructure in the city I just want to let you guys know that since we put a pause You guys put a pause to the the rollout last year since then All over the united states california the world The resistance from the medical community and scientific community to furthering our environmental exposure to rf radiation Has nothing but grown I hate to be the bearer of bad news But this really shouldn't be a debate Microwave radiation from wireless technology is Biologically harmful. Okay, it's not like natural natural radiation from the sun Manmade wireless radiation is for one polarized so it has a charge on it So it interacts with our cells and ions within our biological systems not only humans, but animals and plants And it is also pulsed and modulated so it turns on and off thousands of times a second which makes it even more dangerous There was a wall street journal article mr. Tibbetz You were quoted in the first few paragraphs. You've obviously saw that right? You made some interesting quotes some good ones You don't work for verizon you work for the city of santa rosa in the in the residents They can tell you nobody wants a cell phone tower in front of their house And there have been many cities in santa in california that have adopted Ordinances that cut out residential zones whether it's on a utility pole or a city owned might pull it doesn't matter And the fcc and the cpu c Are they have guidelines? They're not laws right and the case that our city attorney reference year the 9th circuit court of appeals Team mobile versus san francisco clearly They ruled clearly that we have local municipality power on where to put these things Based on in commuting the public on health concerns safety and quiet enjoyment of streets So I want to leave you with an ordinance just past in july in the town of fairfax and it cuts out residential zones PG knee or light poles it keeps them 300 feet away from child daycare schools playgrounds parks Ball fields and medical facilities 50 feet from all residents not in residential zones There's a public notice for occupancy in owners within 300 feet a public hearing for the And 1500 feet between each cell tower so it can be done. Okay. Thank you. Alex No other cards. We'll adjourn the meeting