 waiting room and I heard were you wanting to reschedule these or something in October I cut the tail end. No you know I was just mentioning to Rafael that because of scheduling some appointments on the days the council is dark at least the way we're scheduled on the calendar that there may be and I might have an interruption in my ability to attend but I'm not anticipating that but when I get the yearly calendar of council meetings sometimes I'll schedule things on Tuesdays that are indicated as dark and so I haven't double checked it because we haven't confirmed exactly when we're going to start the change but at the end of the day it's actually kind of good to group our meetings together so using a Tuesday when we're already committed to a council meeting actually makes sense oh yeah I like that too yeah all right well I guess let's kick this off it's 8 30 on Thursday morning welcome everyone I call the meeting to order the downtown subcommittee will be conducting today's meeting in a virtual setting using the zoom webinar committee members and staff are participating from remote locations and or practicing appropriate social distancing members of the public may view and listen to the meeting as noted on the city's website and as noted on the agenda members of the public wishing to speak during item three public comment or during public comment hearing items will be able to do so by utilizing the raised hand feature of their hand or pressing star nine on their phone they then will be given the ability to address the committee okay uh madam secretary can you take the rule uh yeah so it's a record reflect that all members are present with the exception of member plumbing okay uh we'll move on to item two public comments um this is an opportunity for any member of the public wishing to address the committee on matters not listed on the agenda but within the subject matter of the jurisdiction um do we have each speaker will be allowed three minutes to speak why don't we start with live public comment is there anyone in the audience wishing to speak at this time we have no raised hands at this time nor do we have any voicemail or email public comment for this meeting okay we'll move on to item three new business uh first order of business is item 3.1 the railroad square association community benefit district update uh rafael revero economic development specialist chris wilson executive director historic railroad square association uh yes good morning everyone and i'm delighted to see you all this morning and uh good morning chair tivet and councilmember uh solier so i usually uh basically uh introduce chris wilson for this and then i add on a few updates but the uh quickly the association did meet did have uh held a uh board meeting on thursday july 15th where there were uh quite a few updates including a presentation by our city staff member regarding the uh general plan update it's quite a long uh presentation but the board got some good information out of that and um other than that i'm just going to turn it over to chris and then i'll fill in where uh some of the things that i get to work on as a member of some of the some of the committees that i've participated on chris thanks thank you good morning good morning and thank you rafael um well the railroad square it's busy we've got visitors and shoppers and diners and uh it's been really great to see people out strolling the restaurants are busy just kind of feeling guardedly optimistic and hoping we can continue supporting our businesses uh with what's happening with covid right now there does seem to be an uptake of graffiti throughout our area most of visible in the old brick building of the cannery and we started a program to offer support to our property owners by providing paint and assistance for removal unfortunately as some of you probably already know we can't address the brick as any painting or trying to remove can cause damage to that integrity of the brick so we've been in conversations with the cannery owners to discuss alternate ways of covering but everything is very expensive the homeless and the transients remain an issue but we are seeing some positive results since we implemented the dedicated all night security and we very much appreciated the support do appreciate the support of the centers of police and the city staff who work with us and continuing to clear encampments and the greenway and keep an eye on things down there we continue to focus on cleaning up the district with additional street maintenance and general weeding and street clearing thank you rafael for helping to coordinate volunteers for us to join some of our board members to paint the ballards along our streets and we have another ballard painting session scheduled for the 17th and we really hope to have that project finished by the 17th and by the end of the month so if you're driving around down there you'll see shiny new looking ballards little dressing up of the area depot park is in real need of some attention and we've met with tim finnegan to get in the queue for some very badly needed tree trimming there rafael's been coordinating meetings with city staff to address not only the tree trimming but also to look at getting the lighting in the park working again we're hoping we hope to identify the scope of getting the electrical work done to remove the old tree lights that are hanging down and replace those by wrapping the trees similar to what you have downtown the project committee has met with terra thompson and gen santos to try to revive that art in public places proposal for depot park that started some years ago i believe before the 2017 fire we've made some suggested changes to that proposal and really hope to begin to move that one forward of course we would love to see the depot open again to help promote the sense of place for railroad square to welcome our visitors and especially now with people out more and the train more runs with the train and people coming off the train to have a sense of welcome we've also been getting bids on removing and replacing trees on fifth street which also involves replacing old concrete around the trees and sidewalks and come to conclusion that the cost is just too great for us to commit to such a large project right now so the plan is to start trimming the trees on fourth street since that's the most visible and replace the old wine barrels with new planters to kind of give a uniform more colorful look and update the street and that would also be on on fifth street and in the area so we continue to work on the way finding signage plan and hope we can be collaborative project with the city that would help cut costs and kind of enhance a connection between railroad square and downtown i really want to thank our mayor rogers or acknowledge him for taking time to walk with to walk railroad square with us last week to give us the opportunity to discuss the vision and projects that the association hopes to see in the district and how we might partner with the city to help support our merchants down there um good bright side brighter side even we're hosting a historic railroad square summer music stroll and student art show on sunday august 22nd and sunday september 26 partnering with chops teen club student artists will be showing their work in depot park and local street musicians will be spaced along fourth street um and in various areas in the in the heart of railroad square thanks to claire nordy the city's water efficiency program will be displaying information along with a water music performance in depot park i'm very curious of really what that water performance is it's a musical performance in depot park and then on uh september 26 the humane society is partnering with us to bring information and a pet kissing booth we'll see about the kissing um and we're looking forward to hosting a real family friendly afternoon family friendly sunday afternoon activity for the whole community uh the branch line is a new cafe and mercantile mercantile that's planning to open on august 20th with a soft opening that's where the flying goat was located at the base of fourth street i think that's going to be a great anchor having aroma on one side of depot park and the branch line on the other and really perfect location for greeting people coming in on the train if all goes well with covet restrictions we hope to bring back the holiday carriage rides and some holiday events so we're working hard to clean things up make railroad square more vibrant bring events back and encourage people to enjoy all there is in our little heart of santa rosa that's my report thanks chris uh councilmember sloyer do you have any questions for chris or the staff no questions just this many thanks for continuing to tread along to you know make things better and and highlight the activities and the um the environment which is a very special part of our city so thank you for for for all of the effort of the organization and um and the great organization as well in realizing how important railroad square is to the rest of our downtown thank you it's my honor i love it down there let's take public comment on item 3.1 uh madam secretary do you see any members of the public wishing to speak we have no raised hands at this time rafael yeah i just want to say that it's a great pleasure working with the association and anything that i can do to continue helping uh improve the area the the area is already very very uh improved as it is uh if you brought your bike or uh take a stroll on a friday evening saturday sunday the place is a bus there's people eating walking getting off the train so it's very exciting and the only quick update i have is that we still don't have an update on the opening of the visitors uh center uh i have spoken to brad and it looks like it may it might remain closed for the rest of the year but i'll provide an update during uh next month's meeting so and that's all i have thank you all right thanks rafael all right we did took public comment there were no comments um any any final comments from uh council okay thank you rafael and thank you chris i i did owe what john said let's move to item 3.2 downtown action organization update cadence hinkle allinson executive director san rosa downtown district thank you chair tidd it's good morning to you and to council member soldier it's nice to see everyone again it feels like it's been a while since we've been together i want to start just by saying thank you to all of the city staff who've been supporting the district this summer economic development parks public works parking districts the d et i'm sure i'm forgetting someone but everyone really continues to be great partners in all the activities and events we've been putting on so we're grateful for the support i also want to specifically say thank you to council for extending the garage parking incentives through your end our business owners are very excited about that and grateful to have that in place through the end of 2021 uh and also uh an additional thank you to mayor rogers and council member soyer for your involvement and public comments um in the supervisors meeting was that just last week or the week before about the new civic center we are incredibly excited this is fantastic news for downtown um i'm really grateful for your advocacy and involvement to make that happen so thank you um i'll start with a little bit of good news i think we have a couple new businesses that have opened since the last time we spoke sushi rosa has opened on fourth street and has falafel cut which is in the old arts paella space um we have i think three more restaurants opening relatively soon um and i know there's a few other projects that are kind of creeping along so hopefully we'll have some updates on those as well it's been really really fantastic having the d et spending more time downtown um we're seeing a lot more presence from them um quick response times when there's issues and it's just it's made a big difference um especially because the the uh homeless issues have continued to increase over the past month um which i'm sure everyone is is aware of so uh with with what's happening at sam jones hall we've just seen a much larger population than usual we've continued to see out of town folks coming through um so having the the d et focused more on the downtown area has really come at kind of the perfect time um we continue to get a lot of reports and complaints about the behavior of the homeless population and the aftermath of it it's having a pretty negative impact on uh existing businesses as well as potential new tenants um it feels like a lot of the larger issues we're trying to solve and tackle are also tied to figuring out how to better manage this situation so it really remains kind of front and center for us um we had there's there's a a lot going on downtown right now and trying to bring in um some new markets and events to the square and we had someone visiting last week we were having a meeting on the square uh while we had an incident between uh one of the homeless people and um our our local bike gang which has become kind of an additional ongoing issue that we're grateful for d et to be supporting um it was an island and it was a very upsetting and the fact that we had someone who was visiting to look at railroad square for a potential large event or in front of railroad square sorry it's not that early in morning um to look at courthouse square for a large event um you know it was it was bad timing but it's also kind of just the reality of being downtown right now um we're hoping that the bike the bike kids will disperse a little bit as school starts but um their behavior has been aggressive and rude they're causing problems for our business owners they're very um dangerous they you know ride right into traffic they kind of play chicken with cars they antagonize people walking down the street i mean it's it's uh not all of them but when there's you know three kids in a group of 20 who are really causing um causing problems and there's 20 kids surrounding them it does feel very intimidating and make people uncomfortable um so it's it's just been an added challenge this summer as you know great public kids are outside and having a good time but the behaviors become increasingly concerning um so moving on to uh what our our committee has committees have been up to i'm really actively trying to support all aspects of the downtown i think everyone knows that our ad hoc group worked really hard to try and help encourage the supervisors to select downtown as a location and they're hoping to remain involved in the process as the plans move forward and really help as much as possible um to make the transition to downtown um seamless and and easy for uh for the county our business development ad hoc committee has been working on a a sales step to promote downtown as a place to bring new business and hopefully we'll have that done by the year end um but working with some of our great volunteers to help make that happen our design improvement committee has been talking through a variety of projects and including potentially installing some additional lighting on 4th street um we're also which is a bit of a challenge because the lighting that we have installed already um is continually vandalized and it's not inexpensive to fix so um just another one of the issues that that we're facing which is trying to beautify and then dealing with um the the vandalism that occurs downtown and having to manage and cover the cost of that it it does limit what we can do moving forward but we we still have plans to remove and plant trees later this year i think our our situation is a little easier than railroad squares because we don't have the the concrete work that needs to be done um but we are very cognizant of the fact that we're in a drought it takes a lot of water to get trees going so we're we're waiting until we have a little bit of a better uh weather report hopefully in the less hot months um maybe with some rain to make it easier for us to do that without um kind of being irresponsible in the community since since it is some of the trees need to be removed because they're dead but it really is a beautification project um and then finally our community engagement committee um which is actually meeting later today uh that they've been focusing on open and out uh we raised over 40 000 dollars to put everything on this summer so big thanks to Sonoma Clean Power who sponsored our movie nights we had four of those over the course of July um i think we probably had 125 to probably 225 every night so it was a pretty good attendance on the square really nice to see people coming downtown with families and um kind of braving the what were very cold evenings and windy evenings to enjoy the movie um and then also Poppy Bank took on our our presenting sponsors so they've really enabled us to put all of the event on we we still have music three days a week we have two different markets that have been in the square and then we've got two more coming up in the fall um we had the downtown showdown last week which was a bartender battle between local restaurants which was a lot of fun people really got a kick out of that we also have bingo going on the last day is Monday so we've got great prizes to give away for everyone who's participating you can pick up bingo cards from um any of the businesses that have bingo signs in their window uh we've also been hosting some fitness classes and um have one final event coming up in September um end of end of summer block party where we're going to be bringing in bands and entertainers and encouraging our merchants and restaurants to bring everything out onto the sidewalk and do fun specials for the community so um working on kind of finalizing plans for that at the same time is um getting ready for our Halloween event as well we've done a bit of advertising in the pd and online and using social media um but most of the funds have really been invested in the actual events on square um we did a little bit of beautification to just temporary stuff we put some colorful lights in on the 500 block so those are solar powered we'll be able to take them down and put them back up every summer so that was a fun little addition uh that block remains closed um it's going to be closed until the permanent parklet program goes into place which i think is still on track for the fall um and then as soon as that um as soon as that is is finalized and our businesses have determined if they're going to have the permanent spaces that that street is going to reopen to traffic uh yeah so it's been a busy summer and as i said we're we're starting to talk about our Halloween event which is going to be on friday october 29th um we're going to have a dj costume contest trick or treating at the businesses um possibly a movie and some carnival activities we're going to finalize all of that later today so i'll look forward to sharing details about that in september um and then we are also moving forward with this aesthetic ice rink for the square i would say we're about 90 percent i'll give us an i'll give us 95 percent um ready to go with that project it'll probably operate for about eight weeks from mid november through early january that's going to be part of the chamber's winter lights event we've got um the actual winter lights tree lighting it's going to happen again that's the same date it's always been friday after thanksgiving um and then we'll have hopefully two markets two kind of craft and art markets taking place over the course of the winter lights season as well um and then i've got my fingers crossed that with the ice rink we'll have some a variety of ice performances too so i think it'll be it'll be really fun and festive we've started talking to some of our our partners who who volunteered with us before and supported us and i think we've got some fun plans coming into place for um both halloween and uh the holiday season too so lots going on downtown um and uh i've seen i've seen some of you out and about and i'm hoping that we'll kind of start to be able to keep things going as they are now i know it's as chris mentioned it's a little bit tentative at this time but um i think we've got a lot of good enthusiasm and hopefully we can just keep encouraging the community to come down and creating events that are um interesting and engaging for them too i think that's it for me okay thanks cadence uh any questions from council and staff i'm going to include rafael uh in this that's all right i don't have any questions just congratulations cadence and all the people that are involved in continuing all of these activities in the face of challenges in doing it downtown it's just a lot there's a lot going on and that's what it takes for our successful downtown so excellent work keep up the good work and keep the faith things will uh the community um will ultimately start to discover if they haven't already uh all those things going on downtown so keep up the good work thank you yeah now i'll echo some of that as well um yeah you know cadence your i i mean it's it's beyond believe everything you've been able to accomplish along with your you know very small staff and uh your volunteers and your committees all i hear about is positive things regarding downtown so good job thanks rafael okay let's go to turn to public comment for item 3.2 are there any members of the public wishing to speak at this time i should say that if you're calling in by zoom uh use the raise hand feature or if by phone star nine we do have a caller um it is caller 0897 um if you could hold just one moment while i um pull up the timer for you and uh caller 0897 if you would like to unmute you will have three minutes morning can everybody hear me yes okay uh this is bernie from california luggage and i just wanted to circle back to the bike issue uh courthouse square seems to be a magnet for the bike kids as well as for skate kids and it's not uncommon to see skateboarders using the square furniture for some of their props and stunts and i'm just wondering what the ordinances are and certainly enforcing them because would maybe be impossible without a permanent you know babysitting enforcement officer but what are the ordinances prohibiting or allowing skating and um and biking in the square that's a general question for ukians or sergeant wolf or anybody who might know so bernie we can't engage in the back and forth during uh public comment but we can get back to you okay that's good enough for me thank you and you know and through the mayor or the our chair um we will have under the public safety update uh jeff travers coming up next you might there he may or may not have information on the on what we can and cannot do regarding the square on the next item thank you okay um madam secretary do you see any other public comment at this time either live or recorded we have no additional raised hands and uh no um voicemails or emails for the item either okay um i guess i'll i'll bring it back now to the subcommittee um john any last questions or comments no okay i guess i will ask uh officer travers if you are listening could you help address bernie's question about ordinances that exists that could prohibit skateboarding or bicycling on the square absolutely so we do have ordinances that prohibit you from skateboarding riding throwing a ball there's a lot a lot of ordinances there are no no pets um but what we've tried to do is just balance uh enforcement and education especially since um there are a lot of those kids who are trying to follow rules we have a handful of troublemakers that you know want to instigate and ride into traffic and so uh what we've been trying to do is just go out and talk with them and create those those contacts and relationships and um it seems like when we make our contact let's just say it's on a tuesday afternoon they'll just clear out they know we're there they know we've talked to them um they're pretty adept on kind of leaving when we're there so uh going forward we're talking with traffic and we're going to try to devise a strategy to maybe single out those who are our troublemakers and then find a way to address their behavior with their parents so that is something we're working on um but it puts us in a weird spot because we don't want to put ourselves in a position when now we're chasing down you know a juvenile on a bike and he gets hit by a car or he falls off his bike and gets hurt and then you know we've uh put ourselves in a position where that someone's got hurt over an infraction right so it's kind of a delicate matter for us as far as enforcement especially with the current political climate but we are talking with traffic we do have a what I think is a pretty good idea um so I'm hoping in the next couple of weeks we'll be able to implement that and we'll be able to get some of the um agitators held responsible for some of these dangerous behaviors especially you know going in and out of traffic and uh the fighting and things like that so we're aware of it uh we're working on what we think is going to be a sustainable approach towards them and hopefully like kanda said when we get back to school we'll see less uh the crowd size at least go down a bit awesome thanks officer travers appreciate that update Rafael do you have a question or yes if I may real quick yes there is an ordinance that applies to just a downtown and uh it prohibits uh bicyclists and skateboarders to be riding their skateboard and bike uh on city on downtown city sidewalks and I'm not so sure if it includes a square uh there is some signage uh which is a little outdated or old um spread out through some areas of downtown you sometimes see it you sometimes don't they're very small but it does exist so um I don't have the uh the number of that particular ordinance in front of me but we do it does exist thank you Mr. Rivera um I'll just make a quick comment on the bicyclists and the skateboarding stuff uh officer travers speaking for myself I appreciate the approach that you're taking I don't think that you know hot pursuits should be occurring over an infraction especially kids uh being kids uh that said you know I will be paying more attention to what their impact on downtown is so I think for now uh if you could keep doing what you're doing trying to observe and identify who your problem uh folks are and just approaching them carefully is probably the way to go and if you can engage their parents even better but if you could continue to keep us updated on this we don't want it to to grow into an issue and and you know speaking in defense of uh the dao and cadence and some of the other people who observe this I have too sitting downtown and seeing some of the chicken stuff going on I can see myself doing that as a kid but um I I am afraid that you know one of those kids could get hurt that way too so we obviously have to be cognizant of that council member sloyer thanks jet um you know I didn't I became involved in a in a part of this and I didn't realize how organized it was I thought it was just a few kids kind of dry writing in and out of traffic and being um just kind of uh what irresponsible because I thought I was going to be hit and then someone on a bicycle you know they hit your car they're not they're not injured they may not even fall down and then they're gone and so there is a there is a public safety issue of course connected to this behavior the the question of course is being able to um what approach the the perpetrator uh and by the time you're by the time any one of authority is there they're gone but I I was not aware that it was that it was more organized or that it now it appears that it's it isn't just this wasn't just a one-time shot that I experienced that this is more that it is more organized and that it is um some bad players that are um producing some pretty intimidating behavior so it does does give me pause and I appreciate the police department's awareness of it and the and and also cadence uh your organization's awareness of it at all I just said this is this is news to me that it's so organized thank you thanks John one more comment for me I suspect uh Officer Travers if you could slap one two or three of them with a pretty steep infraction their parents will deal with it and then the rest of those kids will will get the message um so hopefully that's the way it can go but go ahead well some of them you know some of it is um like Sawyer said um Councilman Sawyer there's some some misdemeanors that are occurring when they're going in that track and some of that could be considered reckless you know behavior and so um obviously I don't want anybody to get in trouble but I do feel like if we can get to position where someone's held accountable I feel like it's going to spread throughout that group and they may uh find more appropriate places like the skate park and in areas that um you know are built for that kind of thing so our approach I think is going to be pretty good I think we have a pretty good idea then like I said we're really hoping the parents because I'm sure a lot of them are unaware of how dangerous some of the stuff is you know doing the wheelies going in and out of traffic in front of cars going the opposite way like it's uh some of stuff's really really really dangerous and we want to try to get a handle on it before someone gets hurt so we are working on it and I look forward to having some kind of update in future meetings thanks officer travers appreciate you with that said let's move on to your update item 3.3 public safety update make a change we shifted some of our encampment responsibilities around the city to putting our teams back town downtown I feel like we are seeing a really big improvement in just the amount of hangarounds that were there we've been doing a lot of citations and arrests especially at Comstock mall we've had an uptick of people there so we've been addressing problems there it looked like the subjects from Triangle Park we're going to try to settle a new encampment at Fremont Park but we were able to kind of get a handle on that specifically through narcotic arrests and violation of robations and some of the behaviors we don't want so near a school a church and a restaurant you know there's residential there so we've made a lot of ground there in the last two weeks so we're going to keep our focus downtown and I feel like the efforts are going to pay off for us making this switch from encampments to refocusing on downtown great thank you so much councilmember Sawyer do you have any questions okay seeing seeing none um mr. Rivera do you have any questions um or comments I don't I um like I thought maybe you also wanted to hear an update on the side shows and some surveillance matters and quickly just to go back to the whole bicycle thing there's also California state law requiring that the kids even if they're at the age of under 18 required to wear a bicycle helmet so they can also decide it for something like that as well so well on surveillance real quick I do have just a brief update I did speak to our IT director Eric McHenry and currently the city doesn't have a an existing policy regarding surveillance however there's been some efforts in the past to to bring such policy to the council for review and potential approval this goes back to 2006 where there was an interest to expand the surveillance program throughout the city but mainly in public areas so this is definitely an item that we could add on to the agenda for a future meeting and have further discussion and invite our IT director the way it works is that the cameras are configurated and not monitored but configurated and and install and control by the by the IT team but they are purchased by the various departments here throughout the city and then in terms of monitoring it's a responsibility of those departments to do the monitoring so again like I said it's definitely a topic that we could expand on and continue the discussion and perhaps go back and revisit some of the work that was done back in 2006 with our good friend Brian Ferrell who was a assistant city attorney at the time and then some other work that was research and eventually put together and some memos and such thinking for myself if that research has already been done and a lot of the legwork has been put in is there a presentation that was created back in 06 that could be brought I think the next appropriate step would be is to bring that presentation to this subcommittee before moving it to council I'm not a verse moving it to council assuming council member Sawyer still wants to he brought this item but I'd almost like to have the presentation here if possible and also get our get input from our police officers as well about how this could help or hurt their work I think we got some input from sergeant wolf at our last meeting but I'd be curious to see how this could complement their efforts downtown council member Sawyer no I totally agree and as I remember given that I was around at that time the ACLU had some issues around cameras but given the when I when I heard there was vandalism on the lights in the square that's disturbing to me I mean I think that there is definitely a role that that cameras can play and I think that they would that that concept would gain support for the council but putting it before this committee would be a great idea so we can give them a fairly comprehensive recommendation so that we are you know we're prepared to answer their questions I think that would be a great idea jack just so that we you know kind of vet it in this group first get input from from the dao and then and then move potentially after after comments from the police department moving to the council for for a for a recommendation because it will probably at least it did before generate a fair amount of conversation whether that would be the case now given we now have a new square that we're that we are looking to protect and we have a higher incidence of of unfortunate behavior by some of our unhoused population so the the landscape has changed and I think it would be valuable to have that conversation again and thank you Mr. Rivera for actually looking into that and bringing that back I think it would be great to get that presentation if you can get your hands on it yes I'll circle back to Mr. McKenry and briefing on on this outcome and see what we can do and then eventually I generalize the item and then hopefully provide that presentation so yes it's an interesting topic so terrific thank you and you said you had an update on these side shows as well oh no I I do not so oh okay for Sergeant Wolfways in here this week but I thought office drivers was going to provide an update on side shows perhaps yeah so I did pull data I had our analysts pull data on just traffic complaints for the entire beat of nine and we had a very low amount I think we had four calls for service that were traffic related one was a traffic accident one was a DUI and we had a suspicious vehicle and then we had a beyond the lookout so we didn't have any reports of any sideshow activity in the square and even in the immediate downtown area at least June 20th through today I had her put the report yesterday so if it is occurring people aren't reporting it haven't gotten any feedback from the businesses that's been an issue recently so we'll keep an eye on it but at this point I don't have any information or indication that it's occurring downtown in any regular interval thanks officer travers we did we did bring it up as a topic of discussion here because it was either Chris or cadence had brought it up and I had been downtown and thought I've seen it happen twice downtown but it's actually it became more of a concern of this this committee also just as it pertains to the wider city you know we're hearing about all these police resources kind of getting dispatched over to Roseland where there's been a lot over the last few months a lot of the residents over there are complaining so even though it's it's somewhat outside of the purview for us to opine on what's going on in in Roseland we still wanted to try to put some meat on the bones of an ordinance that would help I guess reduce police resources to sideshows and kind of increase public reporting on it the idea was along the lines of a reward system for somebody who captured the image of a license plate and sent it into the police department or a video of it happening because everybody is taking videos from what I can tell when when these start occurring so creating financial assess assessment for public reporting and then police follow-up so we spoke with sergeant wolf he said it's very hard to enforce these because when when you arrive on scene it's typically over and despite the fact that it's happened and folks don't really have an incentive to hand over any video evidence that could be used to impose accountability so that's that's what we're interested in looking at but maybe mr. Rivera if we could follow up with sergeant wolf or I might just reach out directly to the chief about it and ask him who's the best person in the department does anybody even have time is it a captain to be looking into this but I think it's still pretty important your tip is if I may so and then quickly be regarding Roseland the the sideshows have slowed down quite a bit if we compare them to the the months of May and June we did schedule a couple of meetings with the tenant conqueror the new sergeant the new sergeant of the area and many of the merchants so we they could bring awareness and know who to call in the event of size side chose and such but there's been a decrease definitely and the centers of PD has also stepped up patrolling the area and the speed radar trailers have been deployed at various locations now that they do very much but they do deter you know some of this bad behavior at times oh good well I'm glad to hear that thank you all right oh councilmember sloyer it just briefly know that some of these things can behave like fads and maybe that's part of some of the some of the reduction anyway I was just as a side note I was watching television the other night and there was a commercial for dodge and they were using as part of their advertising campaign a dodge in the middle of a single side show and I was kind of I mean I was a little shocked well I shouldn't be given what it comes across television these days but to use an illegal behavior as a way to sell a car seemed to be just beyond the pale I was taken aback it was you know it was clear what they were saying is if you want to put on a good show by a dodge and it was just I was just you know just thought I'd throw that out there there are there are large corporations encouraging the behavior and that's really unfortunate thank you councilmember sloyer we'll move to public comment on item 3.3 public safety update are there any members of the public wishing to speak at this time yes there are gig hypo hold on just one moment and we'll allow you to unmute yes to hear me we hear you hi it's gig hi down the bourbon gardens neighborhood just want to give a quick update on our neighborhood watch which is always active we do have a core group of individuals who stay vigilant but this year we have been able to get a lot of other residents to help when needed we use next door and emails and people have been coming in helping us and it's been very effective we use nonviolent conflict resolution and the more people who help us the better it does so we've been able to keep the graffiti down whenever that occurs which is continuous it's removed immediately and then the taggers don't they get discouraged and don't repeat until the next one comes along but it's way down from what it used to be so that's good news we I don't have like formal data but it does seem like bicycle thefts are down and thefts of packages of porches are also seem to be down so that's good have not seen any drug dealers no prostitutes people tripping on meth still happens but it seems like less than before have not seen any people nodding out on heroin and we have of course there's homeless people coming in new transients but we have not as much as I expected for this summer so you know they they come and they go as far as encampments we have had some issues but that's where we we all teamed up together and prevented that from happening so we've been very effective about that and so between Juilliard Park neighborhood and Burbank Gardens neighborhood Juilliard Park is just looking beautiful families strolling around with children singles women by themselves dog walkers joggers kinsignera photos it's it's just really a good scene a happy scene and we're staying on top of everything so um you know come on down check it out that's it thank you thanks gig madam secretary do we have any others wishing to speak at this time we have no additional hands raised at this time okay great bringing it back to the subcommittee any last questions or comments seeing none we'll move on to item 3.4 maintenance of courthouse square update Tim Finnegan parks crew superintendent good morning good morning um board chair tidbits and councilmember Sawyer um like to say uh first of all thank you to the railroad square association and the downtown association for the volunteers and the work that everybody's putting in the painting the graffiti um it's definitely helped out um our crews um you know maintain the areas because they can now hope do a little bit more um more fine fine tuning of the areas and um be able to concentrate on other areas that definitely need help as well so I just want to say thank you to all that work um and as a department we want to um support those activities wherever we can so you can reach out to me or our parks crew so they can get me the information um we definitely want to support the volunteers and what they're trying to do because again with them helping us out it just allows us to be able to focus on other other areas so whatever we can do to help out please feel free to reach out to our department and to me um we've been able to do continue on our weekly cleanings of the area courthouse square and other park areas um we have been continuing our weekly graffiti abatement down the greenway last month we spent 80 hours um cleaning graffiti on the greenway of that 30 hours was doing some pressure washing where that uh where we couldn't get it off uh doing it the old-fashioned way of scrubbing it um so we are staying up on that um next month um we will be uh getting back to hopefully doing a more regular um cleaning of the square with a pressure washer um currently pressure washing is still allowed under the current guidelines of our drought as long as it involves the safety aspect of it and uh we did get clarification from the water department that cleaning disinfecting is a safety issue so we are still able to do that as things change that might change that but we are still able to um do pressure washing and collecting the water um given the certain uh given the current uh drought conditions um we are uh going to be able to um start doing again more regular scheduled maintenance of things we have finished up our our weed abatement our fire related weed abatement across the city um there's still some spots that we need to get back to and do a little bit of touch up but that's going to allow some of our crews to get back into their regular duties on a more regular basis and so we will be able to schedule some of these things that we've done in the past um moving forward um with that you know now with that being completed now our focus has changed to uh the drought and and the water usage within our parks courthouse square and the surrounding parks um we have been able to to keep an eye on our irrigation and do the adjustments um we've been getting a lot of support from the water efficiency department in the water um they have been um able to give us advice and give us some guidance and help us deal with a few problems that we've been having in our in our parks irrigation um and the water department they have a a remote sensor that will automatically inform us or inform them which will in turn inform us of any waste of water so or any continuous use of water so we can address those as soon as possible so that which allows us you know to be more efficient with our water and still provide some green turf um and in our in our parks courthouse square depot park in the surrounding parks so it's been a great um they've been a great support to us in that effort um and hopefully we can hold the line if you will um it's not going to get any easier in the next few months but we are definitely uh going to do everything we can to keep the turf um healthy and looking green as long as we have water to do it with um so it's been something that again our focus and attention has been towards that so as soon as we learn about problems or or know that we can make some improvements we're right on it looking forward um we are going to be scheduling um some cone removal from the bunny bunny trees and courthouse square as well as depot park um that's done every few years and um it's it's coming due again so we will be getting that scheduled uh coming up in the next month and I will I will inform the group um or the the uh the two associations when that happens or when that's scheduled and make sure it's not going to interfere with any events and so forth um that might be scheduled so that's going to be happening here in the next uh next month um part planning uh Jen Santos has started um looking at and and putting together a um a redesign for Fremont Park um it's just in the in the beginning stages um she has met with possible design designers um to get their ideas and feedback um that's just in the beginning so I don't necessarily have a lot of information on that other than the process has started um they are looking at designers and getting some concepts down and I'm sure she'll be reaching out to the public uh for for comments and input once things start getting more um more firmed up and um something on a piece of paper to start the the conversations but that has started in which is which would be great because that part did take a big hit from the encampment from last year and we just it's just at this point given the work that needs to be done on it redesigning and and and making those things function like the way they're supposed to be this is probably the best thing for that park um so um it is still on the queue um to do the tree work at depot park it's still on my list so um as we get funds and time to be able to do that work that will that will that will happen um a lot of our tree priorities have been emergency tree work um and things of hazard and um so we will look at whether again what we if we can do that internally with our staff not having a tree crew but being able at least do some of the work and then if if that doesn't transpire then our contractor would be have to be brought in to do it but again that's still on our list of things that need to do as far as tree work as in our parks um and it's interesting that you're talking about the holidays and everything coming up it's um I guess it's that time to start thinking of that so I appreciate the the um the information um on the future plans events of the the tree lighting and so forth and that will be something that will need to be addressed uh moving forward to make sure those all function correctly so there's any questions it's like council members lawyer no questions just thanks great job yeah thank you mr finnegan um seeing no other questions or comments let's move to public comment are there any comments from the public at this time there are no raise hands at this time seeing none we'll bring it back to the committee any final questions comments seeing none uh yes thank you very much mr finnegan appreciate everything that you're doing uh we will move now on to item 3.5 permitted events and public art update tara thompson arts and culture manager good morning chair tibbet and members solier and members of the public and staff um i'm tara thompson arts and culture manager and I can provide a brief update on permitted events in the downtown area as well as the public art program activities in the downtown area so for events since the last downtown subcommittee meeting was held in may the state and county I'm sure as you are all aware have moved beyond the blueprint to your system for reopening and so that meant restrictions on outdoor gatherings were lifted the state only provided guidance for gatherings it called mega events which were defined as having 10,000 or more people at an outdoor event most or if not all of the events that are permitted in the downtown area at least currently are well under that um 10,000 person limit so we um there essentially are no additional guidelines for outdoor events at this time other than to follow whatever current state and local recommendations there are the city so so so that meant that the city resumed issuing special event permits for the larger events shortly thereafter by the end of June and there have been continuing activities of course as cadence mentioned downtown centered in courthouse square under the permit that was issued to the chamber of commerce for the open and out program um the first uh additional event outside of that permit that was permitted was the wahaka in the wine country festival which took place on august 1st and the next permitted large event in the downtown area will be the san rosa marathon taking place on august 28th and 29th and then um the next one on the calendar so far is the out fest wine festival and national coming out day on october 9th and 10th um there may be additional fall events um that we'll get applications for but those are the only ones that we are currently looking at permitting at this time in terms of the arts program i have a few updates there um as i mentioned at the last meeting in may the asawa panels for the fountain in courthouse square uh i i reported on that their material the the original panel material was uh rapidly deteriorating and um threatening the structural integrity even with a proposed steel support structure so at the time there was an interest in um casting the panels and more permanent materials such as bronze we have actually taken those uh next steps working with um our conservator uh the family of ruta sawa and a foundry and engineers as well as the hue fruit trail corporation which is building the fountain all to come to the point of making a recommendation to the art public places committee that the panel should be cast and bronze that recommendation was approved just this week on monday so we are getting closer to being able to see that happen um and i hope to provide more updates soon at the next meeting on our progress there uh in terms of other maintenance and conservation the zag light piece on the pedestrian bridge over the prince memorial greenway creek area was vandalized unfortunately someone actually cut the cables between some of the light um light components so we are working with the artist and a conservator as well as a fabricator to figure out a more vandal proof way to install the piece on the bridge so that should be addressed um sometimes soon with a revised design to keep it safer as than it was originally for the fifth street parking garage project um the three finalist designs are now available to view on our website at srcity.org slash fifth street garage art um you can also get to it by just going to our main site srcity.org slash arts um and there's a link to take the art survey so you can actually look at those three finalist designs and then tell us what you think through the survey and as of today we we've received just a total overwhelming response over 2300 responses to that survey so far um and of course those responses will be considered by the selection panel when identifying the artist to recommend to the art and public places committee for approval um and then lastly for the imagine art and courthouse square project the community engagement process to collect text for the artworks piece um the artwork itself we finally launched that outreach in july and hopefully you've seen some of it the questions that we're asking are meant to prompt responses that will generate the types of words and phrases to be placed on the artwork itself so we worked with an advisory committee to come up with that language and then formatted it into a general survey as well as a youth participation flyer which was distributed to various summer camps um there's also postcards and other social media and email outreach is being done as well the artist and her team is working with the office of community engagement to do targeted outreach to community and neighborhood groups to invite participation that represents the diversity of santa rosa as well one way to participate which is encouraged for everyone on the call as well is to go ahead and take the online survey which you can find at sr city.org slash imagine art um so we anticipate keeping this campaign open for another few weeks and then reconvening our advisory committee to come up with a final um list of words and phrases to be recommended um to the art public places committee and back to the artist so that's my update for today thank you for your time thank you miss thompson any questions from the subcommittee i do jack um i'm curious and thank you tara for your report there's a lot going on as as there always is it's sometimes quiet but it's um speaks loudly about the dedication that we have to art i look forward to um the the murals on the on the parking garages there's really a great record some great um uh what proposals appreciate that i'm curious about the light the the piece on the bridge the light piece on the bridge um does our contract with the um artist require us to continually um to continue to um figure out ways to defend this piece from vandals and as much as i hate to raise the white flag and say the vandals won um maybe is is there do we have an obligation to maintain that piece on at that location and if if if not could we retire the piece for a while until we find a more appropriate spot that is more visible that does not that might not lend itself so much to these crazy vandals that are so um disappointing and um well i have other words for it but um vandalism of this nature especially when it comes to art pieces really gets under my skin so i'm wondering if there might be another appropriate location for this piece that would not be so um uh vulnerable to to vandals and what our contract requires thank you for the question um so the piece was actually just recently less than a year ago installed on its at its current location so the original piece was down by the vineyard creek hotel or now the hyatt hotel as you recall it was privately commissioned it's gone through a long saga of being in disrepair being abandoned not really having anyone claiming ownership over it and so um you know just a few years ago it was essentially adopted into the public art program and funds were put towards relocating it and redesigning it to be put on the bridge that it's on now which is right right near prince gateway park so closer it's a little bit more visible there's more eyes on it there still have been a lot of you know activity in that area that i think um is is maybe related to its vandalism you know the splash pad hasn't been open there hasn't been like the family presence i think that we we were all all kind of hoping would return i think those are some of the just considerations there however the artist designed the piece specifically for the pedestrian bridge and so we we were hoping that that location would be better than its original location on an identical bridge much farther down the greenway where there's less eyes on it so those were all definitely considerations originally when we relocated it but as i said it was just installed just under a year ago at this location with a much more substantial installation system than the original but obviously still not adequate the contract with the artist essentially obligates the city to offer back to the artist the opportunity to assist in repairing the piece should it need repair but we can also opt to work with our conservator our conservation firm or or in tandem do them kind of collaboratively i think that in this case we want to take that approach to make sure that the conservators are coming up with the most essentially bulletproof way of keeping it on that bridge in that location so that we can we can hopefully only need to do you know regular cleaning and other kind of normal maintenance as we move forward so the actual approach we're looking at at this point is extruding a certain type of metal channel that each light component would fit in with every single cable and connection covered underneath the channel and then attaching that to the bridge so there's nothing exposed whatsoever it should be rather vandal proof at that point extremely vandal proof at that point but we have some prototypes to kind of work out and figure out if that approach is going to work so yes i understand your concerns and suggestions i think that at this point we are committed to keeping the piece there we just want to make sure that the approach we take right now will last on into the future well i appreciate that and there may be you know in in the years that follow today an opportunity especially with the possibility of daylighting santa rosa creek there may be a bridge that is right in the center of of our kind of our 3p project ultimately potentially with our city hall project and having another bridge in the future that that might well deserve that kind of attention and that kind of artwork so a good luck on this next endeavor in trying to protect the piece what concerns me i guess is is throwing good money after bad and if if if we find that that that are regardless of our best efforts to protect that piece which is a is a nice piece of art i mean it's it's a fun piece that i think it delights many but it given when it's down because of vandalism it just kind of breaks my heart so well i'm more than happy to to give a thumbs up on on on trying yet once again to protect this piece but if we if we find that this is not successful i would very much like to have a conversation about the future placement even if even if it is retired for a period of time waiting for for that that perfect spot i'd like to have that conversation because i i if we were to add up all the time and energy and and and resources that have been placed to both repair and maintenance of that piece i would i would be probably very disappointed by that number so it's just just something to think about in the future that maybe it needs a new it might ultimately need a new home and i'd like to have that conversation when the time comes if necessary thank you understood appreciated sure thank you john all right let's take public comment on this item we do have a public comment um it's jay kaito hold on just one moment um thank you are able to um be heard at this time yes um just a quick question actually for tower i know you can't go back and forth but maybe tower could comment after um i've had someone asked me well how do you find out what of what the events are happening in courthouse square so my question is is the marketing and promotion of the events is that strictly the responsibility of the of the event coordinator or are there any public or social media or any kind of media outlets where you can find out what's happening at the courthouse square that's all thank you any other public comment um i apologize uh there are no additional hands raised at this time okay i'll bring it back to the subcommittee um i actually see that a council member sorrier has stepped away so and i need to as well so i'm going to just call a quick recess to make sure we have quorum um so let's recess until 945 does that work for you madam secretary it does thank you thank you we're back so i believe we completed public comment at this time um i will ask for it one more time just to be safe are there any members of the public wishing to speak on this item we have no additional raised hands at this time okay thank you so much bringing back to the subcommittee um council member sorrier mr revero do either of you have any questions or follow-up comments nothing at this time okay thanks very much let's move on to our next item that is item 3.6 uh parking program update kim nato parking manager morning everybody um i wanted to start out by thanking tara and her team work on the art project at the fifth street garage we are super excited about that project coming to fruition um looking back on june 22nd council approved extending the existing parking free reductions through december 31st of this year as cadence had mentioned i just wanted to remind folks that that means the first hour is free in all five garages garage parking is free after 5 p.m monday through friday garage parking is free on saturday and sundays we also have a free mobile payment parking session where you can receive a credit of up to three dollars and fifteen cents uh value using the passport parking app at a parking meter and using the code park sr and lastly um meter reservation fees are waived for temporary parklets and all of that does come at a cost to the parking fund the estimated revenue reduction for the last fiscal year due to these parking discounts is four hundred and fifty five thousand dollars and an additional four hundred thousand dollars is projected in revenue losses through the end of this year our operation and maintenance expenditures exceeded revenues last fiscal year by one point three million dollars dropping the available fund down fund balance to six point six million on june 30th of 2021 parking activity has been slowly rebounding since february when restrictions um began to ease june and july have been the best months for parking activity since covid hit um transactions are down 38 over pre-covid numbers permit sales are down by about a third and revenue is down 40 compared to pre-covid um times the fund balance is expected to drop to five million on june 30th of 2022 and um as i've noted before there are over 20 million dollars in identified cip projects over the next eight to ten years so um there was going to be a need to find additional revenue in order to fund those projects to extend the life of the parking assets and speaking of extending the life of those assets we do have a garage repair work underway right now in four of our garages uh those those projects were identified in the tenure asset management plan which is conducted and provided by a structural engineering firm that specializes in garages this work is expected to be done in october and we're also moving forward with elevator modern modernization at the first street garage and then we also have new parking equipment that's going in the garages the gates the payment equipment the the back office to all of that the work is complete at the seventh street garage in the fifth street garage and is more than halfway completed at the d street garage next up will be the third street garage which uh is going to require that garage to be closed for a brief period of time it'll be closed on august 21st and 22nd because of the design of that garage there's only one entrance and one exit lane um so it makes it impossible for them to do work in the lanes without closing the garage we have notified all the permit holders and have also coordinated with cadence so the metro chamber is aware of that closure as well and with that i'd like to turn it over to kevin Buchanan who is the admin analyst for parking who is going to give a short presentation on the validation options that are available with our new equipment and then i mean i can either take questions now or we can wait until after kevin is done and then to answer any questions that you may have take kevin's presentation great thanks okay thanks hi everyone my name is kevin Buchanan i'm the admin analyst in parking go ahead and next slide please the parking division has been offering a validation coupon swap for businesses that have our at this point now old validation tickets that we've been selling for years these are the 100 pack of magnetic stripe based tickets that businesses can buy and hand to parkers to validate their parking we recognize with all the shelter in place restrictions that happened last year that you know businesses haven't had a chance to probably use those validations which which have expired probably at this point so we've been reaching out to businesses that have purchased from us and have been coordinating with the metro chamber who also buys a lot of these validation coupons but if any business is listening and they have some in their store or in their office we are swapping them out free of charge if they expired in march of 2020 or more recently and our contact information is there so we're happy to work with businesses on that next slide as as kim mentioned this garage project has left us in a bit of an in between state right now because the old magnetic vouchers that we have been selling for years and years are now only working in the third and first street garages and the new equipment is based on a barcode voucher so the seventh fifth and D street garages essentially have a new type of voucher and so it could be confusing for a parker because they could inadvertently get the wrong voucher at this point because we're not fully transitioned to the new type and so we're happy to talk to businesses kind of about about this situation in the next month or so we should have all of the garages on our new equipment and then the magnetic vouchers at that point won't work anywhere and everything would be on this new barcode voucher go ahead and next slide with this new equipment we do have a new option of validating parking that will be coming up pretty soon here where if businesses want they could work with us to have an online account where they could enter a parkers ticket number through a website and that would validate their ticket. This is a quick screenshot showing just of what the website looks like it's a simple like enter a six-digit number hit submit and it electronically validates a person's ticket. Next slide there oh that's kind of yeah the finish of how to validate go ahead and go the next slide. I wanted to list some of the benefits of why a business may want to consider that number one you can't inadvertently lose an online validation for both the customer and the business I don't know if any businesses have bought our hundred packs and then misplaced them and basically lost those validations. Also I think there are situations where a business may hand a parker a validation because they want to validate someone's parking but because of all of the current free parking options in garages a parker may not actually need that validation and so one benefit of the online validation is if you enter their ticket number and then the parker goes to leave and they leave during free periods of time your account isn't charged and so you you only really are charged when a person needs to pay to leave. Also since this is just kind of putting money into an account we are able to refund that back to businesses and there's a lot of options for each business to customize how much they want to validate whether that's one dollar which is kind of the typical tickets that people hand out now or you could do an all-day validation or really anything in between and and also when you do it online you have access to reports to see you know usage of of issuing these online validations so that's kind of a coming soon in the next couple of months once all of the garages are available if there are any businesses that that sounds appealing please reach out to us and we can begin discussing how to do that I'm sure we'll be giving more information to the Metro Chamber and our our kind of heavy validation users in the coming months on that next slide and kim mentioned this but there are some other ways to validate one is businesses can work directly with our mobile payment provider passport to validate any parker who uses the passport that is something that we would kind of help put a business in touch with passport to do and then as kim mentioned there's the park sr promo code that's available as a one-time discount for people who are using the passport app so that concludes my presentation and I'll go and there thank you Kevin any questions from the subcommittee not yet I figure I'll have some member in the future but nothing yet okay let's uh graph I only questions comments on this item thank you Kevin all right let's take public comment we do have one hand raised for public comment one moment Lynn you will be able to speak do you see the timer on your screen okay okay your time starts now okay first I'd like to say kudos to the gentleman that was reporting on Burbank Gardens Association I just want to say the uh Juilliard park looks great and it feels very welcoming so kudos to what those neighbors are doing um regarding parking I believe people have been trained to stay away from downtown to shop and dine elsewhere in the evening because they have to pay to park during the day free parking is readily available everywhere but downtown we dined at the full lawful restaurant on 4th street last Friday night and while we were there we saw at most 20 people walk by and this was Friday night on 4th street in the summer in a beautiful evening of course we want to tip the balance and bring paying customers downtown until we do homeless and the bicycle gangs will continue to occupy which is what they're doing and they are driving regular people away I believe the way to reverse this is to liberate downtown make parking free all day and welcome people back to the heart of our city thank you there are no other hands raised for public comment okay seeing no other hands raised I'll bring it back to the subcommittee for any final questions or comments I'll make one quick comment it is not entirely related to the subject matter but I think it is just enough to make it and that is director Nido one thing that would be great is if this subcommittee could get a comprehensive look at your department's budget I don't I don't know how councilmember Sawyer feels about it but the way that I feel is that we get a lot of information and a lot of requests from the public to to delay instituting fees or rollback fees and you've been really amazing in my opinion at responding to the public's need but I feel like I've been hearing more about deferred maintenance costs costs to the fund balance and and requests from the public that I would I'm starting to feel a little bit uncomfortable and I just need that kind of edification that comprehensive look at the parking department to see what is or isn't there in terms of what we're able to do in the future and and what I'd like is that it doesn't have to be necessarily the next meeting because I know you've got a lot on your plate but sometime in over the course of the next few months just getting a presentation on what your your anticipated expenses are versus income and fund balance and deferred maintenance and the reason why I would ask for it here is so that members of the downtown of the public can get that information also um councilmember Sawyer are you unmuted yeah so thanks jack I I think this would be of the appropriate um committee to see a um an overview kind of and as simplistic as it as it can be because it is complex people oftentimes our residents mentioned the word free parking that is an oxymoron even in Montgomery Village the merchants all pay for the parking that is free um they all pay through their rent and their assessments so um you know it's the deferred maintenance has to be paid somehow if it's not paid by the users which it currently is is paid by the general public uh and put on and put on the general fund so um we're paying for it one way or another and right now our model is that the users pay for the parking and those meters um subsidize the garages of which we have five and um they're expensive to maintain there's no other city in this county that has this one city has one garage that's Petaluma um otherwise no no there are no garages in Sonoma County other than the ones in Santa Rosa so even having some basic knowledge about why we charge for parking would be perhaps a a good um a good reason to have a an item on our on our agenda um one could speak for days about the challenges and the realities of parking um and why we have to charge and why we've been charging for decades so if we could get a kind of an overview of of of why we charge where the money goes word comes from how we use it um I think that would be is as many we we can never say it enough and we've said it many many times but but there's always value educating the community about why we charge for parking in downtown Santa Rosa one of these days people it will be just it will no longer be an irritant it'll just be part of what we do uh like when we go to large popular cities and have to pay for parking um but we don't have that that that energy yet in our downtown like San Francisco does for instance we are hardly San Francisco nor do we want to be so um I think a kind of a parking 101 would be a valuable item on our agenda in the future when we could put together something that is easily digestible um and understandable to the community um I know I I believe it would be valuable and and like the the individual that just made their comments about the you know making parking free in downtown Santa Rosa um like I said it it's never completely free you know someone's going to pay for it one way or another so um education is is key when it comes to understanding our realities when it comes to parking thank you councilmember Sawyer um thank you director nado and mr b canon we're going to move on uh to our next and final item which I believe is you mr Rivera on day and time change I guess so um it came to our attention that uh Thursdays um are sometimes a little bit difficult uh in terms of uh conduct in this meeting so there is some appetite to entertain the meeting on Tuesdays or switching it to Tuesdays and um I understand that uh councilmember Fleming is in support of that so I wanted to get a temperature check in regards to the possibility of switching these meetings to Tuesdays uh I understand that as a city council the presentations and meetings and such uh but entertaining the meetings on Tuesdays could potentially sort of fail the the rest of your day uh if we do hold them uh early enough um starting possibly at 8 30 I defer to John I'm good with whatever time yeah I'm okay with the change have we uh spoken to the rest of the affected staff to see how Tuesdays work for them we have not but I'll um get the communication out there with the proposed uh change and see what the temperature is and then I will uh communicate with you it doesn't necessarily mean that we would start immediately meaning next month but uh we could potentially see that date change in the next couple of months or so in the next upcoming meetings so I'll definitely keep you up to date and email you and let you know how uh the response has been but uh I think most of the people will be flexible to doing so on Tuesdays I mean there are never perfect days or times for meetings and we all are faced with conflicts on occasion so um I'm more than happy to to give this a give the change a shot uh and see if we can relieve some of the pressure on those that are that find it difficult to to make it on on on the Thursday so I'm I'm I'm more than more than willing to to consider the change thank you thank you John um thank you Mr Rivera I uh I'm fine with Tuesdays but I think John brings up a good point we should talk to you know all of your contemporaries to make sure that it's not a double whammy you know if they've got to give a presentation to us and also the council later in the day um but happy to support whatever you need thank you so much all right everybody I am pretty sure that wraps up the meeting let me take yep it does uh we're on to item four adjournment thanks to everyone for being here today have a great day