 Okay, so I know Victoria is going to be joining us a little bit late. She's on another meeting right now. Yes Yes, and other than that we are ready to go whenever you are Very well, then we'll go ahead and call this meeting to order and again just as in the past meetings This will be a virtual meeting based on the COVID-19 pandemic that we've got going on so We're all doing this remotely and again members of the public wishing to speak during public comment or during any of our items You're encouraged to use the raised hand feature on your zoom or if you're calling by phone by pressing star 9 and and you'll be allowed to make comments then so let's go ahead and We give our roll call again. I'm here as well as council member Sawyer Vice mayor Fleming will be joining us shortly as soon as she's off another meeting as well So do we have any other announcements for this morning? No, we don't Rafael Rafael are you you should be able to speak? Okay Hi Hey, I'm just making sure we don't making sure we don't have any other announcements before we get on with our regular agenda Morning Good morning, Rafael Okay, let's go ahead and begin with Public comment on items not on the agenda again if you wish to make a comment Please use the raised hand feature on your zoom or if you're calling in by phone Use a start a press star 9 to raise your hand. It will have you make a comment So it looks like we have none. I lean Yes, we are ready to go We have no we have no hands. I apologize It's okay. We've got to manage this thing virtually or we'll get we'll get through it So let's go ahead and move on to our new business our first item for the day is Tara Thompson With permitted events and public arts update. Tar. You should be able to see Thank you. Ily. Good morning. Chair Oliveris and council member Sawyer and everyone I have a brief update today on events as well as public art. I'll start with events We don't have too much to update since our meeting last month Special event permits continue to be suspended through the end of the year at the least Except for certain activities such as open and out and other economic drivers or service Providing types of events that follow current health orders such as a farmers market for instance We did have some news from Iron Man I think I mentioned last time that Iron Man or maybe two times ago that Iron Man will not be holding any events here in San Rosa this year But they also announced recently that they are not going to hold an Iron Man event in 2021 either And that they will come back to San Rosa for one event in 2022, which would be the last event under their current contract with the city That's really all I have for events and I'm happy to answer any questions, but I'll move directly on to the art update So imagine art in courthouse square is the new public art project planned for the north end of the square We are very excited that we have five finalist designs that are now on view to the public on our website The website to take a look at is srcity.org Slash imagine art All five finalist images and descriptions are on the site as well as a survey and we really encourage everyone to take a brief survey on the site Which asks what what's your favorite? How do you respond to the five finalist designs? The survey results will be used in the final considerations of the selection panel when they make the final decision For other artwork News the Zag artwork by Michael Hayden Which you may recall was on the pedestrian bridge behind the vineyard Creek Hyatt Hotel For many years and was not maintained In a proper way fell apart Recently the Art and Public Places Committee adopted the piece and commissioned the artist to recreate it on the pedestrian bridge closer to Prince Gateway Park over the the creek the Santa Rosa Creek and Michael just completed that work and we have our city electricians finalizing the final connections to our Photocells kind of timer system, so it'll come on in the evenings and go off early morning and if you recall this is a Fiber optic now converted to LED light sculpture Which is on the bridge itself and should be very colorful and interesting to look at once It's up and running should be by this weekend We will not be able to hold a traditional dedication ceremony or unveiling due to COVID But we will be announcing the news online and through our social media channels And potentially holding an event when we can when health orders allow that Excuse me The other artwork news we have open and out cadence will probably share more under the DAO update today But we have had a just a wonderful A wonderful outpouring of support for all of the art that we have been able to install as temporary art as part of the Open and Out program along 4th Street and in courthouse square I think we have seven or eight completed installations with about 15 or so yet to come So it's been a really wonderful way to support artists and in live in the space downtown in other Just kind of maintenance news We are planning to work on the women women with the water jug sculpture on 4th Street at Jeju Way But there are some issues with the fountain itself. We're trying to work through with our public works team as well as We have on our schedule to repaint tuberosity, which is that yellow sculpture in olive Park So that is a public art and events update and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you Vice Mayor Fleming customer Sawyer to questions Just just a quick Request, Tara, could you repeat the the survey website again for us? Yes, of course Yeah, it's srcity.org Slash imagine art Thank you Tara I just wanted to let you know that I had an opportunity to look at some of the art installations on 4th Street on Monday night and was impressed by how vibrant and you know, just It was just such a wonderful feeling to be down there and You know it was fall coming in and so forth it was it was a relief from all of the stress and all the smoke and all of The the difficulties that we've been going through. So thank you so much to you and your team and all the artists for making this possible Thank you so much. It's my pleasure Do I have any questions from members of the public? I don't see any hands up this time Okay, so well No, there are no no comments from the public at this time. Okay. Very well. Thank you. Let's move on to item To the downtown station area specific plan update by Amy Lyle or supervise you planner Good morning committee members. This is Amy Lyle and I just have a very brief update for you today The downtown area specific plan Has been out for public comment. So the plan and the environmental impact report We're out for 45 days and that period closed on August 31st on Monday So we did get a good amount of comments. We did a lot of outreach Virtually, so we had about 10 different outreach meetings and then Probably a dozen or so other focused meetings with individual stakeholders and are continuing to meet with the development community About specific components of the plan. I will say the last few weeks have been challenging as we know Most residents are just triggered in general. So we were very sensitive about What how we did our outreach in the last few weeks and we have allowed some Organizations to just provide comments a little bit later or you know, we wanted to provide some flexibility Based on what has been going on in our community So for the schedule going forward We have a tight turnaround with our environmental impact report So our consultant team is really focused on Responding to the comments on that and meanwhile our team at the city are focused on our Zoning code amendments that are necessary to implement the plan and the design guideline Amendments. So those will be moving forward Tracking about a month after adoption of the specific plan itself But the specific plan and the environmental impact report will be going to the planning commission on September 24th And then targeting the city council for October 13th So those are the only updates I have at this time, but I'm happy to answer questions Thank you. Amy vice mayor Fleming council member slayer questions any members of the public wishing to Make comments on this item No, there are no members of the public requesting comment at this time Okay Let's go ahead and move on to item 4.3 resilient city initiatives zoning code amendments resilient city Sherry means we'll be making this presentation Terrific and Sherry you should be unyielded at this point and we're just working on getting your presentation up It will just take one moment Wonderful Eileen. Thank you so much There it is. Good morning committee members I'm here with you to discuss the resilient city initiatives zoning code amendments next slide, please as Most of you know the city adopted a suite of initiatives in response to the Excuse me 2017 wildfires to promote housing and economic development We refer to this set of ordinances as the resilient city initiatives And this project is a three-year temporary zoning code that will extend many of the original measures But it will also take a broader look at ways the city can promote business flexibility and support of both fire and COVID recovery Things like are there regulatory Restrictions we can relax in order to alleviate burdens on businesses. Are there new emerging industries that we should be nurturing? We're we're all in We'll eventually have to consider health and safety Regulations that sometimes answer the question of can we do it? But at this point we're trying to hear what regulatory tools the community wants and know if ideas are not right for this temporary code change We can still explore them for later work next slide, please One of the steps of this process includes taking a look at the rebuild area ordinance and evaluating whether current conditions allow Us to pull back on some of the relaxed regulations and if other changes should be made based on nearly three years of recovery experience Next slide, please. The resilient city development measures are citywide initiatives. So changes to this ordinance are likely to have the greatest impact. And these are some of the things we've been exploring in a staff level. Consider them like a menu of options, one could say. And what we're asking is, have we captured things that the business and community members need? Next slide please. Here's the project timeline. We will be holding a virtual community meeting discussion on the evening of Monday, September 14 To introduce this project and we're hoping to hear some great ideas from folks. Sometimes a community member can come up with something way outside the box that we haven't thought of. So we're really looking forward to getting that input. We'll be reaching out to the chamber group soon as well. We plan on taking this to the planning commission in early October and introduction by the city council is expected during November. Next slide, please. And here's my contact information. I really hope that everyone will reach out. If they have ideas, suggestions, questions, comments, anything that can make this really powerful. That's what we're hoping to do here. And I'm also available now to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you, Sherry. Mayor Flamie, Councilor Sawyer, any questions? Thank you, Mr. Oliver. Just a comment. Thank you very much, Sherry, for your presentation. And good luck with your outreach. And then we all know how important it is. And you're right about hearing things that staff and other members of the project have not heard before. These kinds of recommendations and suggestions can really make a project fly. And so I'm looking forward to the public input. It's going to be really important. Thank you. Vice Mayor Flamie, any questions? Thank you. Any members of the public wishing to comment on this item? No, there are no members of the public indicating they would like to comment. Thank you. Can I just go ahead and move on to 4.4, the downtown action organization update. Cadence, thank you for all the work you've been doing the last month or so in making things happen downtown. So I'll turn it over to you for an update. Thank you. And good morning, committee members. I'm looking forward to giving you some updates today on what's happening downtown and what we're looking forward to. First, a quick update on our street plus crew. Not surprisingly, the number of quality of life responses nearly doubled in August from July. The team has been working a lot with the expanding homeless population downtown, which has become more of an issue for them this week. Which I don't think would be a surprise to anybody. But we're working with Catholic Charities to try to address the issues because it's become we've had a number of calls from business owners about those experiencing homelessness, interrupting the diners and people eating outdoors and enjoying the open and out space. So that's been a bit of a challenge as they're trying to keep their businesses going. And we've had, I know, quite a few calls to the police over the past few days. So trying to work with all of our city partners to kind of address this issue and make sure we're getting everyone who is willing to take services and housing. So thank you to all of our partners on on that initiative and on the open and out program. It's been really great to work with city staff who have been creative and supportive and dedicated to supporting small businesses in downtown. So moving on to open and out updates. Tara mentioned we do have seven pieces of artwork installed. One more is in process and we have 17 left. So those are going to be installed between now and the end of the year. And we actually have one was put on hold until April. So that'll be a fun way to kind of extend Extend the artwork for next year as we're looking to keep downtown a little more vibrant and Victoria said, we have two socially distanced performances that we're going to be having over the next couple of weeks. Relay for Horko is going to perform and kind of a roving performance. So not trying to gather a crowd, but trying to bring a little culture entertainment to those who are downtown. And then the local Sonoma County Tyco group is going to come and do a couple of drawing demonstrations as well. So we're excited to be partnering with those two groups. And as long as musicians are comfortable, we, we still have them outside performing Friday, Saturday evening and Sunday afternoons and quite a few cancellations because of smoke. But it's the, when I've been downtown, but I've heard from others, the smoke hasn't had that much of an impact on people be interested in being out. So when it's not too bad, it does, it is still pretty lively. So those are happening as, as the musicians are able. I shared our most recent survey responses with you already, but responses continue to show that the majority of businesses are still supportive of the program. I think if anything it shows that they're tired of answering surveys. We definitely have some who are still opposed and feel that they have not seen a benefit from the increased foot traffic that open and out has brought and we're still trying to engage businesses and figure out ways to help help them get creative and engage with the population who is, who is coming downtown. And we definitely have some retailers who are doing that. We've got some more adjusting powers as they're seeing people come later in the day. They're doing interesting and innovative things to bring people into their shop and make them familiar with their products. So we love seeing that and love hearing from them. There's a lot of really fun ideas that are out there from some of our retailers. And we continue to get really positive feedback from the community around open and out, especially around the artwork and the way it has in live in the space. So I think Victoria spoke to that and we have a lot of the upcoming pieces are going to be very exciting. So I'm excited. I'm looking forward to them. I'll share that the, the one that has gotten the most attention is a piece called Foamy Delight. I don't know if anyone has seen that, but it's on the welcome pillars on the corner of E and fourth. And it's kind of a nod to Santa Rosa's beer culture. So it's, it's kind of a sweet piece, a little beer mug and bottle pouring into it. So people love that. And I think that makes them proud of their hometown. So one thing that we've, I wanted to mention was that, you know, we've been doing our surveys for six weeks now and we are seeing a clear majority who are continuing to support the program. We have two options through the end of open and out. We can keep surfing every two weeks or at this point we can decide that I think we've seen enough positive feedback will happen through. We're going to keep the program going definitely through October 15th. So I would defer to you. I'm happy to keep surveying our businesses every few weeks, every two weeks, or we can let them know that the program is going to run through October 15th. We have begun discussing what it will look like after October 15. We, the city staff are meeting this afternoon to talk about options. We've gotten a lot of questions from our rest owners. They want to know, can we keep our profits? What's next? How do we keep our businesses going? So we're going to work through with city staff what those options are. And then our goal is going to be to present those to our business owners, share with them the different ways that open and out can continue or not continue and collect their feedback. We're also going to do a public facing survey, which we hope to get out to as many people as possible because I know it's very important to have community feedback on what the downtown looks like it does belong to everybody. So we'll be taking those two surveys and staff and open and out group who've been working on the program will ideally come up with a recommendation for you for our next meeting on October 1. And then that will determine what happens after October 15. So that's our goal to give you that. Recommendation at that point based on our survey responses from both of those. And you open it out questions. I have one more topic to cover, but I don't know if I want to stay here for a moment. I think that was now. Okay. Did you have a preference? Do you do you want surveys to keep going for every two weeks? You're often working. Okay, so, so the questions to us now are do we want the service to continue as we've been doing in the past. Vice Mayor Fleming council member Sawyer. Any questions on that or comments on that. I'll speak up. I think for predictability. I think it's a good idea to set to set that to set a time. So that the merchants have a something they can depend on and the community needs to know as well so that they can plan their, their trips downtown. So I would be in favor of moving forward with setting the date of October 15 and just let it and let it keep running until that time. Yes. And I think the other question to was related to continuing on with the surveys during that time as well. You know, I, I'm kind of, I think the people that really are interested in responding to the survey probably probably have. I'm not sure that that that there would be great value in continuing it, especially if it's if it is decided to make to keep that date positive that sending out a survey would suggest that that a change might happen. And I think just kind of biting the bullet being bold about it and saying October 15 is the target date is probably in my opinion would be the best course of action. Thank you. Vice Mayor Fleming. I agree with Council Member Sawyer. Thank you. And I agree as well. I think it's, it's time and you mentioned that Cadence is looking at what's going to be the next steps. And I think we need to start focusing some of that energy to that is beyond October 15 what things will look like, and what adjustments we can make for businesses in the downtown. And I think that there would be an agreement that we can go ahead and stop for the surveys. I think we have a lot of valuable information that was provided, and I don't anticipate any major changes as we move forward with it. So with that, and again, and I also wanted again to express my gratitude cadence to the work that you've done and making this happen. I know it's been a lot of work, but I see what's happening downtown really as a success. I know it has not been 100% satisfaction with what we've done, but I think overall I think it's been a very positive thing. So if there's no other questions from my colleagues, we'll go ahead and move on to. Through the chair, might I make a comment? You know, thank you to cadence for all the work on that because they, they have been quite useful in reconciling some of the sentiments that we hear from people with the data that we get back and understanding what hasn't been working, giving us some confidence in knowing that, you know, we are meeting the majority of the constituents. And when I say constituents, I mean business owners, you know, needs in the area. So I wanted to thank you for all your work and the amount of liaising that you do with them. So that's all. Thank you. Any comments from the public? Thank you, Carol. There are no hands raised at this time. We have never seen this group. What's that? Cades, I think you had one more item on this. Yes. Okay, yes. So the last thing I want to mention is the assault fountain. We are, hopefully you can hear me, my computer's done a little fuzzy. We are, so we're moving forward with rebuilding the assault. And again, really appreciate the partnership. And grant and the public works team helping us move this along quickly. We sent a press release out yesterday with details and created a website connected with both the assault foundation and the Japanese American Citizens League in Sonoma County to let them know that we are in the process of moving forward. We've raised about 85% of the funds needed and are aiming to wrap up fundraising by the end of this month. And I have to thank Caroline Spence for joining us in that effort. She's been instrumental in getting that going. And we're going to be working closely with Tara and public works moving forward. But the goal is to break ground in the next few months. So we're really excited about this project and are looking forward to bringing those panels back to downtown and adding a new piece of, or a new old piece of artwork to courthouse. So that's an exciting update. And I'll continue to let you know that progress as we move along. Vice mayor john any questions. Okay, any members of the public question to comment. There are no raised hands at this time. Thank you. Let's go ahead and move on to the other side of the freeway, Rafael. Good morning, Councilmember Sawyer. This is Alcaldesta Fleming Rafael and good morning to everyone on the call very excited to see some of you and hear you all. So I have a quick update regarding railroad square the board met on Thursday, August 20 and very exciting meeting. And with lots of items to go through their lesson talk about the security program is working well. However, I plan to bring a more detailed report next and reported at the next meet our next meeting. I'm going to take a look at what's going on here. What's going on there. I do understand that there's an uptake again in graffiti. So lots of the properties are being tagged. And, you know, they're trying to figure out a way to kind of obey that situation mitigate the situation. I have exciting news that AC hotel open last week they had a soft opening, but due to the smoke in the air, unfortunately, they kept it to a very minimum in terms of they just kept it amongst themselves basically staff members and such they've hired 20 crew members. I met the general manager, very nice fellow and a new parking lot is under construction construction on Davis and and sixth Street, and that will come a day up to, I believe, 90 or 100 vehicles. And then that would also alleviate the issue with the parking lot under the freeway there on along. I forget that street, Western and such, but things are moving forward. And I also had the opportunity to meet the new general manager hotel rose. He's very excited about joining the hotel and the and the area is a local person knows Brad pretty well from visit Santa Rosa so he did share that over the past couple of weeks, the hotel has been booked, but unfortunately is with evacuees and firefighters which is great. But of course we want those those tourists returning to this area at some point, and then your future. There's also six restaurants participating in the open and out program. That means that they have their parklets and so far with I've done like walkthrough surveys and speaking to the restaurant owners and such and the response has been very positive. People just need to drive very carefully around the area so they don't bump into any of the structures, providing those parklets. I also understand that miracle plum has expressed some interest or there's a proposal for them to initiate some kind of farmers market. 100% sure that they've reached out to Tara, but that proposal still on the table. They're just coming up with what it needs to what they need to do in order to make that happen so that's still a potential activity that could be brought to the to the area. Unfortunately, the art gallery closed as well as a jewelry store on 4th Street, but again, I was there last night and the ambience was upbeat, a lot of people out. Social distancing of course, and with the other face covering, but there's some momentum being built under these current conditions. The visitor center remains closed at the moment. I haven't gotten an update on when it will reopen. Homeless situation is an ongoing issue, but the security folks have been having positive experiences with the help of Catholic charities and you know, exercising dialogue and getting them to move around other two other areas and the board meetings have been switch the board meetings of the Association are now going to be held on Thursdays at 9am on on the 3rd Thursday of the month of each month. So that is all I have for Robo Square and Oh, last thing is that they are in the process of hiring a part time individual to take the lead from from the administrative aspect to help the Association continue moving forward. Do you want to have Vice Mayor Fleming, Council Member for questions. No questions. I'm sure all the rest of it. I do have a the reason that we may not be getting some comments from the public. I'm getting and I got a text that the the system or the link was not working but evidently the phone link is is it not the case that the phone link is the way the community voices there or speaks to us on these zoom meetings is by phone. No, it's not phone only they can use a raise hand feature on the zoom and ask questions. Okay, I just want to let's make sure I lean that that's that is functioning I got because of the text that I got was that it was that the link, the zoom link on the agenda was not functioning well or what at all. The phone link does. We can just double check that it might be why we're not getting. And I think to some, some people may still have an older version of zoom that does not support the raise hand feature so that may be an issue too I know that we've had that issue come up during our council meetings as well. Okay. I will check in. I will check into that. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. And so with that, if, if we get this thing, if we do find a glitch and people are wanting to comment a prior item, we can make that happen. So, on this item, any other questions. Okay, and I don't believe we have hands raised yet on this one either. I don't see any hands raised on this. Thank you. So, I love. Let's go ahead and move on to our public safety update. Sergeant Wolf. Yes. Can you hear me? All right. Absolutely. Okay. So, um, To me or kind of what cadence was saying earlier, there's definitely an increase in the downtown corridor of homeless related issues. Fremont Park was cleared two days ago. So, While many people took services, there was also a large group of service resistant people that have moved on elsewhere. And we are seeing more in the downtown corridor. My team that goes out every morning and goes down the By the businesses to make sure the storefronts are clear, found where normally there'd be between zero and two people because they know we come through today. There were five. We're seeing some of the issues we've seen before at the library and old courthouse square as cadence said on the four street. It's a fairly fluid situation right now because this population is in the process of moving. So I'm getting regular updates. I mean, just a few minutes ago, even it was changing. I just got a report that the greenway chunk of them seem to establish tents under 101 on the south side. So we've definitely been taking enforcement. Unfortunately, as I've said previously, the jail doesn't hold people for more than four hours in most cases. So sometimes we're dealing with the same person multiple times. And some of the people we have many contacts with on the list for project hope, which is a good thing. Because when we get them housed, it cuts calls for service significantly and reduces impact on downtown. This came said again, the host is also aware of the impacts downtown and they're going to try and make more of a presence there as well. One thing of note just on a safety standpoint. And we as police get a lot of training related to fentanyl. Because it's so deadly, we carry Narcan now, but can use it periodically to revive people. But we're seeing an uptick and we think it's because a large chunk of the homeless population is apparently getting unemployment checks now. So we're noticing an uptick of cars coming by and some sales going on. And the main reason I'm bringing it up here is because we've also had people bring up a piece of plastic with what ended up Red Rock, which is a name for heroin mixed with fentanyl. And it's extremely it's poison touching it inhaling it can be deadly depending on how it's mixed. So, for anybody that's downtown and sees what looks like a gooey brown substance on something I just cost you need to be careful because we're seeing a lot more of that. With regards to railroad square as Rafael said, we are getting the reports of the graffiti that information has been passed on to our graveyard teams who are patrolling it as they are able. I've gotten reports of acid put on windows, things that are not, you know, you can't just clean it up. I know that's having a major impact for some of the businesses on a fourth and fifth three on the railroad square side. So those are some of the things we're dealing with. Thank you, Sergeant Wolf, Vice Mayor Fleming, Council Member Sawyer. Thank you, Chair Oliver, Sergeant Wolf, thank you for your report. The Red Rock thing is as highly concerning, especially as the parent of a small child who, you know, anybody who's had a small kid knows that they just pick up things, and the idea of her picking up a bit of fentanyl is just terrifying. Can you, I know it's difficult without the images without being able to show images, but is there a way to provide us with an image of what that looks like maybe not in this meeting but in an upcoming meeting, or through the SRPD website or something like that so that we can better inform our public because what I don't want is people not to come downtown. I do want them to be informed and for us to be able to protect our little ones as we go down downtown. Yes, absolutely. I will get that to you and we'll look at what we can do maybe from a public education standpoint as well. That would be really helpful. Thank you so much. Again, I think we can provide that to Cadence and our downtown folks too I think would be helpful. I believe one of your officers was exposed. How's that officer doing. He's doing all right. It's so extreme that many of the gloves it'll penetrate right through their special gloves that have to be worn when you're dealing with it. If you know you're dealing with it really ideally you even have eye protection and more than that. I don't recall how you dispose of the gloves that you handle it with. I know that we were in Fremont Park. I mean I was there personally when a lady came up with a piece of plastic on look there's red rock on here this is dangerous. So it is out there. But the officer is doing well thank you for asking. Thank you yeah I think this is a big public safety concern that we probably should get some information out. And I see that you're on the call with us this morning that if you had a chance I wanted to call out to you to see if you had any comments during our public safety update here or anything more from a broader perspective around the city. Thanks Council Member Oliveris. So the big uptaste today is obviously we continue to work on through our heat model but identifying some of the larger encampments and really focusing on the getting people into services so that was a big success with the Fremont Park this week that Fremont Park was cleared out and we saw a significant amount of them eventually say that they're going to go into services so we were very pleased with the relationship working with host and with housing and community services on that and all of our other city partners. And as Sergeant Wolf said now we're going to be looking at some of the other areas and how it's affecting downtown and especially going on to the Prince Memorial Greenway and working with our partners to address any of those. So the big thing for the group here in this meeting is just to continue to communicate with us with some of the concerns and we want to hear about the issue so Sergeant Wolf is our contact and Lieutenant Dave Becker and feel free to email me because we want to hear about some of the concerns and that we can best allocate our resources to address those and especially this time for our downtown we're very cognizant of that as so many business owners are struggling and we want to do everything we can to assist them during these tough times. Thank you. Thank you, Captain. Vice Mayor Fleming, Councilor Soraya, any other questions on this item? I think let's see if we have any public comment on this. I don't see any hands raised. However, I would like to let the members of the public know if you are calling in, if you press nine it should show me that your hand is raised and we can unmute you. That's just a straight nine or is it a star nine? I believe it's just a straight nine. Okay. Actually, we do have someone caller from eight to four seven. Hold on just one moment will allow you to speak. If you would go ahead and call it you should be able to speak at this time we'll go ahead and just keep track of the time for you. Okay, thank you very much. This is Eric Frazier and I tell you this is a horrendous mess to get in to make a comment on this meeting. The phone link was inactive. It showed an error message. There's a additional doorway that the city is now requiring people to go through in order to make a public comment, something to deal with Microsoft. The phone. So I'm calling them on the phone and it is indeed a star nine in order to make a public comment. You have several months to figure this out. This isn't anything new. You continue to monkey with the system so that people are thrown off in order to submit or participate. Because, you know, we can't see it on zoom. I imagine we can pull it up perhaps on another video feed. So this is really an abomination of your duty as public servants to include the public. And so while we're listening here completely across the board. Everybody wants public comment and public interaction and public surveys and all this sort of thing, but you're failing at your most basic duty to provide that access during the meetings. This is not the first time this is an ongoing problem and certainly worthy of a class action suit against the city. You're denying people their low income that don't have reliable internet connection, or that are living in areas that are not served very effectively by Wi-Fi. You're also interfering with families that are looking to educate their children using Wi-Fi and they can't participate in these meetings. You have not thought this out in regards to what the public needs. In fact, what this looks like is a premeditated action by the city to deny the public the opportunity to participate. And like I said, this is not the first time. So, while across the board, I can recognize that everybody involved in this meeting has our city, city's interest at heart. One has to wonder whether in fact they have their own personal and political interests at heart, primarily above that of the city. And for that, I feel a little bit of shame and regret, quite frankly. So, so there you have it. You can figure it out or you cannot figure it out or you can bubble around and say, oh, I figured it out. Oh, this is oh, this is only a minor thing so on and so forth. But this is incredibly serious. And, you know, you guys just don't get it. And, and the more that you guys just don't get it and we bear witness to it. The more we see that it's not just an accidental thing. This is an ongoing attempt to stifle the public voice and public participation. And for that, again, you guys should be held in ridicule and held accountable. So, thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate it. Thank you. Any other comments. No, I don't see any other hands raised at this time. Thank you. I'm going to get back to my agenda here. Okay, we'll move on to item 4.7 maintenance of quarter to square Dean. Can you hear me okay. Yes, great. Good morning. Good to see everybody. August has been a very, very challenging month very triumphant between lightning strikes fires, air quality homeless encampment mitigation. But our staff is still traipsing on downtown. We now have a system for watering those plants downtown. So our guys are actually working through that just as fast as if there was not any obstacles down four streets so that's please getting adequately watered weekly. We have had plenty of challenges that John mentioned with folks moving around and definitely see an uptick in graffiti that we're dealing with. And we're also seeing, believe it or not, some violence, some, some vandalism against our trees. I don't know what's going on, but it's very bizarre that they are hanging off of limbs and storing things up in trees and things that are breaking limbs seems like we've been doing an incredible amount of emergency response tree work lately. It's very strange. I'm enjoying working with the group with the development of the fountain. I'm excited to see that go in to see that artwork back displayed like it was before in the square. It's, I'm looking forward to it. I'm really, really excited that this is going forward. We're working together as a team. There's some, some folks from MSE South. And we're all just collaborating to try to get this thing moving forward and not to not hold up the project at all. Thank you, Dean. And again, thank you for the work you're doing now there and your and your crews down there. You know, times have been difficult for everybody, but you guys continue to do your best effort down there to maintain things that keep things looking as nice as possible. Vice Mayor Fleming, Council Member Sawyer questions. Thank you. Members of the public questions related to maintenance of Courtauld Square. There are no hands raised at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Let's move on to item 4.8. We have a housing and community services update from Kelly Hackendall. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for having me here. I think that Sergeant Wolf and Captain Cregan, Cregan gave a pretty good summary of our efforts in the downtown and just our overall response to encampments throughout the city. So I'll just give you a real quick update on sort of the homeless services and programming side of things. So we're, you know, busy just trying to sustain all of our existing programs that the city supports and also our pandemic response. And just as a reminder, we have set up hotel rooms for those most at risk of exposure to COVID-19. So that's one of our new programs. In response to the pandemic. We also have the safe social distancing program, which is a managed camp at the family site. So sustaining existing and pandemic response programs. Those are sort of our tier one priorities right now. We're also going to be moving forward with installing a sprung structure in the parking lot at the Sam Jones Hall shelter. And that is to restore our shelter bed capacity to pre COVID-19 shelter bed capacity. We had to move individuals out of that shelter to comply with a social distancing requirements. So we're hoping to have that up in the December timeframe so we can get those much needed emergency shelter beds back at Sam Jones Hall. And that will hopefully allow us to ramp down the program that we set up at family. So that's my brief update and I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you. Thank you vice mayor councilor sorry. Any members of the public, we should comment on this item. No, there are no raise hands at this time. Thank you. And we reached the end of our of our agenda. And again, I want to apologize for any glitches that did occur during this process. I know we have a lot of people who are still with us. I know we have a lot of people who are still in the various intent here to keep people from making comments. But I would like to have us look into whether or not we had a problem with our connection today. And I would ask those of you who are still with us, if you did have questions or comments to make on any of the items, if you could please reach out to us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all the people that wanted to comment on this item. It's important that we hear from you and I know that when we meet face to face, we have a lot of public comment. And we encourage that it is, it is offensive to me for somebody to say that we are purposely trying to prevent the public from speaking to us because that is not the case. But we will do everything we can to ensure that you all are able to comment during our meetings. So I will ask staff to look into what issues that occur. We were dealing with somebody else's system to be able to have these meetings. This is not optimal for me or my colleagues or for the entire city. This is not the way we're used to doing business. And for that, I do apologize. But again, I think we have to look at whether or not we need to have a special meeting before our next monthly meeting to ensure that we have our public able to make comment and ask questions about any of the items that we did present today. So I will work with staff offline and see what we can do to make that fix and to ensure that you're all heard. So with that, that's the end of our business and we will adjourn this meeting. Thank you.