 for possible coverage. I appreciate it. Hey, Eddie. Good morning. How are you? I'm well thanks. No, I do have a rooster. I do have a rooster that hasn't caught the was a little bit late on his clock. So if you see me mute myself, you know, I don't be temporary. Not a problem. One of my favorite animals. But there you go. Just that everyone is aware we are now streaming to YouTube. Thanks, Aline. Well, it's 1031. Are we ready to go? Raysa, are you ready? Okay. So I would like to all call the meeting to order. And Raysa is going to read a statement on how the community can become involved in this meeting today. Alrighty. Good afternoon, Council Members. So due to the provisions of the Governor's Executive Orders, which has been certain requirements of the Brown Act and the Order of the Health Officer of the County of Sonoma, the Shelter in Place, the Economic Development Subcommittee is, of course, conducting today's meeting in a virtual setting. Members of the public may view the meeting as noted on the city's website, srcity.org, and as noted on the agenda. Members of the public wishing to speak during item three, public comment, or during our public hearing items, will be able to do so by utilizing the raise hand feature to raise their hand or pressing star nine on their phone. They then will be given the ability to address the committee. And that is the statement. Thank you very much. Thanks, Raysa. And Eileen, could you call the roll, please? Council Member Alvarez? Present. Council Member Fleming? Here. Council Member Sawyer? Here. Okay, I have a reflect that all the community members are present. Thank you very much. Raysa, would you like to want to show the agenda? I only have one screen this morning, so I'm a little bit at a loss. Unless you want us to announce the first agenda item, that would be adequate as well. Here, the first thing, though, is public comments. Yeah, asking for public comment. Thank you. Public comment on items not on the agenda. And Eileen, can you let the community know how they can communicate with this subcommittee on items not on the agenda? I can read that out for you. Sure, if you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please select the raise hand button. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. Each speaker has three minutes. A countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and jurors. And please make sure to unmute yourself when you're invited to do so, and your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown. Excellent. Thank you very much. And Eileen, do we have any public comment at this point? There are no raised hands at this time. Okay. Thank you very much. So we'll move on with the agenda. Raysa, can you indicate the first item on the agenda? Sure. The first item is the temporary paid sick leave, the continuation of the discussion. I don't know why I'm laughing about it, but anyway, it's been an active conversation. So that's, I can understand. It's important yet it has been moving along and we're getting closer and closer to some decision making. So thank you very much. Sure. So we have a presentation that I just put together if Eileen can put that on. So it'll help us lead through the discussion points and the questions that we're going to be answering today. So if I may, Council Member Sawyer, jump right in. Are you okay with that? Absolutely. Please. Thank you. Okay. Next slide, please, Eileen. Oh, next slide. Okay. So what this I wanted to do is just really a comparison of the issues that we're addressing today because if you recall the, sorry, I need to just look for my notes real quick. If you recall the conversation we had last week, we landed on a few questions that are still outstanding, but I wanted to give you just sort of a simple comparison of the what the Federal Act, the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act under the Family's First Coronavirus Relief Act, I think it was called FFCRA, did compared to what we did locally. And the main issues are whether we want to cover over 500 employees or under 500 employees. So the FFCRA covered required of employers with 500, I'm sorry, with less than 500 employees to provide up to two weeks of sick leave, 80 hours of sick leave. So long as they were subject to the quarantine order from the state or county local jurisdiction, so long as they had been advised to quarantine by a healthcare provider if they were experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, or if they were caring for an individual who was subject to an order of one or two above, or for a child whose school or place of care is closed due to COVID-19. These last two are fairly important because what the Santa Rosa ordinance did, as you recall, is we included employers of 500 or more employees, which were not covered under the FFCRA. Healthcare providers and emergency responders were also not included, so we included they were optional. We made them mandatory. We removed the lower cap limit. There was a lower cap limit for people caring for a child whose place of business was closed, whose childcare was closed, and also for caring for an individual subject to the order, so someone other than yourself. So the cap limit is one of the biggest things that changed. And the other thing that changed is we sort of expanded four and five, making it that anybody who's caring for somebody whose place of care is closed due to COVID would be covered under this act. And the only way to, this is enforceable, is not through the city, but an employee would have to bring an action to the superior court. I hope that wasn't too confusing, but I just wanted to highlight the things that were, that we added to the federal act. Next slide. The other thing is, so mentioning, I mentioned the caps that we had. So again, if you're caring for yourself, the federal act had a higher cap of $511 a day. Again, I just want to say that most people, what they get paid falls under this cap. It's something like $65 an hour. You'd have to make or over in order to exceed this cap. And then the federal act again had that smaller cap for caring for somebody else, including your child. What the city did is we eliminated this lower cap. So we had only that $511 cap for everybody. Next slide. And is there one slide above? Can you go back one slide? The federal law one, that one. Okay. So when we're considering this, what I want to make sure that you understand, because we're going to go through some options here again, is that the federal law tax credit ended up being a large part of our discussion last Tuesday. And so for clarity, the anybody, any employer subject to this, the only employers who get a tax credit are those who are covered under the federal act. So, and only at the caps that were allowed by the federal, the federal act. And at this point, the only part of the federal act that was extended is the tax credit only up until March 31st of this year. There is a proposal by Biden. He put together the American Rescue Plan. And in that proposal, he is stating that he would reinstate paid sick leave and the family leave benefits up until September 30th of this year. And he's looking to close the gaps that the city did through our local ordinance, providing up to 14 weeks of reimbursement for businesses less than 500. The reason I bring this up is because when we talk about what we want to do in our next phase, this may come into play and address the very things that we're trying to do in our local ordinance. The issue is that we don't know how soon this item will be taken up and how extensive it'll be. So, next slide, please. And so with that, what I wanted to do is go through the areas which I thought we had some questions about at the end of Tuesday's meeting. And then also ask any additional questions that we that you may have related to this. So, one of the big questions was the option for an expiration date. When we met on Tuesday, there was a lot of discussion and we did not come to that I could tell any conclusion on what a good expiration date would be or there was no consensus, I should say. The options range from having an expiration date on our ordinance of March 31st, which would be consistent with the federal tax credit. The other one that was brought up was June 30th, the end of the fiscal year. And then I proposed too that because there was a question of could we do it with no sunset and then just keep checking in. We could potentially offer, for example, a March 31st deadline and then offer to tie it to should the federal government extended either to September or make it permanent, we could tie it to whatever the federal government does. The other thing that was question was the inclusion of employers in less than 500. I think I heard most people say that they want to include the people other than less than 500 employees. This would be an expansion of our ordinance, of course. And in speaking with members of the Chamber of Commerce, the Center of the Metro Chamber, this would be acceptable if linked to the tax credit. So employers with less than 500 employees would get the one-for-one tax credit at that tiered rate that we discussed. Can I interrupt you just briefly? What people say and what one hears sometimes is different, but what I believe I heard the majority of the council and council members, please correct me if I'm wrong, that there was a high level of satisfaction with the March 31st because of that, as long as it was tied with the tax credit. Is that what you two council members heard during last Tuesday's meeting? That's what I heard is there was a high level of importance tying the tax credits with the March 31st deadlines. Councilmember Sawyer, I'm not exactly sure. I was so focused on the details of this that I don't recall exactly what the consensus was. I remember that I was in support of its expiring on March 31st provided that we had something else ready to go and that's pretty much what I'm taking Tally of who was supportive of what dates. Exactly. I would concur with that. My recollection is that I did bring up the end of the second quarter and I do remember a council or vice mayor, Roger, stating that she believed that March 31st was a better date. So I do remember that conversation. Thank you. Ms. Delarosa, would you say, do we have time? Let's say that President-elect Biden isn't able to put together a program that works for us even on a temporary basis where we were those employers of 500 and less. Do not get coverage with tax credits. Would we have time to put in a temporary order between now and when a decision was made by President-elect Biden? My understanding is with an urgency ordinance we can put something on pretty quickly. So we would just have to do another urgency ordinance. I think, I mean is Jack Burke on the call because he might know a little bit more from the city attorney's office, but we can put something on the agenda pretty quickly. And then I want to get just opinion on this whether or not we can put something in the ordinance that would, again, if we tie it to whatever the feds do, we could potentially automatically extend or we would just have to address it at that point. Jeff, do you have an idea on that? So I'm not quite sure I'm understanding Council member Sawyer's question. Are you asking how soon we could be nimble to get it on the agenda? Or are you asking once, you know, how do we craft the ordinance in a way that allows for some flexibility? Well, let me clarify a little bit. So the concern I believe of those council members that were looking for tying the tax credit with less than 500 employees was that there was no harm, no foul on those employers. On the other hand, if we are not able to extend that, those tax credits, then we are placing potentially in jeopardy those employers that would then have to cover employees that they weren't covering before. So that being able to be nimble and being able to give them in essence some protection and some predictability as to their obligation to their employees. So let me throw this out. I'm not sure it's answering your question, but, you know, we don't know what the feds are going to do and we don't know how fast they're going to be able to do it. I think our thinking, Risa, please correct me if I'm wrong, is that we weren't planning to come back on the 26th with the draft ordinance, but the week after, I don't know if that's February 2nd, but one approach would be if you want to tie the under 500 to the tax credit, then one way to craft the ordinance would be to have a March 31st end date for those employers under 500. And then if you want to go farther with the over 500, you could do that. So you could, I think you could craft the ordinance that way. And, you know, we have to kind of, on a parallel track, see what's happening, you know, with Congress and what they enact and how quickly they do it and, you know, come back to council if that requires us to want to revisit it. I appreciate that. Because I think there was what I heard was this desire that we cover all employees. And that was our goal. And the question was how much impact covering all employees would have on some of our smaller employers, especially those 50 and less, where they would have to be requesting special dispensation to be relieved from that requirement. So I think that at the end of the day, what we were looking for was to cover all, at least for the time being, and hope that federal government comes through with a program that does not only requires it, but helps those employers that are in jeopardy. I think on that matter, you know, the feedback that we're getting is that from small businesses or the less than 500, is that so long as there is a means for the one to one tax credit, this is what would make it tolerable. And so what Jeff is suggesting on that sort of phased expiration date, this would cover those businesses, the less than 500 employees. We only have a dozen or so employers that are over 500. And they're not, they don't get the tax credit anyway. So that later expiration date wouldn't matter to them. And is it all right if I ask a question? Please. I'm curious to know with the employers over 500, oh no, it's going to slip from my mind. It's super technical. You know what? Want to come back? Yeah. Okay, no problem. Mr. Alvarez, any questions at this point? It's very, you know, this is one of our, this was one of the issues that tends to take a lot of time to understand. And I don't pretend to understand all the nuances myself. So it's, it's really, it tends to be rather technical and a bit of a moving target. No, I appreciate that. And for myself, it's appreciate the staff and the work that they're doing. I did have a question about the 80 hours that were punishable. If we were going to start them over, or if we were going to continue on with whatever hours were left towards the credit of employee. Yeah, that was one thing that that I did hear consensus on that there would be no new addition. Like that we wouldn't reset the clock on the 80 hours. I think if Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong with if the federal act of Biden pursues something that might reset it. I but I don't know if that would be at the fiscal year, or what that is. But at this point, we would not be asking for an additional 80 hours. So the bank would remain, there was no resetting of them. No, we're setting in the bank. So if they used it, then they used it, they don't get another 80 hours. And that's the same thing with the offset. We weren't going to stop the offset. So the offset was if you if an employer is already giving this, you know, sort of above and beyond what they normally had that was allowable for an offset that was both in the federal act and in ours. And so that would remain in effect. That's correct. If I may just add one thing to remind us all. And there are so many different laws here. That's true that that was the consensus I believe of the council not to increase the bank of 80 hours. But I want to remind us that if there is an employee out there, and it's work related, whether they've used their bank of hours or not, the Cal OSHA regs will protect them if they're COVID positive or had close context. So that that that's a that's a bit of a safeguard for employees. So I just wanted to mention that. And just just to be super clear, that Cal OSHA reg doesn't apply to all workforce sectors though, right? That's correct. Okay, so which ones doesn't leave out its health care and so yes, it does leave out health care facilities on those that are already are under the aerosol transmissible disease protection program because supposedly they have safer workplaces and that that Cal OSHA regulation one piece of it only was about pay, but a lot of it also was about a prevention plan. And and I guess Cal OSHA felt well, they already have the prevention plan. So yes, there is a segment that's not covered. Okay. Raisa, I remember my question, which was, where do franchisees fit in the did we ever decide if they're over 500 or under 500? Yeah, we decided that we didn't need to be definitive about that when we were discussing this because a single franchise owner would have less than 500 employees. And then when we swept up the over 500, even if we if we decide to include them that way, they would be included. So we never did address that specifically in the minimum wage ordinance. Franchise owners are over 500 or they're not over 500, sorry, it's a totally different 25. Yeah, it's but they're considered large businesses. Okay. Okay. And if I may ask an additional question, more for my clarification on the one to one tax credits, what federal protection or credits are already offered to to these under 500? And you stated that over 500, they don't have as many credits in my correct. Yeah, specific to this, they don't over 500, they don't have anything. They're not offered a tax credit for this benefit. It's only those under 500. And again, we made it only at the higher limit of the $511 a day, but they split it at the federal level. And this would all end on the March 31st sunset date, right? Right, at this point. Yeah. Okay, perfect. Thank you. So I guess the question is at this point, before I take public comment, if you have any more questions to help clarify the issue that we're dealing with, and then we'll take public comment and then come up with either a recommendation to council to adhere to their recommendations as per last Tuesday, or if we decide to recommend something different to them and for our next meeting with the council, or we can make no recommendation at all and let them, after some consideration of a couple of weeks, allow them to finalize the decisions that are before them. So let's, I'll ask for questions first, any final or final questions? The other thing that I would just want to know is how do you feel about the two-tiered cap? Because we only had the one, because we have the opportunity to go back to two tiers similar to or what the FSCRA did. And that would address the issues of businesses. So again, businesses really want to see that if they, with less than 500, if they can get the one-for-one tax credit, they're good with it. But that means that we would go back to that two-tiered cap. So that was the other question, is how do you feel about that if we move forward with that level? Council members? Well, you know, the thing I was trying to hold back, I don't know if this is the right time to state preferences about this just because of public comment impending. If you prefer just, if you have a clarifying question, maybe you might want to wait until the public comment. But you have more than able, if you feel like making a comment now about your direction, I am more than happy to hear it. Okay. You know, I think that I prefer to wait until after public comment just to get the public's input. But you know, I'd be surprised if my recommendation changes much from what I said in our last meeting. Okay. I agree with waiting for the public comment. Although I did have a question regarding the childcare in the coverage. Is there a limit for the time that we'd be covering for the childcare? I noticed that in one through five, most of these are set with, and I'm sorry, I'm looking at the presentation that we received at City Council. Number one through four, pretty much states when the subject is well and healthy enough to return to work. On number five, seeing that schools are closed, some indefinitely, how would this play into our program? 80 hours. Yeah. It's just 80 hours. Yeah. And if I can just jump in here for a second. You know, part of the challenge that we find ourselves dealing with here is a pretty high level of compromise. Because we're trying to both get the support of the community in advancing some of our protections, at the same time, be mindful of the impact of those protections for the employees. And that's why this is so difficult. Because what we would love to be able to do, of course, is to cover everyone in all of their situations and not have a completely damaging effect on our small business owner. So this is the rub, if you will. This is the difficulty is trying to balance those two and come up with something that is probably not too pleasing to both, to either side. And that's one of the challenges that we've been facing since we've started this conversation, which was some time ago. So let me jump to, Mr. Alvarez, did you get your question answered as far as the tiers? I did. I did. Thank you. Okay. You bet. So let's move to public comment. And I just want to make a statement that the presentation will be uploaded immediately following this meeting. I just got it done just before the meeting. So I just need an answer. Thank you. You have a lot on your plate, Ms. De La Rosa. So at this point, we can move to public comment. Are there, so Eileen, do you have specific instructions or Ms. De La Rosa, are you offering, are there additional instructions for allowing the public to communicate with us? No, it's the same, which was, I lost those instructions. It's star nine, or you can use the raise hand feature or press star nine if you are on your phone. Okay. Thank you. And is Eileen our host or are you our host this morning? Eileen is our host. Okay. Thank you. So Eileen, do we have any, any requests for public comment at this point? We do. Mr. Peter Rumble. Mr. Rumble, I am changing so that you can be unmuted. And if you would wait one moment, I'm just sure that you are able to see, can you confirm that you are able to see the timer on the screen? And if you would like to introduce yourself, please go ahead. I can see the timer. My name is Peter Rumble. I'm the CEO of the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber of Commerce. I wanted to thank your council and your subcommittee for taking the time to have this conversation. And certainly the conversation at your council was very thoughtful and nuanced. And, and I really appreciate your willingness to dig into this issue to council member Sawyer's point from a perspective of compromise. I think that just as Mr. LaRosa was mentioning before, if we are having this conversation from the perspective of allowing the availability of tax credits to guide decision making process, that is a much more comfortable conversation, I think, for the business community, for the members of the Chamber of Commerce. Should public funds not be available to close these safety net gaps that are most certainly there from the federal perspective, then allowing businesses to avail themselves of a tax credit while providing this benefit is a, I think, a nice solution to the problem. Of course, that doesn't cover large employers, employers over 500, but for the vast majority of our employers in the county, again, guiding this decision making process around the tax credit, while it's not a direct source of public funds, it is the ability on some level for public financing through the tax code. Certainly doesn't make things better in the immediate term. If a business can't make it to tax filing deadlines, then they're not going to be able to claim the credit. But if we're looking at this from a more nuanced perspective, I think that is a very wise approach to take, protecting employees as well as allowing our small business community to avail themselves of some kind of benefit to help offset this expenditure. So thank you very much. I really appreciate the conversation. And if we as a chamber can support what I believe to be your council's priorities in advocating at the federal level for the newest administration to provide expanded benefits countersink. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rumble. Eileen, any other public comments? There are no additional comments at this time. Okay, thank you very much. I'll bring it back to the council. So what we have before us is what changes we might want to make, we might want to make, if any, to the recommendations or to the comments that came across from the council last Tuesday. If there is something that we need to convey to the council that may change their minds on one or more issues, now would be the time to make those recommendations, if any. For me, I believe that I believe we had a consensus on the 80 hours. I believe that March 31st seems to be the date that most of us are agreeing on. I do believe that we do want to include all employees, although we understand that for those 500 or more, the coverage isn't as promising. Beyond that, I'm going to bowl a spaghetti, not just because my name is Eddie Rack. Well, I don't blame you, Mr. Alvarez, and in reality, because we have so few employers with 500 or more employees, and there is a presumption, whether it be accurate or not, that those really large employers have the ability to cover those employees regardless of whether it's required. That is our hope. So my thoughts are fairly similar to Mr. Alvarez. I would like to see the FFCRA extended in as much as that it would expire March 31. Our ordinance would expire March 31 that we would, to that end, continue working while staff tracks legislation, and hopefully we can get something out of this next administration. But I think that, given how things can go, sometimes we're going to need to be on it and paying attention to what happens and continuing to meet every couple of few weeks to have something ready so that we don't go through this process with an expired ordinance once again. I think that that's suboptimal. But the nuances as far or the policy details as far as I'm concerned are would be that expiration date at the end of Q1 to line up with the tax credits, that it would be the FFCRA, the frame of FFCRA, but an expansion to include all employees in all sectors and all business sizes. So that the terms of it would apply to under 500 over 500 franchises and non-franchises. Although I think that with the child care thing that we probably need to talk about that for a minute in terms of how that would impact franchisees. Because I am wanting to line this up with the benefits, with the tax breaks or the tax credits, excuse me. And so if franchises are exempted through the FFCRA, then they wouldn't be permitted. If I may, if you're including all employers, then whether you're a franchisee or not doesn't matter. They're going to be covered. Well, they'll be covered by us, but they won't it depends on how the FFCRA defines. Oh, I see what you're saying. And I'm scrambling to find how one city defined franchisee. I think the answer is if they have more than 500 employees in the jurisdiction, but I see the point you're raising with regard to the tax credit. Yeah, I think there was a couple of different ways and it was the one that I remembered was franchisees, if you have nationwide, like it doesn't have to be within the jurisdiction, it was anywhere, then you were considered larger. Most franchise owners generally, you know, they have like one McDonald's or two or three, but it's far less than 500 employees. Right, but my question is how does the FFCRA define them? Franchisees for the purpose of access to the tax credits? My understanding is if that franchisee person, the franchisor, has less than 500 employees, then they're going to get the tax credit. If I'm a franchisor and I have more, then I won't. That's my understanding as well. That's helpful. And so all employers and all employees will be covered. All sectors of the workforce will be covered. We should include the city. We should not re-up the leave bank. And then I would like to see the OSHA protections for employment while out for COVID related illness extended to cover employers who have an ATD policy. So well, we can't touch the Cal OSHA thing in this ordinance. I don't think I've noted that, but can I go back to something? So I just want to make sure that I understand this. So I think, yeah, overall, no, we're not going to reset the bank. It is what it is. I hear the March 31st deadline and I like that that's a nice firm deadline. But when you say, there's two questions I have. When you say the frame of the FFCRA, does that mean that you're good with the tiered caps so that they align with the tax credits? I'm not a huge fan of the caps that FFCRA put out. I think that that's been made really clear here too far. But I think that for purposes of offering businesses a shot at trying to not just have one more thing layered on, I think that we ought to implement a tiered system. And then when you also say the frame of the FFCRA, the other thing that we did to change it just a little bit was the FFCRA says, are caring for an individual subject to an order described in one or two, which was caring for yourself because you're isolated or sick, or are caring for a child whose school or place of care is closed due to COVID-19. So we modified that to be any dependent. We essentially swept up everybody in the in four and five, which are caring for somebody else or caring for a child. Now, do you want to go back to what the FFCRA is saying? I mean, it's a nuance and I've not heard anybody do it otherwise. To me, it's sort of the same thing. But I think the example that Labor gave us was your multiple families living in a house, they may not know each other. Do they, they may not even be caring for somebody, but they've been exposed. It was sort of sweeping up more broadly, something that we haven't heard anything about. But we did sort of broaded the definition. So we're talking about exposure in addition to caring for, is that what you're asking me about? Well, yeah. I mean, I think that was the intent of what Labor asked when they asked us to expand what it is to care for somebody, not just the child. So I had a different understanding of it. It doesn't mean I'm right. I understood that they wanted us to expand, to include essentially any dependent that you were taking care of. So I thought, and then, I mean, to my mind, if you're out because you are quarantining or you're out because you have COVID, it's all the same. You're out because of COVID. And if we're going to only offer 80 hours, which is not a lot during a major pandemic, if you have a big family, this could well exceed that, I think, and we're not going to re-up the bank. I think that we can be generous with the terms of what the bank are in terms of who can use them because you only get it once. So it's not like someone's going to say, okay, my grandma, then my grandpa, then my kid, and then the other kid. I mean, it's one and done. So I'm comfortable with being really broad in that and saying, if you're quarantining, if you've been exposed, whatever the case is, if you need to take care of grandma or yourself, it's fine with me. Jeff, can you confirm that that doesn't, to your understanding, alter the tax credit piece of it? I mean, I think I understand the point. It's so subtle. I just don't see that being an issue. And I do see the issue that you're raising, right? So I think you're basically changing his or her child to a child. Or to a dependent because it wasn't a child necessarily. It was, say, the nursing home your parents are in is closed for COVID reasons and you're caring for them. The federal law specifically, I will actually know that that's covered under four, I think. Right. Yeah. No, I think it's such a subtle, small difference. I understand the nuance, but I think we're fine. So Council Member Fleming, does it matter if we state it the way the FFCRA is, or you're saying to state it the way we did, which covers anybody? I think we just broadened the language. I prefer to broaden it. I wish we had touched on this policy point before public comment so we could hear from people. But when it comes to the Council, we'll have another opportunity to hear from people. But, yeah, the broader definition, please. Thank you. Which is the way it is now. Yeah. And that's why this is policy so difficult. As you can say, the bones of the CRA have been not this and yes, that. And it just, right. It's like certain restrictions and laws all layered on top of each other. And Council Member, Council Member Sari, I know that you have yet to give your pin, but may ask Council Member Fleming another question on her statement. Please, please. Okay. So then the other thing you said was have something ready to extend. So assuming that, so I guess the thing, the extension is if they don't, if the federal government doesn't act to extend, which I think they, if they're going to do something, they would probably do it with the tax credit sooner than later. But is there, are you just saying have something ready would be just the exact same thing? And then it would just picking, be picking a new date? Are you suggesting is it tied to the tax credit piece again? You know, I think that this has been such a moving target that the last time we met, you know, I didn't, I think it was maybe before the Georgia Senate races. And I think, you know, was really thinking that maybe we weren't going to actually have another stimulus package. I think that more specifically what my ask is, is for us to continue to meet every while as necessary to track this, because my fear, it's not that the truth is that I don't know what's next. And I don't know what the right answer is. If the federal government comes in with a fantastic, you know, protection for both business and workers that starts April 1, that would negate any need for us to do anything. But like everything, you know, it's about compromises and I wouldn't be surprised if what they come up with has some holes in it. So I think that we need to watch closely and be ready to do something, but allow for the opportunity for something better to come along with more financial protections. Okay, so we'll just leave it as what it is, and then just track it. And we'll have it if we meet with this subcommittee monthly at this point, then we can have it, we can have those updates at that time. Okay, thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Fleming. And thank you, Ray. So because it's, you know, this, this is part of our challenge is the unknown. So if we can, if we can, we'll make sure that we set another meeting if something drastic happens between, even before a month is up, where it would be helpful for you to have some recommendations, in addition to those that are coming to you this morning, then we could always set us another special meeting. Otherwise we could, we could wait until February. And we still, we still have some time, although it's, it seems to be going rather quickly. So it's clear that what we're looking for is protections and the highest to be possible without, without losing those tax credits. So Mr. Burke, did you, is there anything that we have recommended so far that would jeopardize those businesses under 500 employees? So I'm taking advantage of tax credits. So I'm not seeing anything. And I do want to confirm my understanding. So we're going to include the city, no new leave, all employers, March 31st, and include the lower cap. Is that everybody's understanding those five pieces? And that cat and, and, and I did this during the council meeting and I'm going to do it again. Could you reiterate the meaning of including the lower cap? Sure. So for the lower cap, Ray said, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know if you want to pull the slide up, but for items four and five, when you're caring for someone else, the lower cap dollar amount is $2,000, I believe. Yeah, $200 a day, $2,000 max for caring for someone else, including your child for child care reasons. Okay. And the last thing I'll mention, which is already in our ordinance, there is a limited small business exemption consistent with the federal law, which is if you have less than 50 employees and your employee wants to use it only for the care of another, if that would cause one of three things, then you don't have to provide the 80 hours for that employee in that limited circumstance. If doing so would, would cause that business to fail financially, if that's like the key person, or if you wouldn't have sufficient staff to operate your business. So that's what currently, or what was in the federal law and what is in our ordinance. So I just wanted to confirm that that, that you want that to stay in. And Jeff, within that too, I think that they had to submit something to the federal government with, you know, since that doesn't exist anymore, there's nowhere to submit that. Well, they wouldn't be submitting it to the federal government in Santa Rosa, because our ordinance would say you go to superior court, so they'd have to prove up their case. And if an employee was denied the 80 hours, and the small employer was trying to carve out this exemption, then it would be a question of fact that the employer would have to show to a judge, here's why I didn't do it. So although it is a bit messy, it's possible. Yes. Okay. I mean, this is, this is part of that compromise issue that we're dealing with, you know, providing opportunity, even if that opportunity is difficult. And I think that's, at least at this point, and I'm hoping, as is, I'm sure both of our council members here this morning, that the federal government comes through and creates a great program that really takes the pressure off these valuable employees that are so challenged right now, you know, across the country. So thank you, Mr. Burke. Um, is the, so, um, Mr. Delarosa, are you, do you have what you need today this morning? Yes, I do, because I think that that Mr. Burke's summary got it, we're including everybody, we have an expiration of the 31st of March, we have two tiers cities included, and there's no need, no leave bank, and all other elements of our ordinance remain the same. That's it. So in essence, just for clarification, did anything, so what changed from last Tuesday's council meeting? I'm not hearing a lot of change. Well, the two main areas that we didn't have, that I thought we didn't have consensus when I looked at it again, was the expiration date and the compensation rate. Okay. Excellent. And there was some discussion, well, it was a lot of questions about the taxes, but there was some question about some discussion, I should say, about healthcare and where we are right now with employees and stuff like that. So this, this clarification is super helpful. So when we put this together and we get it on the agenda, it will be, it's slated for February 2nd. We would do it as a recommend, it's recommended by the Economic Development Subcommittee. And are you good with that then? Yes. Council members, are we, are we clear and good on this recommendation? Yes. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. I appreciate that. And we'll hope the federal government, our new sensitive and exciting federal government comes up with some really great programs to help our employees and our employers as well. And they're all interdependent. Excellent. So Ms. Dolorosa, what is the, since I don't have the agenda in front of me, what is our next item? Well, our next item is an easy one. It's the Economic Development Subcommittee. So this is a special meeting of the Economic Development Subcommittee. Since COVID started, we have not had a meeting of the subcommittee a long time. I mean, it's been over a year. And so I wanted to go through the cadence of it and review some of the objectives because we're transitioning from the Economic Recovery Task Force into this now Brown-acted public meeting. And so I wanted to go through those things with you. Okay. Excellent. Let's hear it. Okay. Well, so we were meeting weekly with the Economic Recovery Task Force. We met on Tuesdays at 10. And I wanted to see, when we had the Economic Development Subcommittee, we used to meet, we ended up meeting every other month, depending on what we had going on. So I wanted to see if Tuesdays monthly would still work for you at 10 o'clock. Number one, if we keep it to a monthly cadence, but we can also call special meetings as new things come up. Because again, with the Task Force, we were pretty nimble because we met weekly. We can still do that with special meetings. But for the ongoing meeting, it would be monthly. And so could you restate the time? Tuesdays. Oh, let's see. I guess we'd have to pick a Tuesday of the month. So it would be Tuesday at 10.30 once a month. And we could pick the first, second, third. I mean, is there a preference on which Tuesday? I don't have a preference at this point. Council members, do you have, is there, does it matter? Do you have any conflicts with other Tuesdays? I mean, Tuesdays being, we're majorly conflicted because we have a council meeting. But other than that, does any Tuesday work for? You know, just, I got clarification from Eileen that it was the second Tuesday of the month previously. I mean, the second week of the month. So we could do the second Tuesday of the month. And the reason why we had chosen Tuesdays was so that you could have just one long day. Yeah, I'm okay with that. I mean, it's already, you know, obligated. And if we start, and you're suggesting, did you say you're suggesting 10 30, continuing with the 10 30? At 10 o'clock, we had, I set this one at 10 30, but I'm fine at 10 or 10 30. We had done 10 o'clock for the economic recovery task force. Well, you know, probably the on the earlier side, the better, because sometimes we have closed sessions that begin pretty early in the afternoon, like one o'clock. So the more time we have, like if we have an hour and a half, if we set it at 10, it goes to 11 30, having an hour and a half between the potential of a closed session meeting at one, probably is beneficial to the council members. And would you guys agree with that? I agree with that. Yeah. Okay. So there you go. So what we can do is we'll we will set those at 10 o'clock and on the second Tuesday. And if we find that there are some reasons to make a change in that, then we will give the proper notice and make a change in the in the timing and the day. But for the time being, we will just allow that to be our set time, if that's acceptable. And so at the next meeting, what we'll do is just have a check in about what the federal policies are for paid sick leave, of course. But I want to go over as well the items that we were reviewing, or that were under consideration in the task force, and to also set the objective, because the objective of the task force is different, obviously, that was recovery task force, it's different than this one. So we'll be setting those things in reviewing the items. The other thing is, where I think we were incredibly successful with the task force is we were able to accept questions and considerations and keep a running list so that we can understand what we were doing, or where people had an interest. For example, Councilmember Tibbets, you know, had a question of something that we had reviewed in the task force, so we can keep that running list and allow it to be open for consideration from other members. And so that's what I was hoping to try to keep a merger of what used to be the subcommittee, and what was the task force moving forward. Would that be best done by you looking at those two lists, and then coming back to for recommendations at our next meeting, or even one after that? Do you have enough time to put, because we had quite a list, as I remember, and so I just want to be able to give you enough time to be able to consider those two individual lists. Yeah, so the next meeting would be Tuesday, February 9, and I have still, obviously, I kept that list on our agenda. So I'll put that together, and I'll make it available in advance. It'll be posted, but I'll give it to you guys as well. And I think it'll start, I think that'll be the basis of our discussion. Are we still on the right chart for what we want to discuss? Are there other things that come up? What's missing? And then we can sort of select like we did during the task force. What are, what staff going to be working on, or what's our objective for the next meeting? That sounds good. And so if we could have all of us, all three council members, looking at that list, making our own concerns, own suggestions and considerations on what we think is, is what our priorities may be, because we will also be up to consider the priorities of the council during goal setting. I'm not sure what that's looking like this year, but we will be discussing that as a full council. And then so if we can have a conversation that recommendations from this subcommittee to the council when they are considering priorities for economic development. So for during our annual conversation. Yeah, because I think that's set for mid-February. And to be clear, what I'm going to send you from the task force was really focused on recovery stuff. So we're going to have to expand it to the other, the other elements. I did write up an objective that can be tweaked, but really the difference from recovery to now is this objective, as I've stated it, is to empower economic stability and create economic growth and opportunity for Santa Rosa through policies and programs that encourage job retention and creation, brought economic prosperity in great places, so place making essentially. So it broadens the task force's role into broader economic development activity. Yeah, I love that language. Okay, that's good. Council, any final, are we at the, since I don't have the agenda in front of me, are we at the end of our agenda? That is the end of the agenda for the announcement of the February night, the second Tuesday, February 9th next meeting. Okay. Council, any other questions before we adjourn? I think you have to open up to public comment on the second item. Oh, the second item I do. The timing. Yes, I do. Thank you very much. So let's open it up to public comment. Eileen, do we have any public comment on the issue around our timing or our scheduling? There are no hands raised at this time. Thank you very much. If there are no final questions or comments, we, I believe can adjourn this meeting. Okay. Thank you all very much. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Okay. That's a cool sweater, Councilman Sawyer. I'm glad you called me to tell me what kind of pattern to wear this morning. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you.