 It's still Texan. Is this real morgue? Yep. Shut up, like with real dead people. Oh, I got to text Ashley. Ashley, identify you when you wrap your car around that light pole because you was caring more about that thing than the road. Is she like me? Not anymore. No text messages worth a life. Over 90 miles of creeks run through Santa Rosa. Run off from streets, roofs, and parking lots, end up in our creeks through the storm drain system. To help protect creeks, keep your street gutters and roadside ditches clear of trash and other pollutants. For more information on the benefits of our creeks and tips on how to enjoy them, visit the Stormwater and Creeks web page. You're still Texan. Izzy, where are we at? Connie Moore. Not on my schedule. You scheduled it when you tip on that minivan and sent two people to the hospital. I guess she was paying more attention to that thing than the road. Making sure my wife picks up my suit. Sounds like a text message that just couldn't wait. Texting and driving, a killer combination. In recreation and parks, the days begin when the sun rises. Most of our workspaces don't have four walls or a desk, but there's a lot to be done to get this place up and running. It takes a big team to cover so much ground. Each space is unique, requiring its own special method of care and service. And it's of utmost importance to see that it happens each day, because our workspace is your leisure space. And it includes 950 acres of Santa Rosa. It's the parks, the trees, the fields, the trails, special gathering places, community spaces, and it belongs to everyone. We work for our community. Striving to improve quality of life. We provide family experiences, friendly competitions, leisurely evenings, and places to bond with man's best friend. We create space for celebration, relaxation, and artistic expression. You can learn to serve a ball or learn to serve a meal. Take a walk on a path or walk the plank. We've got beautiful settings, space to show off our history. We have room to roam, to roll, or to run. We allow for the silly, the serious, the cool. We offer countless ways to work on your health. We keep our youth safe and teach them to keep others safe. We challenge people to want to challenge themselves. We foster creativity, guide athletes, hone passions. We allow for little minds to dream. And we'll keep doing what we do each day, because we know that for our community, farce made life better. You steal, Texan. I got on a daycare, know that I'm running late. They charge if you're late. I'm not usually one of those people to text and drive. And I was almost done with my text when that car came out of nowhere. You still appeared in all coming traffic. And that text message, it never got through. One text or call could wreck it all. Hey, I'm Texan. Is this a real morgue? Yep. Shut up, like with real dead people. Oh, I got to text Ashley. Ashley, I identify you when you wrapped your car around that light pole, because you was caring more about that thing than a road. How do you feel like doing that? Not anymore. No text message is worth a life. Over 90 miles of creeks run through Santa Rosa, run off from streets, roofs, and parking lots, end up in our creeks through the storm drain system. To help protect creeks, keep your street gutters and roadside ditches clear of trash and other pollutants. For more information on the benefits of our creeks and tips on how to enjoy them, visit the Stormwater and Creek's web page. You're still Texan. Izzy, where are we at? Connie Moore. Not in my schedule. You scheduled it when you tip on that minivan and sent two people to the hospital. I guess she's paying more attention to that thing than a road. Making sure my wife picks up my suit. Sounds like a text message that just couldn't wait. Texting and driving. A killer combination. In recreation and parks, the days begin when the sun rises. Most of our workspaces don't have four walls or a desk, but there's a lot to be done to get this place up and running. It takes a big team to cover so much ground. Each space is unique, requiring its own special method of care and service. And it's of utmost importance to see that it happens each day, because our workspace is your leisure space. And it includes 950 acres of Santa Rosa. It's the parks, the trees, the fields, the trails, special gathering places, community spaces, and it belongs to everyone. We work for our community. Striving to improve quality of life. We provide family experiences, friendly competitions, leisurely evenings, and places to bond with man's best friend. We create space for celebration, relaxation, and artistic expression. You can learn to serve a ball or learn to serve a meal. Take a walk on a path or walk the plank. We've got beautiful settings, space to show off our history. We have room to roam, to roll, or to run. We allow for the silly, the serious, the cool. We offer countless ways to work on your health. We keep our youth safe, and teach them to keep others safe. We challenge people to want to challenge themselves. We foster creativity, guide athletes, hone passions. We allow for little minds to dream. And we'll keep doing what we do each day, because we know that for our community, farce made life better. You steal text. I got on a date here, know that I'm running late. They charge if you're late. And I'm not usually one of those people to text and drive. And I was almost done with my text when that car came out of nowhere. You steal a beard in all coming traffic. And a text message, it never got through. One text or call could wreck it all. Like with real dead people. Ooh, I got to text Ashley. Ashley identified you when you wrapped your car around that light pole, because you was caring more about that thing than a road. I mean, she liked me. Not anymore. No text messages worth a life. Over 90 miles of creeks run through Santa Rosa. Run off from streets, roofs, and parking lots, end up in our creeks through the storm drain system. To help protect creeks, keep your street cutters and roadside ditches clear of trash and other pollutants. For more information on the benefits of our creeks and tips on how to enjoy them, visit the stormwater and creeks webpage. You're still texting. Izzy, where are we at? County Moor. Not on my schedule. You scheduled it when you tip on that minivan and sent two people to the hospital. Guess she's paying more attention to that thing than a road. Making sure my wife picks up my suit. Sounds like a text message that just couldn't wait. Texting and driving, a killer combination. Recreation in parks, the days begin when the sun rises. Most of our workspaces don't have four walls or a desk, but there's a lot to be done to get this place up and running. It takes a big team to cover so much ground. Each space is unique, requiring its own special method of care and service. And it's of utmost importance to see that it happens each day because our workspace is your leisure space. And it includes 950 acres of Santa Rosa. It's the parks, the trees, the fields, the trails, special gathering places, community spaces, and it belongs to everyone. We work for our community. Striving to improve quality of life. We provide family experiences, friendly competitions, leisurely evenings, and places to bond with man's best friend. We create space for celebration, relaxation, and artistic expression. You can learn to serve a ball or learn to serve a meal. Take a walk on a path or walk the plank. We've got beautiful settings, space to show off our history. We have room to roam, to roll, or to run. We allow for the silly, the serious, the cool. We offer countless ways to work on your health. We keep our youth safe and teach them to keep others safe. We challenge people to want to challenge themselves. We foster creativity, guide athletes, hone passions. We allow for little minds to dream. And we'll keep doing what we do each day because we know that for our community, cars make life better. You steal Texan. I had all the day care know that I'm running late. They charge if you're late. And I'm not usually one of those people to text and drive. And I was almost done with my text when that car came out of nowhere. You still appeared in all coming traffic. And that text message, it never got through. One text or call could wreck it all. Steal Texan, is this real more? Yep. Shut up, like with real dead people. Oh, I got to text Ashley. Ashley, identify you when you wrap your car around that light pole because you was caring more about that thing than the road. How many is she like? Not anymore. No text messages worth a life. Over 90 miles of creeks run through Santa Rosa, run off from streets, roofs, and parking lots, end up in our creeks through the storm drain system. To help protect creeks, keep your street gutters and roadside ditches clear of trash and other pollutants. For more information on the benefits of our creeks and tips on how to enjoy them, visit the Stormwater and Creeks webpage. You still texting? Izzy, where are we at? Connie Moore? Not in my schedule. You scheduled it when you tip on that minivan and sent two people to the hospital. Guess she was paying more attention to that thing than the road. Making sure my wife picks up my suit. Sounds like a text message that just couldn't wait. Texting and driving, a killer combination. In recreation and parks, the days begin when the sun rises. Most of our workspaces don't have four walls or a desk, but there's a lot to be done to get this place up and running. It takes a big team to cover so much ground. Each space is unique, requiring its own special method of care and service. And it's of utmost importance to see that it happens each day because our workspace is your leisure space. And it includes 950 acres of Santa Rosa. It's the parks, the trees, the fields, the trails, special gathering places, community spaces, and it belongs to everyone. We work for our community. Striving to improve quality of life. We provide family experiences, friendly competitions, leisurely evenings, and places to bond with man's best friend. We create space for celebration, relaxation, and artistic expression. You can learn to serve a ball or learn to serve a meal. Take a walk on a path or walk the plank. We've got beautiful settings, space to show off our history. We have room to roam, to roll, or to run. We allow for the silly, the serious, the cool. We offer countless ways to work on your health. We keep our youth safe and teach them to keep others safe. We challenge people to want to challenge themselves. We foster creativity, guide athletes, hone passions. We allow for little minds to dream. And we'll keep doing what we do each day because we know that for our community, farce made life better. You steal, Texan. When I had on a daycare know that I'm running late, they charge if you're late, but I'm not usually one of those people to text and drive, and I was almost done with my text when that car came out of nowhere. You still appeared in all coming traffic. When I text message, it never got through. One text or call could wreck it all. Damn Texan. Is this real mort? Yep. Shut up. Like with real dead people. Oh, I got to text Ashley. Ashley, I identify you when you wrapped your car around that light pole because you was caring more about that thing than a road. And you should like me. Not anymore. No text messages worth a life. Over 90 miles of creeks run through Santa Rosa. Run off from streets, roofs, and parking lots and up in our creeks through the storm drain system. To help protect creeks, keep your street gutters and roadside ditches clear of trash and other pollutants. For more information on the benefits of our creeks and tips on how to enjoy them, visit the stormwater and creeks webpage. You're still Texan. Izzy, where are we at? County Moor. Not in my schedule. You scheduled it when you tip on that minivan and sent two people to the hospital. Guess she was paying more attention to that thing than a road. Making sure my wife picks up my suit. Sounds like a text message that just couldn't wait. Texting and driving. A killer combination. In recreation and parks, the days begin when the sun rises. Most of our workspaces don't have four walls or a desk, but there's a lot to be done to get this place up and running. It takes a big team to cover so much ground. Each space is unique, requiring its own special method of care and service. And it's of utmost importance to see that it happens each day because our workspace is your leisure space. And it includes 950 acres of Santa Rosa. It's the parks, the trees, the fields, the trails, special gathering places, community spaces, and it belongs to everyone. For our community. Striving to improve quality of life. We provide family experiences, friendly competitions, leisurely evenings, and places to bond with man's best friend. We create space for celebration, relaxation, and artistic expression. You can learn to serve a ball or learn to serve a meal. Take a walk on a path or walk the plank. We've got beautiful settings, space to show off our history. We have room to roam, to roll, or to run. We allow for the silly, the serious, the cool. We offer countless ways to work on your health. We keep our youth safe and teach them to keep others safe. We challenge people to want to challenge themselves. We foster creativity, guide athletes, hone passions. We allow for little minds to dream. And we'll keep doing what we do each day because we know that for our community. Parks made life better. You steal text. I had on a daycare know that I'm running late. They charge if you're late. I'm not usually one of those people to text and drive and I was almost done with my text when 10th car came out of nowhere. You still appeared in all coming traffic. And that text message, it never got through. One text or call could wreck it all. Is this real more? Yep. Shut up. Like with real dead people. Ooh, I got to text Ashley. Ashley identified you when you wrapped your car around that light pole because you was caring more about that thing than a road. How did she like me? Not anymore. No text message is worth a life. Over 90 miles of creeks run through Santa Rosa. Run off from streets, roofs, and parking lots. End up in our creeks through the storm drain system. To help protect creeks, keep your street gutters and roadside ditches clear of trash and other pollutants. For more information on the benefits of our creeks and tips on how to enjoy them, visit the Stormwater and Creeks webpage. You're still texting. Izzy, where are we at? Connie Moore. Not in my schedule. You scheduled it when you tip on that minivan and sent two people to the hospital. Guess she was paying more attention to that thing than a road. Making sure my wife picks up my suit. Sounds like a text message that just couldn't wait. Texting and driving, a killer combination. Recreation in parks, the days begin when the sun rises. Most of our workspaces don't have four walls or a desk, but there's a lot to be done to get this place up and running. It takes a big team to cover so much ground. Each space is unique, requiring its own special method of care and service. And it's of utmost importance to see that it happens each day because our workspace is your leisure space. And it includes 950 acres of Santa Rosa. It's the parks, the trees, the fields, the trails, special gathering places, community spaces, and it belongs to everyone. We work for our community. Striving to improve quality of life. We provide family experiences, friendly competitions, leisurely evenings, and places to bond with man's best friend. We create space for celebration, relaxation, and artistic expression. You can learn to serve a ball or learn to serve a meal. Take a walk on a path or walk the plank. We've got beautiful settings. We have space to show off our history. We have room to roam, to roll, or to run. We allow for the silly, the serious, the cool. We offer countless ways to work on your health. We keep our youth safe and teach them to keep others safe. We challenge people to want to challenge themselves. We foster creativity, guide athletes, own passions. We allow for little minds to dream. And we'll keep doing what we do each day because we know that for our community, farce made life better. You steal Texan. I had all the day care know that I'm running late. They charge if you're late. I'm not usually one of those people to text and drive and I was almost done with my text when that car came out of nowhere. You still appeared in all coming traffic. When I text message, it never got through. One text or call could wreck it all. Hey, I'm Texan. Is this real mort? Yep. Shut up, like with real dead people. Oh, I got to text Ashley. Ashley, I identify you when you wrapped your car around that light pole because you was caring more about that thing than a road. How do you see like me? Not anymore. No text messages worth a life. Over 90 miles of creeks run through Santa Rosa, run off from streets, roofs, and parking lots, and up in our creeks through the storm drain system. To help protect creeks, keep your street gutters and roadside ditches clear of trash and other pollutants. For more information on the benefits of our creeks and tips on how to enjoy them, visit the Stormwater and Creeks webpage. You're still Texan. Izzy, where are we at? Connie Moore. Not in my schedule. You scheduled it when you tip on that minivan and sent two people to the hospital. Guess she was paying more attention to that thing than a road. Making sure my wife picks up my suit. Sounds like a text message that just couldn't wait. Texting and driving. A killer combination. In recreation and parks, the days begin when the sun rises. Most of our workspaces don't have four walls or a desk, but there's a lot to be done to get this place up and running. It takes a big team to cover so much ground. Each space is unique, requiring its own special method of care and service. And it's of utmost importance to see that it happens each day because our workspace is your leisure space. And it includes 950 acres of Santa Rosa. It's the parks, the trees, the fields, the trails, special gathering places, community spaces, and it belongs to everyone. We work for our community. Striving to improve quality of life. We provide family experiences, friendly competitions, leisurely evenings, and places to bond with man's best friend. We create space for celebration, relaxation, and artistic expression. You can learn to serve a ball or learn to serve a meal. Take a walk on a path or walk the plank. We've got beautiful settings. We have space to show off our history. We have room to roam, to roll, or to run. We allow for the silly, the serious, the cool. We offer countless ways to work on your health. We keep our youth safe and teach them to keep others safe. We challenge people to want to challenge themselves. We foster creativity, guide athletes, hone passions. We allow for little minds to dream. And we'll keep doing what we do each day because we know that for our community, farce made life better. You steal text. I had all the day care know that I'm running late. They charge if you're late. And I'm not usually one of those people to text and drive. And I was almost done with my text when that car came out of nowhere. You still appeared in all coming traffic. And that text message, it never got through. One text or call could wreck it all. Is this real more? Yep. Shut up. Like with real dead people. Oh, I got to text Ashley. Ashley, identify you when you wrapped your car around that light pole because you was caring more about that thing than the road. How many is she like? Not anymore. No text messages worth a life. Over 90 miles of creeks run through Santa Rosa. Run off from streets, roofs, and parking lots and up in our creeks through the storm drain system. To help protect creeks, keep your street gutters and roadside ditches clear of trash and other pollutants. For more information on the benefits of our creeks and tips on how to enjoy them, visit the Stormwater and Creeks webpage. You're still texting. Izzy, where are we at? Connie Moore. Not in my schedule. You scheduled it when you tip on that minivan and sent two people to the hospital. Guess she was paying more attention to that thing than the road. Making sure my wife picks up my suit. Sounds like a text message that just couldn't wait. Texting and driving. A killer combination. Recreation and parks. The days begin when the sun rises. We're going to go ahead and get started. Welcome to the city council study session of October 6th, 2015. Madam city attorney, do you want to introduce our first study session item? Thanks. First, if we could ask the city clerk for a roll call. Let the record reflect that all council members are present with the exception of Mayor Sawyer and council member Waisaki. Great. And then our first study session today is a preview of the 2015 water and wastewater cost of service study and rate structure recommendations. Linda Reed, deputy director of water presenting. Thank you. And actually I'll start off. David Guin, director of center rows of water. Wanted to start off by letting the council know that this is a big item we're bringing to you today. And we realize that there's a lot involved in this item. This study session is going to cover a lot of ground. We're accomplishing a lot with this proposed change and we're addressing some legal issues that have come up in the state that we're tackling. We're addressing the drought. We're addressing long-term sustainability for the department. And we're also looking at how to run a system long-term within our means with reducing our costs and identifying other revenue streams to support our ratepayers through this. The other additional piece of this is and something you've heard previously was an additional piece that will support our low income residents. And that's something we're very excited about that we're bringing forward as part of this package. And so a lot is here and we're excited about this. We're actually, we're very proud of what we put together for you and the Board of Public Utilities has brought forward. And I'm going to turn it over to Linda Reed and Bob Reed. So Linda Reed our deputy director of administration in center rows of water. And we also have Bob Reed, the president of the Reed group who is here to present as well. Thank you. Vice Mayor Corsi and members of the council up in front of you is our timeline. And as you can see, we've been working on this for a long time. We put out an RFP in August of 2014. Bob Reed of the Reed group was a successful consultant. No relation. And then he met with the BPU budget subcommittee four times in some pretty lengthy work sessions and then presented to the full board at the beginning of September with the rate package recommendations. And on September 17th, the Board of Public Utilities unanimously recommended this rate package to be heard by the city council. I wanted to go into a little bit about our current status. Unlike many water agencies, we're not coming to you with a large increase request due to the drought. A number of agencies, East Bay Mud, Santa Clara Valley district, Roseville have been doing 10%, 9%, 20% rate increases because their revenues are down. Our revenues are down. They're down about $4 million from two years ago. And we have been managing that through cautious expenditures and use of our reserves. As you'll recall, right after and during the Great Recession, we cut both our O&M and RCIP budgets. Our employees had frozen wages. They had mandatory time off. They agreed to implement a three tier retirement system and they all agreed to pay extra into their PERS account. So we're really fortunate and very proud to be able to maintain our vital health and safety services during the drought with no need for major rate increases. We went into this rate study looking at what our long-term history would be. The whole idea of this rate study is looking at the future. And we know that we're gonna continue to experience weather events, whether it's going to be wet weather, where we have increased expenses at the treatment plant because of the inflow of water into our system, or we have dry years where we're experiencing less revenue. We fully expect that a lot of behaviors that our customers have adopted due to the drought are gonna be permanent. So we're looking long-term and we're planning for the future. We talked about the weather. We also talk about regulatory environment. Every new permit has new regulations. The regulatory environment does not halt. It continues to ask things of us about the cost of money. And we know that normal expenses go up. Everything from the cost of copper to the cost of health insurance. Our key is remain resilient. And so I'm gonna turn it over to Mr. Reed and then I'll come back with some closing remarks. But really what we're doing is trying to set it up for the future and to be so that we can continue to operate without large increases. Good afternoon Vice Mayor, Torsi, members of the Council. It's a pleasure to be here this afternoon with you. In going through this rate study, we really did take a comprehensive look at the water and wastewater utilities. As part of the process, we developed 10-year financial plans. The city had previously used a five-year planning horizon. We've extended this in our modeling out to 10 years. Not that we have a perfect crystal ball of what's going on eight, 10 years out, but by having the opportunity to look at capital program needs, potential debt issuances and other trends over a longer period of time, those longer-term trends can inform near-term decisions. And so it's really a helpful tool, even though the entire plan can be updated every few years, the benefit of that long-term planning horizon is very helpful. So within the financial models, we are looking at operating and maintenance costs, debt service obligations, both existing debt obligations as well as anticipated future debt issuances, as well as capital program costs, the costs of capital projects to rehabilitate the system. We are also looking at reserves and reserve policies. And even within this included some adjustments to reserve policies to help manage the financial risk associated with the utility. Because we have changing demands, because we have changing weather patterns, because we have an economy that has peaks and valleys associated with it, we can use the reserves to help manage any uncertainty that's associated with the operation of utilities. And that's very helpful. And that's part of the reason why we're able to bring pretty nominal rate adjustments within this plan. Also having this model allows us to do some sensitivity analysis. What happens if demand rebounds quickly? What if it doesn't rebound at all? What if this drought deepens? Changing some of the other assumptions. So it's really a helpful tool to do some of that scenario analysis and sensitivity analysis. We use this model also to develop, to identify to quantify the annual rate revenue requirements. So that's the amount of revenue that needs to be generated by each of the utilities to cover the costs with consideration for reserves as well as other revenues in the process as well. In going through this rate study, we're quite pleased to be able to recommend that for the current fiscal year, an increase in the rate revenues is not necessary. The amount of revenue, even with the cutbacks in water use and so on, the amount of revenue is sufficient because of cost reductions and other financial management policies, a rate increase is not required at this point in time. We are recommending some rate structure changes and I'll talk more about those in a moment. Those are to reflect the cost of service and updated cost of service analysis. Beyond the current fiscal year and beyond this initial rate adjustment in January, we are recommending five years of moderate rate adjustments each year at the beginning of each fiscal year. There would not be rate structure changes associated with that. So this table summarizes those rate adjustments. I wanna spend a couple of minutes, there's quite a bit of information on here. For the water utility, for the last several years, I think six or seven years, there's been an automatic adjustment to the water usage rates, the variable component of the water bill. That adjust by an amount that's determined based on the changes to the Sonoma County Water Agency's rate. So when they adopt their new wholesale rate for the fiscal year, that gets put into a calculation formula and it creates an adjustment to the water usage rates for the city's utilities. So we're recommending that we continue with that automatic adjustment mechanism. We're making some slight modifications to that to reflect the rate structure changes, but it basically operates the same way that it has. And just to let you know, if the water agency is anticipating about 5% annual rate increases in their rates each year, that's kind of what they're anticipating. That would result in about a 2.2% increase in the water usage rates for the city. That component is not all of the water usage rate includes other costs besides water usage, besides the water purchase cost, but that 5% increase in the water agency would translate to about 2.2% in your retail water usage rate. On top of that, we're recommending that at the beginning of each fiscal year, there would be a 5% adjustment to the service charge. Service charge makes up less than a quarter of the water bill. So that 5% gets diluted down quite a bit because the other part having to do with water usage. The third column here shows what the overall rate increase would be with assuming a 5% adjustment to the water agency's rates, factoring that into the usage charges, having that 5% in the service charges. So about 2.8% per year is what we're anticipating in terms of the magnitude of the rate increases for the water utility. On the wastewater utility, we're recommending 3% increases for the next three years, the next three fiscal years, and then followed by two years at 2.5%. And I'll talk a little bit more about those in a moment. The last column shows the combined water and wastewater impact for a typical single family customer. And you can see in January that there's gonna be a 1% increase in their bill even though we're not increasing the rates. And that's because anytime you change the rate structure, it shifts around who's paying how much. And so some people pay a little bit more, some people might pay a little bit less. In the case of the typical single family customer, they may experience about a 1% increase in their combined water and wastewater bill as a result of rate structure changes. And I'll talk more. Quick question. Can you tell me typical single family customer uses about how much water? Uses about 7,000 gallons per month for water and about 4,000 gallons in the winter time as the basis for their winter water use that goes into their wastewater bill. Thank you. That's typical. And three quarter inch water meter. So I'll talk more about the specific rate structure changes in a moment, but I wanted to... Oh, I'm sorry. I just wanna make sure I understood that number. That's typical for Santa Rosa. Yes, currently. I'm sorry, my family uses under 30 and so I'm a little startled at the, even the 4,000 number seems shockingly high. Thank you. So we are in going through this financial planning process and looking out in the future. One of the significant variables where there's some uncertainty is what's gonna happen with water and wastewater demands. And this graph summarizes what the history has been from 2000 through about 2008. There was some slight variation in the water demand due to weather patterns and other factors coming into play, but in the last five or six years, we've seen dramatic change. Starting in 2009 and then for 2010 and 11, I think probably driven primarily by the economy, cell reduction in demand. And then it rebounded some and then as in 2014 we see a big reduction as we enter into the shortage drought year. And for 2015 is probably similar to 2014, maybe even a little bit less. So the question we have is, well, what happens as we emerge out of this drought, what's gonna happen to demand? Will it rebound? How much will it rebound? How quickly will it rebound other factors? And we did quite a bit of scenario sensitivity analysis around that specific variable. And this table summarizes the water demand sensitivity analysis here for each of the next five fiscal years in the current and then for future fiscal years. The first column of percentages are what's reflected in the report. That assumes that in the current year, demand would be similar to last year. And then we would have about a 5% rebound that is not even close to a complete rebound but a partial rebound and then stabilizing at that level of rebound. The next column is what if we don't have any rebound? What if this is the new normal? We get back to a normal conservation ethic in managing water use year by year. And then what happens if we have more of a rebound and we had two years of a 5% rebound, that's still not back to normal but it is more than what's reflected in the report. And then what happens if we have a deeper shortage? This year, less water use in the current fiscal year relative to last year and then a rebound over a couple of years. And what happens if we have yet another year of shortage conditions and we go even further reductions in water use? So these are all different scenarios that we put into the model and then we looked at, well, what does this mean for the financial plan if we hold the other information constant? And this graph summarizes those different scenarios with the proposed rate plans that are included in the recommendation. Where we have a rebound or a more significant rebound, we maintain the reserve levels and those stay above the minimum. The dash line on this graph is sort of our minimum reserves that we wanna stay above. It's the operating reserve and the catastrophic reserve combined, we'd like to stay above that, not too far above that but we wanna stay above that and think of that dash line as a floor. And then the other scenarios that we looked at where there's either less of a rebound or continuation of a drought or deepening of a drought, those are all of the lines that continue to track south. And you can see in the worst case scenario that we looked at by about fiscal year, 1920, we would dip down into that minimum reserve. Now part of the policy around the catastrophic reserve is that is available during an emergency shortage. That is one of the catastrophic emergencies that's anticipated. But what this is indicating is that with the rate recommendation, potentially in a worst case scenario, these rates may not be enough. On the other hand, if we have a rebound in demand or a strong rebound in demand, we would maintain the reserves and maybe even build up additional reserves. And so with these rate plans that are being proposed, if the rates aren't necessary over this five year period, we can ratchet them down and we'll talk more about that in a moment. But this is, I just wanted to share with you sort of the range of possibilities and looking at the scenarios and how this sort of information informed the decision related to the recommendations that are before you. Similar on the wastewater side, we looked at similar scenarios in terms of the rebound in demand. Water demand affects wastewater revenues as well. And you can see in this graph, there's actually a greater divergence between the different scenarios that we looked at. Particularly if there is a rebound in demand, you could see some pretty significant increases in reserves. Well, that wouldn't actually take place. We wouldn't be implementing the rates that are being recommended at this point if we saw the reserves continuing to climb. But also we see a scenario that in the worst case scenario, we may dip down below that dashed line, below that minimum reserve sooner. And so we see these variables here. Each year in this five year period, once the rates are adopted, there's an opportunity to review the costs, to review the capital expenditure needs, to look at the reserves that are available, to see what's happening with demands and what's anticipated to happen with demands, and then make adjustments. And if the rates that you would be adopting in December are not needed, there's an opportunity to scale them back. And what's being planned is that these recommendations, or this analysis would go through the BPU Budget Subcommittee with the BPU to make recommendations to the city council on whether the previously adopted rates would be necessary or not. So that's sort of the mechanism for on an annual basis to fine-tune, to adjust the course, if you will, as we go through this period. I have a couple of questions on these two charts. I wanna make sure I understand what they're showing us, and I wanna make sure that the public can understand these two. Both of them show that the reserves are significantly higher than the minimum required. Does that mean that it's significantly higher than we need? No, the dash line is a minimum floor. It's an amount that we don't want to go below because we need those reserves for catastrophic emergencies as we've discussed for operating reserve, for working capital needs, cash flow requirements, and those sorts of things that we really don't wanna dip below that. But the amount that's above that dash line is really provides a surplus reserve that helps provide flexibility for the operation and the maintenance of the utility and the operations. It's the way that we manage and mitigate the risk associated with uncertainty. Now, at some point, that gets to be too high, and so we're developing criteria around that that would be as part of the budget review process each year to see, are we building up reserves, like this green line on this graph that continues to go north? Obviously, that's getting to a point where we're building excess reserves, and that's one, it's not allowed. You can't, you know, that's an indicator that we're generating too much revenue from the rates. It's okay to have prudent reserves, it's not okay to have excess reserves, but there's a lot of factors that go into determining when you move from one to the other. How long have we been carrying reserves of this size? There are, have always been reserves in terms of the magnitude of them historically. It varies depending on the need. One of the factors that goes into this is capital program requirements and providing building up funds to pay for capital projects. So I don't know if you wanted to... Yeah, and some of the council may recall that when we were going through the Great Recession, we dipped down to the minimum levels, and on the water side, we were well below our minimum level of reserve. We were almost out of reserves in about 2009. And so that's when we talked about when we cut back our O&M, we cut back our CIP, we eliminated positions, and then we were getting back to a normal reserve level. We saw a couple of years of increased water use, if you'll go back to that slide, where Mr. Aid was showing you the ups and downs of the water use. You can see that we had two years where water use was up, and so that built those reserves, and then we had the woof down of the water use. And so we're using those reserves. And so what that excess reserve allows us to do is make a cushion. So we're not, oh my gosh, we need a 10% rate increase. Oh, we don't need any rate increase. Let's us build in that ability to do a minor adjustments. I'll just bring it back one more slide to... What we're dealing with is this varied nature of where we live in California. And so what we're trying to manage is this up and down and not have that impact our customers every year. And so by having that buffer to your point, that the amount of that buffer is critical. And that's something we debated the budget subcommittee and the board all the time. How much is too much? How much is enough to allow us not to have to raise rates due to the drought? And I think we were proven successful this year. And what we're trying to do is hold that steady at minor increases to make sure we don't dip below that in the future and have massive cuts and massive rate increases. Okay, thank you. Is there any, yes, Ms. Combs. Thank you. So I'm counting five reserve pools operating catastrophic rate stabilization, geysers and designated. And I'm wondering if there's another pool also. Are these all the wells that we're reserving water in? Rates in? And all of those reserves you just mentioned are in the wastewater utility. I think it's a smaller number in the water utility. It doesn't have the geysers reserve or the rate stabilization. And so it's fewer in the water utility. Those are all the designated reserves that have specific purposes associated with it. The amount that- Is there another, are there any other reserves in the department? There's what we refer to as the surplus reserves, which are the amount that are above and beyond that. And that's the amount that we're using to manage the functioning of the utility. So that's that amount that we're working with. Okay. So my slides aren't numbered. It's my page six. It's the second slide at the bottom. Here in reserves, I think it's wastewater. That's the one that would have this list plus surplus. Yes, so this- And is that what's shown in the dotted line? Is that the total of all of these? The dashed line in these graphs are those designated. So the operating reserve, the catastrophic, the rate stabilization, the geysers, and the designated for wastewater, that makes up the dashed line. And then the solid lines are include that additional surplus. And the model that's reflected with the rate recommendation and the assumptions in terms of future demands is the solid black line. So it's not the highest line. It's the middle path. And I noticed that the dashed line sort of jumps up a little bit. Can you tell me why that jumps up a little bit? Yes, and I'm glad you brought that up because I wanted to mention that. It's, we discuss this with the budget subcommittee, that the catastrophic reserve was established in 2007 and it was established at a mount that anticipated damage that might occur as a result of a significant earthquake and the cost of repairing that. And then the catastrophic was reserved on that, you know, was established at that amount on that basis. It has not changed in that period of time. And when we look at the inflation associated with the construction costs, since that time has actually gone up about 30%. And so what we recommended was that we adjust the catastrophic reserve. So it still has the same purchase power, if you will, to undertake those repairs if that catastrophic event were to occur. Okay, I have one more follow-up question on this. I hope. So thinking of this as sort of like insurance. I have in the past purchased an umbrella policy. So I didn't pay a high amount on all my items, but I paid a reduced amount with an overarching coverage that could fill the gap. It seems to me that we have a lot of categories, but that it makes sense to have sort of one pool that can, when there's a problem, meet the need, assuming that you wouldn't have all of these reserves needed at one time. Is that, has that been considered? Is that reflected here? Is that? Yes, each reserve has a specific purpose. Some of them are established because of debt requirements, for example. And so there are things associated with debt that's been issued, the rate stabilization, the geysers is related to the contract, the geysers contract. And so they each have a specific purpose. And then they can be used for those purposes or dipped into consistent with the policy that governs. So there isn't an overarching reservoirs that would catastrophic. Well, I would, I think of the surplus reserve as kind of that umbrella policy, if you will, that provides additional flexibility. And it really, when we went through the- I'm sorry, and that's not in the dotted line. That's in the solid line. That's the amount above the dotted line is that surplus. And that really provides the flexibility. Okay, thank you. And we use the term quite a bit of resilience in these utilities that we're able to respond to changing conditions and uncertainty of what demand is, what the weather is going to be, what the economy is going to be, to respond in a responsible way without having significant rate impacts affecting customers. And this surplus reserve makes that possible. So, okay, I'm gonna move on and talk about the rate structure changes and the issues around that, if that's all right. So back in April of this year, a Pellet Court decision came out in the San Juan Capistrano case, Capistrano Taxpayer Association versus City of San Juan Capistrano, Fourth District Court of Appeal down in Southern California. This decision focused on Prop 218's cost of service requirements and in particular addressed some issues around tiered water pricing. Within the decision, they also talked about balancing the state's conservation mandate, which is embedded in Article 10 of the Constitution and balancing that with the cost of service requirements in Prop 218, which is part of Article 13 in the Constitution. And there was also some issues related to recycled water and how recycled water is just part of the water portfolio, part of general water service and can be viewed as such, which is exactly what is being done here in Santa Rosa. So there were some useful elements of this court decision and there were also some controversial elements of this court decision, particularly around tiered pricing. And I'm sure you've heard or read about that, having to do with trying to encourage water conservation with tiers and yet how are those tier rates defined? So the San Juan Capistrano decision regarding tiered rates, the court said public agencies have the authority to design tiered water rate structures. Now, there are some people that came out after this decision said tiers are unconstitutional. Well, that's not true, but the court did say that individual tiers can be supported by higher costs associated with providing service higher levels of usage. So it was really being a little bit more prescriptive in terms of how the rates could be justified in a tier structure that each individual rate had to have its own cost basis. You couldn't look at the structure as a whole for that. So that had some pretty significant implications statewide for how tiers had been developed. So we took this decision, we looked at the rate structure that we had here in Santa Rosa as we were updating the cost of service analysis and we said, okay, how can we develop rates going forward cognizant of what this new decision means for us? Can I get clarity real quick? We're in the ninth district and there's a fourth district decision. Is it applicable to us? Yeah. Is it more of a suggestion? No, it is the law. And ninth district I think is federal court. This is a state court of appeals in Orange County. It does apply. Now there is a different state appellate court covering this part of the state and a court there. And I'm not an attorney here. So if I'm stepping out of bounds here, I think a court here could look at that decision and they might decide something different, but it is the law right now. Appellate court decision has the way to law. The state attorney general, on behalf of the State Water Resources Control Board asked the California Supreme Court to de-publish this decision because it was so controversial and the California Supreme Court declined to do that. So it is the law at this point in time. That's correct. Unless there was a contrary court of appeal decision that comes out of the first district, which is the state court of appeals that governs this area. Thank you. So as we move into the rate setting part of the study here, we have two primary, two fundamental objectives that we must address. One, we need to meet the legal requirements as defined by Prop 218 and as informed by these court decisions. San Juan Capistrano is just one of the more recent ones. There are a number of other cases that come into play around Prop 218 issues. The other thing is we need to make sure that we're providing sufficient reserves for the utilities, adequate revenue to meet the service and financial obligations of the utility. So those are two primary objectives that we need to meet. There are also some secondary objectives. And once that we've met the two primary objectives, we can try and meet some of these other objectives. And those include encouraging water conservation, maintaining the affordability for basic levels of service, limiting the bill impacts associated with the rate structure changes, simplifying the rates to ease customer understanding as well as administrative processes within the city and to improve revenue stability. And these were all objectives that were discussed with the budget subcommittee as we went through this process. And they were all things that we tried to accommodate once we had met the primary objectives. And I will mention some of these things pull you in different directions. Encouraging water conservation by putting more into the water usage charges is contrary to revenue stability. And so some of these things are at odds with one another in some respects. And so part of the task of the rate design is to strike the right balance between these different factors. And that's what we were working to achieve. So with respect to the proposed water rates, currently we have a four tier water rate structure for single family customers. What we're recommending is a two tier structure. So the first tier would still cover the winter water use, the sewer cap, the basic level of water use for indoor water use. And then the second tier would apply to all water use above that rather than second, third and fourth tier. Also as part of this analysis, we looked at duplex water use characteristics for duplex accounts. And they really have water use characteristics more similar to single family homes. So we suggested that they actually be grouped in with the single family customers rather than multifamily. They don't, the water use characteristics is more similar to single family home than it is to an apartment unit. So we're recommending that change. We also have tiered rates that apply to dedicated irrigation accounts. It's a three tier structure that's tied to the water budget and again, recommending a two tier structure for irrigation accounts. The initial block would be the same, 125% of the water budget that water budget determined based on the specific landscape requirements for each service connection. And then a uniform water rate would continue for other customer classes. Yes, sir. Excuse me, if I may have missed this reading through this report and if you're gonna come to it later on, that's fine. But I'm not sure I saw where you explained, even though we're going to a two tier structure, it's still two tiers. How is that second tier more expensive to deliver than the first tier? That's a great question. And it is in the report. It's a pretty detailed slide. So I didn't put it in the presentation here, but we have our Sonoma County Water Agency water. And that's about 95% of the water use comes from that source. It's also the most expensive water. We have some groundwater and we have a little bit of recycled water, which is part of our overall water portfolio. Each of those have different costs associated with that. We also have water conservation program costs. And so the way that we designed the rates was within the first tier, that quantity of water within that first tier is our lower cost water supplies as well as some Sonoma County Water Agency water, but not conservation costs. And then in that second tier is all water agency costs. So it's none of the cheaper water, but all the more expensive water plus the water conservation costs. So there is a cost analysis that goes into defining the costs associated with each tier. And if you look at the rates for the single family and the duplexes and you compare it to the rates for the dedicated irrigation, both have the two tier structures, but the rates are a little bit different. And that's because the amount of water in the first tier and in the second tier is a little bit different in each of those two classes. And so those rate calculations are a little bit different because of that. That's a complicated explanation to answer your question. There's more detailed explanation in the report that explains that. Okay. So then for our other customer classes maintaining a uniform water rate, we're also recommending adjustments to the fixed service charges. Those are tied to the size of the water meter. And we wanted to reflect the capacity relationship across the meter sizes. Somebody that has a larger meter can place a larger demand on the system. And it's appropriate to assign capacity related costs on the basis of that capacity relationship across the meter sizes. So adjustments there. We also modified the mix between the volumetric component of the rates and the fixed charge. We increased the volumetric component slightly. That helps with the conservation incentive. It helps to maintain, address some of the bill impacts for basic water usage. And then also the changes going forward are gonna have a bigger increase to the service charge and a smaller adjustment to the usage rate. And so it kind of will pull back in the other direction. So there's a lot of things going on within that. And this seemed to be the best path to strike the balance between all of those different objectives that we were talking about. And this structure also gives customers, you know, that a little bit of additional control over their costs. And then part of the rate structure recommendations is that automatic pass through for the water agency costs similar to what's already in place. So this shows the proposed rate schedule. And here you can see the slight difference in the water usage rates for single family and duplexes compared to the irrigation accounts. The first tier is quite similar. The second tier is a little bit different. And again, it goes back to the specific rate, cost of service calculation for each rate and the water supply blend that's incorporated. And then we have the range of service charges, monthly service charges by meter size going through the full range of different size meters. For wastewater rates, similar analysis, looking at cost of service requirements. For wastewater, we're not only concerned about the flow or the volume of wastewater that's being discharged from homes and businesses and that needs to be treated and disposed of, but also the loading characteristics of that wastewater. So the biochemical oxygen demand, the solids, the nitrate concentration and so on. So those factors complicate the analysis a little bit, but they're important factors to take into consideration. Right now there are about 15 different customer class, non-residential customer classes in the rate schedule. Some of them for just a few accounts. And as we looked at that and we looked at the loading characteristics, we recommended that we simplify that and go from 15 different categories down to four. And so it's more of a generalized banding around similar use characteristics. And it simplifies the rate structure. I think that having very specific rates tends to suggest a higher level of precision than is actually there. And so this is really a way both to make the rates a little easier to explain and administer, but also in my view, more fair for customers as well. So- Excuse me, we have a question. Yes, comes. Thank you very much. I just wanted to go back one slide and have you repeat what you may have said one more time. Why it is that multifamily, commercial, industrial and institutional don't have two tiers? Yes. Currently they do not have two tiers. Currently they're subject to a uniform rate. And so it's not a change in that regard. The reason they have a uniform rate and not a tier rate as the others do is the tier rate structures work very well as a conservation tool as an incentive when you have what I'll call homogenous water use characteristics. Think of a bell curve that shows the range of typical uses around that profile. For commercial businesses, you don't have that. Even within individual meter sizes and commercial tends to have a bunch of one inch meters and one and a half and two and four inch, it's all of the different meter sizes, but even within an individual meter size, you can have a wide range of use characteristics. When you establish, when a business is constructed, a building is constructed, you may not know who's gonna be in there, how much water they might use. And so the meter might be sized based on potential and that may be different from actual. So you don't have this nice bell curve in which to design the tier structure around. So if you create a tier structure in that situation, it actually can feel punitive to those customers because it doesn't reflect the use characteristics that they may have and it creates other problems as well. With multifamily, you can develop a tier structure if you do it on a per dwelling unit basis, but that's a much more complicated structure to have. And while the city knows the number of dwelling units for many accounts, it's not, they don't have that information for all the accounts. So it's really not practical to develop the tier structure for multifamily. Does that answer your question? Yeah, oh yeah, thank you. The irrigation accounts, we have the dedicated irrigation accounts and that pulls the irrigation out from businesses. So it's separate from, so a business may have a domestic meter and then an irrigation meter. And we can just have that distribution around the specific use characteristics of each irrigation account. We look at the size of the landscape, the plant types to specifically calculate a water budget for those accounts and then design the tier structure around that. Okay, so back to wastewater rates. So we've defined these four standard categories rather than 15. We've adjusted the service charge similar to the water side to reflect the capacity relationship and we're maintaining the revenue mix between the volumetric and the fixed component of the bill. With respect to those strength categories, this is a table which is really a guideline and an indicator to help place each customer into each of these four categories. We have low, standard, medium and high strength categories. About 89% of the businesses will be in the standard strength category, so that's the vast majority. It's about 1% in the low strength, about 2% in the medium strength and about 8% in the high strength. In the high strength are things like restaurants and bakeries and mortuary and things like that that place a higher load on the wastewater system. And at the bottom of this slide, you can see the ranges of the concentrations associated with each of these categories in terms of biochemical oxygen demand, BOD, total suspended solids and the nitrate, TKN is a measure of nitrate level in the waste and shows the general range. Quick question on this. Has outreach been done to the business community and have you received any howling from people about the categories that they've been placed? Now that the range of categories has been narrowed. The effect for most customers is pretty nominal of these changes. They're already, even though we have 15 categories, they're already lumped together pretty closely. So this wasn't a dramatic change in most instances. I don't know about outreach weather. Yeah, once the 218 notice goes, there's 45 days before the hearing. And so during that period will be opportunity for discussion with customers. Okay, any idea? You talked about residential customers, the typical residential customer is gonna see maybe a 1% increase in their bill. Do we know what the typical commercial customer is gonna see? Yes, in fact, there's a slide. I was gonna make reference to it or there's a table in the report. It's exhibit one dash six on page nine of the report. It was too big of a table to put onto a PowerPoint slide. And there's about 15 or 18 different commercial businesses as well as different residential accounts, combined water and wastewater bill and what the total change for most of the accounts that's within plus or minus 3% change in their bill. And there's a couple on there though that are like 15% or 13%. There are a few outliers that are more than that but it's a very small number. And I think that would be where some of the outreach activities would be directed to working with those customers. Okay, thank you. Go ahead, Ms. Combs. So following that chart, a small winery, is that what I'm reading goes down 16%? I'm having a little trouble because the chart is sideways on my screen. When I rotate my screen, the chart goes sideways again. Yes, that's true. The combined water and wastewater bill for a small winery, we actually, in the report, we define what a small winery is. And that they would see about a 16% reduction in their typical monthly bill. And most of that is- And the mortuary above them goes up 13%? And mortuary is a high strength load, yes. Okay. And can you tell me which one is the 15% one? Because I'm having trouble telling. Is carwash. Okay, and that was a low strength. It's a low strength, and there's still a low strength. But they're going up 15%. Yes, and that's because the current rate. And I'm assuming their low rate, their low strength because of recycling the water. Yes, they tend to have to filter the water and reuse it and that sort of thing. So in going through this analysis, we need to, similar to the court decision addressing tiered water rates and how you calculate tiered water rates, the same concepts, the same principles apply to the wastewater rates. We need to meet a cost of service requirement. So we have to factor in the specific loading characteristics associated with different types of businesses, the uses that they have, the size of the meter and those sorts of things. And we do that in an objective way and we try and do that in a way that is going to minimize the impacts. But there are a few instances where some people might have bigger plus or minus changes than just within that 3% band. So I know that we're motivated to ask for large users of water to come in and want to talk to us about ways that they can conserve and that we've done, my understanding is that staff has done an excellent job in outreach to breweries regarding their waste and the difficulty that that unusual waste presents. If we give the wineries this kind of discount, are we de-incentivizing them to come in and work with you? And is it possible? I mean, not that I don't love my local wineries, but. I don't think that it creates a disincentive for them to be efficient in their operations. I think that the rates, both water and wastewater, you know, the small winery, it is a high strength category and there's still plenty of incentive for them to manage their usage. Thank you. And just to follow up on that, we do have a aggressive environmental compliance team that meets with our businesses on a regular basis. And the wastewater side of things is probably most, primarily most of the work. And we work with businesses to identify free treatment devices that would work for them, different ways for them to manage their waste, such as the high strength waste receiving, ways to take out and reduce their BOD or TSS or nitrogen levels. If we can help them reduce that, that would change where they fall within this matrix. So it does give the customers and businesses some flexibility and control over their cost if they install certain devices. And we currently work with them on a regular basis for that. So if a business uses some practice that is recommended for water or wastewater conservation, can they move from category to category or do they remain? For example, I know some coffee shops basically run the water dripping all the time and some coffee shops don't have that policy. So there's a significant difference in the water use of the two entities. Would they both be lumped into the same category or do they move from category to category? In the case of a smaller business, like a coffee shop, let's use that as an example. Yes, the specific practice of one coffee shop versus another may vary some, but those businesses are generally very small quantities of waste. There's no direct way to actually go and measure the waste associated with each one. So it's really not practical to tailor a specific approach for one coffee shop versus another or for many standard types of businesses. But where that differentiation does come into play is with some of the larger users, like large wineries, for example, or some of the food processing things that have both very high volumes as well as varied loading characteristics. And with that, then there are, and there's information and recommendations in the report where specific charges can be developed around the specific use characteristics for those high-loading, high-volume instances. And that's specific for that purpose. And just to add to that, remember that these bills are also based totally on flow. So if a business is using less flow, their bill will be less than a business that is using more, even if they're in the same category for their charge. You know, it'll be based this number times two instead of this number times 20, so. Thank you. Ms. Carlson, did you have a question? Okay. Sorry, I thought I saw your hand up. Okay. One more for me. Did I see breweries on this list? I know it's part of our economic strategy, so those breweries fall into the special high strength category where it's individualized based on the loading characteristics of that. So it falls into a group that has an extraordinary surcharge applied to the rate. Okay. And breweries, just for the background, breweries and food production, a lot of the water goes into the product that they're developing. So there's metering to subtract that water out in terms of impact to the wastewater system. And then a lot of those businesses also have pretreatment devices to try to reuse that water within their process for cleaning and other activities to reduce their water use. But they also reduce their nitrogen and BOD levels to reduce the impact to our system. And so it's a very site-specific effort that we're underway with breweries specifically and food production. Okay, thank you. So this summarizes the proposed wastewater rates schedule. We have a usage component usage rate for residential. It's tied to the winter water use or the sewer cap as you're familiar. That's for single family duplexes and multifamily. And that usage rate is 1308. For the non-residential customers, commercial, industrial, and institutional, we have the four different rates. The lowest rate applies to the low strength and then we have standard, medium and high strength. And you can see the differences between those rates and the amount of the difference in the rate is because of the different loading characteristics within that. And again, about 89% of the businesses fall into that standard strength category, which is the same loading characteristics as residential. And then we have service charges tied to the size of the meter. For single family residential and duplexes, it's the same service charge regardless of meter size because if they do have a larger meter, it tends to be either because of an irrigation demand or a fire blow requirement. And so the base service charge is the same. So this graph summarizes a typical residential, single family residential combined water and wastewater bill, both current bill within Santa Rosa and that's the light shaded bar, the third one from the left. And then just to the right of that one is under the proposed rates. So very small change here. That's the 1% change that was on that initial slide about a little more than a dollar change in the bill amount associated with the proposed rate structure. The other bars on this graph are some of the neighboring communities here in Sonoma County and what their combined water and wastewater bills are. I would add that Healdsburg is in the midst of a rate study. Some of these other communities, Rohnert Park and Windsor, just adopted multi-year rate plans earlier this year would have annual adjustments each year. So different things going on with each of these, but this provides a comparison. And then we already discussed that comparison across different types of customers between the current and the proposed rates and with that table in the report. So I won't refer to that again. So you can see from this that there were a number of issues that all came together through this rate study. It really was a comprehensive undertaking looking not only at the cost of service analysis, meeting the legal requirements, meeting the financial obligations that the utilities have to maintain adequate revenues and manage uncertainty, which is inherent, but also an opportunity to look at the reserves. We also looked at other miscellaneous fees and charges and a number of other things that all came together in going through this study. And so we have developed recommendations. We had the strong support from the BPU on the recommendations going forward. And we're really pretty pleased that we're able to offer pretty modest rate increases for the next five-year period here and pretty modest rate structure changes as well. So with that, Linda's got a few more words here. Okay, I just very briefly, because we're gonna be back to you, not November 10th, like it says on this slide, but it has been moved to November 17th, but we'll be to you to talk about the H2O program in detail. But the board reviewed this on October 1st and they made some suggestions on our pilot program. And hopefully this week we're gonna be releasing an RFQ looking for a nonprofit partner or partners. And that'll give us a better idea of what our costs are going to be and how that program is going to flesh out. So we'll be back to you on November 17th to talk a little bit more about that. And then just wanted to reiterate that it's an ongoing evaluation. Bob turns over these financial plans to us and then it becomes a living model. We are updating it constantly with demands, with what the revenues and trends are looking like. And we wanna assure you that we're working very closely with the Board of Public Utilities. They review our revenues, our expenditures and our reserve levels every year at budget time in detail. And so the next steps for us at this point is we will be sending out those Prop 218 notices and doing some outreach. And you have a public hearing scheduled on December 1st. And we're all ready to answer questions, additional questions and take comments. Okay, I have one card on this. Mr. Duit. And appreciate that you folks have had this work done. Appreciate that a lot of study goes into these things. By the same token, I think what's really important is this right here, new normal, no normal, things are gonna be changing if we are better at conservation. I'm hoping we are. I've never looked at any water as if it was waste. I spent a lot of time in the desert when I was younger. And I know that all water has value in one way or another. The dilemma is many people, especially if they live in an apartment where the water is paid or if they work at a business where the business picks up the cost, they don't worry about it. They just go ahead and keep wasting. So I believe in volumetric metering of water for everybody and that especially for businesses, they'd be able to keep track of it and pay a higher cost if need be. Especially at wineries. I've got a friend that is quite concerned because he knows some winery workers and they tell him about hundreds of thousands of gallons of water that basically just get flushed out and it's potable water. It's used to clean in the areas for the barrels and different things like that. And you'd think that we could come up with a system in which we were using recycled water to do those types of things and keeping our potable water for the important stuff. So what I'm hoping is as this goes forward and prepares for the public hearing that they'll look deeper in to how to do an incentive type package. First, by making sure that everyone has volumetric metering no matter what type of a customer they are, everybody gets charged and is seen for how much they use. And then put something in that has an incentive to make it so people will save water. I mean, we're four years into this drought and you may believe the rain is coming next week. We've had a taste, everybody's ready, but it might not. And so we need to be prepared and keep looking towards the future in which there may be even worse and longer droughts than this one we've experienced. So having volumetric metering, excuse me, these meetings get to me and I begin to mess up the words. Volumetric metering on all water for all customers and make it in to a nice type package, bring in as much revenue as you can so you can hold down the increases on everyone over the next five years. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Councilor, are there any further questions or comments? Mr. Oliver. Wait, I'm back. I just want to, I want to thank staff for the detailed work that occurred over times. It started back in 2014 with the process, report a lot of good information. The individual looping out was very helpful as well. It helped in this process to get a better grasp and understand it and really look forward to this coming back to us for additional input and final decisions, but as far as a process that you have used so far, I really, really, really like it and I greatly appreciate all the effort, so thank you. Mr. Schwedhelm. Thank you. I just want to echo that also. I always never thought I'd be saying this but I look forward to your reports because it's very thorough and it's clear to me that it's a very well managed operation from start to finish. So I'm impressed also with the detail that you have here and you've anticipated the questions that we may have and you always have answers so I really appreciate it and keep up the good work. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Again, just echo council members that have gone before me to thank staff for the prep work that went into this for giving us all the opportunity to meet with you one-on-one and ask our questions ahead of time. That's extremely helpful and I'm very much looking forward to the implementation of our new program for low-income users. So I'll join the love fist and appreciate the department very much for how professionally it's managed and for all the work that happens all the way up and down the line to keep our citizens safe and healthy. This is like our number one public health contribution is clean water and sanitation. So this is what keeps our citizens safe and I very much appreciate that. I also want to very much appreciate you for the H2O program. I love the cute little title there. Help to others. It's a shame that Prop 218 prevents us from giving direct assistance to seriously low-income water users and you and I both know you've been working hard on this for a number of years and I'm really grateful to see this program come forward and I hope we continue to lobby to get Prop 218 to have the same kind of exception that the electric utility has. I will add that it always concerns me when we're doing rate increases that are not aligned with consumer price index or social security increases because our residents are dealing with those rate changes. So it concerns me to see the increases that are sort of set here for several years that don't have a tie-in to CPI or social security rate increases. So that's a concern of mine. I appreciate that it will come back annually instead of having what looks to the public like two rate increases. The one that the county water agency passes on and then ours but by bringing them together we don't get hit twice with you just raised our rates. Why are you doing it again? So I very much appreciate your thoughtfulness on making it clearer to the public when there's a rate increase and what it is. So thanks very much. I just like to reiterate the appreciation for the H2O program. We kind of went past that quickly but it is appreciated the work that's going into that and it's not a big amount but it's a good step in the right direction. So thanks for doing that. I also wanna thank the Board of Public Utilities for working hard on this. I know that you spend a lot of time on it and it makes it a lot clearer when it gets to us, I believe. This is an incredibly complex issue with all kinds of moving parts and the presentation today and the report really made it clear to me as for somebody who's definitely no expert in this stuff it was clear where we were going. I appreciate how much work goes into dealing with all the sensitivities of not just costs and revenues but being fair to people, keeping increases low and dealing with something like the weather. How much more uncertainty can you get? So thanks and this is coming back November 17th, is that right? The H2O program will be coming back November 17th and the public hearing for the rate increase will be December 1st. December 1st. Thank you very much. We have a second study session, Mr. City Manager. Item 3.2 review of body worn camera policy, Hank Schreeder, Chief of Police presenting. Welcome, Chief. Vice Mayor, Council members, I brought show and tell so you can actually see what we're talking about today. Mayor, Council members, today we're here to talk about the body worn camera policy developed by the Santa Rosa Police Department. The department, ultimately the development of the program is based on the fact that we recognize that the video can add a unbiased kind of view of the incidents between public safety and the community. So we started developing this program as early as 2011. So it's been a long time coming. Department's been developing the body worn camera program for a variety of reasons. And ultimately it's in the best interest of the community and the department. Through, we utilized nationwide best practices, a variety of other policies throughout the state, nation, several conferences, including the National Academy Conference. Recently, the League of California Cities Conference just last week had a few presentations on body worn cameras. The POA was involved in the process of developing the program in the interest of their employees dealing with the issues and are very supportive of the program at this point based on the policy that's presented today. The city attorney's office was involved as well as a community survey that we put out in order to identify concerns that the community has regarding the cameras, as well as areas that we can do further education regarding body worn cameras in the city of Santa Rosa. So on August 18th, you asked for the camera policy to come back to you. Where we are in the process is the policy in draft form. We have the cameras in possession. We have 120 cameras that would go primarily to our field service division, which is our uniform patrol officers, downtown enforcement traffic, and we're ready to start beginning the implementation process of that. We anticipate it's gonna be a phased in process because it's a big program. When I say the body worn camera program, it goes all the way back and many of you were involved in helping develop this program in the beginning when you talk about evidence storage, digital evidence management before you even get to a point where you can have cameras. So it's a whole program. The policy is part of that as well as our training plans that come out of the program. So Captain Craig Schwartz was involved in his managing the current body worn camera program. And I want to allow him to talk about some of the highlights in the policy that maybe you have interest in. Good afternoon. We've been working on this policy for quite a while now. And as the chief said, we've actually been researching and looking to implement this body worn camera program really since about 2012. We first started putting a few body worn cameras out in 2011 during some of the Occupy events. But those cameras were really kind of off the shelf type small devices that we're not ever met for law enforcement or the ways that we would be using them. That was in 2011. So in 2012, we really started looking into what camera systems were available out there. And I will admit going into this that I thought it was going to be a lot simpler than it has turned out to be. It's not the idea of just going out and buying a camera. There are so much more involved as we have learned related to even just the storage of the videos and the evidence and what is to be done with that. And then all the additional policy type questions that come in about, you know, on the slide, you know, when will the cameras be turned on? When is it appropriate for them to be on? When would it be appropriate for maybe the officers to not turn them on? When would the use of the cameras really even be prohibited? How long do we keep the recordings for? Where do we keep the recordings? Do we keep them locally in a server that we have to manage and deal with here at the city or do they go up to the cloud to be stored by another company? And then there are issues with the employees' access to recordings, when does an officer get to view a video recording that they've made and issues with the release of those recordings, trying to balance transparency and privacy issues. So when it comes to just kind of going point by point, one of our main concerns was with the activation of the recorders and when they would be coming on, the officers would be sliding the door down that you see on the camera in front of you. So right now, if that camera had an active battery on it, it would be on. It's a very simple camera to operate. All you have to do is slide the door down in front and it starts recording. You slide the door up and it stops. And rather than going through all of the different scenarios because there are so many when we would expect the officers to turn on the camera, the easiest kind of way to put it is that when an officer is engaged in an enforcement-type contact or an investigative contact that could include a traffic stop, a bicycle stop, pedestrian contact, and a criminal investigation where they would be interviewing a witness or a victim or a suspect, we expect the camera to be on. We do provide some discretion to the officers because there are legitimate privacy concerns in many of the calls that we go to. And in the survey that we did, the public recognized a number of those concerns. So we do leave them some leeway to turn the camera off if, say, they're talking to an informant or if somebody requests it to go off. Excuse me, Captain. Ms. Kosher. Thank you. Mr. Vice Mayor, just a quick question with respect to that. I imagine domestic violence calls fall into that or anything involving minors. That was right. One of the areas that would sort of classify as a sensitive-type call, and it could be dealing with domestic violence, it could be dealing with minors, it could be a sexual assault, it could be when you're in a medical facility and there is the potential that there's HIPAA-type private medical information being discussed. Is there any way to capture the video data and sort of sequester it in a way that would comply? So that doesn't necessarily mean that that instance may not be recorded, but it certainly has an impact on whether it would be produced if there was a request for production of that. There are a number of laws, well, for an institution code that prohibits us from releasing information about minors, there's domestic violence laws, any HIPAA mentioned. And so all of those would factor into, as said, the police officers have some discretion if they're talking to an informant. Obviously it's not likely that they may get the information they need if that's being recorded. So they have some element of judgment. Okay, thank you. And then when we talk about, when the recorder should go off, in most cases, we expect the recorder to remain on for the duration of that contact. Now once again, we do provide some discretion there, so if there's a large area of sort of lag time where the officer is back at the car writing reports or doing something or is not directly involved in the contact, then we will allow the officer to turn the camera off and then turn it back on once they get back into the actual contact with the victim, witness or suspect. And retention of recordings, we consulted with our technical services division manager, other policies, other cities across the country and our city attorney's office to talk about that. And really when it comes to both retention and release of the recordings, we have existing policies and existing laws that we follow with that. So for example, in most scenarios, we would keep these video recordings for at least one year in one day. If the recording is more sensitive because there's a use of force or it could be subject to civil litigation, we would look at keeping that for up to 27 months. And then if it's evidence in a criminal proceeding, we would maintain it as long as that evidence is required by the courts. And when it comes to finally the release of the recordings, that was an interesting area and one that I was really kind of curious with the survey results for because of the issues trying to balance transparency and privacy for the people who are on the recording. And we have an existing policy dealing with media relations and records release, evidence release that we would follow with the videos because really the videos are just another form of evidence or data that are already captured in that policy. And that policy allows ultimately the chief to have the final discretion about what gets released. But as always, we would expect that that would occur in consultation with the city attorney's office and in some instances the city manager's office. I have a question on that. Would a video recording, as far as a request for the release of a video recording, it would be treated the same way as say a request for a copy of a report or a copy of a booking photo? Yes, we would follow all the same policies that we utilize for evidence reports, criminal reports, things like that. It is a balancing act when you talk about release and when to release and protecting the community safety aspect of it, you may have somebody that's in a video that's wanted that wouldn't necessarily be released, but we have to get it out to the public. So there is some public safety aspects to it, but it's balanced against the protection of the witnesses and victims and evidence for prosecution in cases with the video itself. So we're always, in almost all of those cases, we're in consultation with city attorney's office. I know that unfortunately in our digital world, there's a lot of demand for content and police videos seem to be good content in a lot of cases. So how do you decide, I'm not even sure how to ask the question, that when are you making a decision based on transparency of public records or what the end use is gonna be? It depends. So in some cases, for example, if it's evidence for a crime, it'd be ultimately the prosecution and then what laws govern the release of that information. I think what we're seeing nationally is a lot of police videos that are released in states that allow some of that to happen. For example, Washington and Texas and some of these states that have these processes. In California, it's a little different. We do follow many of the Public Record Act laws and things like that associated with it. I think from the conference last week, it's exactly what you mentioned. There is this kind of, we're not sure yet until we get to an incident. For example, we get requests for criminal reports that are still being prosecuted and we don't release them because it's in the best interest of the prosecution for the DA's office. So there are these incidents. So it does, on a case by case basis, does play out. Sometimes the transparency may be and you're seeing agencies get involved in these where the police wouldn't be the only ones with cameras on a particular incident. So they're showing only a piece of it whereas law enforcement may have a whole nother side. So those are some of the discussions that we'd have to get when it comes down to releasing and whether or not to release and what's the best interest in the incident itself. So the chief said it's very fact specific and there could be any number of other laws that's not gonna be governed solely by the Public Records Act. That's one of the main issues that we would be looking at. But as I mentioned, there are a number of other laws that prevent disclosure of certain information. There's concerns about privacy rights, medical information. Right now there's a case that's pending before the California Supreme Court on the Public Records Act that really deals with digital media which is, you know, technology evolves. I think that becomes a more challenging question. And it was a case where the ACLU requested data from automatic license readers and they made a request and the police did not turn that over because they said that was part of a law enforcement investigation. And so the Supreme Court has asked to look at that issue about how far does an investigation go? Do you still retain the records or do they still remain confidential once the investigation's concluded? So I think we are gonna be getting much more guidance in the near future on those issues. It may be that we can, to protect people's privacy rights, blur faces if there's a need to release information. It may be that there's a compelling safety need that overrides that, such as if there's somebody suspect that's on the loose that the police need assistance in helping and that person was captured in a video, those circumstances could override the concerns for privacy and other laws like that. So it really is gonna be on a case-by-case basis. Okay, have we had any requests for video that's been produced during the pilot program that has been going on for a while now? I'm not aware of any. No, I'm not aware of any either. I could check with our technical services division manager and get more information for you if there have been though. I would imagine it probably would have come to one of your attention. Thank you. Are there any other questions from the council at this point? Are you done? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Then there are questions. Mr. Swadham. Thank you. Where do we land with the storage solution? Is it cloud-based storage solution? So one of the reasons that we selected the camera that's up in front of you now is because this particular camera interfaces well with our existing newly purchased digital evidence management system and it is a locally-based storage solution. So it will not be loaded up into the cloud. We have a server at the police department where all of the videos will be kept. And have you anticipated the life expectancy of that server? We have. Yes. Why don't you be able to share that life expectancy with us? Well, we have, I believe, 72 terabytes of space now that we have basically planned for in budgeting to be able to either add to or replace as the needs arise. So it should be within our budget to accomplish that. Within the year and a day, because I would imagine as we go, we'll be. Multi-year lifespan on the storage devices, so. Okay, great. And then, similar to Chief Schroeder, I heard a presentation in the cities about Cal Chiefs has got a model policy and then also Lexapol has a model policy. Can you share with us, is our policy going to be consistent with that? And I'm not sure if other council members understand what Lexapol is, but you might want to take an opportunity to explain that a little bit. Sure. Yeah, go ahead. Lexapol is basically provides model policies throughout the state. Many of the agencies adopt the policies, either whole or parts of the policies that come out. They keep them up to date with case law and relevant things that are impacting law enforcement. We're a Lexapol subscriber. Our policies are based in Lexapol, so we did use Lexapol's policy and Cal Chiefs. Our policy is consistent with Cal Chiefs recommendations that were presented just last week. Ms. Combs. Thank you for bringing this forward to us. I appreciate the transparency in this department and the attempts to find the balance between the needs for privacy and the needs for transparency within a government agency. This is a really tricky one. I wonder if you'll be patient with me and go through a couple of items. I'm looking at the recommendations of our local task force that was with regard to county issues, but they have a section on body worn cameras. So I'm just looking at that recommendation and wondering if you went through that recommendation and looked at where there were similarities or differences. We've reviewed all the community and local law enforcement task force recommendations and we did it from a process of what are we doing currently? What is it we can do with limited resources or no resources, but we can put in place that makes sense. And then ones that we'd need additional resources. In some, I've been in discussions with the city manager on and the body worn camera one was one specifics that the community and local law enforcement recommended. I don't know that I can answer that right now without them in front of me. But we did actually, they recommended obviously a body worn camera program. I think I'd like to know, I'd like to have you tell us if this comes back to us where the differences are between our local recommendations rather than make us go through them because I do have it in front of me. And I think I'd rather not go through it one at a time with you today. They have a number of retention specific items. They have a couple of items regarding activation. I think they're similar, but you would maybe be better able to tell me where the differences are. I would really like that. One of the aspects that I am interested in involves whether any subject of the recording has access to it, can make copies of it, can flag the recording, whether or not they're filing a complaint or opening an investigation. So can you clarify just that section of the policy for me? Are you talking about the subject? Any subject of a recording? I'm trying to sort out if they have access to it, can they make a copy? Can they flag a recording in some way? People within the community would fall under the same rules and laws that we talked about originally in the presentation. So they could make a request and then we'd have to look at it case by case basis. So it isn't automatic that a person who is the subject of recording has access to it? No, it's not. And it may be that there's another process and certainly in the criminal setting that they can subpoena those records if they were in aid of a criminal defense matter. Or in a civil case, they could certainly request them as part of the discovery process. I have also a concern about 450.7 and I just want to understand the authorization to delete. It appears to me 450.7a1 allows, I'm not exactly sure of the structure in the department. You know, this isn't my most expert area. So if you can let me know, it seems to me that if you're deleting something there should be two people who know it's being deleted. It concerns me to have one person who is a close relationship with the officer delete material. And I understand you need to delete things like the officer forgets to turn it off when he goes in the bathroom. I mean, I understand that stuff. I'm just trying to figure out how we differentiate between the goof delete and the, I'm gonna help you, you know, delete. So in the current policy draft, the requirement would be that a lieutenant or a captain who is somebody that would be at least two levels in the command structure above the officer, provide the authorization to delete it after they review the video to ensure that there is no evidentiary or administrative value to it and that it is an accidental recording. And then that would go to a system administrator for the actual deletion of the video. Do we have any kind of internal auditing process, internal affairs kind of position? Yeah, our property evidence is audited on a regular basis just for this concern that you have. So it's an external audit. It would be hard to audit it if it's not there. So it would be hard for that auditor to see whether why that was deleted or not. And one benefit to the digital evidence management software that we use is that every access to the items in there is audited and tracked. So there is a log entry. Every time somebody looks at the video, anytime they do anything to... So there's a record that it happened. Correct. Assuming that the system fully is fully transparent that way, but there's not a record to what was deleted except for someone's statement that I just deleted this 15 seconds, right? Okay. Correct. So that's a concern of mine. I just, I'm throwing it out there that it's a concern I don't have the solution. When we're dealing with money, we have two people make decisions about counting money in front of someone else or having a backup or a check. So it concerns me that there's not a two-person system for this. And my other concern is a sentence that says the chief of police shall have final approval which is 450.9 for whether something is released. So if the press, for example, were to make a request for information for a copy of the video, my understanding is that you said the chief of police has final authority. And I'm trying to understand exactly legally what that means. Does that mean that the majority of the council can't ask for it to be released? Yes. So the majority of the council could not ask for it to be released? That's correct. So it has their criminal, the police chief is the one who has the most information about pending investigations and whether a release of certain information would jeopardize the investigation that's going on. The police chief would also be consulting with our office because obviously if we're required by law to release something, police chief would not be not authorizing it to be released. And I believe would also be checking in with the city manager, but we can certainly make that more expedited. It just is interesting to me that it's not the city manager who has the final authority, but that it's the police chief. That's kind of interesting to me. Yeah, and that's because the police chief is the one who knows what the investigation is and what the impact of release of certain information could have. And it's also familiar with all the various penal code sections and other sections that limit disclosure of information. And you wouldn't feel comfortable informing the city manager and forming the council that we would understand those things. I just said that we'd be happy to clarify in the policy that police chief would consult with the city attorney and the city manager on those decisions. And if the courts wanted to say, you shall release that, if there was a court decision, does that have authority over the statement in here that the police chief has final authority? Yes, because the policy says that we'll comply with state and federal law. So if, for example, the case that I just mentioned where the California Supreme Court is gonna weigh in on what the scope of the exemption to the Public Records Act is on law enforcement investigations, if they define that more narrowly than it's currently understood to be, then certainly we would be guided by what the case law says. And if there's any new legislation that comes out regarding those things. What would be the process, so the process of appeal of a decision about the release of the information would be through the court system? Yes. Thank you. Further questions? Mr. Mayor? Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Just a couple of, I guess comments, not necessarily questions. I'm not one to meddle in your, a lot went into this and I appreciate that. There's a lot of national models out there, a lot of legal restrictions that you have to follow and I greatly appreciate that. But you did speak to some sensitive type cases where there may be some options, if you will. And I do encourage you to continue to explore those. I think we know from the past as we enter something new, we do accept policy, but we know that's not the final policy because changes happen, there's challenges through the courts and we have to adapt to that. And I know this will continue to evolve because this is new territory for us. But one area of concern that I would have that I want you to continue to monitor is that issue related to the initial contact interaction with domestic violence victims, sexual assault victims, because we know how difficult it is for people to report. And it is a very traumatic time for them. So I just encourage you to continue to monitor that, to ensure that we're not making it so that people are not reporting to us. So we've gone through a long, long, long process over many, many years to develop that trust and make it easier for victims to report. So I just really encourage you to be sensitive to that and see what changes need to make over time to make sure that we do not impact that in any negative way. Anyone else? Ms. Costa. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. And thank you, Chief, for bringing this forward. I only had one point of curiosity, maybe a suggestion even at the deployment of a new technology in the field, obviously will not be without glitches along the way. Will there be an opportunity, say at six months or a year, in panel groups, see how it's gone, how are the officers feeling, how's the public feeling about it, just to make sure that things are going as intended? Well, I think with any program like this, there has to be a valuation milestones along the way. I think some of the things they point to a lot of times with camera programs, at least in the research, is use of force complaints and these kinds of things. So those are some of the things that we'll be looking at down the road. In many ways, it's not just the officers we're talking about, people behave differently when they're recorded, and that's the community also. So it's an opportunity for us to kind of, when you lead in some of these technologies and you lead in some of these programs, there's things that we're gonna have to make changes to along the way. Thank you, and I appreciate that, and I wanted to thank you as well. One of your answers earlier to a question was, we took a look at the county report, for example, and compared it to, what are we doing? What can't we do, and what will we do? And I think that that's very appropriate for this community, and I appreciate you taking that report seriously, just as we've talked about with the previous Civil Rights Commission report. So the more that, I think I said this to you before, the more that we can get out into the public what it is that we are already doing, I think that's gonna improve the conversation. And so I would just encourage you, whenever we have a conversation like this, please let us know, maybe there are ancillary areas that we've already begun implementing. I think it's, like I said, it's an opportunity to enrich the conversation. So thank you very much. There's a lot of technical information about this and a lot of legal information. One of the kind of the general public chatter issues that's come up during this is whether officers are able to refer to videos when they're writing their reports. Tell us what the policy says about that. The officers will be able to refer to their report. I think, like we've said during the presentation, it's evidence. What I'm looking for them to do is write the most accurate report they possibly can and reviewing the video is part of that process. All right, thank you. And I just wanna say, I'm happy that this program is being rolled out. I'm proud to be part of a city organization that's doing this. I would like to hear more and how it's going as we move forward. But thanks for getting it started and I look forward to hearing more about it. Thank you for your time. I do have a couple of cards on this. Thank you, Ms. Gomes. Dwayne DeWitt. Thank you and I thank the department, the police department for undertaking this effort. I think it's a very good initiative. It's something that could be very helpful to a lot of the misunderstandings in the community. One of the things I'd like to ask is if they could try to get what's called a fail safe backup system for their storage. In the past, there had been an incident at city at the police department on Sonoma Avenue. Young man lost his life and the cameras didn't function that day and no footage was available. And that caused some people to question the credibility of the police. Not myself. I just looked at it like, okay, we have to have better technology, see where that goes in the future. I believe we're there now. So try your best for a good fail safe backup system. And then there's talk in some places about what are called automatic on switches so that whenever the officer grabs a portion of his weaponry, be it his pistol, his baton or his mace, in this case I should say tear gas perhaps, that that would automatically turn on the camera also. And that way the officer wouldn't have to reach for a camera while he was doing other things that could be very important for him to save his life in a dangerous situation. So I'm very glad that you're doing this. Same time, I wanna make sure we have the ultimate safety for the officers and then the ultimate backup for credibility of the officers to show what actually occurred. There's people that try to manipulate video also as you've seen down in Rohnert Park and in some cases that end up on the web where people have tried to doctor video footage and make it look like it was something different than it was. So thank you once again for this effort, for transparency, good luck on it and everyone stay safe out there. Thank you so much. Thank you, Xavier Nazario. I just wanted to make a quick comment about the body-worn cameras. I wanted to thank the police department for being proactive on this initiative. I think it's important as a Santa Rosa citizen that we're taking a step in the right direction and that there's transparency involved in it. The two questions that I had and one more thing before that, I think the survey I received it a couple months ago, I thought it was very well-structured, it was very thought-provoking, so great job on that as well. It really helped put it into perspective on all of the legal and personal and private issues that a police officer has to deal with on a day-to-day basis when turning on a recording. The areas that I didn't have clarity on and I was hoping that I'd get some clarity on this were, one, if there is a nighttime recording, what is the quality of that compared to a daytime recording? Two, how are the trainings influenced by content that's on the video, future trainings? And then lastly and most importantly, is there a policy for behavior violations of police officers who are not using, they're using their discretion, but they're airing on the side of being conservative with using the recording. What type of policy is in place for behavior issues in that way? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Nazario. Do you want to address any of this? So night vision comes up a lot and what it is is it's an enhancement to what the actual officer sees at the time of the incident. So most of the cameras do not rely on any kind of night vision technology for police? You have something? Yeah, I would say when it comes to the quality of the video during a low light situation or at night, it is degraded. You're not going to get as high quality a recording as you would during the daytime, but it is a low light camera so it is designed to function in a darker environment, just not quite as well as it would during the daytime. As far as future training, we pretty much review everything we do in the police department to develop future training for officers. As a matter of fact, our policy calls that out that we have the ability to review video from calls for service and things like that in order to develop training for future. And then behavior issues are well handled throughout the policies in the organization, POBR and things like that. Those are also addressed in other policies within the police department. And specifically I believe with the question about behavior with potentially officers say who are not turning the cameras on when we expect them to. And that was a conscious decision in writing this policy and in consultation with our police officers association on how we worded that. So that we are creating a performance expectation that the officers do that. So it might not be a policy violation the first time an officer forgets to turn the camera on as they get out of the car. But if that does occur repeatedly, the officers not meeting the expectation and that gives us something that we can deal with to try and encourage that behavior. One of the things we mentioned about it being a program, part of that program is developing other training like our defensive tactics and firearms training and driving training around the camera system itself. So getting officers used to using the cameras during those kinds of, those are all being built into place so that it becomes almost second nature like putting on your seat belt. Great. Thank you. That concludes our study sessions. I want to welcome all the people who've come in in the last few minutes. The council has been sitting here for a couple of hours already. We're going to take a 10 minute break. I don't know something that's already in our pocket. Welcome everyone. Welcome to the October 6th, 2015 meeting of the Santa Rosa City Council. Mr. City Manager, could you report on our closed sessions please? We had two study sessions. One on the 2015 water and wastewater costs and one on the review of body worn camera policy. Thank you. We have a couple proclamations today. The first one is for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. And I believe Ms. Combs has this. Thank you, Mayor. And the recipients are Madeline Keegan O'Connell and who is the CEO of the YWC of Sonoma County. And you can bring people down with you if you want. Come on down. I brought just a few friends of mine here today. I'm so glad you did. So let me read your proclamation that you can say a few words. Thank you so much. Whereas Santa Rosa recognizes that the crime of domestic violence violates an individual's privacy, dignity and security due to the systematic use of emotional, physical, sexual, psychological and economic control. And whereas the YWCA Sonoma County is a community based organization and is affiliated with the YWCA USA, 2015 marks the 40th anniversary of YWCA Sonoma County and we honor their mission to empower, educate and support domestic violence survivors and the children. Whereas the YWCA Sonoma County operates our communities only. Confidential safe house shelter, the only 24 seven domestic violence crisis hotline and the only therapeutic preschool serving one of our most vulnerable populations, children age three to five years old. And whereas domestic violence is a serious crime that affects people of all races, sexes, ages, sexual orientation and income levels. Stopping the cycle of vicious assaults in homes requires a coordinated effort between the criminal justice system, the agencies that provide services to victims and the resolve and courage of the survivors. And whereas only a collaborative community effort will put an end to the cycle of domestic violence. Members of our community are encouraged to participate in the YWCA scheduled events and programs that support their mission to eliminate domestic violence in Sonoma County through awareness, education and empowerment. Now therefore be it resolved that John Sawyer, mayor of the city of Santa Rosa on behalf of the entire council does hereby proclaim October 2015 as domestic violence awareness month. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Julie invited me to say a few words and I'm so grateful to be here. I am Madeline Keegan O'Connell this very inspired and proud to be the CEO of your YWCA Sonoma County. And tonight I'm joined by members of our team who provide the advocacy to the clients. Julie you're very kind to let everybody know that we do run the county's only shelter for domestic violence victims and we've been around 40 years. I know you think we don't look a day over 39, we're trying. This is our 40th anniversary. And today we're so proud to be here with the Santa Rosa Police Department with capable leadership of Hank Schreeder and our detectives who work in domestic violence with us. How about we give them a round of applause for our partnership. It is very startling to realize that one in four women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime. The CDC reports that 4.7 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year. We know that women 18 to 24 are most at risk. And we know that only 55% of victims will report to police. You do not have to be personally affected by domestic violence to understand that it is a public crisis. Now you've heard a little bit about what we're doing about it through our therapeutic preschool, the only one in the county through our 24 seven crisis hotline. I love to read that number because I know that you'll commit it to memory. It's five, four, six, one, two, three, four. And one of these lovely generous people behind me will undoubtedly answer the phone and provide not only victim assistance but assistance to families as well. Neighbors, friends who are troubled by activities that they believe are going on and we're here to help. We launched the, I don't know, Tom, is it the first ever domestic violence response team for Santa Rosa? Just this past spring and we've got a lovely, we've had just incredible results. Let me just tell you a quick story about a client of ours named Brenda. Brenda was at a block party on a Saturday night. It was about nine o'clock when the Santa Rosa PD reached out to our advocate who was on call at that hour in that day of the week to come out and meet with the officer at a hospital where Brenda had injuries. And she counseled with Brenda. She counseled with members of Brenda's family. Brenda was interested in helping her abuser be bailed out of jail at that moment. She was in significant crisis. Remember that domestic violence is one of the most complicated crimes because you're being victimized by somebody that you're also involved with your children and your family together and you love that person in a lot of ways. Through the advocacy of the YWCA and the immediate response of the Santa Rosa PD, our advocate was able to counsel with Brenda. That was Saturday night. Well, we're very proud to tell you that by Tuesday morning, she checked into our safe house shelter with her children and she is safe today. We are working with her to find housing and appropriate custody arrangements with her family breaking that victimization and that violent power and control model was very difficult for her to do. We applaud her and we're here today for Domestic Violence Awareness Month to remind you that we are part of the survivor cycle and we are part of making a healthier Santa Rosa for all of us. If you permit me, I have a calendar I've shared very liberally with all of the green shirt people here today. Note to self, we'll have purple shirts next year. Okay, just so you know. And they've been so kind, your audience is so courteous to take our wristbands and I've given each of you a promotion for Allstate Foundation's Purple Purse and there's a way for you to log on and help support our mission. We're gonna be at Montgomery Village this Saturday with a little band you might have heard of called Pride and Joy and we're gonna be celebrating the success of 40 years of the YWCA, keeping families safe in Sonoma County. Please join us from noon to three. Chris, that's in your neighborhood, right? You can just write on over there. And then next Tuesday, enjoy some coffee with Dutch brothers there on Mendocino and they're gonna do a drink, more coffee and donate event for us. And we've got signs up all over the county, we're on buses and we are easily found on Facebook and online and it is our honor to be honored by you. Thank you very, very sincerely. Thank you all very much for coming today. Our second proclamation today is for Fire Prevention Week and Councilman Oliveris has this one. Thank you Vice Mayor and I believe Paul Lowenthal, our Assistant Fire Marshal will be accepting this and probably some of the other fire staff as well. Whereas Santa Rosa's first responders are dedicated to reducing the occurrence of home fires and home fire injuries through prevention and protection education and whereas Santa Rosa's residents are responsive to public education measures and are able to take personal steps to increase their safety from fire, especially in their homes and whereas Santa Rosa's residents who have planned and practiced a home fire escape plan are more prepared and will therefore be more likely to survive a fire and whereas the 2015 Fire Prevention Week theme, here the beep where you sleep, every bedroom needs a working smoke alarm. Effectively reminds residents that they should install appropriate smoke alarm devices in every sleeping room outside each sleeping area and on every level of the home to ensure the alarms are heard by all and whereas the City of Santa Rosa urges its residents to support the many public safety activities and efforts of the Santa Rosa Fire Department. Now therefore be resolved that John Sawyer, Mayor of the City of Santa Rosa on behalf of the entire City Council does hereby proclaim October 4th through the 10th, 2015 as Fire Prevention Week. Thank you very much. This has been an exciting week for us. Our crews and fire prevention staff have been busy going around all the schools throughout Santa Rosa, visiting everywhere from TKK through 4th grade throughout most of the schools, doing presentations, teaching about 9-1-1, stop, drop, and roll and obviously most importantly the smoke detectors this year. Getting them to go home and present an actual homework assignment back to their parents which they all seem to really like. Get them to test their smoke detectors and come up with the escape plan. And we have two open houses this weekend, Station 6 in Lincoln Valley and Cal State Road and Station 8 in Roseland. That'll both be open from 10 to noon and we encourage all the residents to come visit them. Thank you. Paul, are the open houses both Saturday and Sunday? Just Saturday. Just Saturday. 10 to noon. 10 to noon, Station 6, Station 8. Great. Thank you all very much. Thank you. We have a series of staff briefings today starting with... Item 6.1, quarterly capital improvement program projects, Andy Allen, supervising engineer presenting. Vice Mayor Corsi, council members. I'm a supervising engineer for team two which was one of two capital projects engineering teams dedicated to Santa Rosa water projects. Today I'll be giving you our quarterly status update which is expenditures for April, May and June. I will also provide major project updates, let you know about some coming attractions and remind you about our CIP information on the city's website. Here's your pie chart with expenditures from April one through June 30. Want to note an error under the bike and pedestrian. It's noted as 0.05 million. It was actually 0.5 million, which is a much bigger number. The total is correct, $16.3 million we spent on capital projects during that three month period. As you can also see that local sewer and water takes on a big portion of that along with Laguna treatment plant and the others. Our team completed two major projects this spring, early summer. Montgomery Drive, second pier street sewer and water improvements. The other project was Brigham Avenue, Gordon Lane, sewer and water improvements. Both those projects began in the winter and were completed in early summer and both were relatively close to the fairground so we're happy to report those were completed before the fair began. We had a major project start. This was from team two, excuse me, team one and it was Stony Point Widening Project. Started August 24th, the reconstruction phase two. It includes water, sewer and storm drain along with of course additional lanes of travel, turn lanes, sidewalks and bicycle lanes. Now for some projects that will begin later this month, the connect four private water systems to city water. This project will connect three mobile home parks and one multi-unit apartment complex to city water eliminating four private water systems that have high levels of arsenic. This is an entirely prop 84 funded project so we're about ready to begin. Can you name the locations that are being served now? I think there's some additional ones that we'll be coming in later. Correct, there is a private street for the apartment complex on Moreland Avenue. We have Sequoia Gardens, which is out on Fulton and we have two projects on Southerns Santa Rosa Avenue. Another project that will begin in the next few days is Illinois Avenue, Suture Lane, sewer and water replacements. It's another facet of the JC neighborhood that we are getting close to completing, removing those old VCP water mains. I see me VCP sewer mains. We have a, this next project is White Oak Drive Water Improvements. It's out in the high fire severity zone. There was a six inch water main that was deemed that needed to be upgrade to get fire flow to and up through that private driveway. So we replaced six inch water main with an eight inch water main up that private driveway. It's certainly topical given the fires we've had lately and that is a dry area. Another project beginning is Jennings Avenue Sewer and Water Improvements. This is a stretch from Herbert to Cleveland. Again, we'll begin in the next couple of weeks replacing deteriorated water mains. We also have a sister project being monitored by team four. This is Cleveland Avenue Water and Sewer Main Improvements. They actually ultimately touch together and connect and we'll begin shortly. Last project I'm gonna speak to today is the Oakmont Drive Water Replacement Project. There was a stretch of 12 inch water main that asset management determined it was time to replace. We've had a number of breaks and leaks and as you can see by the picture there are some patches in the streets where our maintenance crews had to do that. At the point where maintenance became too big of an issue it's time to replace that main and that's what we're doing out there on the east end of Oakmont. Certainly remind you that we have a website dedicated to our construction projects. They're updated regularly. You can look at it either via a map or a list of projects and filter to the type of projects you're looking for. So see we're spread out pretty much over the entire city and those updates are actually pretty crucial to our neighborhoods. When something changes dramatically even day to day we can modify those very easily with our program so we can update it daily especially if we're having some type of issue like traffic signal problems or gas main leaks and those were updated as the day progressed. So I'm here to answer any other questions you have and as always we're looking for input regarding any changes you'd like to have in this update. Thank you. Are there questions? Ms. Costa? Just a quick one with respect to the widening on Sebastopol Road. When do you expect that phase or that section to be completed? That's a darn good question. Why thank you. I don't have the answer to that question but I can certainly get that back to you. It's a project that's not on my team. Maybe an answer coming your way. There we go. That's what I appreciate. And I obviously meant Stony Point Road not the Sebastopol Road, sorry. That changes everything so. So it's not a good question. It's not a good question. So we're just getting started with construction on Stony Point Road and our project manager is actually here today because he has an item on our consent calendar so he will correct me if this isn't the right answer. My understanding is the construction is expected to go two years and wrap up before winter of 2016-17. Is construction being limited to off peak hours? I just, I'm over there fairly regularly and it's bad, traffic's really backed up. I recommend finding alternate routes for everyone. So no. Okay. The, that reach of Stony Point Road has residences right along both sides so doing all night work out there would be disrupting people's lives for years. So we have some night work I think in the major intersections but otherwise primarily daytime work. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Combs. Thank you. My ever-present comment asking that you work on capital improvement projects with our community advisory board and I'm looking forward to hearing how they're having input. Great, thank you. Mr. Allen forgive me if I missed this but can you describe for us, for me what the purview, what the responsibilities of team two include? You're all over the city, it's not geographical it seems. As I indicated there are, well I didn't indicate this, there are four CIP teams two of which are completely dedicated to Santa Rosa water projects. The other two teams also do transportation projects, building projects. We all do, all four teams do Santa Rosa water projects just to let you know that. The, our projects are put together by the asset management group and they decide which projects need to come forward for construction and that's based on the need of the project. As those projects come in we pick them up. The team that is capable of adding more projects to their plate picks up the projects and starts to move them through the process. There's no geographical designation to where our teams do work so you'll see us next to each other. You'll see us across town and that's how that's decided is based on workload our capabilities of moving the project out to construction. Great, thank you. I don't have any cards on this. Thank you very much. Mr. McLeod. Item 6.2, city hall demonstration garden project update. Heavenmore supervising engineer, stormwater and creeks presenting. Good afternoon, council. Thank you so much for having me. We're happy to come today and present you with an update on the city hall demonstration garden retrofit. As you may remember, we received a grant from the state water board for just over $800,000 and the project on this campus will include creating a low water use demonstration garden doing low impact development, stormwater quality features in the main parking lot. Excuse me, Ms. Moore, would you pull that microphone down a little closer to you? Sure, is that better? Yes, it is. Thank you. Sorry about that. And as well as educational and outreach materials about this demonstration garden. So since we have come to talk to you before, we have completed a public comment period. This was made available on the project website. We received a total of 23 comments and these fell into about four different categories. Planting and irrigation was one kind of group of comments that we received, hardscape and kind of elements of the garden, including the rainwater harvesting system, pathway layout, that sort of layout feature and then the scope of work. There were some things presented that were outside our grant scope of work. Overall, the comments were very supportive of the project and we did take time to review all of those comments received. As we took into consideration all of these comments, we worked with the landscape architect to attempt to integrate as many as possible into the design. We also worked with the parks department as they will be conducting the maintenance of this facility. We also took this project to the design review board to receive their input. That went very well. They were very supportive of the project and I'm happy to show you in a moment the renderings as you may have seen actually out on the front lawn, some of those wonderful posters and signs. They're really looking at how we can actually integrate this with the architecture and they were very pleased with what we've been able to put together so far in doing that. So taking a look at the renderings, you can see here, this is the main gathering area. We've got a couple of different elements here, stormwater treatment swale to allow the water that comes off the rooftop to infiltrate and be cleaned and go back into the ground. We also have, as you can see, new plantings and signage that tells people what they're looking at and tells them what kind of project this really is and how innovative it is. This is just, if you were to continue up into that area, you can see here the walkways. These are all going to be pathways so people can walk into this area. We're actually going to be repurposing the granite slabs from the old courthouse into the swale as both the historical and water quality element of this design. And then once you come all the way up to the main gathering area, this is actually going to be an outdoor classroom where we intend to teach about both stormwater quality and water use efficiency. Applications for people at their home or at their business. You can see the rainwater harvesting cistern in this photo, as well as, again, more signage and hardscape there. All of the hardscape will also be permeable. And then this is the corner, just across from the Roxy West demonstration area. We are using this area as more of a natural habitat area. We're using valley oaks and native planting as an attempt to have it feel more like the creek corridor across the street. This is also going to be an area with a pathway across it so that people can connect and walk into the main gathering area on the other side of the stairs. In the parking lot itself, we're also going to be putting in what's called bioretention. So these are specialized landscape areas within the existing islands that will accept runoff and treat that stormwater removed pollutants. And then this is a really unique opportunity to retrofit a site instead of doing this in a new development site. So we'll have signage talking about that process and how to be successful in a retrofit situation. So our next steps, we are going to be submitting for permits very shortly here with bid award happening this winter. We'll be starting construction in the spring of 16 and have a project completion by winter 16, 17. So we're really looking forward to a beautiful and functional teaching landscape here at City Hall. And I'd be happy to take any questions you may have. Questions, council? Just a couple of quick ones from me. I'm glad that you solicited and reviewed comments. Did you respond or acknowledge those folks? My apologies, I meant to mention that yes, we did a response to all comments that we posted on the website. And also if anyone, if they provided their contact information, we have a contact list of people involved with the project. We also made it available that way. It's actually still there if anyone's interested in taking a look at it. Also, I noticed that one of the comments from the design review board had to do with reducing signage or at least less is more. But you mentioned signage a few times in your presentation. What was your response? How did you take that advice from the DRB? So there's both sides of that, as you can imagine. Signage is an important element because this is a teaching garden. So we need to make sure that we have information for the public and for people coming to take the classes. However, what we have looked at is really using kind of a minimalist design. We can, instead of having it just be all text, we can do that in a much more effective way by using our kind of graphic design. The other thing we're doing is we have a variety of sign types. So I talk about signage a lot, but they're not all the giant signs that are solid information. They also include things like plant tags so that people know what type of plant they're looking at. So we tried to be really strategic about placing them where there was something to teach on and not have it be a solid kind of array of signs, if you will. So we've definitely located all of the signs. There is a grant deliverable that we have a certain number of them, but have split that out so that they're really teaching on the element that they're next to. All right. I really like the idea of using this as an educational opportunity and I know we have to provide information if it's going to be that, so thanks. I do have one card on this, at least one. Mr. DeWitt. Yes, sir, thank you very much. I wanted to thank the staff for doing this. It's such an exciting thing. I'd like to let the teaching begin now, if you will. It would be really nice if you could involve scout troops, both girl and boy scout troops, brownie scouts, cub scouts, and start now. You've got the signs up out there. You could begin an opportunity to let them see what's going to occur and perhaps even help in taking out the old grass. There was a member of the North Bay Conservation Corps here earlier and he and I were talking about how these are the types of things that can help to get a interest in a young person and help them find a career along their life. Also, please try to save all the trees that you can that are currently on site. Right now they're water starved. They're drought stressed out there and it would be really wonderful if you could set it up so that we can save them if possible with any rain that comes this year and not have to take out any of those trees, especially 40 year old redwoods that have been here for a long while. So all in all, this is a wonderful thing. I came to the original meetings and I've been following it and hoping that good things will come from it. So let the teaching begin as soon as possible. All the best to you. Thank you. Thank you. That's all the cards I have. Next staff briefing. Thank you, Ms. Moore. Item 6.3, update regarding recycling issues. Gloria Hurtado, deputy city manager presenting. Close enough. Good evening. I'd like to introduce Steve McCaffrey, who's the director of government relations for North Bay Corporation. And you may have read some articles about some challenges North Bay's having. And Steve's gonna give an update on what they're doing to improve the recycling situation and also where they are in terms of their cease and desist order. Thank you. Steve McCaffrey with Santa Rosa recycling and collection. I'd like to take a moment and talk about the history of recycling here in Santa Rosa. Back in 1977, the city of Santa Rosa with its partner redwood empire disposal became the first city recognized by the state of California to have comprehensive city-wide curbside program. Back in 1978, a year later, came the first of the three stackable containers that were used for curbside recycling. You may recall back in those days when container was for newspaper, one for cans and one for bottles. Those were developed here in Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa has a very proud history of being a leader in curbside recycling programs. Redwood Empire Disposal, which was the predecessor of Santa Rosa recycling and collection, sold the company to Waste Management. Waste Management in the mid-90s introduced the single stream recycling program that we're all familiar with today. Program was introduced for the economy of consolidating the transportation and making it much more efficient and allowing additional materials to be added to the recycling collection. This was a huge advantage in advance, not just Santa Rosa, but the entire county to an outstanding 74% recovery rate, one of the highest in the state. This also has a serious downfall as the carts can mask a lot of the problems that are inherent in a program. And that is people will add material that doesn't belong into the blue cart. We are, as a company, deficient on a technicality where our recycling program and our facilities are not to be above 10%. That 10% standard was written back in the days when we had the three stackable carts and then people weren't adding material that didn't belong there because it would have been shameful and seen by all the neighbors. That's not the case with the cart. About eight weeks ago today, I think eight weeks ago tomorrow, we were visited by the LEA, the local enforcement agency. In this case, it's Sonoma County Environmental Health Services at the request of Cal Recycle, the people that oversee recycling for the state based on a complaint that was received at the Department of Toxics and Substance Control that we were operating over the 10% limit. This was not a surprise to Cal Recycle because prior, in March, we invited Cal Recycle in to take a look at our facilities and we shared with them a lot of the frustrations that we had. One of the frustrations was the amount of contamination that we did have in a blue cart, but we were also frustrated with not being able to bring material to the ports and have it shipped to the markets around the world. When the LEA showed up eight weeks ago, they found our recycling and contamination levels unacceptable. They were above 24%, in fact, the numbers were, I believe, 24% at our one facility at 3,400 Standish and 27% across the street at our other facility at 3,417 Standish. They immediately told us that they were going to be issuing a cease and desist order. Since that time, they have issued a cease and desist order that we are able to keep operating as we work with the LEA through this program. Through steps that we were able to put into place immediately, we are able to get our recycling. The last report I got on one side of the street, it's about a 11% contamination level, yet on the other side of the street, it's still around 19. The LEA has said there's gonna be zero tolerance. We need to be at 9.9% or else they will continue with this cease and desist. We've been meeting with them weekly ever since and we do have a plan that we have presented. Now, this is not a plan that's been approved by the LEA, but we do have a facility down in our Petaluma facility where we are able to move 200 of our cleanest loads down there for immediately being shipped out. We are also able, excuse me, that's 100 tons and that's 100 tons per day. We are then working with different facilities that have a transfer station permit to ship the dirtiest 200 tons per day to other facilities where we can transload them and have them processed properly. The rest of the material should be clean enough to allow us to operate underneath the temperature sent standard, but this is just a short-term fix to allow us to keep operating. What we do have to do is address where the problem is originating from and that is in the people that choose to contaminate the blue card. That's going to be a multitask event and that we are going to be embarking on and we have actually already started in other cities. The first thing that we are doing is a public education campaign. Many of you have probably seen in the Press Democrat and the other papers where we are notifying residents about our problem and that we are under strict zero tolerance level for garbage being placed into the cans. The other thing that we will be doing is we are working with Conservation Corps and we wanna be able to walk the streets and look in the cans, tag the cans and leave the cans that are contaminated behind. Now, when I've met with your staff, we made a commitment to them that we would not embark upon this in the city of Santa Rosa without sitting down with them first, letting them know exactly the areas that we'll be targeting and seeking their approval before we do this plan. The reason why we do this is this is very, it's tough love because when we leave behind a garbage, excuse me, a recycling cart, it will be tagged, it will be explained why and they will be given the residence which will be allowed to clean up that cart and if they do clean it, we will come back first time only and empty the cart. If they are a repeat offender, we will be leaving those carts behind and that's where we come to you today and we say we will need your support because we are under orders from the LEA. There's zero tolerance and that's getting translate to the street when we start leaving carts behind. When that happens, calls will come to you and say in what is the matter, we would like our cart picked up and so it's gonna be a very tough process that we go through and this is not just a one time event. This is gonna be a long process to get through this. The long-term fix on this is that we get a transfer permit for our facilities. That's a process that doesn't take overnight. We've tried it many times over the years and every time we do, we do get challenged generally from a law firm, Los O'Jerry, down in the city of Oakland, which challenges almost all major Sequa projects of this type and so we don't anticipate being able to get this transfer permit immediately and so this is something that we are gonna have to work through. I will have to say that the LEA, the Sonoma County Environmental Health Services, they have always been very close allies to us. They have defended us when we come under attack on water quality issues and others because they know we do a good job. In this case, they are doing their job very well, which is very hard for me because they are being very strict but they're being very fair. We continue to work with them and they have made it very clear to us though they are operating under zero tolerance, they also wanna see us succeed and so so far there's been times where it's been tense but the dialogue has been fantastic by all parties and we will continue working with the LEA to make sure that we are able to continue the recycling which the city of Santa Rosa has taken so seriously and should be very proud of. We won't let you down on this and we continue to keep staff informed as this moves along and I'm available for questions. Council. This goes through. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Thank you for coming down and presenting what's going on. I always appreciate having more information presented directly to us so we can talk to our constituents. I do have a question with respect to something you said about the transfer permit and am I correct that the colloquialism for that would be outhauling? Until we get the transfer permit, there should be some outhauling because we are not allowed to bring those contaminated loads into our facility unless the total amount that we handle is 9.9% or less. So if the community effort is effective, meaning people aren't contaminating their carts though, if that can be put into place, will that bring the numbers down below that 10%? Absolutely, we just don't expect it to be immediate. It's a long process. Okay, so are you sort of required to pursue the transfer permits while simultaneously and employing this community effort? Is that kind of what I'm hearing? Yes, that's exactly right. It's two tracks. Okay, but if the community effort is successful, what then will you do with that transfer permit application? We would still continue to have it because I figure once you start down that trail, you might as well have it, but it should not change the habits of the people. It is a good thing to have if needed. And then that way, there will be no questions on what we're doing. And one thing I do wanna emphasize, and I think your questions bring up a really good point, there is no environmental concern on any activities that we're doing. And when we do get the transfer permit, we're gonna keep operating as we are now. And so it's not like we plan on getting a transfer permit and then not allowing us to really do anything more than we're doing now. Under the MOA, the landfill deal that the county and Republican and all the cities made, we are gonna be building what we call a dirty mirf, but a material recovery facility that allows contaminated material to be processed. And that's gonna be up at the central landfill where they do have that type of permit that allows that activity. And so really the transfer permit is to satisfy CalRecycle and the LEA that we will always be in compliance from then on. Okay, thank you for that. And one further question. I'm gonna assume that our constituents, our residents, will continue to be great stewards and very responsive. And when we are successful with the community side effort, will you still be required to take, I think you said it was the 200 pounds or 200 tons of the dirtiest? Will those, what will happen with them? They'll come back home where they belong to be processed here on Steendish Avenue. Okay, thank you. May I just add one side note? And that is, and this is a quick update, it doesn't have to do with the blue cart, but we have been promising an electric garbage truck to the city of Santa Rosa for the last couple of years. And just a quick update, we did check with the manufacturer and was on October 1st, and he did promise us any day. And so we are hoping to have by the end of the month the first electric garbage truck in this nation running on our streets as a test demonstration. And so I just wanted to put that out there that that should be coming very soon. Thank you, everybody. We've got a lot of people in the room and the custom in here is if you like something, wave your hands, don't applaud. And we'll move on with the item that we're talking about, which is recycling Ms. Combs. Thank you for coming in and talking with us. I wonder if at any point you're reconsidering the single stream process. I'm actually looking at the can here that a number of council members have used that would imply it's sort of blue, so maybe it's an example. And it's got clean paper in it, which I'm guessing is okay, but it also has soda cans in it, which will drip on the clean paper and make it dirty. So would this pass or not pass? No, that would pass. It would pass even though the paper had become contaminated paper. Yes. Where we do start running into problems is like the food containers. So when I pull this one out, that's like aluminum foil inside. Is that, is that good or not? I didn't say who. Is that a good one or not? No, that is not. That would be considered a contaminant. Okay, so this can would be rejected because even though somebody might have thought that was aluminum foil or recyclable, it isn't. Is that right? Technically 100%. Okay, that's, you got to what, so I'm a little concerned. I think we have amazing citizens. They have stepped up on water conservation when we asked them to. They volunteer when we asked them to. So it really concerns me to kind of be extreme in our treatment of our residents because it's really hard to know what goes in that blue can and what doesn't when it's a mixed stream. So I'm very concerned about hearing the educational process more in more detail. You know, there's no like label on the top of my can that says what can and can't go in it clearly in multiple languages. So I'm having a little trouble with the kind of one can and you're out. I mean, even in baseball, you get three. So I'm wondering if you can kind of clarify how we will not blame but engage our residents in kind of the contest of doing this right. Can you kind of clarify that for me, maybe say it another way? Yeah, I would love to. First off, staff has made that very clear to us that anything that we will do will have to have a lot of engagement with the residents ahead of time. In terms of, there's been a dramatic paradigm shift in the way recycling is being handled around the world. And if you don't mind, I'm just gonna take a brief moment to touch on it. When the Olympics were held in Beijing in 2012, the world discovered what was happening in the environment in China. China, which has been where, oh, 90% of the export material where basically all the material collected in Santa Rosa was going, it was going over to China and it turned out that China was so polluted that it woke up the world's eyes. So I'm gonna rephrase what I think you just said, which was that the market for recycled materials has dropped because China isn't buying what they used to buy. And that's, so I'm trying to sort out is that what's happening here to our residents is that you're having a problem selling your product or is what's happening here that we need to maybe not have a single screen so that things don't get contaminated? I'm not saying, I think that you're on the right course. It is, two things are happening. And one is that there is people that put raw garbage in there. And the other thing is that the quality of the material going overseas has changed and they're less receptive of material. And so your thought on, should we get rid of single stream? That is a thought that would have to be expanded upon. There would be a lot of implications on how we collect all the different commodities because the idea of the three containers that I mentioned earlier, there's cartoons when we first started shifting to single stream that showed front lawns with building blocks of material with all the different things being collected. And so that sort of shift would be so dramatic, would have to change everything that we do. So it might even be something, taking a look at dry material versus wet material, that sort of pick up. And so, do I see a shift? Absolutely, how we do it, I'm not there yet. But for the immediate on the three strikes and you're out, if you can get the LAA to give me three strikes and I'm out, I'm happy to do the three strikes on the blue cans as well. But the LAA is not as tolerant and we're not even given the one strike and we're out. And so that is why we are acting so immediate. But the one thing I do want to say. And the dirty mirf is a long way down the road. Absolutely, especially with the green waste is being outhauled now, that's taken up the space that was dedicated to where the dirty mirf was going to be. Our plan is to, as best we can, we want to come forward with a plan that is ready, aim, fire. We don't want to come out firing before we know exactly where the target is. So if I may ask, we just entered some kind of agreements as a county with the waste agency. Did you not know that this was coming up prior to those agreements? Had you had no messages from regulatory agencies regarding this prior to the contracts that we just went through? Like in eight years of the... Long conversation. Yeah, long conversation. But I would just put it this way. In March, we brought CalRecycle in and showed them everything that we were doing. And it opened up their eyes and they said, wow, we did not realize from up in Sacramento how tough things are to move product. That was in March is the first time that Sacramento got any idea of how tough it was out there. We got follow-up phone calls saying, our bosses were not aware of the port strike in Oakland affecting recycling. And so really this conversation started when you guys remember when we sent out our six page little book on the state of recycling where the kitty cat or unicycler cat was asking for help. That is really when this conversation started. Other questions? There also is in the newsletter that North Bay sends out an article every month or quarterly that you send it out that tells people what can and can't go. And that's one of the things that Mr. Tatto and I have been talking to them about more education before they start enforcement. So that's the track that we've been on. Mr. Oliver. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And that is one of the things that I will be interested in is a better understanding of what the education plan is. What's the strategy? Not just to press Democrat, but I think also was mentioned multiple languages and multiple media, whether it's radio, bilingual newspapers. I'd like to know what the plan is going to be before we start moving towards the enforcement, if you will. I don't want to create a situation where suddenly my neighbor's dumping his stuff in mine to circumvent things, you know what I mean? So I think really that education will be important. And I know we want to get back to that 9.9%. Let's shoot for 0% if we can as far as education. I think we can eliminate that. And again, it's starting to gather around some type of community campaign to make this happen because it is in everybody's best interest. But I do agree that the education and the reminders, because I get confused. I mean, it's like that. The fewer the headlights and by default it may have to go into the garbage because I'm not quite sure. And I know we get the information, but it is a lot. I mean, the list is lengthy. And trying to remember all that is a trick sometimes. So I would appreciate more information on the plan for the actual education piece. Thank you. And we have made that commitment to the city. Mr. Schwadhelm. Just from my perspective, I truly see this as a shared responsibility and I appreciate the steps that you're sharing with us. But where I'm a little unclear, so what is the next step? And if you can give me a timeline before your company would start taking any action or at least coming back to the council. The next step for us and why we don't have anything to put in your hands today is we need to come to agreement with the LAA on exactly what those steps will be. We're still in discussion. And then once those are finalized, our plan is to send that over to your city attorney as well as your assistant city manager. And then from there, we'll sit down and come up with our outreach plan from there. I wanna thank Councilman Combs for pulling out the trash because I think it's a very clear demonstration that someone who pays attention to this kind of stuff does not know what should or shouldn't go into those cans. And education is what's needed here. And in your presentation, what I heard you say the next step was is that you were gonna work with the Conservation Corps and go out and start looking in people's cans and then leaving them there. And I don't think that that should be the next step. What I think you should do is tell people what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. And to come in here and tell us that we're gonna have to deal with the consequences of people not getting their cans picked up is not the next step as far as I'm concerned. Putting ads in the press Democrat, I'm sorry to say they employed me for a long time. But the circulation of that newspaper 20 years ago was 100,000. It's 50,000 today. People don't see those ads. And if they do see those ads, the ones who read them and actually pay attention to what's going on is even smaller than that 50,000. There needs to be an effort and it's not a newsletter. It's, maybe you need the Conservation Corps to go out and talk to people about what's in their cans rather than tag them. So you can hear my frustration here, I hope. This isn't a problem because the market changed or because there was a port strike. The 10% rule has always been a 10% rule, am I right? That hasn't changed. And to call that a technicality when you're more than twice the allowed amount of contamination at both your facilities is quite an understatement. So I would encourage the city, our staff, to work with you on figuring out a education campaign. But to me, that's the next step and that's where I hope we'd see this go. Thank you for those comments. I do wanna say that, you're right, in my point when I say it's a technicality, I just wanna assure everybody it was not an environmental problem that we had. There was not a leak, there was not a spill, there was not contamination of our facilities. And so it's a permit issue, more serious permit issue, more than an actual event that took place. I wanna assure you that when I first sat down with the staff on this, that's what you just said was conveyed to me and that is our plan and I'm sorry if I did not make that more clear. I have a couple of cards on this item, Mr. Chernef. Oh, thank you, Mayor. I'll start off by telling you I had a dream last night that I would be facing a panel of heroes. And the reason I would know that they were heroes because in the center would be one wearing a red scarf. And of course this includes Ernesto who's off to the side. So I'm asking, how is it possible that this matter is not being handled properly to start with? Isn't this company receiving enough of our tax money? How much of this tax money of ours is going to their lawyers or upper management and their CEO? Is there not an abundance of skilled workers looking to work? We're talking trash, garbage, and recycling. We're all weary of the recycling in D.C. of the trash of bar lawyers parading around as Republicans and Democrats, is that right? And if by papal law, which is superior to American jurors prudence, the Bar Association works for the Pope, right? Therefore, regarding separation of church and state, state bar lawyers should never be permitted in public office, right? Everybody needs to get off the fence to solve this issue and everything else. Get off the fence and cease paying your mortgages and rents and saying you're going to withhold your property taxes. They're about to send $76.6 billion of our property taxes to the Fed, which is almost entirely staffed by bar lawyers. The solution to this real garbage is the shutdown of our finances and supporting it. And this message has been received well and with enthusiasm to numerous veterans, labor, law enforcement organizations in 17 cities from Los Angeles, Long Beach to San Francisco and Oakland to withhold our hard earned money because we need it here. And for you listening, you simply need to require the power of 10. You talk to 10 of your friends and you say, well, do we have enough courage to withhold our mortgages and rents and our property taxes since it's ours and we're tired of paying lawyers and the bankers is in California the most powerful state in the world? Is that why they take 72% of the IRS and Fed's entire budget from California while the rest of the country kicks out 28%? We keep the money here and we can support Susan Gorin's plan for the Developmental Center for vets and homeless children. We can do everything and solve every problem when we just hold on to our own hard earned money instead of giving it to a bunch of garbage people in DC that are just gonna spend it on more military or killing poor people and sending our poor people as soldiers to do this. I suggest you all look up the state of Jefferson and know that Sheriff David Clark has been chosen as vice president for the only person the media won't. Mr. Chernef, you know the rules. Thank you. Next speaker is Kim. I have a kind of a question and I recently learned that the city of Roseville just north of Sacramento is doing something I'd never heard of with their trash garbage and recycling. They're going back to one can put everything in it. The sorting happens at the site, the trash site. I'm wondering if anybody has thought about possibly doing it that way. Educating people to do it is so difficult and even somebody who studies it, you still have questions about what's right and what's wrong to go into the recycling can. I was amazed to hear this plan and I don't know all the ramifications. I don't know all the pluses and minuses. One of the pluses for people who live in Roseville is there aren't so many trucks on the street on that day of pickup because it's just one can to pick up. The sorting happens at the site, at the standish or the dump site. Anyway, an idea different out of the box of what's being talked about today. Thanks. Thank you. Vesta cope sticks. Thank you. I have a concern with the Tough Love campaign especially because our, well I live out on the Russian River and what I find is that we have a lot of homeless encampments and the people who don't have trash service at these homeless encampments use the trash cans that are left on the street that are put out at night before people go to bed and are picked up in the morning just after dawn and they don't pay any attention to whether it's a blue can, a black can or a green can. They take their trash and put it in those receptacles and it probably happens in Santa Rosa as well. The, it's nice that they're doing that because it saves us a lot of time and energy for picking up after them as volunteers trying to clean up our watershed. But the fact is is that a lot of people who won't pay for trash service are simply taking advantage of those cans out on the sidewalk at night. So you could accuse a homeowner who is paying for trash service that they're putting the wrong trash in that can. It could not be them. It could be anybody passing by with a car or passing by on foot who simply wants to dispose of their trash in some rational manner instead of throwing it on the street. So I think that there's no way really to honestly say that it's the homeowner or the trash service person who's paying the bill who's at fault for putting the mixed use in the wrong can. And then the other one is education. Yeah, it is extremely difficult to know. And so what a lot of people I know do is they simply put anything that is vaguely recyclable into the blue can and they think it doesn't matter what it is and they assume that someone along the line is being paid to sort through that recycled material to determine what it really is. And if you sat down with your trash and your recycled material virtually anybody, no matter how conscious they are, about 50% of it would not be recyclable by what the trash service says is recyclable. The rest of it is just wishing and hoping that it is. And they don't want it to go into the landfill. So they're putting the responsibility on the shoulders of the trash company to determine what is and what is not. And as far as education is concerned, I mean two things, go ahead and pay for an ad in the Sonoma County Gazette and I'll be happy. And then the other one is I think your idea of putting like literally signage on each can would make a difference is can you put this in this can? What is this object you're about to put in this can? It's right on the can. There's a lot of old cans out there in the world that are being replaced these days if they had fresh signage on them as each new can came out to replace the old one that clearly identified was to go in it, that would help a lot. But like I say, honest to God, I don't think it's the homeowners who are always putting the trash in those trash cans. Thank you. Thank you. Are there signs? I think there are signs on some cans or under the lid or on top of the lid. That is correct and we are currently putting stickers on all the metal cans at this time and eventually we want to sticker all the blue cans as well. It's a long process though. There's about 150,000 cans out there. Where are the metal cans? The front end loader that also we have single stream recycling as well. Signs would be good. Anything else council? Yes, Ms. Carlstrom. Just a thought that Santa Rosa water put out unintentionally hilarious little flyer on what you can and can't put down the toilet. So you might ask them how they did it. Thank you for that. All right, thank you for that report. We're on to city manager and city attorney's reports. So I had the privilege of attending the League of California City's annual conference in the city of Santa Rosa and its employees received some very good recognition in the Beacon Award. That program provides a framework for local governments to share best practices that create healthier, more efficient, vibrant communities. The program honors voluntary efforts by local governments for reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save energy and adopt policies that promote sustainability. The Beacon program is sponsored by the Institute for Local Government and Statewide Energy Efficiency Collaborative. And we received a platinum award for best practice in activities around sustainability and a silver award for 8% agency energy savings in 2015. The folks that, there are lots of folks within the organization to be thanked, but I wanna pull out a few folks that were really instrumental in achieving the award and actually getting us where we are today. That would be the lead person on this, which is Lisa Krantz, Erica Gage, Tasha Wright, Nicole Dorotinsky, John Marion, Joy Gibson, Michael Van Middle, and David Gouin. So thank you to the staff and everybody who is involved in that process. And after I finish my announcements, I'll pass around the award so you can take a second to look at them. I'd also like to take a moment and introduce you to a new member of the executive team. His name is Jaime Pena Herrera. Jaime has been a Santa Rosaan for almost 15 years. He has a broad-based experience in marketing, public relations, entrepreneurship, strategic planning, diversity, inclusion, and community partnership building. He has lots of degrees, including a master's degree in the field of government from Harvard. Jaime has volunteered to serve on boards and commissions for several organizations, including the Santa Rosa Junior College Bond Oversight Committee, Sinova County Foundation Advisory Board, KBBF bilingual radio station, Napa Chamber of Commerce, Napa County Tobacco Advisory Board, Napa County Community Foundation, Napa Lake County's Work Investment Board, and many others. So I'd like to take a moment and have Jaime come down and introduce himself to you all. And he has started, he started last week as our new director of community engagement. Welcome Jaime. I appreciate the opportunity and talk about engagement. And to see this crowd is just amazing to me and particularly the students. I love to see that. So I'm incredibly honored and humbled by the opportunity. And I wanted to thank you for your support for this role. It's very important to our community. And I look forward to working with each of you and hear your thoughts about some of the areas that we can concentrate as well as interacting with our great community. My kids were asking me about what is a community engagement director. And one of my kids says, is it related to weddings? So that's a thought. We can get some additional revenue there. But in my mind, the way I see it, this is the, it's a bridge between the great work that the city is already doing in our community and find a way to get input in a way that is meaningful in a way that we can measure it and get back to the community with tangible ideas about that. So I'm again, very excited to be here and thanks for the opportunity. Madam city attorney. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I also had the privilege of attending the league conference which has a special track for city attorneys which always brings very current and useful information. Next week or later this week, I will be attending the public law executive committee meetings for the state bar. So I'll be out of the office Thursday and Friday but available by email or phone. And then I'd also like to announce that we have just hired a new assistant city attorney to replace Mike Casey who you acknowledged at your last meeting who recently retired and his name is Adam Abel. He comes to us with over 25 years of litigation experience primarily representing public agencies. So we're very thrilled to have him join our team. And I'm sure you'll be meeting him at upcoming closed sessions regarding litigation matters. Thank you. Thank you. That was fast, the hire. Any statements of abstention tonight? All right, we'll go to mayor and council members reports. We'll start at this end. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I just want to thank all the community members that came out and supported the gang prevention week which I think ended last Sunday but a lot of activities. I just want to acknowledge everybody that came out and participated in that. And I too, along with my colleagues were at the lead conference and soaking up a lot of valuable information and hopefully it was a productive week for everybody as well. Ms. Combs. Thank you, mayor. So I had the good fortune of attending the annual conference in San Jose also. Lots to learn there. Attended the Everyday Democracy Forum last night sponsored by the Santa Rosa Together Group. Excellent, excellent job. And had an art in public places meeting yesterday. The dragon sculpture under the dragon mosaic that's under the bridge. There was a process conversation in which we asked the Redwood Empire Chinese Association to get with the artist and come back with a couple of options for solutions so that the head of the dragon could be in some way returned in a way that would reduce the vandalism to the eyes of the dragon. And to bring back a couple of proposals at different price ranges so we can figure out what is a meaningful way to handle that difficulty. It was an interesting meeting and I really appreciate that the willingness of the artist to work with the Redwood Empire Chinese Association. Ms. Carlstrom. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I was not able to join the rest of my colleagues at the League of California Cities Conference last week because I was hosting my son's second birthday party. He turned two yesterday. And just briefly, I wanna let you guys know as our representative to the Russian River Watershed Association, I attended a meeting last week where we received a presentation from a representative of the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board on cannabis discharge. This state is gearing up for discharge permits and already has a general order in place for various sizes, square footage of cultivation. They were very quick to point out that they are not mandating nor encouraging cultivation, simply regulating any of the discharge and runoff that may occur as a result. So we will get more information. I've asked that the regional board send the presentation to us so that I can make it available to our city. And the Russian River Watershed Association will be coming back to us as a council to do another update on the Safe Medicine Disposal Program and give you an update on numbers. And that's it, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Swedhelm. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I also attended the League of Cities and the Everyday Democracy meeting last night. Also attended another Everyday Democracy meeting at Catholic Charities today, organized by Santa Rosa Together to specifically talk about those concepts from last night to help us deal with our homeless conversation. So that was very a rich conversation. Also this weekend I was able to participate in the Levi's Grand Fondo at both the festival on Friday and then on Saturday. And although there was a very tragic event out on the road, I just do want to compliment city staff with all the comments I heard and experienced at Finley Center when you have 6,000 people plus hundreds of volunteers. City staff was excellent in their performance there, if they'll pass my thanks. Thank you. Speaking of bicycling, it was announced publicly this week that the tour of California will return to Santa Rosa in 2016. Thank you. I also attended the League of California Cities Conference. Lots of good information exchanged there. And was at the Everyday Democracy thing last night. I need to announce the Downtown subcommittee met this morning. I'm gonna go right into council subcommittee reports. Downtown subcommittee met this morning. The main topic of conversation was courthouse square. As you'll remember, the council two weeks ago directed the staff to move forward with this project and we're wasting no time. Staff today asked members of the public and members of the Downtown subcommittee for input on certain design elements of the new streets on the east and west side of the square. The frontage is along third and fourth street and some other design elements that included parking and other infrastructure type of questions. Those, they got some direction, some feedback from the Downtown subcommittee. They'll be asking for direction on these items from the entire council later on this month, I believe. So you can expect that to be coming back. Any other council subcommittee reports? And do we have any regional, local, state committee type of reports? A-Bagmates tomorrow. All right. Okay, we have some business to attend to regarding this week's county mayors and council members association. Do we have some help with this? Yes, sure. So this is appointments that are made by the mayors and council members association. You've received several letters of interest for people who are interested in the position as the league of cities, North Bay Executive Board. There's two members who are serving two year terms. And I'm sure our city clerk could remind you who you received letters of interest from. There was one letter received from the incumbent, Susan Harvey, who's a council member for the city of Cattadi. So just the one letter was received. So then since we've only received one letter, assuming you would support council member Harvey, we just asked the council to direct the vice mayor who will be our representative to support Ms. Harvey in that position. I'll make a motion to reappoint Cattadi council members, Susan Harvey to the board. Second. Thank you. Do we have votes on that? I have five eyes. Is it appropriate for us to allow him discretion on the second position? Is there any, yes. Okay, cause we don't know who's... Yeah, I don't know if there will be any further nominations at that point. So I would move that we allow the vice mayor discretion in voting for the second position that is as yet unapplied for. Yes. Second. All right, your votes. Thank you for that awesome responsibility. We don't have any minutes to approve. We'll move on to the consent calendar. We're not there yet. It's 530. It's not 530 yet. Item 11.1, motion contract award, pavement preventative maintenance 2015. 11.2, motion contract extension, investment advisory services. Council, any questions on the consent items? Mr. Schwedem. For the second item, it's probably for our finance director. So reading the staff report, it talked about performance of the portfolio and how it specifically mentioned how this firm, we basically beat the benchmark. Can that be tied into actually what we are compensated them for? Like they have to meet this for us to compensate them at this level, basically based on performance? Well, we set the benchmarks. We have quarterly meetings with an investment advisory group and we set those benchmarks for them. So they've consistently always beat those benchmarks. I'm not sure that we could actually tie compensation to that. It's usually tied to the amount of assets they're managing for us. So how much money they're actually investing on a continual basis. They do actively manage the investments for us. So I guess my interest would be both sides at performance and managing the investments. So I'm not really clear. Could we explore that? We can explore that with our next RFP process, which would be before this contract expires, we'll be going out with an RFP to, and we can certainly explore that as an option. Thank you. That's would be my interest. Further questions? Ms. Combs. I think you have this. Yes, Vice Mayor, I will move consent items 11.1 and 11.2 and wait for the read of the text. Second. Your votes passes with four eyes. Have a couple of cards for public comments starting with Dwayne DeWitt. Thank you folks. Today there was a matter down in Oakland at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission on one plan Bay Area, as well as a conference on planning. And I happened to saw two Santa Rosa employees down there. And I was like, wow, okay, they're paying attention. This is good. This right here that I've put up points out that with urban greening, you can find ways to get funding from the government. Might surprise you, but the Senate Bill 375 that was put together by the state has ideas in which you can get funding and help the community through what's called the Strategic Growth Council, the cap and trade money for the greenhouse gas reductions. And that whole system has been set up, but very few people are tuned into it yet. It could be something that could help us here in Santa Rosa should your staff and the new community engagement person seek to reach out and get more things going on. Just below that, it talks about transit oriented development and that whole Roseland specific plan that's being put together is based on that. So this is a spot where you can get these things going. And right now I'm gonna put this nice little map here of the creeks of Southwest Santa Rosa that show Roseland Creek and how for well over a decade, we've been advocating to get a greenway, a bikeway along Roseland Creek. And folks might think, well, you know, those guys just dream too big. But hey, I know we could do some positive things because today at that plan Bay Area 2040, they pointed out that priority conservation areas and bicycle and pedestrian networks were the way to get the money. So there you go. When I would go to meetings and say, hey, remember that Southwest greenway, people would be go like, oh, there's no money. Yeah, there is money. It's amazing, but it's out there. You just have to ask in the right way to the right people, it turns out. So they're going to be re authorizing new funding starting in the new O-bag, they call it. And that starts at the end of this year. And then that new money becomes available and communities that can prove they have good community engagement and are looking for what's called social equity in their planning for urban greening will be the ones who get the most money. And the money is guaranteed here in Sonoma County, a certain amount, a pie, if you will. And we have to figure out how we can get our slice of the pie. And I would like to be helping on that. That's why you see me come down here and give you all these nice little examples. I know staff's real busy, but we who love community engagement will engage with that new paid staff member and have nothing but a good time. Thank you very much for your help. Thank you. Orlene Curler. Good evening. I represent Troop 37 Boy Scouts of America. I am their counselor for citizen in the community. And we had three of these young men with us, but they had to leave early because of sports engagements. But it was a wonderful experience for them to be here. This was their first opportunity to ever see a city council in action. I would just like one suggestion since Boy Scouts of America is a very patriotic organization. I was expecting to see a pledge of allegiance when you start your meetings. And I think that used to be the case when I have come to these meetings before. So I was just in hopes you might consider that. And also I would just like to let you know this man's suggestion earlier of engaging our Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts in this project of the centers of gardens. I think that would be a wonderful activity for them and make them feel more a part of the community. Thank you. Thank you. Peter Chernef. Thank you very much. I'd like to address the concept of thinking. You know, I think you can find it on the internet where they'll show you a couple of different kinds of monkeys and chimpanzees peeling a banana. And we are so foolish that we peel it from the opposite end which is twice more difficult. We've been taught to park in driveways and told to drive on parkways. When it comes to comprehension and communication, we severely lack common sense in this here nation. Are we all dumber than a box of hammers? We lead the world with people locked in our slammers or perhaps we need to Google our noodle to 100 patented mind control technologies which go a long way to stifling our thinking and psychologies. For while in DC, Insanity walks the yard, it be we right here in this room holding all the cards. We are the most powerful state in the world. What kind of psychology and thinking has been placed upon us over decades and decades that tells us it's okay to send our money to a bunch of lawyers in DC at the Fed that think it's far more than funny, that we send them all these billions of dollars and then we call back to them as we hollers, we need a couple of nickels to fix some of our pickles while they keep 95%. Have we lost our collective minds? Well, perhaps I need to press a button. I had this whole room rigged. I might just press a button that'll send a bolt right through the chair, right through your arse into your brain so that we no longer remain sedated, apathetic and insane. Look to your neighbors, look to your friends because the road goes on forever and the party never ends but why should we be supporting the party that spends its time screwing us? I invite you all aboard the Freedom Rose Bus. California is the place and this is the time for us to get together and seesaw this crime. I've had this discussion in 15, 18 cities in the last seven days and most everyone's agreed that we need to go ahead and get the landowners together with honest law enforcement and the farm workers and simply exclude those that spend their entire careers as government sanctioned thieves. Let me ask you in your heart upon who do you believe the almighty liberator is in our heart? It is far past time for us to start. I am Peter King of Masterpiece Theater. The authority is mine to say as I do and the authority be ours to make it come true. Thank you. I say it you here. Mr. Cherniff, report items. Item 13.1, report Southeast Greenway existing conditions, opportunities and constraints report and proposed initiation of general plan amendment, rezoning and associated environmental review. Erin Morris, senior planner presenting. Thank you Vice Mayor Sawyer and members of council. I'm delighted to be here tonight to present the existing conditions, opportunities and constraints report for the Southeast Greenway property as well as Vice Mayor Corsi. What did I say? Oh yes, I'm sorry, I've now mixed up my two. Can we have the overhead reduced? I'll start again. Vice Mayor Corsi and members of council, I'm delighted to be here to present our existing conditions and opportunities and constraints report for the Southeast Greenway and also the staff proposal to initiate a general plan amendment and rezoning for the property. Recent background on this in 2013, the council established a goal of supporting the efforts of the Southeast Greenway campaign by monitoring and providing information. In 2014, the city of Santa Rosa entered into a community partnership with the Sonoma County Water Agency, Sonoma County regional parks, land paths and the Southeast Greenway campaign to explore this 57 acre site and potential future uses. And in 2015, the partners along with the Sonoma Land Trust and Caltrans entered into a memorandum of understanding about working together and collaborating to move forward with the vision and ultimately hopefully public acquisition of this land. And I should say local public acquisition. You have a copy of the report. I'm hoping that you've seen this map before. This is an overview map that shows the extent of the 57 acres we're talking about. The property begins at Farmers Lane and travels approximately two miles to the east to touch on Spring Lake Regional Park. The report that you have divides the land into several sections, which are noted on there. And I'll go into a little more detail about the contents of the report in a moment. I'm gonna go back a ways in history. I think it's important to talk about where this land came from. And this is actually in the opportunities and constraints analysis. Over the course of 20 year period in the 1950s to the 1970s, Caltrans acquired 65 parcels as part of a future extension of Highway 12 as a freeway that would have gone over Spring Lake Park and connected back up with Highway 12. In 1957, Caltrans entered into an agreement with the city of Santa Rosa that this land would be a freeway. In 1964 is when the water agency built the Santa Rosa Creek Reservoir which we now call Spring Lake as part of the Central Sonoma Watershed Project. In 1974, that's when Spring Lake Regional Park opened to the public. Years later, as late as 1984, the Santa Rosa General Plan was showing a freeway on this land, a black line basically that went through in the community and over the park. In 1991, it was decided to take that freeway off of our general plan. So since 1991, this land has not had a general plan designation with the removal of the freeway designation back in 1991. Some more history because there's been a lot of activity related to this land. In 2009, the Southeast Greenway Campaign formed and they're a citizen group. There are a lot of them here right now in green shirts behind me and they formed due to some interests regarding this land. In 2010, they helped bring about a design charrette by UC Berkeley, it was a community visioning process for what might happen with the land. In 2011, it's a very popular site as you can tell, the American Institute of Architects came to Santa Rosa and did a community charrette, again kind of a visioning exercise. And then in 2011 and 2013, and as I said earlier 2014, the city council adopted various resolutions identifying an interest in seeing something happen with this land and supporting the campaign. So I already touched on the formation of the partnership. Another key thing in 2014 is that Caltrans officially rescinded the freeway agreement. So the land is now no longer planned to be a freeway by the state of California and the property could be sold. That's part of why the memorandum of understanding that you agreed to enter into in July of this year is so important because it's ultimately Caltrans agreeing to work with the partners and the land trust on a community vision for the property. And that's what we just did back in July. So now I'm gonna talk a little bit about the report and I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail but if you have questions, I'd be certainly happy to answer them. The report divides the 57 acres into basically three sub areas, a west, a central and an east. It's a very large long piece of property so that was helpful. It goes into detail about existing features that are on the site. Site is mostly vacant. The eastern sub area has some horse tabling. Two folks have leases with Caltrans where they have their horses there but the rest of the land is not leased and it's basically vacant, vacant land. And the report goes into details about not just the site but everything that surrounds the site. The report discusses the general plan for the area. Well, this site doesn't have a designation. The area around it certainly does so it talks about the general plan, the zoning. And then it identifies existing policies that affect the land or might affect future uses of the land, city plans and then public projects and publicly owned land in the vicinity of the 57 acres. So some of the key features that the report gets into we describe and identify the existing roadway network. This piece of land is bisected by numerous public streets that you can see when you're out there. There's also three creeks, Matanzas Creek, Spring Creek and Sierra Park Creek that cut through the site in different locations. We went into some detail about the pattern of the surrounding development, the land uses, the height, the kind of the neighborhoods around the site. The report identifies the location of the Spring Creek diversion and this is important because it's an existing feature. Essentially, Spring Creek is collected at summer field. It goes under and through this property, goes under Montgomery High School and eventually reconnects at Farmers Lane. So it's just something that needs to be thought about when we look at future uses. Also the report identifies an undeveloped roadway that is located between Mayette Avenue and Hoenn Avenue near the Freedman Center. It's a 20 foot public right-of-way that's been there since the late 1800s. That's interesting. And then the report goes into detail about natural features. A city biologist and I walked the entire property with permission from Caltrans and did kind of our biologists thankfully did an initial assessment and that information is in the report by section and then you have the entire report at your disposal. So just a bit about the existing plans that affect the use of this property. In 2011, the city adopted the 2010 Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan and it envisions and it calls for a class one bicycle path connecting from Hoenn Avenue near Montgomery High School. Basically we're Hoenn and Cypress and Hoenn Intersect out to Spring Lake Regional Park. So that's really a key, that's probably the key thing that comes out of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan but that plan also shows how that facility ties in with the rest of the city's bicycle network which I think is an important thing to think about. The second plan is a Citywide Creek Master Plan. It identifies enhancement and restoration concepts for each of the creeks that goes through this area. They were significantly modified with flood control projects and so there's some ideas about how to restore them. The Groundwater Master Plan is the water departments and the city's plan for management of the city's groundwater and in particular it identifies the need for some emergency supply wells and this area has favorable conditions for those wells so that's a city interest is to try to find locations for those wells on or near this property. And then we also talked about the city of Santa Rosa's General Plan 2035 and although the site doesn't have a designation it's surrounded by designated lands so it's important to think about the plan and existing uses around the property. So I'm gonna briefly step through the opportunities that are, this is toward the end of the report. It's kind of summarized based on the analysis of each of the sub areas. The site has actually excellent public access. Although CalTrans prefer the public not to be on there now there are a network of public streets that surround the site that provide potential future entry points into the site. There's definitely ample room for the recreation uses that are discussed in the memorandum of understanding and the city's original and initial thinking about uses for the land. There seems to be an opportunity to implement the creek plan with creek restoration because there's space around the creeks to possibly do that. The MOU talks about environmental mitigation sites that this land could possibly be a place to do projects that would be mitigation for offsite projects so it could be like a receiver site and there's space for that too. And then we really looked at like what are the different kinds of land uses that might happen here and I'll talk a little bit more about that in the next slide. We're gonna talk about constraints. The biggest constraint that really came out of our work not just on the report but also the partnership. We've been meeting for a year, we've been talking about this land is the fact that the site does not have a general plan designation. It's difficult to figure out how to go forward when there isn't an adopted community vision for the site. It's also an unusual size and configuration. It's very rare to find 57 acres of land in the middle of your city. It's long, there's a skinny piece of it that's only 70 feet wide. Most of it's quite wide but it's cut up by numerous public streets so it's just kind of an interesting site. There'll be a lot of public improvements that will be needed. Street crossings to connect the pieces are important but the existing streets that go through the land are not all of them improved to city standards. Some of them need sidewalks and bike lanes and whatnot. There's the creeks on the site are a feature that needs to be attended to. The hydrology in the area is sensitive. The reason why there were all these flood control projects was because there was flooding in these neighborhoods surrounding the Greenway and that's something that any future development needs to think about and take into account. And then of course the interface with existing neighborhoods. There's long established neighborhoods that surround this land and of course there'll be a lot of interest in what happens on this land because it has the potential to affect folks that are directly near the site. So talking a little bit about the staff proposal for the general plan amendment. The reason why we're recommending that the council initiate a general plan amendment is because it would ultimately allow the city to establish a land use vision for this property. And then we could zone the site consistent with that vision and the site would be ready to move forward with whatever uses we'd like to do with it. When we've been working with the partnership the main interest is public recreation, the class one bicycle path and other uses like that. We've been told by the Sonoma Land Trust as one of our partners that it's very difficult to fundraise when there isn't a designated a city plan for the land when there's no adopted city policy for what the uses are gonna be. We envision that as you can see also from the folks that are here tonight and have written to you that this will require a collaborative, highly engaging community planning process and that we're gonna really need to get out there. We talked to a lot of people. We did mail a notice to the 700 property owners that have land within 500 feet of the site and we put out the notice to all of our known community groups but that's just kind of what we normally do. This is gonna require a whole lot more to make this successful. And then we wanted to note that and we've met with Caltrans and they conditionally support the proposal to move forward with the general plan amendment for their land and they've written a letter to that effect that's in your packet. Excuse me. Ms. Morris. Oh yes. When you say conditionally it just raises the question, what are the conditions? They don't have a number, like a list of numbered conditions but they do talk about looking at a variety of land uses and they do have an interest in seeing the city look at a variety of land uses and we've discussed that with them that they're interested in seeing us look at not just one use but looking at alternatives too. Thank you. So the initial staff vision and this is captured in the draft resolution so I wanna walk you through it. We'd like you to direct us to initiate a general plan amendment and really focus primarily on parks and recreation uses. This is consistent with the partnership and with the MOU and with the work we've done to date. We would though like to analyze and evaluate other uses that would be hopefully compatible with the parks and rec and also with the surrounding neighborhoods and these include higher density housing due to the community need for more housing. A retail use is possibly near farmer's lane on the elevated piece that's right on farmer's lane that's sort of cut off from the rest of the land and then we thought it'd be good to look at public institutional to put that designation near Montgomery. There've been some discussion about kind of creating some kind of shared uses with the high school and with the city on that land. So we'd like to explore that as an alternative land use designation but I think it's really important to know and the resolution says this that we know this proposal will evolve through our community planning process. We just, we wanna start somewhere but we envision that with the engagement what comes back to you could be slightly different or you'll have options or something along those lines. Our preliminary schedule, if you decide to move forward with the resolution tonight and direct us to move forward we're going to put out a request for proposal for consultant support by the end of this month. We're hoping to interview, select and deal with the contract for consultant to bring that back to you in January of 2016. We would then begin work on the project in January, February of 2016 and the goal would be to complete the project within 12 months. And so the staff recommendation is to both accept the report and by resolution initiate the general plan amendment and rezoning of the site with direction to staff. I would just like to note that as talked about in your resolution, we envision in preparation of an environmental impact report to provide the environmental clearance for the project. Before I go to questions, would you please talk about the cost of the EIR and the general plan amendment process and where those funds are coming from? We have approximately $310,000 in community developments budget that is available for this project. So we'd be looking to bring people on board with that as our cost. And that's adequate for both the EIR and the general plan process. Yes, we believe so. Mr. Vice Mayor. Thank you. Are there questions from the council? Ms. Gomes. Thank you very much for bringing this forward. It's an exciting day for some of us who've worked a long time on aspects of this project. So how far to the north and the south of the property will be reviewed for the general plan? Are you looking only at the property itself or are you looking at it as a corridor? We had a property come up not too long ago where there was, I think it was along North Street where there was a corridor that took into account properties fairly surprisingly far away to me, you know, a couple of blocks over on each side. Does this intend to look at only the property or will we be also looking at the property to the north and the south? Council member, our intention was to look at the property that's owned by Caltrans at this time that doesn't have any, it is not a part of the general plan. So our intention was to make it the 57 acres as shown on the overhead. There may be some interaction between the site and the surrounding neighborhood that would have an impact. And so I'm concerned that we will miss the opportunity if we don't also look at adjacent properties. What we could do is start with the Caltrans property because just to focus on that for a minute, what we're trying to do is get a general plan adopted, do an environmental document, which will lead us to be able to acquire the property. If as a part of the engagement process, we identify some of the examples of adjacent properties that also need attention, I think what we could do is bring it back to the council for further review and maybe a redirection of efforts in that regard. So there's room in our conversations going down the line for that because my recollection is the 2011 Estat project included a couple of those properties with some ideas. So I'm concerned about making sure that we integrate the ideas from the 2011 Estat. Is there a cost impact difference to us on the four different types of land uses that you've listed for us? Retail business, high density, residential, public institutional versus just park and recreation. I think a slight difference in the sense that if you have more alternatives to consider that's gonna cost a little bit more. But when you do an environmental impact report, you typically have to have alternatives anyway. I have been unclear in what I've asked. Will Caltrans expect us to pay more if we have designated it retail commercial versus park? And so I would hate for us to use parkland that we paid a premium price for because somewhere along the line it got labeled commercial. What Caltrans has told us is that their job is to receive highest and best use for the value of the property. And they understand, like Erin said, our conversations with Caltrans is knowing that we're gonna look at various options and they're encouraging that their direction or what they've told us is their job is to receive highest and best use for that property. If it's our intention to use it as recreation and parks land, I hate for us to pay the premium price for commercial property. And I just am concerned about that. So is there a consequence to us if we designated the whole area park or residential? I think, you know, the Caltrans has been willing to participate in this because we're keeping the opportunities open and that there is room to negotiate in some of these conversations. So if we limit the pathway for success, we potentially call into question the commitment of the conditional commitment to the process. Okay, I think I heard. Does this include the Merlita Road site on the other side in the assessment? I understand that the main plan for the Greenway does not, but does this process that we're discussing include the site on the other side? No, it does not. Okay, thank you very much. And I'm really excited to see this. I also am a little concerned about the public institutional. I have heard a rumor that the school board might be interested in additional parking. And I wanted to make sure that while anything that moved us forward in wonderful unanimity with the high school included something other than parking as their goal. And that's duly noted. I'm sure there will be plenty of rumors about plenty of usages that will come out. Yes, it's just a rumor. I just want to make sure that we don't waste this land that way. Thank you so much. I'm really excited that we've come to this point. Thanks very much. Thanks, councilor. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Just a couple of questions. Have we had any further indication from Caltrans as to what they're expecting this purchase price to be? No, we have not. The process that we... So once again, I believe there's a slippery slope to this conversation in that we have not been given a price point. And I think when I started in this conversation, the feeling was that there was going to be no negotiation. And so I would say we are in a very favorable position. This is a unique partnership that Caltrans has entered into. And there's nothing for us to speculate on on that front except they are willing to negotiate with us with the Cotysl that the usual expectation is highest and best used. But again, that's the usual expectation. This seems to be a very unique opportunity and partnership we're engaged in. I appreciate that. And the uniqueness of the situation leads to my second question. I'm seeking to understand typically when a project comes before us seeking a general plan amendment, there has to be very specific reasons for it, right? It has to be a very specific project, meaning a very specific designation and a community purpose, et cetera. And I fully appreciate that that's inappropriate for this setting because we don't yet know what each of these parcels might become. But how are we able to still move forward with a general plan amendment? That's an interesting question. In order to propose a general plan amendment, our general plan says that applicants have to identify the unique circumstances or things that have changed in the community that really are why you need to amend the general plan or they have to identify plans and policies or other basically change factors that support why to do this. And this is a case where just recently the state of California has decided that this is not gonna be a freeway. So if there's ever been a project that has an answer to the why, this is probably that one. So that's our change circumstance. And then the aspect of, we've typically been very specific about, well, we're legally required to include piece mailing. So we don't know what this project is gonna look like and we've generally asked people to come forward with, this is gonna be housing or a hospital or a park or whatever it's gonna be. How are we meeting that requirement here? So this is somewhat different because this is a city process that we are the ones initiating the general plan as opposed to an applicant who comes forward and then has to provide the greater detail that you've specified. The other concern is you can't just arbitrarily and intentionally down zone property just because you might wanna purchase it. So staff is required to look at all the uses and determine and it may be that a deal is cut by some part of it being used for retail that gets them some recovery so that it doesn't have to be paid for. So as Mr. McGlin said, they're being very cooperative and negotiating but you can't predetermine just because there's groups that may wanna purchase that property. I appreciate that explanation. I'm always keen to identify our findings getting back to my planning commission days. Those are all the questions that I have right now. Thanks very much for all your hard work on this. If I may follow up on the down zoning concept. My understanding is that down zoning involves asking for one sort of lower priced use in order to purchase but then later using it for something else that is worth more and if we're not going to use it for something else that's worth more, is that still classified as down zoning? I don't know if technically it's down zoning. In this case it would be zoning it to be the least valuable. Obviously Caltrans may not have the interest in having a park. So that's what I meant by that. Right now it's not actually zoned as Mr. Agalea said there is no general plan amendment for that entire area. So you're not really down zoning but you can't just pick the most favorable one because you have some ultimate plan. So we can't say what our intention is and zone based on our intention? Not when we don't own the property. No, you can't try to favorably zone to influence your financial interest. So you can't for example say that somebody can't have commercial property on a site that's appropriate for that or zone for that just because you might have to use your power of eminent domain or you may wanna purchase that property. So you just can't be arbitrary about it. In the past when a property is zoned in that has been out, we have looked at the property on either side and sort of pasted that zoning in to where it was. That's been a traditional technique. I was assuming we were not proposing that method now. Can you clarify for me, are we talking about taking the existing zoning on either side in order to satisfy Caltrans or are we talking about recreation and parks? Well, we're talking about recreation and parks and perhaps some of the other options that we told you about earlier. The thing that we wanted to avoid when appraisals were done and there's no general plan or no zoning, oftentimes an appraisal appraiser will look over the fence and determine that the hundred acres surrounding it is ex-general plan and assume that the new property will have the same and that is not an unrealistic assumption. So what the partnership and the rest of us involved thought is it would be better to go through this process where the vision for the property is studied where there's quite a bit of city involvement and engagement in this, that we establish a direction for this property, we adopt a general plan, complete an environmental impact report and then we have direction on that project, whatever that is and there's options that we've studied and included in the environmental impact report. Thank you. Thank you. I have a number of cards on this. I will be calling the speakers in twos so the next person can line up and be ready to speak. You'll have three minutes to speak if you can do it in less time, that's good. And the first speaker is Kirk Gibbany and he will be followed by Dwayne DeWitt. Good evening, vice mayor and council. Thank you for listening to me today. Mr. Gibbany, lift up that microphone a little higher if you can. The whole thing will come up too if you find the toggle switch. There you go. Thank you. Thank you. I'm a resident of the neighborhood known as Castle Rock, roughly 100 homes adjacent to Spring Lake Park and on the north side of the Caltrans property east of Summerfield Road. My parcel is adjacent to the Caltrans property. I am also an engineer and an experienced bicyclist having ridden over 100,000 miles in my lifetime. I attended several early Southeast Greenway campaign meetings and major activities since its inception in 2009. I was appointed by my neighbors to represent our neighborhood to the Greenway campaign at the American Institute of Architects Design Shared in February of 2011. A large fraction of the Castle Rock residents opposed any new park entrance or a bicycle or walking path on the Greenway east of Summerfield Road. The neighborhood was particularly concerned about traffic, parking, noise, loss of privacy, crime and damage to the environment. In a presentation that I gave to the AIA, I showed that a bicycle path through the eastern portion of the Greenway would be twice as steep as riding up New Anga and that a non-elite cyclist would struggle to ride up the hill. There are no less than five existing park entrances within one mile of the Greenway at Summerfield. One of these is a class one bicycle trail marked on city maps as a bike boulevard. No less the Kenwood, Santa Rosa or Spring Creek Trail. It is just 0.4 miles north of the Greenway at Summerfield Road and it is continuous with the Bay Area Ridge Trail. So why would we need another class one bicycle trail and park entrance? What would be the value? How many cyclists would use it? The very weak data in the 2010 Santa Rosa Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan do not support arguments for yet another bicycle path. Questionary results that are admittedly biased and statistically insignificant are nonetheless presented in the master plan. A traffic count for one fair weather spring day during peak commuting hours in 2008 on Summerfield Road at Sonoma Avenue showed bicycle counts that in the range of 22 to 29 per hour. Also from- Thank you, sir, your three minutes are up. Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt and I wanted to say thank you for this item. Excuse me, Dwayne. Yes. Following Dwayne will be Linda Davis. All right. I'm all for this. Please approve the idea of having the general plan amendment. Be aware though that highest and best use in the eyes of state bureaucrats may be different than in the eyes of locals. My comments are in honor of Howard Mose and June Mose who worked for decades to make sure that a freeway didn't come through there and now that that's not happening, let's do our best to make sure we get something very nice, a greenway, maybe some housing. You have to be very, very, I guess the term for this is diplomatic because as the comments before me just showed, there's all kinds of people paying all kinds of attention to every little thing you could imagine. So with that in mind, please go forward and have a wonderful time. Always keeping in mind, the Southwest Greenway also could link up to the Southeast Greenway. I love the shirt. Thank you very much. Thank you. Linda Davis will be followed by Greg Badano. Thank you. Well, my name is Linda Davis and I've been a resident of Santa Rosa for 36 years and I too live right next to the parcel that has been the Caltrans right of way. And back in April, I wrote each of you a letter and sent it to your office individually. I unfortunately didn't hear back anything from anyone, but at the time I invited you to come out to my place and I wanted to show you why this parcel is so important and precious to me. I'm here today not to either disagree or agree with this particular plan of the Southwest, the Southeast Greenway, but I'm here to share some real concerns and to also make a proposal, which I think you received today. There's two copies of it. My first one and then I altered it. So the second one is the one I want you to keep and it's the one that says, starts with the Community Boulevard Proposal. And I wrote this up because I feel like there are two very different segments up there in the map. The West and Central area is a very different kind of land than is the East section up there. And I feel they should be considered separately. And I would like to say that the concerns I have for this section, I'm gonna start with the Central and West is that it's a huge area. We're talking about lots of acreage. And if you include the East side, it's also 57 acres. And as I've lived there, I've looked in my backyard and wondered, how can they possibly make practical use of all of this? And I say that not critically, but of a concern. I feel like it's far more than is needed for a bike and walking trail. And I hope that if a trail, a bike and walking trail, that if a bike trail is made, it will also include a walking area for pedestrians. But there's a lot more land that's needed for that. And in back of my house, the stretch is about 200 feet wide and a bike trail would probably take, I don't know what, 20 at the most feet wide. That's 180 feet left with what? It's also a tremendous financial concern. Where's the money gonna come from? If Caltrans does give the land, I know they're not gonna give any money to use it and have the taxpayers been asked what they want to pay for. They were talking about not just immediate needs, but long term because I have least seven acres of that land for the last 18 years and I've worked it. And I've gone out there when I first arrived in Santa Rosa, that field behind our house was a mess. The grass was over my head. It was beautiful. It would wave in the wind, but it was a terrible fire danger and we did have a fire back there. There also, and so I began 18 years ago leasing that land and cleaning it up. I hauled out of their mattresses, car parts, beer cans, there were partiers back there. There were kids dirt biking back there. And we, oh dear. Anyway, I was hoping to read this to you, but. Thank you, Ms. Davis. We have your statement there that you wrote out and we'll take a look at that. Yes, you have the proposal. You have my phone number on the letter because I sent you the letter again last week. So I would be loved to talk with you more about it. Just a reminder, the light sun on the podiums, let you know when there's 30 seconds left you'll get a yellow light. Greg Badano is going to be followed by Thea Hintzel. Dear City Council and residents of Santa Rosa, we applaud the efforts of the Southeast Greenway Committee to transform the unused Caltrans property into a safe and uninterrupted passageway from Farmer's Lane to Summerfield Road. As a former cyclist, I'm well aware of the challenges and inherent dangers of riding on city streets. The Greenway would provide a safe route between these two points for cyclists and walkers alike. Our issue and our question is why it should continue beyond Summerfield Road when there are already multiple access points to the parks. And while the expense to develop a Greenway between Farmer's Lane and Summerfield Road will be considerable, the area east of Summerfield, which is in many places solid rock will be astronomical, not to mention the impact on the largely natural and untouched landscape. Caltrans currently leases a portion of the area east of Summerfield Road to multiple individuals who have successfully cared for and maintained the property for more than 20 years. This is something that can continue into the foreseeable future and result in a net profit for the city. Instead of spending huge sums of money to create yet another way into the park, why not put that much needed money into our crumbling city streets and relighting our darkened street lights? The southeast Greenway is a great idea, but it does not make financial sense for it to extend beyond Summerfield Road. Thank you. Thank you. Thea Hensel, followed by Vincent Hoglund. Good afternoon, Vice Mayor Corsi, Councilmembers and City Manager McGlynn. On behalf of the Santa Rosa Southeast Greenway supporters, I'd like to extend a big thank you to the Community Development Department, Chuck Regalia, Lisa Kranz and Erin Morris for this comprehensive report that they've given us today. I thought I knew this land like the back of my hand. I have learned much from the report and reading it that will open doors to future research and exploration. We're here today to ask you for the opportunity to do that with the General Plan Amendment and everything that that encompasses. As stewards of this earth, we can lend, let the land rise up to its glory of its full potential that can benefit the many and not just a few. Opportunities like this come once and we usually don't ever get a second chance. Let the people in this neglected neighborhood offer their new front yard to the community, to share and to care for it so that everyone can enjoy the natural opportunities that exist here. Young and old, residents East and West, students and seniors, let everyone have a voice and a choice. Creeks and critters deserve a chance to survive and thrive and so do the people in Santa Rosa. Let's provide a forum for all of the citizens to plan and share their ideas, their goals and their needs as we look to the decades ahead and to make smart decisions now for Greenway and Santa Rosa. Thank you. Thank you. Vincent Hoglund, followed by Rick Reisman. Good afternoon, Vice Mayor Corsi and members of the City Council. My name is Vincent Hoglund. I've been an appointed member of the Sonoma County Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee which advises the Board of Supervisors concerning bicycling pedestrian issues since its founding in 1993. I'm also an active member of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition and the Santa Rosa Cycling Club. I'm quite an avid cyclist as I use my bicycle for transportation about 3,500 miles a year. The Southeast Greenway's Campaign's mission is to transform the vacant two-mile corridor connecting Spring Lake and Farmer's Lane into a vibrant urban Greenway that will serve as a strategic link in our non-motorized transportation system and improve the quality of life for the citizens of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. My vision for the Greenway is an active transportation route that will significantly strengthen our regional network of trails. The city's Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan currently calls for a Class I Bicycle and Pedestrian Trail that stretches from Spring Lake Park to Montgomery High School. Such a trail has the potential to link with a proposed Sonoma Valley bike trail to the east, to downtown Santa Rosa, and the smart station as well as to existing West County trails leading all the way to Sebastopol and Forestville. Locally, the Greenway will also promote safe route to schools, allowing students to safely walk or bicycle to the five schools within a half a mile of the Greenway and three schools that are three-quarters of a mile away. This could reduce the traffic jams and pollution that occur on Hoenn, Yalupa, and surrounding streets around eight o'clock in the morning and three in the afternoon every school day. I believe the establishment of the Southeast Greenway will significantly add to the safety and enjoyment of cyclists, walkers, and outdoor enthusiasts in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. Thank you. Thank you. Rick Kreisman, followed by David Hansen. Hello. I'd like to offer my perspective regarding the Southeast Greenway as a physician and neighbor of Spring Lake Park and Southeast Greenway. On a recent photo shoot in Spring Lake Park, I was reawakened to the beauty of this place, which started as a flood control project by Sonoma County Water Agency, but has evolved to a well-loved place to hike, bike, and encounter nature in abundance. It's such a jewel for the neighbors in Bennett Valley, but also for the entire Sonoma County community. That beautiful day, my thoughts turn to the two-mile adjoining stretch of native grasses, of native trees, walnuts, and mixed grasses and weeds known as the Southeast Greenway. That has the potential to be a similar asset for Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. Its potential reminds me of other established community greenways that I have cherished on visits, such as Lithia Park in Ashland, Oregon, and Bidwell Park in Chico, if any of you have been to those places. I have also been impressed by the former 22-mile rail line in Central Atlanta, now known as the Atlanta Belt Line, that is transforming that inner city. In my professional role as an emergency physician, I am all too familiar with the unhealthy effects of our car-centered culture and the lack of exercise that pervades. I look forward to the day when the Southeast Greenway is developed as a pedestrian and bicycle connector route, and the 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. school traffic jams on Hone Avenue and other nearby streets are a thing of the past. Kids and adults can be more fit and have fun in the process. And Santa Rosa will increase its reputation of being a livable city that is attractive to residents that are already here, and those yet to arrive, as well as businesses looking for a desirable location. Thank you to Vice Mayor Corsi, the council members, and the city manager, and the community development department for the report, and your efforts so far, and your future considerations. Thank you. David Hansen followed by Wendy Elliott, Vice Mayor Corsi, city council members, and staff, David Hansen, landscape architect, and 23-year resident of Santa Rosa, and a member of the Circle of Friends of the Greenway. I'm proud and excited to support this opportunity before the city council. I came to this city and county to serve as the first employee and general manager at the Sonoma County Ag Preservation and Open Space District. And I'm proud that we have preserved 23,000 acres in that first seven years I was here, both of parkland, open space, and farmland. Among those lands, I was happy to include many landscapes and acres protected in and around the city of Santa Rosa. These lands included many separated lands on all four corners of the city. They included the first purchases on Taylor Mountain, Bennett Peak, the West County Trail, and separators between Ronan Park, Sebastopol, Sonoma Valley, and the city. I was chair of the Lamp Haz Board when we created the garden out at Bayer Farm, and I'm happy to have been the first designer of that garden. Now, after 45 years of being personally involved in preserving and managing over 70,000 acres of Greenland in the Bay Area, working for three open space districts and many trusts, I'm excited to be a part of this unique opportunity to support the preservation and creation of a sparkling 57-acre greenway in Southeast Santa Rosa. The history of great cities since the days when London purposely created the first city green belts in green spaces in the late 19th century has always been guided by an opportunistic and urgent need. Witness the value of Golden Gate Park, Central Park, Vancouver's Lineal Green Waterfronts, Chicago and Minneapolis's intertwining green lands, and in the rebuilding cities like New Orleans and Christchurch, New Zealand, my original hometown, and creating vital and necessary elements of greenways to help urban form and improve the quality of the citizens' life. Studies and my own personal research have shown that green spaces improve land values in and adjacent to these areas. Multi-use natural lands incorporated within developed areas improve public health and safety, increase soothing natural visual beauty, those in multifamily housing a chance to step outside, offering lands for nearby orchards and gardens for city dwellers, increase groundwater recharge, offer lineal recreation and underground utility and wildlife corridors which can connect and consolidate with surrounding trails and infrastructure with nearby creeks, parks and natural resource areas. I encourage you to proceed with the RFP to develop and process a general plan designation and rezoning of the property. Once the land is lost, a vibrant green and gold ribbon is done, but I'm always reminded of Will Rogers' statement, invest in natural land, they ain't makin' it anymore. Thank you, Mr. Hinton. Thank you. Wendy Elliott will be followed by Gina Kuklis. Good evening Vice Mayor Corsi, members of the council. My name is Wendy Elliott. I'm the conservation director for Sonoma Land Trust and it's always tough following David Hansen and I'm not gonna be as eloquent because I'm gonna talk about sort of dull things like appraisals and land value. Come a little closer. I was here a few months ago and I'm really happy to be back and I'm really excited that the Land Trust is part of this really interesting and vital and different kind of project for us. I want to echo some of the other comments and acknowledge the really terrific work done by staff. The professionalism, the level of integrity is way up there. Sonoma Land Trust fully supports the staff's recommendation to accept the report and initiate the general plan amendment process for the property. In fact, the lack of a land use designation for this property creates so much uncertainty about the property that I really don't see how we can move forward without this step. There's a couple of reasons. Assigning a dollar value to a property that does not have a land designation is very difficult and you heard a little bit about that. Appraisers rely on city and county land use designations to guide them and determine what can be built on a property and then derive the highest and best use. An appraiser faced with an assignment like this one and I've talked to about three of them in the course of the past year has a very tough task of trying to anticipate what the public is gonna do, what this community wants to see. The other piece that's very hard to do is raising funds for a project that is not yet identified. In advance of the general plan amendment, that's really difficult as well. The outcome of this public process that we're hopefully launching today is unpredictable. Funders are gonna be very unwilling to contribute to a project that we cannot clearly define and it will be difficult if not impossible to raise funds for a greenway unless funders can be assured that their dollars are funding an actual greenway. So I've found my role as the person helping to support the land acquisition pretty stymied without this necessary step. Completing the general plan amendment now is gonna remove these uncertainties and really give us the green light to go ahead. Once complete, we're gonna be ready to move ahead in delivering the promise of accessible public open space to the members of this community and beyond. And I think that's a legacy that I'm gonna be proud of and that we can all be very proud of. So thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Elliott. Gina Kuklis will be followed by Peter. Good evening. Peter Messel. You know who you are. Ms. Kuklis. Thank you. Good evening. This is my first opportunity to be in front of the San Rosa City Council. I hail from East on Highway 12 from the Sonoma Valley, technically Boy's Hot Springs. I have been, however, following this issue for about the last four or five years since having lunch one afternoon with Linda Prue and telling me all about it. I've been attending the meetings and following the issue. So I'm here today for two reasons. Also, not just as a resident from down the highway but also bringing a perspective of somebody interested in education of children as I represent the Bennett Valley area on the Sonoma County Board of Education. So why is somebody from Sonoma Valley interested in seeing the Southeast Greenway move forward? Because this is not just a neighborhood project. This is a regional project and it has big benefits to the part of the county I live in as well as all over Sonoma County and the connectivity issue has been brought up today. I personally have been working more than 20 years on getting bike paths through Sonoma Valley. We're finally seeing the development of our central Sonoma Valley trail, which I got was involved with getting in the county bike path plan back in the late 1990s. The regional parks is finally working on a feasibility study for the rest of the Sonoma Valley bike trail up to Malita Road. So this provides a wonderful opportunity to bike from Mount Shellville when we finally get the bike, proposed bike trail built there up to the city, through the city to the other side of, I guess somebody mentioned the Southwest Greenway. So I also wanna point out, we're talking a lot about biking and walking. The educational use of this property is wonderful. The vision is not just about biking and hiking. It's about all kinds of park and recreation uses. You know, it's located three quarters of a mile from eight schools, children that can be walking and riding bikes to school instead of being driven by their parents or driving themselves in the case of the high school. It's a wonderful opportunity for a lot of things. And bold, I don't know if any of you have had the opportunity of going to New York City and seeing the high line. That's, if you couldn't vision and take a former high off the ground train track, going through the former meat packing district and turn that into a park. How amazing, it'll put Santa Rosa on the map to create the wonderful vision that exists right now for this Greenway. You all as the city council members are real lucky to be part of creating something magnificent and marvelous for all of us in Sonoma County. Thank you. Thank you. Peter, you're gonna have to help me with the last name. I can't read it off of here. Peter Mazzi. Thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity to speak. First, I wanna say that I am a cyclist. I cycle pathways in Sonoma County approximately 100 miles every week. I'm a long distance runner, I'm a hiker. I'm also a homeowner in Castle Rock neighborhood, which is adjacent to the proposed Greenway. For 35 years, I've been exercising and using the parks and trails in Sonoma County. I can't say that I'm 100% opposed to this Greenway. What I can say is that I just do not have enough information about this. I've heard everything that from this is going to be a new paved entrance to Spring Lake Park to there's gonna be retail stores there. I think everything that's been done has been very secretive. Yes, I know that things have been open, but let's face it, there's a lot that I don't think the general public is aware of what's going on in this plan. I think back to Proposition A that a lot of people thought was, oh, this was even, this is a good idea. And when the public actually started finding out about Proposition A, we all know that it didn't pass. So some of the things I'm concerned with as a homeowner, I'm concerned with what's gonna happen behind my house. I live in a very tranquil place right now. I moved to that house for that reason. I saved for 17 years to move into that neighborhood that I live in. Yes, I knew, I signed a statement saying that I was aware that there could be a freeway going through there. By the time I moved in that neighborhood, there was never gonna be a freeway put through there. And I knew that. I would suggest the city council. It sounds like, I know that the city council has authorized $100,000 to be spent on this already. Sounds like today I heard about another 300 possibly that was gonna be spent on this. Take a walk down the Prince Greenway. The Prince Greenway is falling apart. It's dangerous to ride a cycle on that greenway. Believe me, I ride it every day. There's cracks in there. If you take a walk down the Prince Greenway, you'll see loitering, graffiti, drug use, alcohol use, sex acts I've seen right on the Prince Greenway, vandalism litter. A member of our public office was mugged, not a few feet from this building on the Prince Greenway. I don't want this in my backyard. You can't guarantee me that this is not gonna happen in my backyard. As you can see, this is an emotional issue for me. I don't intend on not making the public aware of what's being proposed there. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Cheryl D'Ozadelli. Sorry about that. And then Richard Canini. Wherever you like. Good evening. My name is Cheryl D'Ozadelli. I am born and raised here in Sonoma County. So over the last half century, I must say, I've seen a lot of changes to this city. What I'd like to bring this meeting back to is the general plan being amended. This is a huge, huge undertaking. And it does require certain criteria to amend the general plan. And all these ideas and all these wonderful thoughts and how people can be enhanced by this Greenway are all wonderful. But we gotta get back to what's real and legal and the steps that the council needs to take to amend the general plan. As far as I can tell, there's no definition. There's, nobody knows what the proposal is going to be specifically. And unless I am misunderstanding, that is a condition to change and amend the general plan. So until that definition is put out to the public and people agree on it, I think we're premature here to make a vote tonight to amend our general plan, which it goes out the next 20 years. Secondly, the report that came through, I've read it beginning to end. There's many errors and omissions in this report. I don't think they are on purpose, but we are in nearly year five of the worst drought in history. This report was done in March of this year, which was the beginning of year four. The biology and all the wildlife and the plants and animals and everything are completely out of whack for lack of different terminology to what normal is. And to do another study even this next year until we get normal rainfall and normal seasonal patterns to do a true reading of what's going on out of that property and that the entire greenway, we're premature here, completely. Everybody, the greenway, everybody, because nobody knows really the definition and the impact on the wildlife and what is really going on out there with this historic drought. And the Farmer's Almanac just came out. I don't know any of you have read this yet, but it's pretty accurate over the years. And the El Nino is not gonna hit the Northern California. It's gonna be Southern California. And I know I'm out of time, but please read it. It's, you know, that's the people think we're gonna get daylooshed. And I don't think we are. I hope they're wrong, but thank you very, very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Mr. Canini, I guess Mr. Canini has gone home. Donna Mora, followed by David Grebel. Good evening. I have been in Sonoma County since the 50s. I have been actually live on Hoenn Avenue since the 90s. I've seen some changes and I'm really confused on the zoning, on what's really gonna be happening. I have concerns on some of our parks that we already have in recreations and greenways. You have homeless. Hoenn Avenue already has a really terrible record for traffic. Where's all this traffic going to go if you have something that somebody can go to like a park? I just have some major concerns. In fact, just last week, I had somebody come onto my property and tried to steal from a homeless person who I have heard over on that field, homeless people do go. So, and that's really all I have to say. I'm worried about traffic and who's gonna be paying for the upkeep on this if it does get approved. Thank you so much for listening. Mr. Grebel, and you'll be followed by Frank Baumgartner. Good evening. David Grebel with the Housing Advocacy Group. We strongly support the city taking control of this greenway and engaging in a planning process to determine the best uses of this wonderful 58-acre site. And we certainly don't oppose using a big chunk of these 58 acres for parks and a bike trail. We hope that bike trail goes all the way to Spring Lake right through all those expensive houses up there. But it shouldn't all be parkland. And the city has a huge crisis of housing, affordable housing, multifamily housing. Put some of that up in the east end of this greenway if you can, but put it, put it some of it. Should be a significant part of this greenway that addresses the, by everyone's estimation, an enormous housing crisis that the city faces. That'll, I think, help put this whole plan together. It'll generate a little revenue for the city and we'll put some eyes on the open space part of this parkland. The greenway advocates have done a fantastic job of getting us this far. And they deserve a huge amount of thanks for that. They aren't, in conversations with me, they've said they're not opposed to affordable housing, an affordable housing component here. And it's close to transportation, close to shopping, close to schools. I would caution against including more parking for Montgomery High School as part of, as one of the possible uses in this study. I have some personal connections with the high school, family connections, and I can assure you, they don't need more parking. Let's move this forward quickly. Okay, and in a way that doesn't detract from the other wonderful parks that the city has, which the city has a little stress for cash to maintain. So thank you very much. Thank you. Frank Baumgartner will be followed by Harold Wilson. And then the last card is John Coutula. Thank you, Vice Mayor, of course, and thank you to other members of the council. I also want to thank the community development department. I think you've done a superb job. And I think that the Greenway organization has done a great job of getting this thing moving and pushing it forward. I think we all love our parks. I'm a tennis player and not a very good one anymore. But the access, I think the accesses to the parks are fine. I don't necessarily want to see that change. And the previous speaker hit the nail in the head as far as I'm concerned too, because I'd like to see some provision for accessible housing. I think there's a pressing need and I hope that you'll consult with Catholic charities in the county and come up with a plan, a segment. I'm not talking about the whole thing because I think the bikeways and the trails and preserving the nature are key. And so I'll just keep it short. Thank you for the time. We should. Thank you, Mr. Baumgartner. Harold Wilson. Good evening, council. Way to go, Greenway people. Obviously worked very hard at this. I said, totally support the additional corridor through Santa Rosa. I walked here tonight on the Prince Memorial Greenway and made it fine. I think we could probably do all right with the rest. My issue tonight is help for homeless folks. So I'm hoping, I want to encourage you to put high on your priorities, low-cost housing or even no-cost housing. So this might be a fantastic opportunity to do a little bit for a lot of people in our community. Thank you. Thank you. John Coutula. I boarded that property right there in that little narrow spot you see on the top right corner. On my deed, it says that when the freeway was gonna go through, they're gonna take a pie piece of my property and my neighbor's property and give us fair market value. I haven't heard anything about any of that. I was gonna talk all about the crime and stuff, but I haven't heard anything about them taking my corner of my property from my, so I haven't heard, this is all I've been to. So I have. Thank you. That's all the cards I have. Is there anyone else who'd like to address the council on this issue? Okay, we'll bring it. Come on up. Hi, my name is Alexa Forrester. I live near Village Elementary School and I have two young children. And a number of people have said that the access to the parks are fine. I would argue that if you have a car, they're fine. If you aren't planning on traveling by car, especially with young children, there's very little safe way to access the park if you don't already live in the neighborhood's adjacent to Spring Lake Park. So I think that a pedestrian and bike access that's designated without car traffic would be a great improvement. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Very good. Thank you for all of your input on this. I believe it's the beginning of a long process. I'm going to bring this back to the council for questions or comments. First of all, Madam City Attorney, would you just briefly address the question about the city's legal authority to amend the general plan one more time? Sure. And just to be clear what the council is doing tonight is you're not voting on a general plan amendment you're authorizing staff to start the planning process which would culminate after environmental review as Mr. Rogel, you said in bringing back proposed general plan amendment to the council after public input and after the processes that community development staff has indicated. As I indicated before, the city also has apart from an applicant who owns a piece of property a right to initiate its own general plan amendments when it sees a need. In this case, as Ms. Morris indicated, the need is driven by the fact that the prior freeway has been abandoned by Caltrans and there is no land use designations for those portions of the real property that had previously been designated for that use. Thank you. Let's start with Mr. Schwedhelm. Sure, the city attorney may have answered this though. Just so my interest is maximum flexibility with community input with what we are voting on today that would be the direction that staff is recommending. Yes. Did I hear that correctly? And then this is maybe for CD staff. I also have some concerns with similar open areas like Joe Redotta Trail and Prince Morrow Greenway and some of the public safety concerns. During this planning process, how would that be addressed? We've already had a preliminary conversations with police department and fire department staff just as part of developing this report. But absolutely, that's referred to as environmental design to prevent crime. We wouldn't be looking at that as part of the community process. And so again, maybe this is too preliminary, but that would be a concern just not a design about what are we actually going to do. Yes. And again, the paralleling processes from Prince Morrow Greenway where maybe that wasn't a focus. I have a strong interest in making sure that is a primary focus for any development along this 57 acres. We understand. All right, thank you. Ms. Carlstrom, do you have any questions or comments? Sure. Thank you for keeping me up to speed on that. Ms. Colms. Wow. Thank you. Thea and Linda and all of the neighbors who have come out to express their neighborhood concerns. Thank you for the Greenway campaign for bringing us to this point. I was in the room when it was a planning commission conversation very premature. What was it, 07? When there was the initial attempt to consider a general plan amendment at that time. My recollection is that the planning commission approved that to move forward to the council, but council never took it up. So I was on the other side of the dais at that time. So it's kind of exciting to be on this side and have the council be discussing moving the amendment forward. I don't live in immediate proximity, but I'm kind of in the general zip code of this project. And really keenly aware of the three creek crossings, the five to eight schools that are in the area, numerous daycares, just lots of possibility with this project. Really excited to see the city having worked well with the community and with Caltrans, our city staff, who went from calling it the Highway 12 right of way to calling it the Greenway over the last, what, 10 years. Just really appreciated the hard work and persistence of a lot of folks. So I thank you for bringing us to this point. And I think that's just a comment. I hope that we take into account the concerns of the neighbors, as well as the overwhelming interests. There's been a lot of planning going here for a long time. And it looks, I'm really delighted to see us having a planning process that's actually the general plan planning process. It was a little unusual, I think, to have an SDAT that was instigated from a community group rather than from a city group. And I'm looking forward to seeing whether that becomes integrated into this plan or not. So I rather obviously am enthusiastically in favor of having the full proper community conversation moving this into the general plan. Thank you, staff, for bringing it forward to us. Mr. Alvarez. Thank you, thank you all for coming to express your views and concerns on this as well. I am very confident with the process that we've used with this so far. I mean, it's been years into making. I think it's been a very deliberate pace as opportunities come up. And I'd like to the direction we're heading. We're not at the final stages, but it's continuing to grow. And I know the opportunity for public input will continue to grow as well as we move forward. So I am very confident that everyone will be heard at the appropriate times as well. So I'm fully supportive of this process and the direction that we're heading. I keep having to remind myself that this was going to be a freeway. It's just incredible that we've gone from that to now having the opportunity to turn this into something that's really wonderful for everybody. A lot of cities would give anything to have the kind of opportunity that's presenting itself here. I'm sorry to hear someone say that they feel that this has been a secret. It's hard to keep things a secret for seven years, but I understand that at times, information doesn't come to you in the way that you want it to. And that's where we're going now. The other comment that I wrote down was that people don't have enough information about this to know whether to support it or not. That's where this process is gonna take us, to get that information, to find out what we want on that property, to find out what the opportunities are. And I think that without any study at all, there are some obvious ones. And that's to have a transportation corridor that gets people out of their cars. A lot of people noted that it's close to a lot of schools. I don't think it will add traffic to Hoenn Avenue. I think it will take traffic off of Hoenn Avenue. I also think that we have an opportunity with certain parts of this property. The frontages along the roads, such as Yilupa Avenue, come to mind to create development along those pieces that will help us pay for this property, that will provide us with affordable and market rate housing. I think that we can incentivize that property to create housing for all incomes. And also to create, not just housing, but development that invites and welcomes people onto this property as a park. That's an opportunity that I really don't want us to miss. So I'm glad we're gonna focus on looking at park and recreation uses here, but I also am very supportive of looking at housing, residential, mixed use opportunities along the frontages. And with that, I think it's your turn, Ms. Colstrom. Thank you, Mr. Reissmaier. Preliminarily, there was a property owner that had a question about whether there might be a taking. So I'm hopeful that somebody can meet with him just to assuage those fears, address that party parcel. This is, I think, the third or fourth time this project has come to me as a council member, so I've had plenty of time to state my support and congratulate you all on hard work. Keep it up. Really the one part I wanna, there are two parts I wanted to address that I also hope staff will find a way to incorporate housing. We have limited opportunities in the community. Find a way to make it work, please. And then secondly, and this is a charge to Jaime, who I'm thrilled to have on board, as well as, you're gonna tell me it's Jaime, aren't you? No, I'm gonna tell you to ask that of me and not direct staff. I can't, you're right. My point is that there's an engagement opportunity here. There are happy faces in this room and there are angry faces in this room right now. And that makes me nervous because this is a huge undertaking and angry faces tend to multiply if they are not addressed and engaged. And that is also a charge to the leaders of the Greenway campaign. These are your neighbors. You know, have that conversation. The best projects that we've had come to us have just really directly had that conversation instead of avoiding it. So I know you will, I have faith. I think that's it. As far as my concerns at this point, I appreciate the city attorney's clarification on the general plan amendment situation. You ready for me? Okay, so with that I will make a motion first to accept the report titled Southeast Greenway, existing conditions opportunities and constraints. Second? Council your votes. And that passes with five ayes. Thank you very much staff and thank you all for being here. There's also a resolution. I also have a resolution. Just one more case, wait. I mean, you can clap now. Part two. Part two. There's also, I will now move a resolution of the council of the city of Santa Rosa, initiating a general plan amendment and rezoning of the approximately 57 acre site, comprised of undeveloped highway 12 right away between Farmers Lane and Spring Lake Regional Park in Southeast Santa Rosa and waive for the reading of the text. Second? Votes. And that also passes five ayes. We have no public hearings. Written communications are noted. Noted. 15.1 quarterly capital improvement program projects update April to June, 2015, provided for information. 15.2 final map tapestry subdivision provided for information. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. We have one more item on the agenda. As you clear the room, please do it as quietly as you can. Do we have any other citizens interested in providing public comment on anything on or off the agenda tonight? Seeing none, we're adjourned. You still texting? Is this real, Mort? Yep. Shut up, like with real dead people. Oh, I got to text Ashley. Ashley identified you when you wrapped your car around that light pole because you was caring more about that thing than a road. How many is she like? Not anymore. No text message as well.