 Hello, Mario. Would you like to do a mic check? Okay, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Thank you. I'm gonna go ahead. All right. I'll put you in the Spanish channel first. All right. It's Pablo with me. Pablo is also here. All right. Good. Pablo, mic check for you. Yes, I'm here. I was just muted, so I... Yeah, that's my mistake. Thank you. You're fine. Okay, great. Rhonda, do you want to have the interpreters make the announcement, please? Good afternoon. I'd like to ask the interpreter currently on the Spanish channel to commence translation of the meeting. For those just joining the meeting, live translation in Spanish is available. And members of the public or staff wishing to listen in Spanish can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the Zoom toolbar. It looks like a globe. Once you join the Spanish channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you can only hear the Spanish translation. Interpreter, will you please restate this in Spanish? Bienvenidos a esta reunión. Para los que recién se unen a la reunión, interpretación en vivo al español está disponible. Y los miembros o personales, quienes desean escuchar en español, podrán unirse al canal. Para unirse, haga click en el icono de interpretación que aparece en la barra de funciones de Zoom, que ahora aparece como un globo terraqueo. Una vez que se une al canal de español, comiende que apague el audio primario para que solo escuche la interpretación al español. Welcome everyone to our August 8, 2023 Santa Rosa City Council meeting. It is now 2.33 and we will begin our meeting. Welcome, Madam City Attorney. It's your first meeting, correct? It is my first meeting. Okay, so welcome. Thank you very much. Madam City Clerk, may you please call the roll. Council Member Stapp. Here. Council Member Rogers. Council Member Okrepke. Here. Council Member Fleming. Here. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Mayor or Vice Mayor McDonald. Here. And Mayor Rogers. Present. Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of council member Rogers. We will continue to item 2.1. This item did not appear on the city's preliminary agenda. So as a result, prior to consideration of the item, we need the council by motion to find good cause to consider the item. Considerations for the council is making a good finding of good cause is the fact the need for immediate action on the item came to our attention after the final agenda had been posted. We will now take public comment on item 2.1. Madam City Clerk. Thank you Mayor. We are now taking public comment on item 2.1. If you are in the council chamber and you would like to make a comment, please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via Zoom, please dial star nine or raise your hand. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will appear at the end of that period. Mayor, I'm seeing no one approach the podium for public comment and no hands being raised via Zoom. Thank you Vice Mayor McDonald. May you please make a motion to add 2.1 to our agenda. I'd like to move that we add item 2.1 to our agenda since we are making a finding of good cause. Second. We have a motion made by Vice Mayor McDonald in a second made by Council Member O'Crepkey. Madam City Clerk, can you please call the vote? Council Member Stapp. Aye. Council Member Rogers. Council Member O'Crepkey. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Yes. Council Member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. Council Member Pompeo that passes with six affirmative votes. Thank you. We will now proceed with item 2.1. Madam City Clerk, may you please facilitate public comment. Thank you. We are now taking public comment on item 2.1. Again if you're in Council Chamber and you would like to make a comment please make your way to the podium. If you are making a comment from Zoom please dial star nine or raise your hand. I see no hands being raised via Zoom and no public comments from the Chamber, Mayor. Thank you very much. much we will now recess into closed session. Welcome back seeing a quorum Madam City Clerk may you please take the role. Thank you. Councilmember Stapp. Here. Councilmember Rogers. Here. Councilmember O'Crepkey. Here. Councilmember Fleming. Here. Councilmember Alvarez. Vice Mayor McDonald. Here. And Mayor Rogers. Present. Let the record show that all councilmembers are present with the exception of councilmember Alvarez. Thank you we will now continue to item 3.3.1 interviews for boards commissions and committees. The council will interview applicants for the housing authority to fill one tenant commissioner at large vacancy and one tenant commissioner senior vacancy each to serve a two-year term expiring two years from the date of their appointment. Madam City Clerk may you please facilitate public comment. Thank you we are now taking public comment on housing authority interviews if you would like to provide a comment but have not made your way to the podium please do so if you are providing a comment via zoom please raise your hand or dial star nine you will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. Our first public comment will be from Gregory. Good afternoon. This is on. Yes. Good afternoon. Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Gregory Farron. You all sort of know me as an advocate for low income housing in the city. And once again I'm here to try to watch and observe and support the housing authority and your selection of housing authority members. I don't have to convince you but I think I'm just talking to the public that the role of the housing authority is supremely important to the city. It helps build and maintains low income housing and as such is central to the lives of people in the city. And so I'm here in support of the housing authority and support of those who are trying to serve on it. And I appreciate what you're doing today. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. I see no additional hands being raised via zoom and no one else in council chamber approaching the podium. Thank you. We will start our interviews with Scott Wimmer for tenant commissioner at large and thank you for being here today and expressing interest in serving as the housing authority tenant commissioner. I will start the questions out by asking you to tell us a little about yourself and why you're interested in the position. Okay. How much time do I have? Three minutes? Sure. Okay. Veteran served in the Army National Guard as well for years both lived in Sonoma County all of my life except for four months. Let's see here grew up mostly in I guess the McDonald district. It's actually Monroe, which is a little ways away, but close enough. I went to Proctor Terrace Santa Rosa Junior College Santa Rosa Junior High Junior Santa Rosa. I think it's still called Santa Rosa Junior High, I guess, and then Santa Rosa High School from from the get go all the way through. No one in the military and of course went completely different training grounds there, but came back. Let's see 94 went to school at the JC and started serving on a active shooter board for the Santa Rosa Junior College as well as their safety board. Both implemented a lot of changes. A lot of those changes took we'll just say a very long time to get in. Some of them are still coming not not in yet, but they're working on them. Been on a couple veteran boards, really small ones. Start a help start that connect. Let's see here. As for boards, that's most most of the important ones. Let's see any questions? And Scott, why is it that you would like to serve? Oh why I would like to serve is because everybody has input and everybody has should have a chance to be able to put input and I do talk quite a bit with the community and I'm not really afraid to do that and I do outreach as well at most of the food food pantries and a few food pantries for Empire Food Bank and I chat with people all the time and they come to me a lot and tell me you know this is going on this is going on this is going on. So I'm hoping I can put some of that to use sort of outreach. Thank you. Any other questions from Council? Seeing none, thank you very much and thank you for your willingness to serve. We will continue with Joe Rodriguez. It doesn't appear that Joe is here so we will go to Timothy O'Brien. Mr. O'Brien thank you for being here today and expressing interest in serving as the Housing Authority Tenant Commissioner. I will start the questions by asking you the same questions and that is to tell us a little about yourself and why you're interested in the position keeping in mind that we did review your application so we do know a little bit. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Timothy O'Brien. I was born and raised Sacramento, California in 1955. I'm a United States Army veteran disabled. I've lived in Sacramento and Santa Rosa. I've lived in Santa Rosa for 34 years. I heard a beautiful green-eyed girl here in town. I've disabled overseas and I have a deep appreciation for being homeless as a veteran. My wife and I were homeless for seven months. Our landlords gave us three months to move, took our little house off the market, and moved to Nebraska and got the hell out of California. So we ended up homeless for seven months. So I do have a deep appreciation for what the City of Santa Rosa and HUD VASH has done to help us homeless veterans. I worked with Chapter 223, Vietnam Veterans. Also, I am vets post 40. I've worked with Redwood Empire Food Bank and to all my brother veterans, thank you for your service. I'm interested in helping on the commission to say thank you back to the City of Santa Rosa and HUD VASH for helping us veterans. I've served my community and my country and its people all my life and will continue to do so. Thank you. Thank you ma'am. Can you quickly tell us and I can kind of pull it out of what you already said, but why you think that you would be the best person to serve on the housing? I don't know that I would be the best person, ma'am, but I know that I'm dedicated and I know that I'll serve you back to the county. Can you come closer to the mic, please? I can't hear you. I'm dedicated, ma'am. I'll give back to the city and the county and the state that helped me and my wife. And I have a very special interest in being homeless, having been homeless, so I know how it feels and I know the despair and the hurt. So I think I might help. It's up to you good folks to make that decision. Okay. Are there any additional questions from council members? Seeing none, again, I would like to thank you very much for coming and your willingness to serve. Well, thank you too. I'm not used to speaking like this in front of people, but it is okay. I think you did a great job. Thank you very much for being here. Is Rachelle Morton here? While Rachelle is making her way to the podium, I would like to go back a second and thank both Mr. O'Brien and Mr. Wimmer for your service. Kind of almost let that pass, but I didn't. So thank you very much for your service. Rachelle, thank you very much for being here today and your willingness to serve. We will start with the same two questions. And that is, please tell us a little about yourself and why you are interested in this position. I grew up in Sonoma County and I ended up moving away in 2017. I, sorry, is that better? I worked full-time, my husband worked full-time, and no matter how much we worked, it wasn't enough to afford housing. I moved to Reading, was able to go back to school. I got my bachelor's in business, graduated with a 4.0, went on to get my master's in education with a focus in counseling and a graduate certificate in restorative justice practices. The fact that I had to leave the town that I love and my family just so I could achieve my goals, people shouldn't have to do that. I ended up moving back here as a single mom with three kids. Having housing was the only reason I was able to do that. I came back here because my brother had terminal cancer. Sorry. And I watched him struggle with housing. I knew there has to be something better. This cannot be it. We have this beautiful, beautiful place that we live and we are not letting people live to their full potential to contribute, to be productive members of the society because of the housing costs. So I want to participate, I want to make changes. I want to not just be the voice for myself but the voice for others. I currently work with people on economic assistance, helping them find employment, and almost every single one struggles with housing. So not only do I want to be the voice for me and every other single parent, but the voice for everyone that's struggling just to survive in this town. Thank you very much. Thank you. Are there any additional questions from council members? Seeing none, thank you very much for coming here today and your willingness to serve. We now have Doug Freeman. Doug is participating via Zoom. Rhonda, can you please promote Doug for the interview? Doug, we promoted you to panelists. You can go ahead and unmute your mic and there you are. Thank you, Doug. Okay, great. Thank you. So I'm in my early 70s. I moved to Sonoma County in 1983 and I've lived in a number of the towns. Much of my living here has been in Santa Rosa, including the last 17 years. I'd like to say I have great respect for those who served in our armed forces and also note that during the Vietnam War, I didn't accept the student deferment that I was entitled to because I felt that my being in college and university was in part a function of class privilege. And so I was drafted and I served two years as a conscientious objector. And so I'm a different kind of veteran. The two years I worked were largely with people who were homeless or at extreme risk of becoming homeless. And at that time, there was a saying going around that if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. And that's one of the things that's guided me in more than 40 years of my subsequent working, both paid work and volunteer work, of which I've done a lot. And around the year 2000, I was working in a program out of the Marin Hospital with long-term homeless people, many of whom needed some additional support to maintain their newly homed status, support with dealing with getting to appointments, some of them with just dealing with getting groceries, and other things that many of us would just take for granted that they didn't have experience with. And I'm wondering, I know that my experience with both the Santa Rosa Housing Authority workers, and I ported in from Sonoma County Housing Authority as a Section 8 participant. The workers that I've had have been wonderful for me, but I'm wondering if there may be some Section 8 participants who might be able to use more support than the workers in the housing authority may have time to devote to them in order to thrive within the program. So that's one of the things, if I have the honor of being selected to be a board member, that I would like to look into more. Also, one thing I'd like to mention is that after I got my voucher and when I was interviewing with different landlords, I was fortunate in that I'd had a good credit rating. It was north of 700, and I'd had a number of interviews with landlords that were going, the interviews were going really well, but at the point where I mentioned that I had Section 8, and these landlords were listed on the list that said that they did accept Section 8. All of a sudden, the interview went south. They were not interested in me anymore, and I tried to frame Section 8 as a major incentive for the landlord. First of all, I framed it as, hey, a large portion of the rent is guaranteed at the beginning of the month from the Housing Authority. Secondarily, the tenant has a major incentive to be a good tenant. First of all, there's a long waiting list to get or qualify for Section 8, and if the tenant loses that by not being a good tenant, that's a major loss for the tenant, and so they have a big incentive to maintain their good status with the Housing Authority, and in my case, I had a good financial record of responsibility, but many landlords were not swayed by that. There are some landlords you're never going to reach because either they have an anti-government attitude or they're unwilling to maintain the level of the standard of maintaining their property at the level that the Housing Authority requires. Thank you, Mr. Friedman. We can definitely hear your passion and why you would be a good choice to work with the Housing Authority. I can talk for a long time, and I'm sorry if I've gone out too long. But you do have some valid concerns. Thank you very much. Are there any questions from council members? Seeing none, thank you very much for your willingness to serve, and thank you for serving our nation. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here, and I hope I get the opportunity to serve on the board. Yes, sir. We will now continue with Angela Conte. Hi. Hello. Let's see. I was born in Santa Rosa but actually grew up in Petaluma. I recently returned to Santa Rosa about 16 years ago now. I have a BA in psychology and fine art from SSU, and I locally, some of the things that I've been working on since I've been a resident of the housing, the local Housing Authority here in Santa Rosa. I was on the board of SAVES, the Sonoma Applied Villages, and I was on a funding committee for United Way for food resources to the community. Spent about seven months with the Continuum of Care, and also another seven months with Catholic Charities, helping them develop their grants department. Also, I was the first ever Marin County Youth Commissioner, not Commissioner, but Commissioner Lysen as a grants department head. Let's see. I was on the Stanford Housing Authorities, Stanford Connecticut Housing Authorities as a non-voting resident member as well, where I read their five-year plan, but I also read, I've read the Santa Rosa five-year plan, but that was probably about ten years ago, so I'm probably a planner to behind. My main issues right now with my life is I deal with a lot of health issues, and I also deal with a lot of social services, social services and SSI and things, but also I interact a lot with the Housing Authority, so those are kind of multiple areas I'm pretty familiar with. Online, if my name looks familiar, I'm pretty active on social media, and on Facebook I have several groups, and I'm actually friends with a couple of you, but one group is the Sonoma County Intentional Living Group, the Center for Collaborative Engagement page, and the Santa Rosa and Sonoma County Public Forum for Affordable Housing, and the Santa Rosa and Sonoma County Public Forum for Planning and Government. Okay, so those are all the things that I've been working on behind the scenes, and I feel like I'm pretty educated knowledge on a lot of the issues, and some experience within, you know, political realm, so what I'd like to see is what I can do with my voice as well, and that's it. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Any questions? Looking to Council to see if there are any questions? Council Member O'Crupeke? Yeah, thank you very much for coming, and thank you to everybody who's applied and for interviewing with us. I'm interested in your experience with the Housing Authority Advisory Board in Stanford, Connecticut. Can you go into a little bit more detail about what you did with that and your experiences? Yeah, I believe at that time the the five-year plan required that they have a resident board and have a head of that resident board that communicated to the Housing Authority Board, so it wasn't a voting position, but it was a communicative position. They did require me to read any of their documents and give a lot of feedback, such as the five-year plan. I did attend some, at that time there was a large grant on the board on the table, a block grant, to demolish a huge housing project and rebuild a mixed income community, and for three years they were fighting it and they were about to lose that money, and they asked me to speak with some of the residents, because I guess the residents were not feeling heard and didn't understand how this was something that was going to benefit them. They thought they were going to be relocated throughout the county or the state and lose their community and both their friends and their housing and be up in the air, and I explained to them that through their lawyer they could document everything, put everything in writing, that they were clearly going to receive, as the Housing Authority was promising, their home would be first dibs on all the new homes, so that they weren't losing, they were just being displaced for a short time to come back to those homes, and once they were rebuilt, and they felt confident enough to let it go and let it pass, and the development did go on, but I left the area, and my understanding was that there was a lot of conflict later on and a lot of fighting where the city and the Housing Authority did not follow through with supporting their promises, that bothered me a lot, because I felt like I stood up for these people, and on both sides, and mediated this conflict, and then one side did not follow through, and there was a lot of legal issues behind it, and a few board, Housing Authority board members were removed according to the stuff that I read. Thank you. Any additional questions? Seeing none, thank you very much for being here, and your willingness to serve. We will continue with Shannon Cabanon. It does not appear that Shannon is here, so we will continue with Lewis Brown. Thank you very much for being here, Mr. Brown. We will go with the same line of questioning that I asked the others, would you like me to repeat it? No, it's okay. That's all right. So I'm here because I hit the lottery, I mean the trifecta. Many years ago, my wife and I went through a really rough patch, and I ended up on the streets, and straight up outdoors, sleeping in a bush by the community college I graduated from. At the time, we had a baby, about five years old at the time I think he was, with cerebral palsy. Being outdoors, and being away from my son for that period of time, was, I think difficult is not the right word for it. Other people here have spoken pretty eloquently about the despair that could hit you when you end up outside like that, with nobody to turn to, no help. But I managed to get to the thrift store at that point in time, get myself a suit that had really badly used the library at the junior college to try and find myself some work, because I was out of work at the time, and also apply for a housing voucher. Well, being a Navy vet, being homeless, and having a disabled kid was the trifecta. That got me that voucher. I got really, really, really lucky. Because of that, eventually my wife and I then reconciled for another 15 years before we finally split amably after my son got to be an adult. But if it hadn't been for that, I don't think I would be able to be sitting here now because I'd be in the ground somewhere. There was no way you could pull yourself out of that pit. And I think at that time I was in my 30s. When you're in your 30s and you're a guy, and you're on the streets, you don't exist. No one's going to give you a break. That's just the way that it is. You smell bad, you look bad, no matter how much you might try, you're not going to be able to pull yourself up out of that without some kind of assistance. People always say something about pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, but they lose the actual origin of that phrase is that it was a joke. If you try to pull yourself over a fence by reaching down and grabbing your own bootstraps, you're not going to get very far. Opportunity comes from people. Opportunity comes from others. And when you are isolated in the community, when you're homeless like that, nobody's going to give you an opportunity. Because for the most part, whether we like it or not, we live in a transactional world. And we help people that we think in some way might be able to help us back. Whether that's materially or spiritually or some way, we always expect to get something back from helping others. Unless it's a bureaucracy, oddly. I got that voucher. We were able to get stabilized and build lives for ourselves. Years later, I graduated from Sonoma State. Some years after that, I graduated from Golden Gate University with a degree in law. Some years after that, still taking care of my son, I managed to pass the bar exam. I can't practice as a maternity because I still take care of my son full-time. He's 25 years old right now with cerebral palsy. But if it wasn't for that voucher, I'd still be screwed. So I understand the struggle that people go through. And I could understand it also from the agency side of things, the limited amount of funds. How are you going to allocate these things? And we use these criteria. Well, okay, that gives you an extra checkpoint. But is that really even the fairest way to do it? I have friends who have lived with me in the past as live-in aides who've been trying to get a voucher for 15, 20 years. Can't get it. And they just survive on social security. Consider that. How does a human being survive in Sonoma County or virtually anywhere on $1,000 a month? How can you afford a roof over your head? How can you afford food? But somehow miraculously, in our community, we do have thousands of people who are getting by on a grand a month. I have no idea how that works, but it works badly for us as a community and for them as individuals. So I do have some passion about this issue. And I've done what I can to help people out in the past to pay it forward, as it were, even though I have very little to throw in there. But what I do have is intelligence. What I do have is commitment and time and the willingness to actually serve my community and help make things maybe just a little bit better down the road. I noticed that there was like $873 million worth of projects that have been approved and are being built in the city right now. That's fantastic. About 10% of that money is coming from, you know, community funds in some way, shape or form. But there's only one project that I saw that had been approved for home ownership. And if we really want to help people, I think it would be a good idea to maybe look into ways of helping people own homes rather than just rent. Mary. Thank you very much, Mr. Brown. And thank you for your passion, looking at the council member staff. Thank you for your application. Could you say a little bit more about your work with Legal Aid? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, Legal Aid is where I did my internship and then I did a bonus internship with them afterwards when I was at Golden Gate. And yeah, and I worked in the housing department there. So that was dealing with evictions, you know, on a daily basis, day in and day out. And one of the things, one of the big issues that popped up there, and it's a case I really wish had gotten heard, dealt with a mental illness. So you make a reasonable accommodation for somebody when they have cerebral palsy like my son does, and it's fairly obvious what those accommodations might need to be. It has to do with mobility, with getting through a door, with getting up steps, that sort of thing. But when somebody has a mental illness like schizophrenia, how do you accommodate a disability that's behavioral? So we had a client that came in who would sometimes go off of his meds. And when he went off of his meds, he acted crazy. Weird things. He started yelling in the middle of the night. In this instance, he stuck fish in the wall of his apartment. Terrible, because he thought for sure the person next to him was, you know, doing something with rays in his brain, that sort of thing. I made the argument that the landlord should have accommodated that by simply moving him to another unit, where he was not sharing more than one wall with somebody, and keep him, you know, kind of over there as an accommodation. That didn't fly mainly because of the fact that he had a mental crisis, and he wasn't able to show up at the court hearing. But that's just one of the big issues that pops up for me in regards to this. We have a lot of people who are homeless because they have mental illness. And how do we accommodate that? How can you accommodate that? Thank you. Are there any additional questions from council members? Thank you. Thank you very much for being here. Betty Banda. And thank you, Miss Betty, for patiently waiting. You've been here for a while. Thank you. Even though I got here very early, but that's just my excitement, I guess. My name is Betty. I'm a 61-year-old elder. I am of the native culture. I was born here in San Rosa in 1962. I lived in Guiseville, went to Guiseville Elementary till I was in fifth grade, and moved to Central Valley, went to elementary there and high school. And I also attended Fresno City and got my master's in social psychology, which wasn't pertaining to the city college. I had a professor come in from out of state, from a university accredited. I also studied in behavioral economics and got my cert for alcohol and drug counseling. Right now, I'm working with the IHSS and Home Supported Services with the elders, and I help them with their everyday duties and things that they need done. I also have worked elsewhere, and I've done a little cashering in different parts of San Rosa and Hillsburg. I've worked with, I myself was homeless as well, and I've worked with the homeless, and I've helped them come out of that state of homelessness through helping them go to, referring them to places like the housing vouchers and various programs that San Rosa has to offer. And Petaluma, I mean all over the county actually. And I enjoyed it. I enjoy working with people. I enjoy helping people. I get a lot of compliments on my attitude, my attribute, and my character, because I guess I bring them some kind of joy. But I help them forget their predicaments and the barriers that we have in our lives and the hurdles we have to jump over. But it became easier as I got to know that when I came back, I came back 12 years ago, I believe, in 2011. And I was struggling at first, but I jumped my own hurdles and my own barriers, broke my own barriers. And I am now housed thanks to also the HUD voucher. And I was living in Eureka at the time. I didn't really, I wasn't homeless there. I was living with a friend of mine and we shared an apartment. And the most times when I was out homeless, so to speak, I started working. I was working the whole time I was here. I was working. And whether I was out and about or whether I was housed, I was working. And I've been working since. And now I'm just working part-time. But I enjoy what I do. And what I feel I can bring is the opportunity to engage in the knowledge and everything else that it has to offer. I'd like to help in any way I can. I'll give back to the city that has helped me as well. And just help out there and see what I can do. And I know I can do a lot. So I hope I'm considered, especially for the seniors. Any questions? Thank you very much. Are there any questions from council members? Seeing none, thank you very much for being here. And again, thank you for your patience. Okay, thank you. So we did have an application that was put in for Lynn Norris for the senior or at large. But she was unable to be here. But the application was reviewed by council members. So again, on behalf of the entire council, we would like to thank you for your interest in serving. And if you're not chosen for these positions, there are additional opportunities to serve the city. So we encourage you to seek out some of those opportunities. So thank you very much. We will now move to item four, which we have no study sessions for today. And we will take a five minute break prior to our regular meeting starting at four o'clock. Thank you, 20. Welcome, everyone, to our August 8, 2023 Santa Rosa City Council meeting. It is now 405, now 406, sing a quorum. Madam City Clerk, may you please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Step. Here. Council Member Rogers. Here. Council Member Krepke. Here. Council Member Fleming. Here. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor McDonald. Here. Mayor Rogers. Present. Let the record show all council members are present. Thank you. We will now go to item six. Madam City Attorney, may you please report out on closed session. Good afternoon, Council and community. We had a closed session on the item on the agenda and no reportable action was taken. Thank you. We have no proclamations on today's agenda, so we will move to item eight, our staff briefings. Madam City Manager. Thank you, Mayor. Good afternoon, Mayor. Members of Council. Item 8.1 is our community empowerment plan update. Seems awful, though. There we go. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor and City Council. I'm here Lawn Peterson, Director of Communications, Santa Rosa. I'm here to do the community empowerment update. I wanted to start out that at the end of June, Chief Cregan attended a listening session organized by the Violence Prevention Partnership at Rosen University Prep. This provided an opportunity to gather feedback and really listen to community members on how to prevent some of the violence, as well as working collaboratively to help make measurable differences in that community. As a follow-up on that, the Mayor, Councilman Alvarez and Chief Cregan will be hosting a town hall on September 7th, starting at 6 p.m. Same place, Rosen University Prep, in collaboration with the Violence Prevention Partnership. There'll be a listening session and talk about the recent rise in violence and strategies to prevent violence in that community. Next, during the week of July 10th through the 13th, SRPD held a youth community police experience for 25, 14 to 18-year-olds. It's a hand-on learning experience, teaches teens about what to expect from the police department, as well as it introduces them to the local criminal justice system. July 14th, SRPD hosted its first ever and very successful tacos with a cop at Motote in Rosen, so it was a great opportunity to connect with officers and talk to them about, talk to the community about important neighborhood concerns and enjoying delicious food. Who doesn't love tacos? I mean, come on, tacos, you guys. Last week, August 2nd, SRPD, the Police Department and Dick Sporting Goods hosted National Night Out with those of partner agencies. That's an annual celebration, enhancing the relationship between the community and local law enforcement. It was a fun evening with positive interactions with family, friends, and neighbors. August 5th, SRPD greeted and interacted with children participating in the Active 2030 Club in the Children's Shopping Spree. It's to aim to get children prepped for their first day of school, to start with confidence, also helps parents struggling to purchase supplies and clothes for their kids. Same day on August 5th, SRPD also participated in the eighth annual backpack giveaway. It also provides supplies and students and family in the Rosalind community. And final one, several times this summer, SRPD officers participated in Top the Cops. If you haven't heard about that, it's an event at Sonoma County Raceway where officers offer alternatives to illegal street racing and give teens a chance to race against local law enforcement officers and complete computing in their official vehicles. So that's the previous lots of opportunities for upcoming engagement I want to highlight. And by the way, I will send this all out. I realize there's a lot of stuff going on from the engagements. I'll send it like I did last time to the council to share with your constituents. So they'll be attending the second annual rosin-ready event Thursday, August 10th, 5 to 7, Bayer Park, West Avenue. There will be booths, emergency signup, evacuation routes, etc. They'll also be participating in a family community resource fair at the leisure mobile home park Saturday, August 12th, 10 to noon, 2581 Oxidone Road. Next, Wildfire Resource Fair. SRPD will be there as well as the fire department and multiple people from the city. Saturday, August 19th, it's from 10 to 2 p.m. in the community center. This is the annual event focused on preventing wildfire and getting information about building community resilience. Next, Summer in South Park. It's at Martin Luther King, Jr. Park. Saturday, August 19th, 11 to 2, and sorry, 12 to 3. It's a community party with live music, lawn games, prizes, raffles, lots of other stuff, free ice cream, fun for the whole family. And finally, Coffee with a Cop, Starbucks, Stony Point, Yuba. It's at Thursday, August 31st, 3 to 5 and 4 to 6. And that concludes the community update. Let me know if anybody has any questions. Any questions from council members? Did you say Stony Point and Yuba? Yes. All right. So, thank you very much for that presentation. We will now have public comment. Madam City Clerk. Thank you. We are now taking public comment on item 8.1. If you are in the chamber, I would like to comment but have not provided a speaker card or your name, please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand or dial star 9. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. Please go ahead. I'm Gregory Farron again. I was just going to add to the presentation that the August 19th at Martin Luther King Park is what we all know is the Day and Night Festival and honors Vince Harper. So, if you want to have a great time, it's an all-day event and the South Park community is putting it on August 19th. I think of it as Vince Harper Day. Thank you, Mayor. I see no one else approaching the podiums in chamber and I see no hands being raised via Zoom. Thank you. We will now continue to item 9, our city manager and city attorney's report. Thank you, Mayor. The city manager has no items to report this evening. Thank you. Nothing to report on settlements either. Thank you. We will now continue to item 10, statements of abstention by council members, council member Okrepke. Thank you very much. I'll be abstaining from item 16.3 for perceived financial conflict. Thank you. Any other abstentions from council members? Seeing none, we will move to item 11, mayors and council members' reports. Are there any council members' reports? Council member Statte. I think the only report that really needs to be made this week is the fact that we have the Sonoma County Fair going on. I have been three times so far. I will be going in additional two, including I think with a few of us on Friday from the horse races. The Fair Week is just a fabulous week in the area. And then as a segue, a couple of weeks ago, the Sonoma County Farm Bureau held their Love of the Land event and they must have had about 600 people out at La Cremeau. And a lot of the kids that were out there getting scholarships and helping with that event are showing at the fair this week. So a great tie-in. And then a final commendation to the 100 Black Men who did their second annual golf tournament. And they had about 130 folks up in Windsor for a very successful event. And it was fun to be part of that as well. So that concludes my report out. Thank you. Council member Rowe Krupke. Thank you very much. I was able to attend the wall raising at Mahoney-A-Glen with a few of our colleagues and staff that were celebrating this in Rinken Valley as I believe and staff can correct me if I'm wrong was the first by-right housing built in the city of Santa Rosa providing 99 affordable units to our residents including farm workers. So it's a great project and it was great to be here there for a wall raising. And I can't wait to see that completed. This past Saturday I did a nine-hour ride along with Santa Rosa Fire Department. I'm happy to report that the curse of the ride along is still alive and kicking. In nine hours we had one call and the firefighters wanted me to know that they really are busy. It is a busy firehouse they swear. But it was a great opportunity to see some of the behind the scenes of what our firefighters do including the on-the-fly pretty much algebra they do for for water pressure and friction loss and stuff like that as well as have some candid conversations and I look forward to to do that again in the future. And then finally last week at Lafko we approved the municipal services review contract for the city of Santa Rosa which will essentially break down the the availability and the effectiveness of the services to the city and its sphere of influence as well as its urban growth boundaries and if necessary adjust those. So that is another piece in the puzzle for us to look at South Santa Rosa in a different way. Council Member Alvarez. Thank you Madam Mayor. For myself I had the great honor of attending a gala that was put on by KBBF which was celebrating its 50th anniversary and I'm happy to report that all expectations were exceeded with the amount of money that was raised from the community. Thanks to the community they are now able to purchase a backup battery really invest into infrastructure that hasn't been touched for many many of years. So I want to extend a thank you to all the the volunteers of KBF for really stepping up and just keeping the first national bilingual station alive and hopefully another 50 years here in the future. Thank you all. All right and I would like to make an appointment to the Cultural Heritage Board and that will be for Janice Marzolin and also for the Community Advisory Board and that will be Angelina Vasquez. I would like to thank you both for your willingness to serve our community. On 719 I was able to visit the Disability Services and Legal Center. Thank you Madonna Feather Cruz for the invitation. I was also able to meet with staff from the Conservation Corps of the North Bay and they will be opening a new location in Santa Rosa so we're really happy about that and the services that they will bring. July 22nd I was able to continue my fire station tours and I was only there for less than an hour and two out of three of the fire stations I went on calls. A VA call and a car accident which was a little scary but so I am enjoying myself and looking forward to the remainder of my visits. On 731 I was able to visit Sam Jones Hall. I met with staff. They are very wonderful people. They have great residents that are there that I was able to speak with and I was also very pleased to see that they are implementing programming for the residents so I cannot wait for the day that I can go play bingo but I just wanted to say that and then on August 1st I met with the Council member Special Board of Directors meeting and we appointed a clerk. August 3rd I was also able to attend the KVBF 50th anniversary but Council Member Alvarez has already told you about that and this past Saturday I was able to attend Church Unstoppable's Back to School Drive. Participants were able to play games, get their face painted, they offered food, refreshing lemonade and all this before being offered a haircut and the children were able to go and shop for their own school supplies so I just thought that that was awesome. They had a store and the children were able to go pick out the backpack that they wanted even the pencils and everything else so really great and also a Redwood gospel mission had a Back to School Drive which consisted of multiple booths providing education to both parents and children. Children were given bicycle helmets, the opportunity to play games, the highway patrol was there, there were different church congregations that were there, county of Sonoma staff were there and at some of the booths children were allowed to pick out snacks that they could take home so the children left with full bellies and ready with all school supplies that they needed some with helmets but they all had smiles so thank you very much to Church Unstoppable and Redwood gospel mission for doing that for our community members. We have wonderful events going on in our community and just thank you again to the organizers of the events. Seeing no additional reports. Madam City Clerk. We are now taking public comment on item 11. If you are in council chamber I would like to comment but I have not provided a speaker card or your name please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via zoom please dial star nine or raise your hand. You will have three minutes and a countdown time or will alert at the end of that period. Mayor I'm seeing no hands being raised and no one making their way to the podium for public comment. Thank you. Moving to item 11.2 board commission and committee appointments we were able to have interviews for the housing authority earlier today but we will also have to vote on making appointments to the board of building regulations so we'll start with 11.2.1. Council members are there council member Okrepke? Yeah I'll move to a point. Angela Conte is the at-large appoint tenant commissioner to housing authority. Second. We have a motion made by council member Okrepke and a second by council member Stap. Through the mayor may I make another motion. Yes council member. These these are all or all the applicants at large? No we had senior senior or at large and then we just had at large. Okay I'll let it stand. I would like to make a counter motion and make a motion to appoint Lewis Brown for tenant commissioner at large. Seeing no second Madam City Clerk may you please call the vote on the first motion. Mayor do we need to take public comment on on the motion or on the item on the floor? Yes please do. Thank you we are now taking public comment on item 11.2.1 the appointments for the at-large and the senior tenant commissioners for the housing authority. If you're in council chamber and would like to comment but have not provided a speaker card or your name please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via zoom please raise your hand or dial star nine. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. Mayor I'm seeing no hands being raised via zoom and no one at the podium. May you please call the vote. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Stapp. Aye. Councilmember Rogers. Aye. Councilmember Okrepke. Aye. Councilmember Fleming. Yes. Councilmember Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. With the record show that motion passes with seven affirmative votes. Thank you. Do we have a motion for the senior tenant commissioner? I'll move Doug. I missed his last name. Mr. Friedman. Yep. All right. Second. So we have a motion made by councilmember Fleming and a second made by Vice Mayor McDonald. Madam City Clerk may you please call the vote. Thank you. Councilmember Stapp. Aye. Councilmember Rogers. Aye. Councilmember Okrepke. Aye. Councilmember Fleming. Aye. Councilmember Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. With the record show that passes with seven affirmative votes. Thank you. Moving to 11.2.2. Council may vote to make appointments to the board of building regulation and appeals. We have six vacancies on the board and incumbent may serve a four-year term expiring December 31st, 2026 and new appointments will serve a two-year term expiring December 31st, 2024. May I get a motion? I'll make a motion to appoint Ken Coker to the four-year term as an incumbent and Craig Lawson and Karl Kogrove to a two-year term to the board of building regulation appeals. Second. We have a motion from Councilmember Okrepke and a second from Vice Mayor McDonald. Madam City Clerk may you please call the vote. Do we need to take public comment on this item as well? I thought the public comment was for all of the appointments but yes let's take public comment. Okay thank you. We are now taking public comment on 11.2.2. If you are in council chamber would like to comment but have not provided a speaker card please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via zoom please raise your hand or dial star nine. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. No one approaching the podium mayor and no hands being raised via zoom. Thank you may you please call the vote. Thank you. Councilmember Stepp. Aye. Councilmember Rogers. Aye. Councilmember Okrepke. Aye. Councilmember Fleming. Aye. Councilmember Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. Let the record show that passes with seven affirmative votes. Thank you. Moving to item 12 approval of minutes we have two minutes that we need to approve July 22nd 2023 which was a special meeting in July 25th 2023. Councilmembers are there any corrections to the minutes? Seeing no corrections Madam City Clerk can you please facilitate public comment on items 12.1 and 12.2. Thank you Mayor we are now taking public comment on item 12 both sets of minutes we are if you're in the council chamber would like to comment please make your way to the podium or provide a speaker card if you have not if you are participating via zoom please raise your hand or dial star nine you will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. Seeing no one approaching the podiums and no hands being raised mayor I'll turn it back to you. Thank you we'll adopt the minutes as presented. Moving on to item 13 our consent items Madam City Clerk can you please read the consent items. Thank you Mayor item 13.1 resolution approval of grant of easement 2 and accept of quick claim of easement interest from PG&E and AT&T and summary vacation of a portion of public utility easement along Fountain Grove Parkway. Item 13.2 resolution third amendment to the professional services agreement F002334 with Belinda M Fernandez DBA Studios and pardon me DBA Studio B 13.3 resolution first amendment to software subscription services service agreement F002367 with permit rocket software LLC DBA E permit hub 13.4 resolution ratification and authorization of increased compensation for continued cooperative purchase of computer and server equipment from Dell marketing LP. Item 13.5 resolution approval of professional services agreement with Sloan Sakai Young and Wong LLP. 13.6 resolution extension of proclamation of local homeless emergency. Bringing it back to council are there any questions? Seeing none Madam City Clerk may you please facilitate public comment. We are now taking public comment on item 13 if you are in council chamber and would like to comment but have not yet provided a speaker card or your name please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via zoom please raise your hand or dial star nine. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. Mayor I see no hands being raised via zoom and no one approaching the podium. Vice Mayor McDonnell can you please make a motion? Thank you Mayor. I'd like to move items 13.1 through 13.6. Second. We have a motion made by Vice Mayor McDonnell in a second made by council member staff. Madam City Clerk may you please call the vote. Council Member Staff? Aye. Council Member Rogers? Aye. Council Member O'Crepkey? Aye. Council Member Fleming? Aye. Council Member Alvarez? Aye. Vice Mayor McDonnell? Aye. Mayor Rogers? Aye. Let the record show that passes with seven affirmative votes. It is not yet five o'clock and we have no report items either so we're going to take a break until five o'clock. Thank you. Seeing a quorum Madam City Clerk may you please call the roll. Thank you. Council Member Staff? Is that me? We're doing a roll call. Council Member Staff? Here. Council Member Rogers? Here. Council Member O'Crepkey? Here. Council Member Fleming? Here. Council Member Alvarez? Present. Vice Mayor McDonnell? Here. Mayor Rogers? Present. Let the record show all council members are present. Thank you. We will now be moving to 16.2 which is our first public hearing of the evening. 16.1. 16.1. Oh sorry. 16.1. Madam City Manager? Item 16.1 a public hearing repealing and replacing chapter 11-22 of the Santa Rosa City Code camping on public streets and public property camping ordinance. Good afternoon Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor McDonnell and members of thank you members of the council. I'm Kelly Kaikendall manager with Housing and Community Services and I have Megan Bassenger here with me as well this afternoon and I'm going to be presenting on the camping ordinance. So the current ordinance was adopted in 1994. It applies to camping on public and private property within the Santa Rosa City limits. It prohibits camping on public property in conflicts with Martin versus the city of Boise, a 2019 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Martin prohibits cities from criminally enforcing camping restrictions on public property if there is no alternative shelter available for those facing enforcement. Since the ordinance was adopted in 1994 it has been amended on three occasions. In 2011 an urgency ordinance was adopted to regulate camping on public property in response to issues that arose during the Occupy Santa Rosa movement and this allowed for camping permits at City Hall. In 2012 the ordinance was updated eliminating the permit option allowed under Ordinance 3977 and restored camping prohibition on public property and most recently in 2013 the ordinance was amended to repeal prohibition on habitation of vehicles. That is addressed under a separate ordinance under City Code which restricts parking for more than 72 hours and it is focused on a time restriction not related to habitation of vehicles. Ordinance changes so Martin limits versus prohibits enforcement of camping on public property and that's an important distinction. It does place limitations but it doesn't prohibit us entirely from enforcing camping. In response to that many California jurisdictions have been updating their ordinances to align with Martin and to adopt time, place and manner restrictions on camping activities. When I say time I'm referring to when you can camp, place refers to where you can and cannot camp and manner refers to how you can camp. Now city practice has been to lead with services and shelter prior to any enforcement action that aligns with the Martin case. The city also prioritized encampments that pose an immediate threat to health and safety and those fall outside of Martin. The city also enforces violations of law other than camping consistently throughout the city regarding of housing status. For example trespassing on private property or violations of the fishing game code violation such as camping along creeks and waterways. There are many health and safety impacts associated with encampments. Addressing encampments has required increased city resources and these health and safety impacts present a threat to individuals residing in encampments and to the broader community so our neighborhoods and businesses. Some of the impacts that we've seen in encampments include fires and fire hazards, accumulation of debris and garbage, hazardous and biohazardous waste, illegal activity, environmental harm and rodents. And many of these impacts also violate state and federal regulations requiring water quality protection and clear paths to travel. The council is aware that the city has engaged a number of efforts and initiatives to address homelessness in Santa Rosa. In 2016 the council declared a homeless emergency and that emergency was updated earlier this afternoon on the consent calendar. That a homeless emergency has provided the city with greater flexibility to address homelessness in the community. The city's established a homeless service division. We invest approximately $5 million annually in program and administration as well as one-time funding. An example of that is the $10 million that was invested during the COVID-19 pandemic. That provided for non-congregate shelter at the Sandman Hotel, the safe social distancing program at the Findlay Community Center and the emergency expansion at Sam Jones Hall to restore shelter bed capacity lost due to the pandemic. The council is familiar with innovative programs such as in response and safe parking. We also have a city encampment team. This team was formed in response to a large encampment on private property at Old Stony Point Road. The goal of this team is to prevent the formation of large encampments. We do so by engaging individuals early and often into services and shelter and by proactively addressing the health safety and environmental impacts of encampments. The team is comprised of staff from fire, police, housing and community services, transportation and public works and code enforcement. And lastly on this slide we also invest one-time funding to address homelessness in the community. Most recently the city was awarded $3.8 million from the state encampment resolution funding program and that came before council on July 11th. In the next few slides I will provide a summary of recent ordinances that have been updated in Sonoma County, so Brunert Park and the county of Sonoma. I want to say that the ordinance before you this afternoon is based very closely after Brunert Park. In Brunert Park's ordinance focuses on location, so where you can and cannot camp as well as the secondary behaviors that occur in encampments. Brunert Park's ordinance was updated in August and then again in September 2022. It's two-part. It focuses on prohibiting camping and storage of personal property in specific areas. I'll provide you a few of those areas but there's a detailed summary provided in the staff report and that includes parks, well ahead and creek protection zones, near facilities, near city facilities to protect ingress and egress and within the right-of-way. And the second part of their ordinance establishes conduct regulations prohibiting certain activities. So that's really the secondary behaviors that we find in encampments and that includes the size of an encampment and proximity to camping next to other individuals. Also focused on fire safety and mitigating environmental harm. Brunert Park's ordinance also prohibits camping on private property without the consent of the property owner and under certain conditions. And violations of the ordinance are a misdemeanor or infraction. Moving on to the county of Sonoma, their ordinance is focused on location so where you can and cannot camp and then time. So when you can camp. Their ordinance was updated in April of 2023. Prohibits camping in specific areas. I'll list a few here but there again there's a detailed summary provided in the staff report that includes in parks in high fire risk areas and in the public right-of-way. And prohibits camping in remaining areas between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. Similar to Brunert Park it also prohibits camping on private property without the consent or permission of the property owner. And violations may be treated as a misdemeanor. So moving on to the proposed seating ordinance before you this afternoon. Before I jump into that I want to talk briefly about why we're doing this. So our current ordinance conflicts with federal law. That's really one of the main reasons why we're updating the ordinance. Also we want to update our ordinance to align with our current practice of our city encampment team and I just spoke briefly about that. And to make sure that we're complying with Martin and you'll hear me say that over and over again throughout the presentation. Our ordinance is two part. It prohibits specific areas where individuals can and cannot camp. And then it also prohibits activities certain activities in encampments. Those are the behaviors that I just mentioned when I was covering Brunert Park's ordinance. So let me jump in here with the specific areas where camping is prohibited. And this is city specific. So all city owned or leased property. That includes city parks. The public right-of-way that impedes passage by pedestrian cyclists or vehicles. So that includes streets bike lanes sidewalks and roadway. Within 25 feet of a driveway or loading dock. A building entrance or exit. A fire hydrant lane connection or equipment and transit hubs and bus shelters. Within 150 feet of a high watermark. That complies with the fishing game code. And within 100 feet of a school. I do want to mention that this ordinance before you this afternoon applies to camping. So that's tents or other structures. It's not vehicles. Moving on to the part of the ordinance which addresses the behaviors or how you can camp. This is for areas not prohibited in the ordinance. So the areas that I just covered in the previous slide. The focus here is on fire safety and mitigating environmental and health and safety impacts. And many of the items that I'll cover in the next two slides are um. Responded to frequently or countered frequently by our police and fire departments. So if alternate shelter is not available. Um and camping does occur on public property. There are conduct regulations prohibiting certain activities in the ordinance. Those include occupying an area greater than 10 by 10 feet. Camping within four feet of another person. Dumping gray or black water. Unpermitted electrical connections. And possession of combustible gas for liquids. This slide continues with the conduct regulations. It includes prohibition on fires except for cooking in city installed facilities. Improper disposal of hypodermic needles. Environmental harm. Damage to public property. Camping near vegetation that could aid in spreading fire and excessive noise. The proposed city ordinance also includes restrictions around private property. So camping is not allowed on private property without permission of the property owner. It limits location and duration of stay. So location is limited to residential areas. Duration of stay is for no more than three days. And that's to align with the 72 hours under our parking ordinance. And then access to facilities that property must provide access to running water. Cooking facilities and bathroom facilities. Unless otherwise allowed under our community homeless assistance program. That's the CHAP program. And that allows for the provision of homeless services on private property that's zone commercial or meeting facility. And violations of the ordinance may be treated as a misdemeanor or public nuisance subject to enforcement. I want to emphasize here that not all violations of the ordinance will be treated as a misdemeanor. The police department will follow its progressive enforcement model which starts with a warning and proceeds to a citation and arrest only if necessary. So this slide I will provide a brief comparison of the three ordinances that I just covered. So Renner Park, the county of Sonoma and Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa and Renner Park are most closely aligned or most similar. So we both have time sorry we don't have time restrictions. We both have place restrictions and manner restrictions. And just as a reminder to the council place is where you can and cannot camp. And manner is the like how you can camp or the activities and behaviors that are not allowed within camps. So let's see. I covered Santa Rosa, Renner Park. The county has the time restriction between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. You will not find that in Santa Rosa's proposed ordinance or Renner Park's adopted ordinance. They do have restrictions on where you can and cannot camp and they do not have the manner restrictions that you'll find in our proposed ordinance or Renner Park's ordinance. So implementation. Implementation of the ordinance will be carried out by the city's encampment team. I talked briefly about them during the presentation. We'll make sure to do so subject to shelter capacity and in alignment with Martin B. Boyce. The ordinance is really intended as a tool to mitigate health and safety impacts of homelessness. It is not intended and we're not proposing that it's a solution to homelessness or a solution to ending encampments in Santa Rosa. You're well aware that there are strategic efforts underway throughout our county to address homelessness including council's recent adoption of our five-year strategic plan in November which was followed by the continuum of care's adoption of a strategic plan in December of 2022. Before I wrap up here I just want to say that I know the council has received public comments about this item today and you'll be hearing more from the public in a few moments. And you're going to hear you know those that are for the ordinance those that are against the ordinance and those that are somewhere in between. I just really want to emphasize that the intent of the ordinance is to keep public spaces safe and clean for all Santa Rosa residents while balancing the constitutional rights of our unhoused community members. With that I'll move to the recommendation and conclude my presentation. It is recommended by the Housing Community Services Department that council introduce an ordinance repealing and replacing chapter 11-22 of the Santa Rosa City Code Camping on Public Streets on Public Property 2-1. Eliminate a blanket ban on camping on public property to align with Martin versus the City of Boise. A 2019 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and to establish standards for camping on public or private property that protect the health and safety of the community. This concludes my presentations. I'd be my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions that the council might have. Thank you. Thank you very much for that presentation. I will now look to council to see if there are any questions of staff. Vice Mayor McDonald. Thank you and thank you for the presentation. I just have a couple clarifying questions for you. The first one was that came to me from some from some constituents. I've had some coffee. Sorry about that. It from from Oakmont was around bike paths and we want to make sure that we're putting those in and the concern with camping along bike paths and I noticed in the ordinance that it addressed that. Can you just expand on that of what would be allowed specifically in our rural areas as we go to implement additional bike paths and encourage walking and riding throughout our our beautiful county and then my second question is on the time restrictions. Was there any reason that staff didn't implement that to be consistent with the county? Give me just a minute and vice mayor and members of council we do have several staff members here so if you want to go to the podium or if any of you want to come down here that would be great so we can move this along. So the ordinance does address specifically what you raised council member McDonald about bike lanes. It's B section five so it prohibits camping, sitting, lying or sleeping or by storing using maintaining or placing personal property within a street bike lane or other public right away in a manner that hinders or obstructs the free passage, acts or some movement of any person's bicycles or vehicles traveling or attempting to pass along the same right away. So it's not allowed under the ordinance I mean I think if that's incurring occurring or we're going to engage those individuals first offer services that's our you know number one thing we do and then the next step would be to warn them and then move forward with progressive enforcement if they don't comply. Thank you for that and then just for clarification I'm not sure if you heard me was on the time restrictions that the county has in place from 7 a.m. until 9 o'clock at night for certain areas. Did we discuss that and and perhaps why we didn't include that in the ordinance? So we did evaluate several ordinances and throughout California and looked closely at our partners so the county and the city of Runor Park. We did not adopt the time restriction. Time restriction just based on our experience responding to encampments over the last several years we felt that that was going to be difficult to implement and a key component of the ordinance is making sure that we have an ordinance that we can operationalize. Thank you and thank you for the work on the ordinance as well. Any additional questions? Councilmember Rogers? Thank you so much Madam Mayor. Kelly, Megan thank you so much for the presentation. I know this has been a little bit of a moving target for us over the last couple of years particularly as we learn a little bit more about what other cities are doing in response to Boise. I did have a technical question to start with and that's on the ordinance. The section that talks about space that can be occupied and in particular the prohibition from being within four feet of another person. My question really is how is that enforceable particularly given that there's a number of folks in our on-house communities that are families or are partners. Is it a technical drafting error that we have there to use persons as opposed to tents? What if they're occupying the same tent? The intent of that section of the ordinance is really it speaks to fire safety and just fires that have occurred in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County and actually throughout California when people are camping very close to each other. I don't think that as written it would prohibit somebody sharing a tent with a partner but the intent there is that we don't have individuals camped closely next to one another if that answers your question. It tells me that we're not trying to ban people from sleeping next to their spouses or significant others. I'd ask the city attorney to weigh in on that because what it actually says is for the purposes of camping on public property within four feet of another person. It does say occupying a different tent in a different section so I take that back that I appreciate that. The other question that I had was really related to is this enforceable if we do not have room for folks to go in services under Boise? That's a great question so the answer is no. We have to have a shoulder alternative. Sorry can you get closer to the mic please? Sorry I guess you have to be really close. So we cannot enforce the camping ordinance without a shelter alternative. So I just wanted to make sure that we keep that in mind when we have the conversation is that it's not an either or and I've heard from folks who say leave people alone and just put them in services. I've heard people say just move them along. Stop offering additional services that it brings people here. The response here that I know that you've been trying to strike a balance on is partnering both lessening the impact that encampments have on neighborhoods while also partnering it with the services and the programs that we know are effective for trying to get people off the street. So I do want to make sure we keep that in mind as we go to public comment as well. Thank you Councilmember Rogers. Any additional questions? Seeing none we will now open the public hearing. Madam City Clerk. We are now taking public comment on item 16.1. If you are in the chamber I would like to comment but have not yet provided a speaker card or your name please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via zoom please raise your hand or dial star nine. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. The first speaker will be Jerry followed by Jack. Either podium should be working so you can line up at either one. Please go ahead Jerry. Good afternoon. My name is Jerry LaLongberg. I'm a resident of Petaluma but I've been a resident and social worker in Santa Rosa for at least 25 out of the 40 years that I was a social worker. I would hope that each member of the council has read the document that I sent to you concerning this and I wanted to remind you and point out the irony that exactly five years ago today on August 8th of 2017 the folks in your chairs had this same conversation and yet we're still here. I want to also say what I usually say which is I'm honored to be part of this aspect of democracy where I get to talk to leaders who can make decisions and apply the wisdom that you're gathering. I think the ordinance as it's described has this element of punishment and a severity that although there are aspects of the ordinance that are absolutely necessary so I am in fact one of those in between people that was mentioned. We definitely need to look at that aspect. The other key thing having worked in homelessness one of the key problems in all of what we're doing is the silos that we live in so the silos between the enforcement part and the service part. The city of Santa Rosa and the staff is to be commended for all the work that you've done over the last many years to address some of these things but this ordinance as presented does not integrate with the actual homeless prevention action plan that was adopted in November. I also want to point out that the data which you all have somewhere should be attached to the actual reports so that the public can look at the look at what's there as we're preparing. Doing something but also using threats against people is counterproductive in my opinion. The way that you do outreach and the way that you work with your public-facing staff has a lot to do with having places where sanctioned encampments are allowed and the biggest flaw of the current ordinance as you have it before you is you do not tell anyone where it is permitted under Martin versus Boise to be able to reside if there is no place else to go so there's I would appreciate there being a map to show where it is permitted and as I say I sincerely appreciate what you all are trying to do but I also want you to be kind and compassionate to the people who are without a home which I know that you try to be but remember that hold that foremost in what you do. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Jack followed by Thomas. Madam Mayor, Councilmembers, my name is Jack Cabot. I heartily support this ordinance. A bit of background about me. I've been in the Juilliard Park District for 33 years. I've owned eight buildings there and done much work in improving the neighborhood along with my neighbors and so this ordinance will be much improvement and make our lives much better over there. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Thomas followed by Gig. Well thank you very much for the opportunity to speak and I want to point out a few things. The Ninth Circuit, the Federal Court of Appeals ruled on the preliminary injunction from the federal court of Martin v. Boise over 13 years ago so that put in place the authority by which you could not take property or arrest these people. You were supposed to follow that 13 years ago, not four years ago, not this year. Your ordinance does not appear to address Martin v. Boise's private property takings. Much of Martin v. Boise's ruling is directed at takings and the threats of taking private property. The Supreme Court did not take up the issue when Boise and the City of Los Angeles and others actually appealed to the Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court, they did not take up tertiary. They did not even put it on what's called the dark calendar or whatever. Not one person on this Supreme Court accepted a review of the Ninth Circuit's ruling on the private property issue. That's the center of the case was the taking of their properties because they could not sleep in the Boise area without sleeping bags, without tents, without any of that. That was the thing that prompted the case is the private property and that's the thing that the Supreme Court would not touch with a 10-foot pole. They don't want any agencies, any state governments, any local governments taking anyone's private property whether it's a tax or a taking. They consider them all the same. Do forgive me. I believe you, the city and the Santa Rosa Police Department are enforcing your no camping ordinances without offering services to RV residents currently. So you're currently in violation of our versus Boise, separate from creating an ordinance that tells people what you really want to do. And I know you want to do it. How can we not be, how can we be like Jerry said five years ago, 13 years ago? There's some obfuscation here. So please develop the resolve, come up with what you're going to accept as a solution, but also take into consideration private property. Thank you very much. All right. The next public comment will be from gig followed by Terrence. Thank you. Mayor Rogers, member of city council, gig hideout, president of Santa Rosa, homeowner, business owner and also part-time city staff. I'm not working right now. These are my own opinions. I thoroughly support this ordinance and urge you to adopt it. However, I found, I read the entire thing carefully and I found a little loophole, which I think is a big problem, which can very easily be fixed by adding a few words. And I would suggest that the person who makes the resolution just add these few words to solve this problem. And the issue is under page four under section 11.22.020 and section C. In the event, alternate shelter is not available. The issue is, is not available. That's not really defined. And here's the issue. There are people who are homeless who go to our services, they get intake, they may reside there and so on, but then they break the rules or they get in trouble, assaults, sexual abuse, drugs, pets, all kinds of things. They get kicked out, all right? Then they come to our parks and we say, oh, there's no camping here. And they say, maybe you should go to Caritas house and they say, oh, I've been kicked out of there. I can't go there. So does that mean it's not available to them because they're not allowed to go in there because they got kicked out for breaking the rules? Well, that's not really defined here. So what I'm suggesting is that you add the words through no fault of their own. So it should read, in the event, alternate shelter is not available through no fault of their own. So if there's no more beds, then yeah, everything that follows on C should apply. You can't, you know, be close and all these harm reduction things which are great make sense. But if they haven't, it's not available because they got kicked out because they were abusive or whatever the reason was. Well, it's still available to the public if someone's homeless, but it's not available to that individual. So should they be allowed to camp or not? I'm saying no. It's through their own fault that they got kicked out. Therefore they blew it. They've given up their availability and they're still not allowed to camp here. So other than that, I love the ordinance, all the harm reduction, the whole thing makes sense. Please approve it, but please add those six words, which actually my wife came up with, through no fault of their own. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Terrence, followed by Joe. I want to first thank staff for the fantastic work they did on this ordinance. You guys always do a fantastic job. Thank you so much. Council, I really am hoping that you will adopt this ordinance. It's extremely important just for the health and safety of everyone who calls Santa Rosa home. One thing that kind of came to me when I was reading this, similarly as the last speaker, on page four of the actual ordinance under 11.22.020, section B, you notice that there are six criteria here. I'll skip to the second one. No camping, basically lying, sleeping, and so forth. Within 25 feet of a driveway or a loading dock, period. The next one, 25 feet of any commercial entrance or exit, period. 25 feet of a hydrant, period. Number six in this bus shelter is 25 feet, period. It's only the first bullet and the fifth bullet where we start talking about camping, sitting or lying in a manner that impedes pedestrian passage on sidewalk or walkway. And I guess what my question is, and maybe one that you can think about as you're ready to pass this ordinance, are we creating language that's not clear? Are we saying that you can camp so long as the manner does not block the sidewalk or repeat the sidewalk? When we're talking about 25 feet to the loading dock, it doesn't say that you can't block it within 25 feet of any driveway or loading dock in a manner in which trucks can't get in. It's just a very definitive statement. You can't do it. And yet in number one and number five, we're talking about a manner. And I might think that I'm blocking it. Someone else might not think that they're blocking it. So basically in an effort to create language in this ordinance that's clear, maybe we should be looking at whether or not in a manner in number one, number five in that section is creating language that is not as clear as it could be. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Joe followed by Gregory. Thank you, Mayor Rogers and City Council. I am Joe Deetson and I'm currently the treasurer of the downtown action organization. And I first want to thank staff for the time and effort in the preparation of this ordinance. I support the ordinance and I urge the council to support it as well. And let me tell you why. Now I have lived and worked downtown here in Santa Rosa for 35 years and I've experienced these camping sites within a few blocks of my home in the St. Rose area when they were under 6th Street and the 9th Street underpasses. I've also experienced them when the camping took over Fremont Park between 4th and 5th Streets and I see campsites regularly in my walks up and down the Prince Walkway along Santa Rosa Creek. And let me talk on a business level. I've seen tenants relocate out of downtown because staff and customers feel unsafe in the downtown related to camping. My wife and I have had visitors tell us that they no longer want to come to town due to these freeway camp outs and what's the impact? Well, there are a few retail cells in Santa Rosa and there's an increased hotel vacancy. Well, that's lower sales tax and TOT to the city of Santa Rosa. So I realize we're talking about safety and soundness but this has a business impact on the city of Santa Rosa as a financial impact. Last I'd like to say that we want to get our city under control again so please support this ordinance. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Gregory followed by Victoria. Good afternoon Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Gregory Farron. I hope that you all know me well enough to know that this doesn't surprise you that I'm here to talk to this ordinance but I think it might surprise you to know that as Kelly indicated, I'm on the fence. I'm in between. I support the aspects of this ordinance that bring it into compliance with the Martin versus Boise. As some of you know, I was one of the original plaintiffs for this lawsuit against the city and the county. I believe that Kelly and staff have done an admirable job of bringing to you an ordinance that addresses many of the issues that were raised then and that you and your colleagues have done in the last 10 years an enormous amount of work and success in resolving some of the issues that lead to encampments. You can just look around you to know that there are alternatives for people with outhouses that didn't exist when this ordinance, when the battle took place, when the lawsuit was filed. Many of you can remember it being a lot worse for the business downtown. It being a lot worse for the people who were living downtown. So I guess what I'm here to say is that sure I have real issues with some of the aspects of this ordinance. Nothing is perfect. I've served in legislative advocacy and legislative positions like you have and understand that the tweaks that you've just been offered by the last couple of speakers are the kinds of tweaks that really deserve to be in court. Whether a person who has been kicked out of some place has fully exhausted their rights is an issue for the courts not for you to write in an ordinance. The kinds of things just suggested about whether or not something ought to be added in order to be able to make it more palatable also to me seem to be judicial and not legislative. Your staff have presented something that you can defend and that I can't heavily attack. That's what as I just discussed with the police chief is probably the best of both worlds from a legislative point of view. A lot of people dislike this. A lot of people like it. You're probably doing something right by being right in between and I would urge you not to mess with it. There's still going to be things that we're still going to be working on the retention of private property. As you remember a lot of people lost a lot of stuff and we're still working on trying to make sure that if ever happens again no one does. But you have every right to be able to dictate what this ordinance says and I think your staff has presented something to you that like I said I can't oppose. Thank you the next public comment will be from Victoria. I can't see anybody. On the right of the podium there's a switch to lower the podium. Thank you Paul. Thank you because I'm dressed so fantastically. I want everybody to see. Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak. My name is Victoria Yanez and I don't believe I've spoken very much before this city council but I have spoken many times before before the Santa Rosa City Council in office at the time. The time I'm thinking about was when five activists got arrested for not leaving. The podium was down below at the time and they wouldn't leave the podium. They got arrested and went to jail for homeless people because the city at the time the only response that we could get out of Santa Rosa was the criminalization of homelessness. I remember I testified back then that the last time I checked Santa Rosa was still in the United States and the Constitution of the United States is the ultimate law the supreme law of the land. Did I mention I'm with homeless action volunteer attorney? Sorry I meant to say that because homeless action exclamation point is still working. At the time we were working on fighting all the infractions that people were given when they were criminalizing homelessness in the city of Santa Rosa because somebody slept or sat on the sidewalk. This is horrendous for the city to always be looking for a way around the constitutional law that has established rights for homeless persons or for persons experiencing homelessness if we want to be politically correct. Now we've got Sam Jones and yes I'm sorry but that cannot be taken out of the law that there has to be an alternative and that is shelter, housing. Why have we not discussed the new shelter that will be put in place to cover though all these people that are rejected from Sam Jones thrown out of Sam Jones. I'm on the LEAP board the living expertise advisory panel to the COC on how to spend the money that HUD sends over here for the homeless and we have been looking at the lack of viable grievance procedures in the various places that provide services to people experiencing homelessness. We need to buckle down on that the city council needs to make sure everything is working fine before they criminalize homelessness again. I'm ashamed to be in the city of Santa Rosa. Thank you. If there's anyone else in council chamber wishing to provide public comment on this item please make your way to the podium. Thank you please go ahead. For the record Hugh Futrell here as chair of the downtown action organization we want to thank staff for its hard work on this very much. The position of the DAO which represents as you know several hundred businesses and property owners is that it is appropriate that the public spaces of the community be safe secure and available to the public subject to the requirements of law including Boise including if shelter is not available for camping on some appropriate regulated restrictive basis to be available. All this seems to be common sense quite honestly and to the degree this ordinance accomplishes that we certainly support it. Time will tell but we do support it and we urge your approval of these changes. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no additional public comments from council chamber I'm going to turn it over to our Zoom host. Thank you. First up will be Michael O'Toole followed by cadence. Michael I'm allowing you permission to talk please go ahead when you're ready. Can you hear me? Yes we can. Hello my name is Michael O'Toole. I'm the host of homeless past. I'm amazed that we're at a point where we're trying to find ways to criminalize homelessness again. It harkens back to Mayor Sawyer's nine ordinances he wanted implemented downtown with the downtown business association. When are we going to stop criminalizing homelessness and start finding resolutions to address it? I'm currently doing a petition that I'm forwarding to the state of California where they're auditing where homeless funds are going because the state of California is kind of upset that so much money has been spent and so little has been done. And I think Santa Rosa and Sonoma County is some place that needs to be looked at when you spend $2 million for a parking lot with 75 tents when Sacramento County get 100 tiny homes for a fraction of that price. How can you justify $2 million? Then we talk about how homeless people are unsanitary. No what's unsanitary is when the city permits an encampment to get to the point that these campments get to. Stony Point, I live a half a block from the Stony Point site and I watch that place go into devastation and I didn't see the city or county do one thing to help those people. They wouldn't bring in a dumpster, they wouldn't do anything and then you go and you spend a million dollars and blame it on the homeless. If you help in the beginning, you have a good outcome. Back to Makayla, I created Makayla. With Makayla, we had support. We were clean. People respected us. For the life of me, I don't understand why you can't do that. Why you can't find areas where you say you can camp here? It has to be less than 30 people and we will help you. But you don't do that. You chase people around, you beat trees. Like somebody said, police are still attacking the homeless. You're not rectifying the problem. And sure, the downtown business administration and property owners, they want this ordinance to pass because they don't care. And I'm pretty sure the city council is going to pass it because that's where your donations come from. That's where your campaign funding comes from. You need to do something. You need to do something realistic. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Cadence, followed by Maria. Cadence, please go ahead once you're ready. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Rogers and Vice Mayor McDonald and members of council. This is Cadence Hingle-Allinson with the downtown action organization. I'd like to start just by acknowledging and thanking staff for their time and the effort they put into thoughtfully drafting the update to this ordinance. The DAO and our downtown street team dedicate many hours each week to working closely with Catholic charities and with host and city staff to support the unsheltered population in the downtown, help them get enrolled in services and find access to housing. And we're incredibly grateful for all that the city has done to support our unsheltered neighbors over the last few years. And we're eager to remain partners in doing so, which is why we're asking you to support this ordinance today. While we dedicate time to outreach, our team also spends hundreds of hours a month addressing health and safety concerns as a result of camping at downtown park sites and in front of businesses cleaning up human waste, abandoned belongings, drug paraphernalia, dispersed trash. And even though our street team and our business owners work daily to mitigate these concerns, the public perception of downtown has definitely become negative as a result. And our goal is to ensure that downtown remains a viable place for new investment, for businesses to operate, and for the community to want to spend time. So we urge you to adopt this ordinance today as it will be an important step toward that goal. Thank you all for your time. Thank you. Maria is up next, followed by Sonoma County Tenants Union. Maria, go ahead when you're ready. Good evening, everyone. My name is Maria Barracat. I am a Sonoma County resident and have worked with the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. First, I want to say I oppose the ordinance. And second, why is the city not addressing the root cause of homelessness, which is lack of affordable housing and wasting time and resources to criminalize poverty? I have several points I'll make. First, the unhoused folks in this community should be included in the planning and discussions of this issue. Second, I raise issue with the language of the camping. Folks are not camping. They are living on shelter. As we know from study after study, and most recently from the UCSF homelessness landscape that has just been enrolled, people are unhoused because they cannot afford housing. And the number of units available does not meet the needs of California communities. Third, we know from study after study that criminalization, law and ordinance is only further the economic and emotional hardship experienced by unhoused people and make it more difficult to attain financial and social stability and attain long term housing. Fourth, there cannot be logically punishment for living on sheltered when no shelter is available. It is a grave disappointment to me and to others in this community that the city and county continue to invest resources and energy in punishing poverty and disability when what is needed is affordable housing. And last, police should not be involved in the outreach and especially the unconstitutional displacement of people with nowhere to go. The city can do better. This is a policy choice. And policies like these perpetuate the status quo. That's all. Next up is Kirsten, followed by Denise. Kirsten, go ahead when you're ready. Good evening. My name is Kirsten Land, I'm president of the Santa Rosa Sonoma County branch of the NAACP. I want to first start by saying how disheartened I am to hear community members speak about other community members in such a way. The root cause as mentioned by the speaker prior to me is poverty, the lack of affordable housing, access to mental health, resources and supports, and the unavailability of shelter in this community. As a leader of this branch, I have fielded numerous calls, walked streets, sat in focus groups, and held conversations with a number of our community members who are facing chronic, chronic unshelteredness. And when you look at the data even further, you can see that the overrepresentation of Black, Brown and Indigenous community members is alarming. And in that alarm, as it was noted earlier, to just those of those people's faults. Well, if you're being racially discriminated against in a shelter and banned from retiring, you cannot help that. And from staff putting this ordinance together, failed attempts at communication and conversation to impart on to that empathy that is lacking from that. And for the downtown districts resonating around health and safety and businesses leaving, it is quite a privilege. And you have to have the resources and economics sustainability to be able to pick up and move your business out of the district. But let me tell you, as a member of the Stomach County Tourism Board, the data shows that the numbers are not dropping because of concerns around safety downtown. They are dropping because people are finding that there's nothing to do. You cannot go dance anywhere. There's no social activity. So blaming folks who are experiencing unshelteredness is not the way to go. This ordinance criminalizes folks who do not have a place to lay their heads at night. I think all of us who've spoken in some capacity have an option and a comfortable place to do so. The shelter availability is not there. The waiting lists are long. We advocated for five black men last summer who in turn never received shelter. So while the outreach and the work is happening, the turnaround and the disproportionate treatment that folks are facing are not allowing them to move through systems and have a safe place to lay their head. One gentleman had his paperwork tossed and thrown out by a center as a police department officer several weeks ago and after reaching out to the chief, those folks should not be engaging with some of the most vulnerable in our population. We need more resources and it is very unclear from this ordinance where people are allowed to camp. And that's the biggest question I got today from the community members that I'm in communication with because it was important for me before I spoke today that I asked them what they needed and that's definitely missing from this conversation. We need to understand what people need in order to help them thrive because no matter the circumstances and no matter their access to monetary gain and having a place to live, we are all people that live in this community and we believe it is a beautiful place and everyone should have access to it. I yield my time. Next up is Denise, followed by Ananda. Denise, please go ahead when you're ready. Hi, my name is Denise Hill and I'm in the St. Rose neighborhood as was another speaker and we have definitely had our impact from encampments over the last 10 to 15 years and while it's better, it's still happening and I feel like I'm listening to speakers who are really lashing out at the city and I want the city staff, the city council members and mayor to know as far as I'm concerned, the city has done an incredible job. I've stood next to the police in homeless encampments and they are more compassionate than I would be capable of honestly in the situations they have to deal with. We're a very compassionate neighborhood but there's a point where your compassion starts to weaken and I would say that it's really necessary to acknowledge that the city of Santa Rosa has the most homeless services of any city in this county and including the county. The county itself does not have the same number of services that the city of Santa Rosa does and so I'm 100% for this particular ordinance getting updated. I do believe that or what I would like to see is these people that want to shame everybody and claim that the city is criminalizing the homeless, really acknowledge what the city has stepped forward and done over the years and they're almost a leader although there's always room for improvement. They're almost a leader as far as this county is on how to address homelessness and if you want to rail against something I would say you really should put your energies behind the number, the lack of mental health and addiction beds that are in this community including that's the county and all the cities in the county. That is where we fall short and why we still see people on the streets but you cannot look at Santa Rosa to deal with the entire county's homeless situation and we probably have more homeless residing in our county or in our city because we offer the most services. If it was spread out across the other cities it would definitely drop here I think as far as the number of homeless in our city but anyway I just wanted to say thank you to everybody involved for bringing this to the table it's another step forward and hopefully we can do some other step forward like not having private property have to renew a no trespassing letter with the police department every single year and maybe streamline some of those situations as some of the next steps with the effective way the city is addressing homelessness. Thank you so much. Next up is Ananda followed by Allegra. Hi um it looks like I'm being asked to unmute but I'm Allegra. Sorry don't get Allegra and then Ananda will be next. Okay thank you um hi thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak up tonight um I wanted to say that I oppose this ordinance I think there have been other people who have said this much better than I can but it is cruel it is the criminalization of poverty and it definitely doesn't address any of the root causes of people being on the streets um the previous commenter said how great Santa Rosa has been as far as homeless services go but yet she's calling because she wants more ordinances against homeless people so I don't really understand if it's not a problem why we are ordinancing more around it the logic isn't there um and more to the point the logic of this ordinance isn't there it's simply cruel if people had somewhere to go they would not be camping um quote unquote camping um they would be sheltered by definition unsheltered people don't have anywhere else to go so why are we shuffling them around and just um giving them like legal impacts that will continue to affect them instead of helping them this doesn't make any sense it doesn't help anyone it just gives the police more power to bully people who have nowhere else to go um so I strongly oppose this ordinance like I said I think other people have really made the case much better than I can but I wanted to add my voice because this is really um disheartening and disappointing um and I hope that the city council does not pass this ordinance thank you Ananda go ahead followed by Michael Ananda are you am I muted yeah go ahead you're okay perfect thank you so much uh good evening Mayor Rogers and council members this is Ananda suite with the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber of Commerce uh first thank you very much to city staff for your time and hard work to draft this ordinance update and thank you to council as well for your work to support critical services and interim programs such as safe parking to support our community members experiencing homelessness we stand ready to work with you on meaningful supports and upstream solutions like these and don't see that as contradictory to supporting health and safety standards we urge you to support this camping ordinance as critical to addressing the health and safety concerns of the entire community unsanctioned and unmanaged encampments are bad for the entire community businesses tourism and all of our residents whether housed or unhoused there are public safety and health hazard for all Santa Rosa residents regardless of housing status certainly including vulnerable out unhoused individuals uh this ordinance provides needed clarity and structure to city policy alliance policy with current law is required while taking a critical step to protect the safety and livability of the city of Santa Rosa thank you for your time on this next up will be Michael followed by Pauline hi there this is Michael to tone um I spend a lot of time outreaching to uh homeless encampments around Santa Rosa and I'm here to tell you that this ordinance is completely shameful this is going to be enforced like a camping ban and it may based on the way the counties use this be used to skirt having to actually offer people services um this is very simple this is about people versus profit and to me human rights should always take precedence especially when you're talking about elders when you're talking about disabled people we need to take care of people in this community and not force them around and not treat them like garbage um people talk about the balance of equities my rights versus an unsheltered person's rights but it's really hard to measure someone's right to exist versus someone's right to be sheltered from your existence or to be sheltered from having to be around poverty um I can't imagine how it would feel for an unsheltered person and most of the people I talk to have no idea where they're supposed to camp because it hasn't been revealed to people where they can go they're told where they can't go there's a long list of restrictions it seems to apply just about everywhere and no one has any idea where they're allowed to camp under this ordinance um so how would it feel to be told by a police officer you can't be here because you're by a bunch of tall grass and you know what you can't be over there because there's a school over there oh and over there you got a waterway so you can't be over there either hey and you know what maybe we don't have to offer you services because we're not banning camping we're just not telling you where you can and can't be so and this actually happened on the Joe Rodota trail during a sweep last week where and I know that this is the county's ordinance but rangers argued that there were folks who weren't offered because there are folks that weren't offered placements um they didn't have to offer them any placements because they don't have to under the new ordinance um so this could just be a way of getting around having to actually provide people's services what we need to know is where can people go where are they allowed to camp and what non-congregate shelter options are available for people because not everybody is okay to be in Sam Jones some people have disabilities they have PTSD that's what i'm hearing a lot um and we need to stop throwing unsheltered people's belongings away claiming that it's a fire hazard when it's people's documents things they need to get ahead in the world and get out of their situation their phones it's not garbage this is what's getting thrown away there should be notice there should always be services offered there needs to be permanent supportive housing and there needs to be actual street outreach and not just outreach to people you want them moved you know people need to actually have someone to talk to who's trying to help them and not just trying to get them to leave thank you next up we'll be Pauline followed by cashmere Pauline go ahead when you're ready okay good evening Mayor Rogers general city council members i'm Pauline block the cornerstone downtown i also serve on the downtown action organization in rural square association boards um so i just want to express my appreciation for the dedicated stock time and effort into tracking this ordinance um this ordinance holds significant importance for our community specifically in addressing critical health and safety concerns um although i serve on both downtown organization boards there's also significant impact um in other areas of city of Santa Rosa we own multiple properties throughout the city um and specifically for our business we have countless recurrences of major employee time spent on the cleanup of unregulated camping and multiple of our properties throughout the city as well as safety concerns from our current clients on the growing issue i acknowledge that addressing the health and safety of our community is a complex endeavor requires collaboration a comprehensive approach and this is just one tool um but as part of that approach um to address and improve the public health and safety of our community i urge the council to please support the ordinance tonight thank you for your time one final hand cashmere to you please go ahead when you're ready hi can you hear me yes we can yeah my name is Jackie i don't know why it comes up this cashmere um my name is Jackie and i'm a downtown resident a long time downtown resident i lost my home in the Tubbs fire and um i would just like to say that i was skeptical of the ordinance because i wasn't really um sure what was in a bit after hearing several speakers on the presentation i'm wholeheartedly for this ordinance and i thank the city council and um everyone who's involved in drafting this ordinance because homelessness has been such a a heartbreaking issue for all of us who live downtown and um i'd also like to point out somebody knows is not very often pointed out that um i'd like to point out that martin versus boise only prohibits uh moving people along who are actually sleeping on public property it does not sanction permanent camps on public property it never has done that and yet many times cities will behave like martin versus boise prohibits them from breaking down a permanent encampment that's been there day after day week after week month after month and that's simply not the case it only prohibits you from moving homeless people along who are sleeping in public because they have a right to sleep somewhere and if they do not have a shelter then a public space is the only place they can sleep they have a right to sleep there but they do not have the right to stay there throughout the day and make a public and make a home there and i would also like to say that i'm very disheartened by the tone that some people took with the city council i support this ordinance i support the city council and i hope that you guys pass this ordinance and thank you for giving me the podium thank you we have additional hand raised by luth miller please go ahead when you're ready hello and thank you all um i know that an incredible amount of hard work has gone into this and um and uh and many people have the intention to make things better for homeless people and people currently experiencing homeless as well as the house community um i do need to say that overall um in this world not just in center rosa we do live in times where violence and avoidance of people and things that is is much much too prevalent i'm deeply concerned by the undertones of stereotyping of blaming of of of really putting uh people home with people who are experiencing homelessness in the same category as the people like the yellow peril the you know the the attitudes about the irish the attitudes about the chinese the various other things about this that othering that really are very difficult um there is an increasing amount um in many many communities of of hatred and dislike rejection um um that's so thick it's dangerous um the threat the threat to a homeless person from people who think that they are the something something something is actually much more dangerous than the threat from other homeless people or the threat from poverty or the threat from other situations and i i would really hope that we can change that around as a society um the biggest flaw is that there are very very few so many too few um what you can do what where can you go where can we go when we are in the process of fleeing uh an economic situation or domestic situation something we need to move on from um not hearing where you can go um the essence of nonviolent communication is not just telling people no no no no no no you can't do this you can't do that you're wrong because you do that la la la it's what can you do what are you invited to do and where are you welcome um it's very important that the public spaces and our world and the beautiful trees that we have are safe secure and available to the public and that includes people who are homeless we are also the public thank you includes our speakers on zoom i do have several prerecorded messages that i will bring up hi everyone my name is tracy ayag and i'm calling in reference to the camping ordinance being presented in the san rosa market as a downtown employee of a local merchant i am faced with homelessness daily of the housing challenge sleeping on sidewalks personal belongings and trash scattered all over our sidewalks feces and sometimes cooking meals and paraphernalia being left all over our sidewalks um and the signs of mental illness and outbursts as i and others walk by just to try to get to our employer this is very scary and it does happen on a daily basis and it truly is a huge deterrent as to why we lack visitors to our downtown area and we are demanding an immediate fix thank you so much hello this comment is for the camping ordinance that the city is reviewing my name is cedens thank you i am part of the dao as well as the general manager at san rosa plaza we are calling to voice our support for this new ordinance we really appreciate everyone's time and dedication with the city and drafting this ordinance to address the incredible public and health and safety concerns of the entire community many people feel unsafe after hours in downtown including around the mall due to a number of homeless as well as other individuals that litter the street and are providing unsafe conditions for others we really encourage the city council to adopt this ordinance that's similar to other cities including runner park in the county to ensure the health and safety for everyone and to create a vibrant and inviting downtown for everyone to enjoy thank you so much my name is nicole gattis i manage california luggage and i'm a member of the dao i am calling in regarding agenda item 16.1 camping ordinance first i would like to thank staff for the time and effort in drafting this much needed ordinance i asked the council to support this ordinance as it's a good step towards creating safe sanitary shared public spaces and also protects private property council's done so much good work towards supporting persons experiencing homelessness and reducing the impact on the community this ordinance is the next step towards those goals i know this is important to us all this ordinance does not limit support for those experiencing homelessness what it does is create a path to protect the health and safety of our entire community camping in the downtown core has greatly impacted our community's ability to enjoy the beautiful spaces we have created i have customers who don't want to come downtown but it is not safe or sanitary daily you will find great amounts of debris and garbage thrown throughout downtown this even includes human biohazardous waste a huge health concern there have been times when i myself have avoided my store early in the morning because someone has chosen to sleep in front of my doors and i don't want to risk the possible confrontation we're not only losing potential customers but the loss of enjoyment of our public spaces due to unregulated camping and to the many safety and health concerns that it brings i ask that you support our entire community by supporting this camping ordinance thank you this is chris wilson with the historic railroad square association as executive director i'm commenting on the camping ordinance the city code camping public streets and public property ordinance and first of all really appreciate staff's time in in drafting the ordinance and i'm urging the council to support it i'm very concerned about the health and safety in our whole community and we can't ignore or allow to continue the fire hazard the trash along our streets parts and public areas the pollution to our creeks and drains our public spaces have to be kept clean and safe and i believe we can show compassion by keeping our homeless safe and protecting their health i've witnessed fires being built in the alcoves of businesses and along the print screenway refrigerators plugged into park electrical outlets it's simply not safe we need these regulations in order to address the negative impacts of these encampments throughout our community i urge you to support this ordinance thank you hi my name is bisha wayland i am a resident here at santa rosa calling for the agenda for 16.1 for the use of camping with tents in the santa rosa market i want to say thank you so much for even taking the time to even draft this or even consider this as a resident and employee of the downtown area we do face a lot of camping in and around our employee doors our main entrances they we have seen all kinds of drug use potty breaks and just overall just that behavior that is deterring our customers to coming into our store so thank you so much for again taking uh considering this as a motion to eliminate the tents in our market and again this is nisha for 16.1 hi this is my cook marina was in santa rosa and i'm calling regarding item uh 16.1 and camping on public streets and public property ordinance i wanted to just say thank you very much for the staff that worked on this and wanted to appreciate the city for taking steps towards addressing this issue and also making sure that we're compliant and want to just congratulate the city and support the ordinance and as a business owner in santa rosa appreciate the the the ordinance and also the efforts of staff please vote to approve this thank you good evening council members community and staff my name is lana kane my family owns offfield fifth street grill downtown and i serve on the da or boat board as well i was i first wanted to express gratitude for the staff in drafting this ordinance i understand the changes presented is not a solution for homelessness but a starting point in addressing the health and safety of our residents speaking as a business owner for over 20 years downtown i could add to the redundancy and overload you with the time and money spent to keep our property as well as the surrounding areas clean from debris and feces like a broken record on the daily i can only stress this these changes are overdue there is no misunderstanding here the need to address unregulated camping on public property and establishing standards when conditions change is imperative to making progress and cleaning up and revitalizing our downtown i asked the council to support this ordinance please make the steps forward thank you hello my name is dong tamasi i'm a says santa rosa resident and principal tlc architecture in downtown santa rosa i'm also a member of the downtown action organization i would like to address like in 16.1 repealing and replacing the camping ordinance first i'd like to express my appreciation to staff for its efforts to draft the ordinance i strongly urge council to support this new ordinance it addresses important health and safety concerns in our community without being overly restrictive on multiple occasions unregulated camping has caused major problems among children without a trail depraving others of their ability to safely use the trail unregulated camping has also negatively impacted businesses and has fostered a negative perception of downtown in other areas of santa rosa i'm very committed to keeping my business downtown i know many other business owners who have chosen not to locate downtown in the southern cases to relocate out of downtown thank you hi my name is craig winne i am a resident employee in santa rosa california i'm calling on agenda item 16.1 again at 16.1 i am calling to ask that the council support this ordinance i do have to walk through downtown i do support uh i do business in downtown um and i do have some health and safety concerns with the encampments i often find paraphernalia uh around that i have to walk through and i don't really feel safe uh walking through the kind of intensities that are building out plus um overall it's um kind of makes for a disgusting place to live so we will now close the public hearing and i'll bring it back to council for additional questions and final comments council member step i was really impressed with the close reading that that some in the audience gave to this ordinance uh and so out of respect for that i want to bring up two points that were asked and and went to our new city attorney i think i'm directing directing your way we had some we had some wordsmithing going on some thoughtful wordsmithing and the two phrases that i wrote down were um the through through no fault of their own towards the beginning um and then also a phrase or the phrase in a manner that that appeared with some of those items or with some of the lists of um of new restrictions and so my question is are either of those suggestions material would that change the impact of this ordinance thank you council member can you hear me am i good okay thank you i noted those as well and i'll go through both of them and i'll invite staff to jump in i know that they've been working on this much longer than i have um although these are uh some more issues that come up with ordinances that are being adopted across the state so in terms of the first one i wrote that down as a suggested addition i believe to section 11.22.020c um and so the section would read um let's see in the event alternate shelter is not available through no fault of their own and i think that there refers to the person against whom the city is attempting to enforce the ordinance the following health and safety standards apply i i understand the intent behind that suggested addition i don't think it's necessary and the reason is that boise already addresses this issue boise actually requires that the shelter that's available as the shelter that's being made available be a shelter that can house the person against whom the city is attempting to enforce the ordinance so for instance if it's a shelter that only allows men or vice versa shelter they only allow well let's take that one the shelter that only allows men the and that is the only shelter space available um the ordinance could not be enforced against a person who could not go into a shelter they only allow the men the i think the example they actually used in boise was religion that there were some shelters that the city of boise was making was saying were available to people experiencing homelessness but those sheltered and shelters enforce strict compliance with religious requirements and the people against whom boise was attempting to enforce didn't adhere to those requirements and so the court uh said that that shelter could not be considered appropriately available so i actually think boise addresses the issue already and so that that's so that is baked into the ordinance so i don't think i would not recommend that we include that language again i'd like to hear from staff as well and let me go ahead and address the other one and then i'll turn it over to um staff the in a manner i did not write this ordinance but i suspect that is a nod to the time place and manner restrictions that are permitted um that's a term that's a legal term of art um and it's written throughout that section so i would suggest that we keep that as well um i'll welcome any additional comments from staff did i answer your question council member you did thank you thank you vice mayor mcdonnell do we want to allow staff to answer these before i ask next question thank you just thank you mayor thank you mayor darryl duneson assistant city manager um to the second point city attorney zutler uh is correct uh that is a legal term of art that was uh suggested uh by the team that we were working with in the city attorney's office um and to the first question um it's an excellent point and you see other jurisdictions addressing this differently uh the city of oakland for example has a similar has similar language but theirs reads uh in the event alternate shelter is not accepted um and so again it's really a matter of getting at when a shelter provision is is offered and declined uh then the previous sections of this ordinance applies those are top-notch and thorough answers from being put on the spot next to you both thank you mayor so just for clarification i understand that the city attorney is saying that to add through no fault of their own could be a risk for us because of the way that it's written and that's what staff is advising can you tell me a little bit about what we do in the event that somebody is um unable to be housed and and what what our process is around that i think that might provide some more clarification on the ordinance for us and then i have an additional follow-up as well thank you for that question so it's really on a case by case basis i'll figure this out by the end of the meeting um and so prior to enforcing for camping specifically right we have to offer an alternative um if that alternative is not available then we would not enforce for camping until that individual could be placed in shelter i hope that does that answer your question sort of but yes thank you and um so my my second question was exactly what councilmember staff actually brought up around is there any um will for council to actually edit number five and eleven point let's see eleven point two two point oh two oh around um clarifying in a manner that hinders and the reason that i i look for maybe clarification is not just for enforcement but actually for our unhoused community because if it's not clear to us um or enforcement how is it clear to those that are unhoused about what the manner is it seems like that could be interpretive and maybe that is perhaps how we want it to be um so i'm just looking for um maybe some more clarification around that if there's any will to provide more clarification on that bullet number five we're not bullet but actually number five yeah so again uh this language is the language that uh was was workshopped with the city attorney's office if it is the will of this body to amend that language uh that is your prerogative city attorney i think that you could i don't think you're suggesting that the substance be changed or even the intent you just want it to be more clear agree that's that would be the intent and i'll turn to staff on this it i i think that you could keep the substance and the intent behind that provision the same if you changed in a manner to in any way that would be that could be clearer yes i believe if it said in any way hinders or obstructs the free passage access or movement of any persons i i think that would provide more clarification not just for enforcement but also those that are are looking to camp in a specific area so if if the body would be acceptance i would put that as a motion to amend number five to say that vice mayor mcdonnell through the chair are you suggesting that we replace in a manner in both sections so uh section 11 point 22 point 020 section b subsection 1 and subsection 5 both use the term in a manner and so i just want to be clear that we would be replacing in a manner thank you for that clarification so in number one we would strike in a manner and put in any way and in section five strike in a manner and insert in any way yes again assuming that that is the will of this body we're happy to make that change i will place that as a motion on the floor now to see if it's seconded and then we'll know if there's any will of the body we can continue to have our conversation and this is a council member flimmings um so if she picks it up with the changes that we all make her out our conversation then we don't have to do extra thank you pardon me thank you do you have any additional questions vice mayor council member alvarez thank you madam what is the reason why we don't provide dumpsters needle collection boxes or bathrooms for for for different areas where we know there are homeless council member alvarez through the chair um the decision to sanction an encampment is a decision of this body we receive policy direction from you all and so if it is your will for us to have sanctioned encampments at certain locations with certain provisions then we will take that direction from you thank you why is it that we refrain from improving the time frame such as the county did thank you for that question so again um we looked at a number of ordinances throughout california and closely with the county of sonoma and um the city of robert park and it's the county of sonoma that has the the time restriction based on our experience managing and responding to encampments over the past several years um we felt that that that time restriction would be a challenge to implement um and we wanted to make sure that we had an ordinance in place that we could implement thank you for that answer uh my last question where specifically can a person exist if this ordinance would be put into place would we expect our transient community to be on foot throughout the day or or is there maybe and again this is possibly the will of the the council itself but specific areas where they could exist during the the the day thank you for that question and I looked at my colleagues for any additional comments but uh folks are welcome to visit uh caritas dropping center um they are welcome to accept any shelter provisions that are are provided um and they are welcome to camp in any areas that are not listed within this ordinance and that begs the question does any area that is not listed within the ordinance come to mind again if this is a conversation over uh should we as a city sanction encampments in certain locations um then we're happy to entertain that conversation the item before you today though um is is an ordinance to ensure that the city of santa rosa is in compliance with martin v boysy as we've actually maintained the compliance throughout our ordinance since it was implemented so this if i'm understanding correctly it's simply to stay within compliance of that ordinance with the modifications that we've seen and what that we've learned since its implementation of normal stating that is correct and to make the point that the previous ordinance as it was written was not in compliance with federal law that's a great point to make thank you sir councilmember rogers thank you mayor and i'm gonna follow back up a little bit on what my colleague was just asking about uh what i heard a lot from the comments from the community is that part of what's unpalatable about the ordinance or difficult with the ordinance is how do we explain to people where they can be um and just to clarify and i hear the assistant city manager saying that's a policy question the policy of the city of santa rosa actually was decided a few years ago when we agreed that what we would do is find a place for people to be able to camp in each district and that hasn't happened the only limitation seems to have been funding and perhaps political will but mostly the funding we agreed instead to do a pilot project that was on sony point road that's been very successful for safe place for people to go when they have a car but we've never actually followed back up and let people know where can they go if they need a place to stay that isn't an indoor shelter that isn't in your car um and i think that this conversation would be a lot easier and again i want to make sure we feel the impact i know that folks who stood up and are concerned feel the impact i talk to parents all the time who find hypodermic needles in their parks they're concerned about the impact all of that is real and that can both be real and also we need to do a better job of providing a place for people to go so i'm not trying to get too far into comments that i apologize mayor but my question really is how do we tell people where they can go and how do we actually do what we agreed to do which is to establish safe managed sanctioned places for people to be because that's what works even if unsanctioned doesn't thank you for that comment uh councilmember rogers and and forgive me for my ignorance uh i am unaware that the city of santa rosa um as a policy matter has sanctioned encampments right that that there are certain things that come along with actually sanctioning an encampment my understanding is that there was a conversation around and please help me uh there was a conversation around finding locations for a myriad of interventions which included safe parking and our homelessness strategic plan again which isn't the item before us right now discusses alternatives that the city continues to explore we want to expand our safe parking program we want to figure out how we can make some critical adjustments to sam jones hall we understand that folks don't want uh congregate shelter and so we're exploring alternatives to to congregate options um but again if the if the policy direction is that staff should be exploring sanctioned encampments um again forgive my ignorance that is news to me yeah and i i appreciate that i know uh obviously you're relatively new here as well and as has our most uh people who are in the room uh save maybe gregory furan and some others who were here within the last five years when we started talking about this but the council did begrudgingly finally agree a couple of years ago that not only would we do sanctioned encampments but that we would look at it through a lens of equity and in terms of impact where we know the downtown area is by far the most impacted in the city and so the agreement was not just to do sanctioned encampments but it was to do them equitably with some in each district so that we were better managing and distributing not just homeless services but the impact of those encampments on the community so i'm happy to forge you the council meeting from a couple of years ago where we did agree to that so through the chair the councilman rogers we're happy to look at that um this is not an easy topic and we've got a balance right um but what we have before us today is to talk about an a camping ordinance for various reasons we're gonna have individuals who are not happy with it we're gonna have individuals who are happy with it um but there's a lot of things we need to look at when we receive calls from the public who often criticize our team when we have to deal with quality of life issues so this actually helps our public safety officers it protects them because it gives them a guideline on when we need to enforce the rules so that's one of the reasons why we want to have a camping ordinance in front of us another reason is we have to balance we all have to coexist so we didn't create um the the unsheltered situation but we have to find a balance to that and we do have to think about economic vibrancy in the community so so there are a lot of things that we have to think about that is that's before us um but most importantly it gives direction to our team on how to handle quality of life issues if you would want us to look at other alternatives to sanction encampments we're happy to do that but that also takes a funding arm we can't be everything for everyone we have to balance the funding that we have um and we can continue to look for additional funding staff just received the encampment um management with the encampment resolution funding yes we can continue to look for funding to implement these programs so we're happy to come back with you um with the solution or some recommendations for that um but really what's before us today we want to provide some guidance for staff to deal with these quality of life issues because that's what we continue to hear uh you know i'm not saying one is right i'm not saying somebody's one's right one's wrong but at least we have some guidance to move this forward the the community knows who to call they have a guidance on when we do um remove the individuals or when we deal with the lawlessness when we deal with the trash and the vermin um but again we're happy to come back to you with some other alternatives no and i appreciate that i'm not trying to expand far beyond the scope of of this ordinance and i do plan on supporting it tonight but it still stands that nobody has answered the question of where do people go how do we tell people where they can be so when i team go and i'll punt this off to kelly uh because she could probably answer it better than i um so when host goes out they have alternative they have options do we have a specific location where we have sanctioned to say you can go here no we have not done that and we've not been given direction to do that and if we did again we need to talk about the myriad of things that come with sanction and encampment you have to have trash trash removal um you probably need some fencing uh so it's it's not as simple just to say hey you can go over here on 8th street or 9th street or go in the park it's it's not that simple uh would i like for it to be that simple yes um but but that's not that's not what i we have before us today but we we can look at bringing you back some options where we can um go you know tell people where they can go but at this time no we do not have specific locations where we tell people they can go camp to add to your point city manager um maybe it would be helpful if we provided some real-time context and so in a scenario where uh there is a person that according to this ordinance and this isn't a place where the ordinance says that they can't be right the host team will go out initially and say uh hey you know we've got a bed for you at sam jones hall or uh there may be a place for you available in our safe parking site um there's also some space available for you if you'd like us to accompany you to to the drop-in center right and then that person says thanks but no thanks okay that person will let them know okay um though all of those provisions are still available to you but probably sometime within the next 72 hours uh the city will conduct an operation to clear this area wherever that area is and up until that point and even on the day of right the outreach team is still saying hey you can go to sam jones hall safe parking you can go to the drop-in center um but just informing you there's going to be a public works crew that's going to be showing up uh and they're going to be cleaning this area if i can just add one point so as a best practice we separate outreach from enforcement um we have hosts go out prior to any engagement by our encampment team that said day of um police for example still checking in with individuals to see if they want services if they want a bed and i've seen them place people directly from the field in an encampment to sam jones hall or to safe parking now we don't have enough shelter beds or enough safe parking for everybody um but typically we do have availability um when we're getting ready to enforce for an encampment and when we make sure that we do prior to enforcement councilmember rogers is that addressed your questions i mean honestly i've been dealing with this issue for the last seven years since we've had this discussion i know what the process is we still having that answer for people where if the services are inadequate and this is one of the limitations of boise is it does say you need adequate services but doesn't define what adequate means so if our services are inadequate for somebody who is honestly trying to get off the street isn't being an impact where do we tell them to go we still don't have an answer and i'm not trying to poo poo because i do think that there's a real impact that some people have and it's a a small percentage have the largest impact that they're most difficult to deal with but we still don't have that answer so i don't need to be labor the point i think that the the city manager and the assistant city manager understands sort of where i'm coming from on this one but i'll just point out almost everybody who spoke tonight is from downtown that's where the impact is and the city has still not delivered on equitable distribution and services that allow people to be in a place that gets them off the street that addresses the impact that it's having on specific areas of the city and we can come back and we can talk about that more later i know it's not within this ordinance but really that's what i heard from the public is the dichotomy in the public comment is people who are feeling the impact of homelessness and people who are worried about how do we tell people where to be while they're trying to get out of homelessness thank you looking at council to see councilmember flimmy yeah thank you and you know it's difficult when councilmember asked the question that you have before you go but i do want to to tack on to what councilmember rogers has asked i i do intend to support this ordinance that i don't i know you guys put a lot into this and i don't mean to give you a hard time but one of the things that came up when we when we brought the no parking we had a no parking ordinance a few years ago before the current city manager and assistant city manager were part of our team i believe that a majority of this council was seated at that time though when we talked about this and the the real lynch pin for us was working in a regional way to locate places where people could be rather than places where people couldn't be and i and i do think that to have an ordinance where we say all the places that people cannot be without the reverse and say well it's not within the scope of it is almost a little bit of like an emperor without any of them first close type of situation and pretending that you know one happens without the other right and we know that we need to do this we know that it makes sense and that for the basic you know health safety and welfare of our folks in our downtown and needed to do business who need to live safely and for our environmental reasons we need to we need to hold a line with that being said i do think that you know the the one hand has to work with the other we do need to have an affirmative response in this council and it's it is the majority of this council who is sitting here now has said that we do want this that we do want an affirmative response to where people can be and when i read the language of this ordinance it was pretty clear to me that what we're saying is that you cannot be if you are not um if you really if you're impoverished if you have too many bags with you if you're not going to sleep inside a designated shelter and so while i will be supporting this and i and i fully understand the reasons why we're going to be doing this i i don't think that it lets us off the hook and i do consider this you know what what i would call a moral injury that we have to do the right thing and we're also doing the wrong thing at the same time and um i don't think we should pretend that it is clear cut and that it just is with it you know within not within the scope of this i mean this is how governments do things that are that are i think we need to acknowledge that it's not the right thing to do it is a thing that we feel that we have to do thank you for those comments council member fleming um we acknowledge that this ordinance is not a solution to homelessness um we acknowledge that it is but one tool and if i may we as staff cannot without you all's direction say explicitly where somebody can be and so yes we are willing to continue to be partners with this body again if that is the will of this body that's understood any additional questions from council members what what is the liability or um a reason why we would not tell people where they can go um is it because we are saying that then they can form an encampment there i don't think there's an easy answer to that there are all different sorts of different ordinances in communities and i you know i didn't draft this one i can't speak to that i like i said i've seen different communities adopt what works for them so the mayor rogers if i might add so i've done this a couple of times i will tell you so if i if we say you can go to seven street eight who's now going to pick up the trash are you now going to establish porta potties we want people to have services so are we going to make certain that there are bus routes to take people to their appointments are we then going to partner with host catholic charities kaiser maybe providence to make certain that health services are provided it's not an easy answer just to say you can go to space b as assistant city manager dunstan stated we're happy to come back with some solutions i will say haven't done this quite a few times you have one of the most compassionate staff from srpd to housing and community service everybody is involved in this process and i've not seen a better team address this why some are not happy and are there are there are there things we could do better why of course but we have mental health issues we have substance abuse issues we have people who don't have ids they don't have their paperwork so all of this is a process so it's not just simple to say yeah you can go to be because we have to think about the services that we need to provide and we have to think about the services that need to be provided to the individuals none of us up here knows what it's like to be out there so i'm not going to sit here and say i know or i have the answer because i don't but i am going to tell you we're going to try our hardest to get to the solution um if we if we knew what that was no city would be dealing with this right now so it's going to take us some time to get there it's going to take we need to be pragmatic about it um and we also need to work with our providers as well because we also have to remember our providers are resource constrained as well so again we're happy to provide that we're happy to come back with a myriad of services that need to be provided some locations um but it it's a tough situation it's a balancing act we all have to figure out how to coexist together um because it's a tough it's a tough solution and it's it's it's just a tough situation madam mayor if i city manager smith's response uh pointed out to me that i could have given you a better response which is that this is more of a policy question than a legal question whether to include specific locations in the ordinance and i think the so legally sure you could do either but i think the real consideration here are the policy points that the city manager laid out uh i have one more question and that is uh what is the what is the responsibility of a human service department because i realize that we don't have a human service department which means we don't have funding as a human service department would so we can do a lot right and we can have the ambition to do a lot but what is the responsibility of us being a city that has no human service department in the actual human service department that we have uh within our county thank you mayor rogers um and certainly daryl jump in if if you would like to add on to it but the the county human services department receives additional funding from the state to provide services that cities don't generally provide so they do provide health services they have mental health services and other treatment aspects that the city does not receive the funding nor has the staffing to provide to residents um so i think that's one of the main components that sets us apart the city of santa rosa does provide shelter in terms of we have the largest homeless shelter that city owned we contract for services to people in the field as kelly mentioned we've set up safe parking so we have very robust services for a local jurisdiction but again we don't have the scope of funding or the the operational capacity provide the human services component that a county would traditionally provide to residents thank you seeing no additional questions from council members um i would like to thank staff for your hard work and dedication and not just on this ordinance but period on your hard work and dedication um to provide services to our un unhoused um you are appreciated so thank you council member fleming may you please make a motion um i'm happy to consider it um i would like to if it pleases the mayor first take a straw hole of the council um about the language changes that vice mayor mcdonald suggested which were two um and two items to strike a manner and insert um and i can read her handwriting she should have been a doctor um um strike a manner and insert anyway um and that's for item 11.22.020 items one and five is there anybody who has an objection to that change excellent all right um without further ado i'll bring forward an ordinance of the council of the city of santa rosa repealing and replacing chapter 11.22 of the santa rosa municipal code section 11-22 camping on public streets and public property with the changes as noted above or previously which include changes to item 11.22.020 with a strike through of a manner and inserting any way on item one and on item five the same change striking a manner and inserting any way and waive any further reading of the text second motion made by council member fleming and seconded by vice mayor mcdonald madam city clerk can you please call the vote council member step aye council member rogers aye council member okrepke aye council member fleming aye council member alvarez i will be voting aye tonight but i do want to make it clear that it's loud and clear that ultimately falls on us as council to give direction to where a person can exist opposed to where a person cannot exist so i want to really show my interest in exploring that and i'm i don't think i'm the only one on the skies that would like to see that happen aye vice mayor mcdonald aye mayor rogers aye let the record show that motion to introduce the ordinance passed with seven affirmative votes thank you moving to item 16.2 madame city manager item 16.2 a public hearing resolution authorizing a grant application for fta section 5 3 1 0 funds for purchase or replacement a da paratransit vehicles. Good afternoon mayor vice mayor and members of the council i'm rachel e deputy director of transportation and public works for the transit division with me tonight is sean sosa our administrative analyst and we're pleased to bring forward this public hearing and a request for a resolution to author us to file a grant application for these funds to replace a da paratransit vehicles while the presentation's getting up i'll go ahead and oh here we go start on some background just real briefly the 5310 program is a federal transit administration program that is focused on providing funding to support transportation for seniors and persons with disabilities in california caltrans is the recipient and runs the grant solicitation process so the 5310 program has two project types the traditional program allows entities such as santa rosa city bus to apply for ada accessible vehicles equipment and other capital equipment such as radios the second project type is the expanded program which actually provides operating funds to support paratransit services that go beyond the minimums requirements of the ada and i'll just note that you know this specifically this request relates to the traditional program which city bus is looking to apply to but here in sonoma county the council in aging typically applies to the expanded program to provide funding to support some really valuable volunteer driver programs and voucher programs that are a very important complement to ada paratransit in the county so we are looking to apply for the traditional program for funds to support replacement of four paratransit vehicles that have exceeded their useful life and uh we would be looking for about 75 000 per vehicle which is the maximum that we can request that will only cover about 45 percent of the cost of those vehicles um to be eligible to apply for the traditional program a public agency must hold a public hearing hence our presence here tonight to be able to certify that there are no nonprofit entities in the service area that are quote readily available to provide ada paratransit services and by readily available it means the agency or the the nonprofit is willing interested and capable of providing ada paratransit services on behalf of the city of san aroza with the same service levels and parameters that we currently offer so in this case it would mean that a nonprofit would be able to step forward and have the resources and capacity to take over ada ada paratransit for the city which of course is a very tall order as it's an expensive program but we do need to offer the opportunity as you know san aroza paratransit operates within three-quarter mile of the city bus routes currently provided by the city through a contract with mv transportation um i do want to note that nonprofits are very welcome to apply for funding in the traditional program even if they're not replacing the city's ada paratransit service and agencies like becoming independent are typical applicants they run a lot of programs for people with disabilities they have their own transportation fleet to bring people to and from those programs and i believe they will be applying in this cycle as well and i do want to note that even with our ask that would not use up all the money that's available in the pot for sonoma county there would still be an opportunity for nonprofits to to put in applications and receive funding for their own vehicles just real briefly we typically have some success in these cyclical 5310 calls for projects that come around every three or four years the funding amount varies is a competitive process and usually the awards are based on which applicants have the oldest vehicles that are in greatest need of replacement at the time of the call for projects i do want to highlight that nothing in the action we're requesting tonight dictates the fuel type for the vehicle as we've discussed with the council through the zero emissions bus rollout plan we will be evaluating opportunities to transition our paratransit fleet which is currently gas fueled to electric vehicles at this time there are not federally compliant cut away small light duty vehicles that can provide the type of range that we need for our service but we're going to continually evaluate that so this application leaves our options open when we come back to council to actually award a vehicle procurement we'll have the option to evaluate either for continuing with gas purchases or transitioning to electric purchases so tonight we're asking to hold this public hearing to meet the federal requirement to determine if any private nonprofit is able to provide paratransit services on behalf of the city of santa rosa i also want to note that we reached out to over 30 nonprofit organizations in the area to make sure they were aware of this opportunity to comment we did not receive any comment back through that outreach process we're also asking for authorization for the city manager our designee to execute and file the grant application with caltrans for the program for the replacement of the four paratransit vehicles so obviously provides a lot of benefits which i'll go through very quickly these are very old vehicles reliability becomes an issue as the vehicles get older we're really need to get move forward with continuing to replace this part of our fleet so that we can provide a high quality reliable service to our paratransit patrons so i'll conclude with the recommendation it is recommended by the transportation and public works department that the council hold a public hearing to determine whether any private nonprofit is readily available to provide paratransit services in the city and two by resolution authorize the city manager or designee to execute and file a grant application with caltrans under the fta section 5310 program to purchase replacement a da paratransit vehicles i'd be happy to answer any questions thank you for that presentation council are there any questions of staff seeing none we will now open the public hearing madam city clerk can you please facilitate public comment thank you we are now taking public comment on item 16.2 if you are in chamber and would like to comment but have not provided a speaker card or your name please make your way to the podium if you are participating via zoom please raise your hand or dial star nine you will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period may i'm seeing no hands being raised via zoom and no one approaching the podium to provide public comment i will now close the public hearing i'll bring it back to council for any questions or comments council member staff can you please make a motion thank you mayor rogers i would like to make a motion that we adopt this resolution authorizing a grant application for federal funding under the federal transit administrations section 5310 um and then uh 49 usc section 5310 program with the california department of transportation for purchase of replacement a da paratransit paratransit vehicles second we have a motion made by council member staff and a second made by council member okrepke madam city clerk may you please call the vote thank you mayor council member staff hi council member rogers hi council member okrepke hi council member phleming council member alvarez all right vice mayor mcdonnell hi mayor rogers hi let the record show that passes with seven affirmative votes thank you um we will give council member okrepke a few minutes to gather his belongings because he will not be participating in this item all right moving to items 16.3 madam city manager item 16.3 is the public hearing 1650 west still lane apartment appeal apartments appeal if the team could introduce themselves for the record one moment um that is that the item but i did want to ask um council if they had any ex parte communications that they need to disclose for this item council member staff um i did sit down with um one of the attorneys who is who is working on the case on behalf of the of the schultz family thank you council member phleming i've met with the appellant and the applicant and i have not learned anything that is not included in the public documents thank you council member alvarez yes thank you madam mayor i have met with uh both sides of of the issue and there's nothing that is not a public record thank you and i oh council member rogers thanks mayor i've met with both the applicant side and the appellant side as well as some of the neighbors and nothing uh that wasn't publicly disclosed in the documents thank you and i apologies apologies one correction i did meet with the applicant as well so both the applicant and the appellant but again as everyone else mentioned nothing uh nothing new was discussed thank you council member sap um i myself met with attorney erin colstrom carl strum excuse me the schultz staff and um a schultz family member and i did not receive any information that was not public now if staff can please introduce themselves and continue with the item i guess thank you um mayor rogers members of the council uh jessica jones deputy director of planning good evening mayor rogers and members of the council my name is amy nickelson i'm the supervising planner for current planning good evening mayor rogers and members of the council my name is connor mckay senior planner with uh planning division and connor will be making my presentation this evening okay um thank you council i'm very happy to be here this evening to present the 1650 west steel lane apartments appeal the project addresses 1650 west steel lane so the project includes a request for minor design review approval for the construction of the 36 unit three-story apartment complex additionally the project includes a request for minor conditional use permit approval for a supplemental density bonus so um to describe the affordability breakdown of the project there are three one-bedroom units that are being made available to very low-income households with one three-bedroom unit available to very low-income households um so the director has approved a state density bonus application for the project allowing the project to increase the unit count by 35 percent beyond the base density the request for supplemental density bonus which requires the approval of the minor conditional use permit would allow the project to increase the number of units by an additional 65 achieving a total of a 100 100 percent increase beyond the base density for a total of 36 units um so a bit of a description of the um concessions approved by the state density bonus i'd like to clarify that consistent with the staff report and other materials these are concessions and not waivers um so the first one is for building setback reduction this reduction allows for the proposed automated parking structure to be located five feet from the eastern property line where otherwise it would be needed it would be it would need to be located 10 feet from that property line the operation of this parking structure would occur adjacent to an existing shopping center the second approved concession is for building height um and according to the applicant in order to achieve economic feasibility and the proposed density of the project um the project received a concession to allow the peak of the structure to be up to 45 feet um whereas the zoning code would require the maximum building height be 35 feet um finally the required parking spaces um so the project would ordinarily be required by the north santa rosa station area specific plan to um propose to include 52 parking spaces the project proposes 16 fewer at 36 spaces um the applicant contracted with w-trans to prepare a traffic study which includes a parking analysis um the proposed project includes a variety of measures to reduce anticipated parking demand and we have um brian canipa from w-trans who prepared that analysis and is available to answer any questions about those parking demand measures um and that traffic study and analysis is included in your item packet as well and then in addition to this concession um projects that that propose the affordability level and percentage that this project proposes are also subject to even fewer parking ratios so uh projects such as this one that include 11 percent of units for very low-income households have a ratio of zero spaces per unit and then the project history so in january 15 in january of 2020 this project had a neighborhood meeting um this meeting had uh 10 attendees who mainly concerned express their concerns about parking and traffic and um dense residential development in in uh in an area that has seemed to be compacted already um in march of 2020 the project received concept design review by the design review board um the design review board provided comments about the design concept at that time and those are bolted in your item packet as well attachment seven of your packet summarizes those comments and the applicant's consideration and incorporation of those comments um the zoning administrator approved the project at a special meeting in january of 2023 and is available um after my presentation to respond to any questions about that meeting or that approval um and then we received the appeal within the required 10 business days time frame in on february 6 of 2023 and then in may this project um was continued by the council to a date uncertain and here we are um discussing this project so here is um a zoom in of the project site the site is currently vacant um on west steel lane and meadowbrook court and then zooming out a bit there's a shopping center like i mentioned immediately east of the project um there's multifamily residential to the south and the west the project is located across from snooby's home ice in addition to the charles schultz museum and the children's museum um as you'll note on the bottom right of this graphic the project is located in very close proximity walking distance to calling town mall and some other commercial office um services to the south um so as the zoning code goes the project is located in the r3 15 um zoning district with the station area combining district overlay um so that means that uh also that this north that the project is within the north station priority development area which allowed the project to receive um reduced design reviews so it ordinarily would have been a major design review request and it was reduced to minor um provided that they received concept design review by the design review board which they did as i mentioned um this zoning district also allows multifamily development by right and which is consistent with the general plan land use designation which is a medium density residential which envisions multifamily residential development um the site is approximately one acre in size here we have a site plan the buildings are kind of oriented in the courtyard approach to the layout of the project with the parking being accessed from meadowbrook and the parking structures as you can see a building for um on the eastern side of the project um here are the elevations i'm going to largely leave this up to the applicant but from the city staff perspective they incorporated a lot of the design guidelines um that are present in the north santa rosa station area specific plan and just the normal citywide design guidelines um and all of that analysis is present in your staff report as well i'm sure i kind of flip through these because the applicant will will talk about the architecture um here is a rendering from steel lane and hardy's lane um from meadowbrook meadowbrook court and here's an internal view of that courtyard that i mentioned earlier um so i'd like to start out this slide with sorry um the project is statutorily exempt from the californian environmental quality act due to the project's consistency with the north santa rosa station area specific plan um so just for background a project that is statutorily exempt from the californian environmental quality act is not subject to environmental review um however given that the project proposes increased units as results of the density bonuses that are included with the project proposal an addendum to the north santa rosa station area specific plan eir was prepared um and that was supported by these technical studies that you'll find on the slide here um i'd also at this point like to mention that parking is not a is not considered an environmental impact um in pursuant to the californian environmental quality act so um as i mentioned on february 6 the charles charles m schultz creative associates submitted an appeal application for the project stating the basis for the appeal as the city's approval of much reduced parking for the project um and then here are the required findings for the minor conditional use permit that also include the special findings that review authorities need to make to approve supplemental density bonus requests um in in summary the project would provide 36 high quality residential units served by a neighborhood shopping center um directly to the east of the project and cutting town mall a short walk away um the project is also within one half mile of the north santa rosa smart station which provides transportation for future residents to the santa rosa airport downtown santa rosa and the north bay area um here we also have findings related to the minor design review application um and these are all also um summarizing greater detail and responded to in your packets as well um so this type of development encourages cluster development rather than scattered spread out development patterns um the project promotes use of alternative transportation modes and discourages reliance on travel by automobile the project provides housing that meets the needs of santa rosa residents and is consistent with city council priorities related to provided housing for all reduced homelessness and its impacts and climate um here are the uh the summary of the public comments we received throughout this process um we have quite a few public comments as you've noticed in your packet um i appreciate your review of those and i believe attachment 10 um i also received an email from a neighbor while i was sitting up there um kind of reiterating the concerns that we've had throughout this process about parking and about traffic so that one didn't make it into lake correspondence so i figured i would enter it into the record here and i'll turn it over for uh to supervising planer nickelson for the slide thank you connor and mayor and members of the council um as the slide shows here it is uh both the zoning administrator and the planning and economic development department's recommendation that the council by three resolutions deny the appeal and uphold the decision of the zoning administrator so this includes the adoption of an addendum to the north station area specific plan environmental impact report approving a minor conditional use permit and approving minor design review for the 1650 west deal lane apartment project there are other options before the council this evening which include upholding the appeal so this would mean denying the zoning administrator's adoption of these three resolutions but there are some additional um notes that we wanted to add which is that this project is somewhat different from the typical projects that the council is asked to make findings under our city code either to uphold or deny an appeal so in this case the council if the council was looking to uphold the appeal the council would need to identify which findings it could not make in the design review and conditional use permit resolution in addition to making a number of other findings which i will outline now so first as connor mentioned the project was approved for a density bonus and this includes the concession for the number of parking spaces that were required for this project and so if the council um wishes to uphold the appeal uh four findings would need to be made um i'm sorry five findings there are five findings that are applicable one um one which would need to be made by the council so these include um that the concession for reduced parking does not result in identifiable and actual cost reductions two would cause a public health or safety issue three would cause an environmental issue four would harm historical property or five would be contrary to law and then secondly um this project is subject to the housing accountability act which is a state law um under state law the project cannot be denied and conditions cannot be imposed that forced the project to be developed at a lower density unless the city makes written findings supported by a preponderance of evidence that one a specific adverse impact on the public health or safety would result and two mitigation of the adverse impact is not possible and i'm happy to repeat any of those but just something to keep in mind that this is a unique project because of the housing accountability act and the density bonus which was approved and then finally there is an option for the council to continue the item and direct the applicant or staff to return to council or the zoning administrator and then just one additional item based on six council members being in attendance this evening we would need a total of four votes to move a motion forward it absent that the zoning administrator's decision would stand and so if we can do the next slide that concludes staff's presentation we're happy to answer any questions here at the staff table and we also have other city staff in attendance as well thank you very much for that presentation looking to council to see if there are any questions council member Fleming yes thank you for your presentation can i clarify your last statement when you said you need form affirmative votes the staff recommendation is to deny the appeal correct correct okay and should the council fail to deny the appeal then the zoning administrator's recommendation to approve the project stance correct thank you for that council member alvarez thank you madam could you repeat the part that says that we cannot deny according to the state the last comment you made that you made sure so i believe you're referencing the housing accountability act so that is a state law that is applicable to this project so because this project meets the city's objective standards we the city cannot deny a project or condition a project that would reduce the density unless specific findings are made and so there are two findings that the city would need to make one is that a specific adverse impact on public health or safety would result and two so it's both mitigation of this adverse impact is not possible thank you vice mayor mcdonnell thank you for the clarification that was on point two but on point one there was one example that you used around it being a historical area why does that not roll over to point two on denial thank you vice mayor just to make sure i'm understanding so um the the density bonus law has a different set of findings that need to be made by a jurisdiction in order to deny a requested concession so in this case it would be for parking so this is these are five five other criteria that if the city finds one applies it could be the basis for denying that density bonus concession but that's entirely separate from the findings required under the housing accountability act so both of those are are applicable here so if we found though in the point one that it was a historical area then it would be denied that it would be a density about um housing area but then that would mean that point two would be a moot point correct give me just a moment let me see if our assistant city attorney can come down good evening uh ashley crocker assistant city attorney uh i believe the question has to do with the concessions granted under the density bonus and you cannot grant the concession or incentive that would have a specific adverse impact on any real property that's listed in the california register of historic resources and for which there is no feasible method to mitigate or avoid the impact and we do not have any um properties here that are listed on the california register of historic resources but in any event it doesn't say that you cannot grant the concession but that would be a consideration and you would have to look at whether the impact could be mitigated vice mayor i i'm not i'm not sure that i i'm not sure if this answers your question or not but to add to what um uh ashley pointed out and what staff has pointed out about i believe the answer to your question is that there are um if the council wishes to grant the appeal essentially denying the project there are different bodies of law under which the council needs to make findings that are totally separate one is the housing accountability act separate from that completely separate from that is the density bonus law and then in addition to that is the city's muni code and so if the council wish to grant the appeal you would need to make three separate sets of findings we put them in one resolution but you would need to make three separate sets of findings and i i don't believe i'm inviting staff to correct me here especially you ashley i don't believe there is overlap amongst those findings it's possible they could be based on the same evidence but the legal findings the analysis would be separate that's my question is does one supersede the others no no you would have to make the three separate findings the housing accountability act that were identified which i believe were two findings the density bonus act which is you identified the five findings and then under the city code those findings are included in your three resolutions those are the typical findings that we make for approval of a use permit or a design review thank you for the clarification this is quite complex to me so because there's so many different laws around this so i just want to make sure and and probably because i grew up in santa rosa and the whole area seems historical to me since um i'm the oldest one up here so um i i do want to just also note there was a couple questions that i had on clarification as far as the parking being reduced down to the the um i think it was 16 slots you you reported out connor was that right 16 reduced by 16 from what the code would require to a total of 36 okay so as far as that how does that work actually in in real time when they actually go to to get the parking because that seems to be part of the problem here that we that we're we're hearing around this appeal tonight so can you clarify how that works for the residents that would be in the apartment how does that work as far as them getting parking and is there any way to alter what we require as a city to increase parking perhaps um i would defer to brian at w trans who is familiar with the parking demand management measures that are included with the project um or the applicant ingrid anderson um but what i can say is that there's a variety of measures that are implementing one being an unbundled parking program where if i know i don't need a car and i need a place to live in santa rosa to rent um i won't if i know that i don't have a car and i know that i don't need a car because i don't have a car that parking space is not included in my lease so there'd be a separate process to get that parking space that's just one of the measures um and i believe those measures are also summarized in that parking um analysis but if i don't know if we're just responding as city staff right now or if we can tap the applicant for support that would be helpful connor is the applicant in the room or on zoom sorry uh brian cat uh sorry brian with w trans yeah ronda can you please promote brian canapa with w trans you're me yeah you're a little quiet okay how about sorry i will scoot you a little closer sorry i couldn't tell if i was on screen yet so yeah brian canpa here from w trans um yeah i'm happy to answer the question i just want to make sure i'm addressing or answering the correct question here um is the the question being that the there was a 16 space reduction in the code requirement from 52 to 36 spaces and the question is how does the leasing or sale of the those 36 spaces then apply to the to the units i think what um vice mayor mcdonnell is after is how is the parking system going to work on the ground and that this may be a question that's better suited for um the applicant ingrid but um i just maybe if you could shed some light on those factors that were incorporated into your parking analysis for this project i think that would be helpful sure yeah i mean i can more speak to the demand analysis that we conducted so it's one thing to have a city code city code numbers oftentimes i mean code numbers i mean minimum parking requirements um can be somewhat arbitrary which is why we actually conduct these parking demand analyses in the first place using the institute of transportation engineers parking generation handbook which is a pretty much an industry standard used across the country based on empirical data of various land uses um and so what we did was we looked at this particular land use um the size of the building for example it's approximated the rail station to determine what its actual peak parking demand would be um regardless of what the the applicant was going to provide for spaces in regardless of what the code said and you can see this within our report but our findings were that essentially the the peak demand would be at 39 spaces under a kind of a sterile condition so to speak um now as connor mentioned you know this development is planning on unbundling its parking pricing um which is to say that they're going to separate the cost of parking from the the units um and there is considerable research out there to demonstrate that by doing so that tends to draw in more people who own fewer vehicles um mtc i think we've mentioned in our report sites i think generally a 10 to 15 decrease in vehicle ownership from from those factors from that program itself so looking at the the peak demand of 39 spaces um compared to the supply of 36 we made the determination that you know with unbundled parking with the proximity to transit and the bicycle parking and other multimodal amenities that are offered here that the peak demand would actually be less than 36 spaces so the on-site spaces should be sufficient to be able to accommodate peak demands now i know it's common thinking to think that well every household has one or two cars in those cars what happened when all those cars are there at the same time but when you actually look at the empirical evidence and i've done hundreds of parking studies um to show this that people are not home at the same time there's fluctuations in demand that occur over the course of the day and our demand numbers are actually based on essentially at night when everyone is home um so this does and we're also using actually relatively conservative rates in our analysis and what we call the 85th percentile rate um which frankly has given overestimate of demand so there was a several factors going into analysis but essentially what we to sum it all up is that we found there a demand a peak demand of 39 spaces but felt that the unbundled parking parking of wealth and multimodal amenities would decrease the parking demand below 36 spaces which could be accommodated in the off-site parking lot thank you are there any more questions for staff from council members saying none thank you very much we will now um call the zoning administrator suzie moray good evening mayor rogers and members of the council it's nerve wracking being up here on the side of the podium um i want to thank you for letting me say a few things um and explain to you why i approved this project was such a high level of confidence not only is the site within one of our station plan areas which are targeted for this type of of you know development residential development but it's um it's it's in the the north station area plan it's probably one of the most ideal places in the city for this type of development excuse me um from from this location a resident would be within walking distance of transportation both train and bus grocery and lots of other opportunities banking and other commercial uses medical and veterinary services religious facilities and wow entertainment there are so many restaurants there's the children's museum snoopy's home ice and the charles m schultz museum every day needs can be met but there's also a wide variety of employment opportunities all within walking distance when i first looked at these project plans i want to say that i shared the concern about the parking i did some research i did several site visits i visited the site at night um 10 o'clock on saturday night i visited at dinnertime on on a couple of days during the middle of the day what i saw along meadow brook were several of the same vehicles parked with a lot of dust on their windshields um and i i i did see that the parking was it was pretty well packed in there something that occurred during our meeting though um the our uh deputy director of uh transit transit or traffic engineering i'm sorry rob sprinkle he um located nine more parking spaces right along west steel lane along the property's frontage so that added some more legal parking spaces right off say at site taking that deficit now really from 16 down to to uh seven uh spaces um i looked at aerial views also um from the last 20 years and granted those aerial views are taken you know pretty much one day every couple of years but in every single one of those aerial views there were plenty of parking spaces for those nearby commercial um properties or uses to the um on the north side of west steel lane with the exception of one day when the children's parking the children's museum parking lot was full and i understand that i used to be a member of what and i would take my my great nephew there and we really enjoyed it um let's see the the the property itself is surrounded by similar residential uses um as well as commercial so you've got uh the the residential uses to the south and to the west with commercial uses to the east and to the north really a higher density project like that is is um it's it's a nice buffer it's a nice transition from commercial to lower density residential uses and you can see that with our general plan land use diagram when you look at where we have medium high to commercial and then on the other side it'll transition down to medium to low medium and low density and so on so we really try to get our higher density residential development close to commercial development so just um in my opinion it was a really perfect transition and i i i want to say really considering the city's goals this project really nailed it um i hope you'll support the decision of the zoning administrator to approve this project and deny the appeal and thank you i'm available for other questions if if you have any thank you very much are there any questions from council for the zoning administrator saying none thank you very much we will now have a presentation from the applicant ingrid anderson where rogers and council members thank you for taking on this project my name is patrick orneal um provided housing for the last 14 years in san rosa and i looked upon this lot um very favorably because it's only like three or four blocks from the other um housing that i provide the city and it sort of coordinates with the first topic that came up with low income housing and the homeless and stuff so i am bringing 36 units to san rosa to the residents and four is very low income when i first looked at this project i thought you know let's build something that's different let's not go for the traditional um package and let's look at a different way of apartment living so i thought basically more of a european vibe it was close to cottage mall it's close to the transit and to advocate that people get on their bikes and ride share programs and the smart train they can go to marin they go to san francisco they can go to the north bay and they can walk two minutes to cottage and mall surrounded by many restaurants from different ethnic backgrounds religious groups etc so we came up with a plan not to be worried about the parking let's try and do something completely different let's get on the train like the europeans and get to a point where we provide housing for the next generation that are more in keep with the environments they don't need cars they don't need to there's no impact there and to do the bikes and the walking etc and seven years ago san francisco adopted a no parking policy with any project that went through the city they went down into south market soma down by the ballpark and as crazy as it sounds such an impact city with no parking any application whatsoever actually worked and now they're all on the bicycles and the little scooters and they walk and they run so i think getting into the subject of parking is like we're just getting stuck in the past we should move something forward like great incentives to get people into apartments that are really well built and have them have the idea like you know it's an urban city and i like the city and let's get them walking and healthy outlook so we're questioning parking and people coming going we're gonna try something different sometimes you have to be brave and just go forward and try a plan and use 1650 state of land as a pilot program of worried about cars let's just get on our bikes let's get healthy let's get fit and let's just provide a different way of living so that's the way i'm looking at this project i've been doing providing eyes over san rosa the last 14 years going to be the next 40 years this building is going to stay on my portfolio i'm from iran and you know in the american dream the whole thing so forget about the car thank you council do you have any questions of the applicant seeing none we will now have a presentation from the appellate excuse me madam mayor if i may my name is peter spurle i'm an attorney with the applicant i'd like to make a brief presentation if i may as well my name is peter i'm an attorney with roggy nefredis in san rafael and i've submitted a letter on behalf of my client i'm sorry that it was my understanding that i have some time i have a powerpoint presentation i prepared i'll be very brief it's it's not a very long presentation you have an additional seven minutes i had started the timer at 10 when the gentleman before you spoke so you have seven more minutes okay okay like i said i'll be very quick so again my name is peter spurle an attorney with roggy nefredis in san rafael our operas represents patrick and mcbride apartments lane llc who are the subject of the application before you this evening i think really this is a very straightforward issue despite some of the intricacies of state law that have already been outlined by your city attorney staff and your planning staff at at the end of the day this is a really very simple issue the city has no legitimate legal justification for denying this application on the basis of insufficient parking period this is because of the interplay of three different laws your local ordinance the state's density bonus law and a more recent legislation under ab 2097 that prohibits the city from establishing mandatory parking requirements for developments like this one that are located within a half a mile of a major transit stop if you could kind of just move to a couple slides forward just briefly this executive summary essentially uh in summary there are three different available avenues for our client to apply for a reduction in parking standards we played along with staff and cooperated with staff in utilizing your local ordinance to produce a study that's supported by the w-trans story the study that's already been referred to to provide substantial evidence that a reduction in the otherwise applicable parking demand would be supported and those findings could be made by the zoning administrator and that was made but in addition to that because of the number of units affordable units there are four that will be de-restricted to very low income houses because of that number of units our applicant our client would actually been entitled to provide at a much lower ratio of 0.5 spaces per unit which would have resulted in 18 units finally under this recent legislation that was enacted and became effective on january 1st of this year ab 2097 the city is prohibited from establishing mandatory minimum parking requirements in development sites such as this that are located within a half hour i'm sorry a half a mile of a major transit stop now there are certain exceptions and there's there's ability to make findings specific findings in the event of a finding of a specific adverse impact on neighborhood parking but those findings need to be made within three days of the application the receipt of the complete allocation that was not received and so again under that lens of analysis our applicant could have required could have requested that no parking be required at the site i think the the point we're trying to make is that we think that our client has requested a very reasonable and voluntary accommodation that recognizes the the potential impact on neighborhood parking and trials to reconcile it with these important state law objectives that promote the production of affordable housing and also reducing red alliance on automotive transport connor maybe you could just skip forward i'll just i know our time is short i'll skip the project overview essentially the appeal argues that this project will have a negative impact on neighborhood parking they've also made an 11th hour appeal on secret grounds that was included in the appeal but the basis for that appeal was outlined in a letter that we received very late yesterday i'll briefly address that at the end maybe connor you can just skip forward the conclusion because i think i've already kind of run through the three different lenses of analysis but again we urge you to deny this appeal completely as without merit and to uphold the zoning administrator's findings again this is a accommodation and a compromise that we think is really really generous by providing 36 parking spaces at a ratio of one to one we are at the very least doubling what the city could require under the density bonus law and arguably and again i believe it clearly applies under the letter of of the law that was enacted on january 1st we could request to require to provide absolutely no parking but in recognition of the site of the site and as some of the the unique challenges of the site our applicant has voluntarily agreed to provide 36 parking spaces which we think is more than enough to accommodate the local parking dates i'm available and and to answer any questions you have i appreciate your time and i'm sorry if i went any over tonight thank you very much thank you are there any questions okay saying none we will now call the appellant up for their presentation there used to be a button there we go and i'm going to beg madame clerk's indulgence uh as i'm going to work with connor to click through the slides so i will go as quickly as i can but uh we all know how this is going to work um good evening mayor rogerson council my name is erin carl strum i'm a shareholder with clement Fitzpatrick and ken worthy i'm glad to be with you this evening though of course we wish we didn't have to i represent the reluctant appellants who are here tonight to ask for what they've been asking for of the applicant since 2019 more parking for their new neighbors in 2019 the applicant approached my clients with his project my clients had several concerns including the lack of parking after that initial meeting and for nearly three and a half years my clients heard nothing from either the city or the applicant then suddenly at the end of 2022 a notice the project would be reviewed by the zoning administrator completely unchanged no recognition of the absolutely unique historic neighborhood it was going to be built in and the impacts to this historic neighborhood slide two please no acknowledgement of the very reasonable requests made by his neighbors and in fact doubling down threatening that they need not build any parking at all if they didn't want to and we you can do nothing about it you heard that again tonight if the absurdity of that position isn't immediately clear i'd like to take a few minutes to educate the applicant on his neighbors which will hopefully remind the council of just how special the home of charlie brown is please click through to slide four where you will see the historical vantage points of the now existing snoopy's home ice construction on which was concluded at least by 1969 slide nine please snoopy's home ice now hosts over 150 000 visitors every year and thousands of local students including santa rosa city schools who were just there last week please click through to slide 15 we all know the ice arena is also home just the warm puppy cafe at which sits sparky's table whereas we all know charles schultz wrote decades worth of cartoons please click through to slides 19 through 22 where you will see images of all the wonderful events occurring at the charles m schultz museum and research center which now hosts more than 100 000 guests per year and is also the host to thousands of local students please click through slides 24 through 27 for images of the children's museum of sonoma county beloved by us all the museum now hosts more than 175 000 visitors just last year and for any of us with children who have visited you know every day that parking lot is full to bursting on slide 29 you'll note that between the three snoopy's home ice the charles m schultz museum and the children's museum santa rosa plays home to more than 350 000 visitors every year not including the price of admission this works out to an average of 12 million dollars in revenue for the city of santa rosa and its residents turning to page uh slide 33 please the proposed project and next slide please the applicant proposes to build much needed housing at 1650 west deal previous slide please here's the map they provided and now the next slide and here's a map that provides a clearer picture the project is proposed for land directly across the street from snoopy's home ice the project is 36 housing units of various sizes including minimal affordable housing and i want to make clear as we have stated all along the appellants are not appealing the housing component nor the density proposed we recognize santa rosa's housing shortage remains critical and that this site will be home to their new neighbors and friends the problem is the applicants are giving their residents nowhere to park there are 69 bedrooms proposed with only 36 parking spaces when we ask the developer where the residents will park he answered well we're going to prioritize tenants who don't have cars putting the legality of that assertion aside let us analyze the practical ramifications the applicant asserts rent will be lower for residents who have no vehicle to park or who have chosen not to rent a unit within a signed space this is troubling for a few reasons families in sonoma county overwhelmingly require at least one vehicle per family to survive more vehicles are required for working families and those with children additionally the applicant asserts that the proximity of the project site to smart and various city bus lines means the tenants can avail themselves of public transit to go about their lives anyone who's tried to get their children to school on time or arrive at work in time for an appointment knows this is a glaring misunderstanding of the current accessibility of smart and the city bus lines realistically residents will either have more vehicles than they can reserve a space for or they will choose not to park at the site not to pay to park at the site so let them park on city streets right this is certainly the developer's perspective please click to slide 35 the project asserts parking on the street is available on meadowbrook however this assertion once again fails to understand the realities of existing neighbors and businesses slide 36 as you can see from this image meadowbrook is already completely utilized by existing residents and neighbors further the proposed project will require the removal of curbs on meadowbrook resulting in even more impacts to existing neighbors and moving parking onto steel lane will only worsen the horrendous traffic on steel lane and will force the removal of a slow zone in front of the ice arena slide 38 again we want to remind the council the developer approached my clients in 2019 it's been suggested that our appeal is designed to further delay the project in reality we asked for these reasonable accommodations and changes four years ago the developer has had four years to be a good neighbor and has refused in fact rather than being a good neighbor the developer is now attempting to use a brand new law untested to bully the council into permitting this project when i was a planning commissioner and a council member my mentor a woman who knew more than a few things about public service said to me when in doubt listen to the neighbors tonight you have that chance as we and others ask you to direct the developer to be reasonable and provide sufficient parking for the new tenants he will have failing to do so will result in unnecessary pressure on the new residents existing residences as well as a completely unique historical cultural corridor which is an exception based explicitly into the law upon which the developer now relies developers attorneys argue essentially well the city didn't make these required findings in within the right time frame as you all know you were briefed and voted on this new law ab 2097 only in may the project was approved in january and submitted well in advance of that exactly how and when were your your staff supposed to have conducted a hearing in accordance with the council's wishes before the council made its opinion clear and before the law came into effect regrettably this is just another instance of an out-of-town developer and his council failing to understand the jurisdiction in which they would like to make money because that's what this boils down to it would cost the developer more money to provide adequate reasonable parking for his residents instead the app the project would force these residents onto city streets that are already overly congested and which cater to hundreds of thousands of children's and visitors to our city this is after receiving three major concessions for this project including this parking reduction a building height reduction concession and a 100 percent density bonus concession while inexplicably failing to avail itself of the 20 percent additional lock coverage available to the project under city code the developer here essentially wants three bites at this apple bonuses and concessions under law when they applied and tighter restrictions against city control now that it's here before you the neighborhood is asking you to say no my clients who represent international icons are asking for more consideration the staff report sites a variety of policies that support the project while unfortunately ignoring how it blatantly contradicts it i would turn your attention to policy e 1.4 of the north station area specific plan which explicitly directs the city to quote expand the area's tourist focal point the Charles m schultz museum and snoopy's home ice end quote we're not asking for any special treatment not any more than what's been baked into city code for years the staff report also attempts to argue that our application misrepresents the language of ab 2097 you'll see it here on your screen this is government code section 6586 3.2 it's also found in your staff report on pages 10 and 11 the law allows the city to make written findings that not imposing minimum parking would have a substantial negative impact on existing residential or commercial parking within one half mile of a project otherwise exempt from minimum parking requirements that's exactly what our appeal is based on so are we only going to apply one part of the law because it's inconvenient to the project's bottom line this site is one of the last remaining infill project opportunities in the north station area plan and it is worth doing this right next slide please i want to remind the council of my client's commitment to their new neighbors they look forward to welcoming them and have preactively provided these cool welcome coupons we implore the council to use its authority to protect charlie brown and snoopy by seriously considering the impact of this project specifically on the surrounding area and by requiring the builder to install a sufficient number of parking spaces on property they already own we also request that no additional approvals are granted in this project without a supplemental or subsequent analysis do the project's incompatibility with the north station area plan and the general plan thank you for your time and for your service to our city thank you are there any questions of the appellant saying none applicant response to appellant presentation you have five minutes thank you man thank you madam mayor i guess i'd just make a few points in response um so you know whether or not the staff report or the appellant's presentation has correctly or mischaracterized the law i think there's a misunderstanding of what we're relying on in asking for the reduction we are the reduction in parking spaces relies on the city's own ordinance and on findings that we've made they're supported by the traffic study we we believe that we're entitled to to exercise the relief from parking that's that's available under 2097 and we're making the point of the procedure requirements and then we don't believe that you can make those findings but we're not relying on that statute to reduce to reduce the parking it to request for us this relaxation of parking standards that's under your city's own ordinance and your supplemental density bonus ordinance um i'd also like to make the point that a number of the provisions of state density bonus law are entitled as of right and again our our avenues that would have been available to our client and that we could have relied on upon right for example by providing these four units that are affordable indeed restricted to units that are very low income and because this site is located and is acknowledged to be located within half a mile of a major transit stop we would be entitled as of right to park at a at a proportion of 0.5 units uh 0.5 spaces per unit which would result in 18 units so again the the voluntary provision of twice that amount is more than is required of this applicant and again we believe is is clearly demonstrated in the substantial evidence that we've provided as a part of the administrative record that this is sufficient parking for this site which again is a designated transit development node in the city's long-term planning objectives and really what this is a question of is is coming up with a reasonable compromise that balances local parking needs with really these statewide objectives to promote affordable housing and to reduce reliance on the automobile and all we're asking the city to do is you know to put its money where its mouth is in terms of its planning objectives and its planning documents to accommodate those competing objectives we think that this proposal does that really well i'd also just point out um the city council has in the record a letter from the state's department of housing community development that makes a number of points um under the density bonus law that i won't belabor now but i just want to point out that they make the point that the state is equipped with additional enforcement authorities and to make referrals to the state's attorney general for prosecution for violation of the housing accountability act and of density bonus laws and standards we're not here to rattle sabers about that we just think that this record is is really clear and that the law in it is abundantly clear that this project is entitled to reduce parking that we have made the required findings that they are supportable under the law in the administrative record and that actually because the the city would be required by proponents of the evidence to show that there is inadequate parking we think that for a myriad of reasons you can't make those findings and that the detailed findings that your city attorney and the staff have already advised you about that you would need to make in order to grant this appeal are not supported by the evidence in the record so accordingly again i just urge you to deny this appeal to uphold the original administrative approvals thank you thank you are there any questions of the applicant seeing none we want to open the public hearing madam city clerk may you please conduct public comment thank you mayor we are now taking public comment on item 16.3 if you are in council chamber and would like to comment but have not provided a speaker card or your name please make your way to the podium if you are participating via zoom please raise your hand or dial star nine you will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period the first public comment will be Ramon followed by Gina want to make sure the the microphones close close enough there you go good afternoon may your rogers and esteem city council and staff my name is Ramon Miraz i'm a community engagement coordinator for generation housing thank you for the opportunity to say something on behalf of this this project you might know urban planning 101 says a couple of things people are going to do what they want but also the built environment is going to shape how people react and i want to go back to that if you and i know you have read our reports especially the one on the making the rent and the cost of the burden of cost of rent in our county you will see that families that have young children are the ones that are suffering the most so this place these four units will be benefiting you know people that have lower income so something to keep in mind we need to move forward we need it today we need to move we need it to be built as soon as possible now we're losing families with children to migration because there's not enough housing so again it's low in this is going to continue that trend in a report you can also see that we commute too much in this county but by doing this you can help because again the more parking spaces that we built the more cars that are going to be driving to the street and i'm going back to what i was saying earlier there's studies you can google the sc santa cruz and parking and uh transportation and you're going to find studies that said if you build more parking people are going to buy cars instead if you provide limited parking but you also have access to public transportation people are going to modify modify their behaviors they're going to start using that public transportation and and i know there's a lot of complaints about the bus and about the the train bus first the chicken or the egg the decisions that you make tonight are going to help shape how santa rosa is going to move away from being a car centric community so that being said also we recognize you know the museum they both of the museums are worried about when they have events when they have events they have lots of visitors but we also have carlinton parking uh and carlinton mall parking with a little bit of work they could be a shuttle that could be a solution some of the problems and that with that i just wanted to tell you and and encourage you to deny uh the this appeal and start thinking about people and less about cars thank you thank you the next public comment will be jenna followed by collette good evening mayor roger and esteemed city council members and staff my name is jenna huntsinger and i'm the director of the trials and shows museum and research center and i live at 50 45 gregory court in san rosa i have three points first the three community institutions appealing this project are in favor of housing we want housing and low income housing in the space across the street from our institutions we all agree that housing will help the neighborhood secondly we are tasked with the responsibility of standing up for safety and the enjoyment of our visitors and our neighbors third this housing project without adequate parking will not be safe or enjoyable for the neighbors the residents of this very project and for the visitors the 350 000 visitors who choose to come from around the world to this very special spot on the earth every year what are we asking for we're asking for 16 more parking spaces we've been consistent it's safe and it's realistic the charlson schultz and his family built the icerina off west dill lane 54 years ago and the arena has been serving the people and children of san rosa and the north bay ever since and now the arena is paired with the charlson schultz museum and the children's museum of syconoma county and it's the only place like it in the world in fact visitors come from all over the world this weekend at the schultz museum we had visitors from fresno san diego bakersfield gilroy la sacramento orange county riverside ukayu massachusetts new york alabama idaho georgia korea canada japan switzerland um guatemala philippines taiwan mexico germany china and the uk and that's not all of them at the schultz museum we've created a one-of-a-kind six-month exhibition highlighting the three snoopies that have flown in outer space in fact the zero gravity indicator that just came back in artemis one has flown 1.4 million miles that's farther than any person has ever traveled in space and it was snoopy of course and that is so snoopy last saturday we hosted an astronaut and a current launch of artemis one it's a director of the launch for artemis one and their message was to encourage children in the audience to think about what they want to explore in outer space when they grow up to think and dream big in summation we have a reasonable request in favor of both housing and safety we're asking for 16 more parking spots esteemed council members you ran for city council to help your community and to make a difference when it is necessary please have the courage to vote in favor of safety and quality of life for your citizens your leadership is critical at this moment thank you for your time your service and your leadership in our community thank you thank you the next public comment will be from collette followed by barbara good evening esteemed city council members and respected members of the public i am collette michelle the ceo and founder of the children's museum in sonoma county and i would like to shed light on this important issue that concerns our cherished community assets in the past year alone visitors to the children's museum actually surged to 186 000 visitors 33 000 of those were low income children and families every day our parking lot right now reaches capacity by 11 o'clock parents must scour the neighboring streets for parking alternatives westeel lane offers a scant few spaces accompanied by hazards of swift two-way traffic particularly perilous for families with young children meanwhile hardy's lane which is likely to be relied upon by the future residents of the new apartment development especially on weekends when there is peak demand for the children's museum is poised to become a congested parking stretch further compounding the parking issue let me be clear i stand before you i'm absolutely in favor of housing in sonoma county especially affordable housing we look forward to welcoming the families that will live at this apartment complex what is that issue is providing enough parking for future residents at this apart at this apartment complex in addition to the parking needed for the long-standing institutions that are serving thousands of children and their loved ones every day but especially on weekends by permitting an apartment complex to proceed without addressing parking inadequacies you stifle the very lifeblood of these vital community resources serving countless individuals potentially causing families to walk a much further distance along unsafe streets to reach these entities in closing i ask you to please champion a bright more accessible future for our community by supporting us in overcoming this potentially unsafe parking predicament please preserve and cultivate our vibrant cultural tapestry on westeel lane we are doing our part to provide unique and wonderful services to the community i ask that the city council hold the developer accountable to do his part in providing adequate parking for his future residents thank you thank you the next public comment will be from barbara followed by joe greetings mayor rogers council members and staff my name is barbara gallagher and i am appearing here on behalf of snoopy's home ice charles m schultz creative associates and the schultz family gene schultz would have been here today but she was out of town and could not attend i think you've got the idea that creative associates in the ice arena host a lot of visitors um and a lot of that is you know from all over the country and internationally and most of that relates to peanuts licensed products and the business associated with that but the ice arena is a little bit different animal where it is a community resource and hosts a lot of community events um and the schultz family wants to provide that as a public service um it's not always just special events a couple of times a year it's ma'am sorry can you raise the mic a little bit oh sorry thank you um the the ice arena hosts events that go on all year long and it's not just a couple of times a year so they have um hockey teams playing games snoopy senior hockey tournament ice skating competitions ice skating lessons uh holiday events for easter halloween and christmas various charity events a couple are scott hamilton's cares foundation and the gun and roses um charity fundraiser to benefit first responders and their families we want to be able to continue to provide these community resources and you know we believe that the parking issues and actually the health and safety issues related to that um are a concern we we believe that the city you know i mean i think common sense has to play a role here there's very limited parking on west dill lane part of the parking is blocked out to protect a bike lane and they're you know i i don't see these extra spaces um we believe that the city has the right to consider the special nature of this neighborhood and its unique characteristics and we believe that both for a good quality of life and health and safety that we hope that you protect the the residents and the businesses and we request that you grant the remedies that are set forth in our appeal thank you thank you the next public comment will be from joe followed by stephanie hello my name is joe aim i'm the president of the home of the meadowbrook association hoa i'm one of the people who've dealt with parking issues in the area of meadowbrook court for the last 13 years of my presidency until recently we had to trouble every quarter on what was going on as far as our parking situation who was parking illegally the condo units that i'm president of is 11 units we have covered hard coverage parking for everybody outside space for everybody and seven guest parking spots as you can tell i'm kind of nervous being up here but i wanted to represent the people who are impacted by the parking situation we're just a hundred feet away from the proposed site and i've noticed that the parking is getting even worse on meadowbrook the chance of people taking a spot and depriving one of our residents of a very of a parking spot that they're paying for i think is a shame i think that we can do better with the going back considering that the charlotte show shows ice arena is a historical that area and is deserving of the care and the commitment to everybody's lifestyle that i try to adhere to as president that's it thank you thank you the next public comment will be from Stephanie followed by Betsy good evening mayor rogers vice mayor mcdonald council members and staff my name is Stephanie Picard bowen and i'm deputy director with generation housing generation housing is pleased to have both endorsed and generated public support for the proposed infill housing project at 1650 west steel lane this project is a cornerstone of sustainability showing us that the path to a greener future can be created right here in our own backyard the housing project unlocks the door to a sustainable urban living located in close proximity to a major transit stop it marries an innovative project within a stone's throw of essential and non-essential services that is also proximate to the largest job center in sinoma county this housing project is also in lockstep with numerous stated goals and objectives adopted by the city of santa rosa over the past several years it is a well-constructed approach that embraces sustainability without compromising on practical needs we need to plan and build for the future we want one that is climate smart resilient reliant on public transportation and decreased reliance on personal vehicles together we can support families in our community and ensure the long-term vibrancy of santa rosa and as leaders and as a city who has recently awarded the state's pro housing designation you will have to continue making bold and sometimes uncomfortable decisions that shake up the status quo change is difficult but changes paramount to santa rosa's future success we urge you to continue embracing a future where sustainability is at the heart of our city's growth together we can pioneer a cleaner greener tomorrow we along with 78 community members who signed our petition ask you to please deny the appeal and uphold the decision of the zoning administrator i do want to add a personal note about why i work at gen h and why i'm here tonight i was born in santa rosa i went to high school here i graduated here i left for college but i came back i got married and i had a baby we haven't bought a house yet and we still rent after my daughter was born our lease came up and the house we lived in was sold so we moved and it happened again and again again and again in the first five years of my daughter's life we moved five times i know this left a mark on her and i know that this happened because of the scarcity and affordability of housing here in sonoma county continuing to prioritize more more affordable and more diverse housing here i know will ensure the future of families and our children as always thank you for your service and have a wonderful evening thank you the next public comment will be from betsey followed by anna nobody can see me down here there's a toggle on the right hand side of the podium for you to raise or lower the podium i was going to bring a stepping stool um thank you for giving all of us an opportunity to this open discussion um i am from the homeowners association from sunleaf lane since 2004 we are two driveways just to the west of medable court where the housing is going to be developed and we have of course concerns for our driveway which isn't a street but it's a driveway for people to access because we cannot have a gate there because of we are too close to the street so we have concerns about the new development using our area for parking of course um i support the development as everyone has mentioned here especially because this lot needs to be cleaned up as it's been neglected for so long and it's really run down our community especially our uh street within those last six blocks um i understand keeping your project is profitable to not reduce the amount of people you have living there um we've heard pro and con uh and i've also like to try to problem solve the parking issue by an idea i have just something to consider overflow parking permit that you could perhaps get from the gernville road shopping center that has actually a lot of parking spaces but right along the east side of your borderline for your property um are 19 available spots every night there's 19 available spots just sitting there and it's off the street it's safe it always has been um and i have the north bay commercial real estate if you consider uh contacting them to see if you can get a permit for your folks to also be able to have the opportunity to park there a lot of businesses do that put a sign up that say for you know this parking facility parking for these residents only and um it's just a solution to try to add parking not on the street because you don't have it and i understand why you can't have it in your add more parking spaces to your place because you want to keep the number of uh available housing so please consider contacting the north bay commercial real estate for permit parking for overflow thank you the next public comment will be from ana followed by jerry hi everyone and everyone that is on zoom my name is ana dias i hold many titles but the ones that i hold very closely to me is that i am a granddaughter of a farm worker that came here in 1958 to roseland and i am also a notary um loan signing agent during my process as a loan signing agent i have seen and as you know everyone says affordable housing affordable housing but i'm not allowed to disclose too much information however as long as you look through my notary journal a lot of these people are coming from the east bay slash san francisco so i do want to note that as a huge impact that is obviously surrounding santa rosa as a city as a fellow latina chicana proud chicana many of my rasa are living in living rooms and or garages so i do want to point that out as a major factor because it is true and as somebody who lived off pomo trail for about six months i saw it as a normality for many of the people who live in the northwest santa rosa so i do want to point that out as a huge factor of importance many of my rasa along with many of the people that live in low income housing they have one to three cars and i do want to note that a lot of the parents are giving their children cars in order for them to take their younger siblings to school so i do want to point that out as a huge factor especially to this topic thank you guys thank you the next public comment will be from jerry followed by linda yes my name is jerry londberg i appreciate being here i appreciate you as a council and staff having to work with such complex issues i think that the children's museum and the schultz museum are wonderful resources and assets but i'm also here in as an ongoing supporter of gen h and high-density housing and state law and climate sustainability and high-density housing close to transit all of these things that this particular site is beautiful for so you anybody who looked at this site is going to see it and say wow this is a really nice spot i'm a half a block from whole foods i'm right there i'm close to sees candy all of those things so having said that let me give you another 40 parking places so if you look at the church on range immediately adjacent to the schultz museum parking that church has 40 parking spaces so if the developer the museums and the church could work it out you simply put a driveway and repave or not repave that parking lot and lo and behold you have 40 more parking spaces right there just on a you know a lease use with the church i'm sure the church would appreciate a steady source of income in their own parking lot and you would appreciate and your visitors would appreciate a convenient place to park so let's build the housing but let's work with the museums thank you hello my name is linda el yad i'm a neighbor that walks around that neighborhood with my dog and i pass that site with the car every day now gernvill road is going to get crowded with another apartment building but that's a traffic problem it's i support that the project should go forward and i wanted to point out to you about what the city has done on hardy's lane which is between the ice skating rink and the and schultz parking lot because they they were trying to prevent i guess homeless people or recreational vehicle parking overnight there and what and that street could provide a lot of parking right now the city has um no parking signs for overnight parking in other cities what they do is they issue permits for people in the neighborhood to be able to park in places like that and all it would take for the city is just to change the parking signs on hardy's lane and develop a little system of permit parking and i'm sure that there's lots of other people that would appreciate access to some permanent parking on hardy's lane as well because there's a lot of apartment buildings that that um and so i'd like you to revisit what you've been doing on that that particular street and get some more resident parking thank you thank you for your attention to this thank you i do see a member of the public approaching the west lectern please go ahead my name is eric frazier i'm a community organizer in santa rosa and uh it is interesting to see the city council need to confront um a major cultural icon going up against snoopy it'll be interesting to see uh you know how you vote if you have to vote against snoopy or not i mean that's an interesting set of tension i mean welcome to santa rosa right or are you going to uh do some sort of back room deal or some sort of illegal under the table thing to allow them to get their way or are you going to you know buy into sort of the half-baked generation housing argument that throws facts around like yesterday's dinner you know it's a it's a really interesting thing but when we finally see where the rubber can hit the road solutions come forward if this project believe me an entrepreneur stepping forward as a developer to invest his time and money to provide housing and here we're talking about what nine parking spaces that the testimony today says that the city staff should have been on their toes to see that that really isn't the problem with some creative thinking over parking we heard testimony for instance at the triumph red of cultural institutions they themselves have problems fitting in all their patrons in their parking why don't they construct more parking what why isn't there a more omnibust attempt rather than always running into these arguments that are energized by polarity by thinking that of one or the other that this council has lost track of the ability to to um steward the city staff and manager into a way that can ferret out information that solves conflict before it reaches its most expensive pinnacle before it's here today wasting time over trivia and now I think probably in the next few months we're going to be ragged with the idea that the city council is going to ask for a raise of 10 times what they make but you yourself are allowing this uh this travesty to continue of conflict in our communities I think when the state mandates that development for housing needs to go forward and they provide a clear track for it and the entrepreneur comes forward and they says let's do this I mean they're operating under state law and like I said of course the city thinks that they're above the law they're above state law so maybe they'll develop something a little bit under the surface but it'll be interesting to see your vote if you're voting against snoopy thank you thank you if there's anyone else in the council chamber please make your way to the podium I see no one approaching the podium I'm going to turn it over to our zoom host to facilitate public comments via zoom thank you we'll be starting with Kathleen followed by Al and then Katie Kathleen you've been asked to unmute Kathleen okay I'm going to go ahead and go to Al hello yeah my name is Alex Fadeev I've been a resident in here on the west hill for a past say like 12 years or so and uh I've been watching that empty lot how it's been maintained and uh from my previous experiences as your your your your past is your current is your future and then I see how the developers trying to get something done but unfortunately there's a some major catbacks and I believe the developer need to figure out whether they're building another 7-11 or the residential building building another 7-11 yeah the traffic is great the parking is great but if they're building the residential part they need the more parking and by cutting back that's going to put some pressure on the city meaning that people is going to start parking on the street there's going to be more police enforcement there's going to be more activity and such and such and in the residential you want to more of a quiet residence than say like in a 7-11 type of a traffic deal so as a neighbor I'm kind of against it due to lack of parking spaces if they would propose something that would have more parking spaces then yeah why not but at this time yeah I'm against it I yield my time thank you Kathleen you're being asked to unmute okay we're gonna go to Katie go ahead when you're ready Katie hello I'm Katie Murray I'm with North Bay Leadership Council and we believe in housing we need housing we don't see this as a parking as a as a community issue we need housing it's a human issue the stealing project is just what we need for our community it hits so many things multifamily housing that serves mixed income families helping to integrate the neighborhoods and has units reserved for very low income families we just see this as a home run on every on everything that we need to do so this project we wanted to move forward we urge you to prove the original thing and just reject this appeal thank you next we'll be calling on the phone in caller with the last four digits 8129 you're being asked to unmute go ahead when you're ready when you're ready you hear me yes we can okay hi um this is Kathy Gonzalez-Cain and I am the Chief Program Officer for Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County whose office is in Santa Rosa and we serve the city of Santa Rosa residents as well as Sonoma County I am speaking on behalf of our agency to ask City Council to reject the appeal and uphold the zoning administrator's approval Chaps Sonoma provides programs and services for over 10,000 households a year that a majority of these are low to very low income households we see firsthand the struggle that our families have to find quality affordable housing this project aligns with those City Council's goal of delivering housing for all and for residents of all income levels this project provides affordable housing units it's located in a transit friendly area many of our families walk to our offices and take public transit and located near healthy amenities and central work areas we ask that you reject the appeal and help our families with opportunities to be able to work to live and to thrive in Santa Rosa so thank you for your time and I see the rest of my time next will be Rachel followed by the listener that goes by Motorola Rachel please go ahead when you're ready thanks yeah can you hear me yes we can great thanks my name is Rachel um I just wanted to leave a public comment and say that I'm not a car owner um I grew up in Santa Rosa I would live in a building like this and happily walk and rely on public transportation and the train um I haven't heard anyone else chime in who who would be the type of person who would live there so I wanted to to give my opinion too and say that that we exist and we would certainly forego a parking space in in that parking lot and we would probably not take up public parking on the street um it was really disappointing earlier to hear the the Charles Imschel's creative associates um basically sound like their business is relying on public transportation to operate and and acting like they're entitled to it and I grew up you know like I said I grew up here and I love Snoopy's home ice and and I'm just disappointed to hear that they're taking this stance um and it's affecting my my image and positive memories of the Charles Imschel's experience so um I hope that this appeal can be denied and the housing can be built and if the neighbors um like you know single family home neighbors nearby have parking concerns maybe that can be addressed and we can eat out like the remaining few spaces that that is perceived to be needed for the building in some other way but yeah wanted to give my opinion as um someone who might rent there and I really hope that this appeal is denied thank you next is the listener who's using Motorola you've been asked to unmute hello hello hello please go ahead when you're ready ready if you have another device on there you go thank you thank you I'm I'm really sorry for that I joined one of our neighbors my name is Kathleen O'Brien no Motorola intended thank you city council for hearing our viewpoints tonight I feel like this builder and the project have been bulldozing us and I feel great pride that the Charles Schultz has stood up um a few points the people who have been around the area at 10 o'clock at night hello let's get on the train of reality speaking of trains nobody uses that train I come past that crossing on range avenue every day four o'clock and seven in the morning twice a day there's no one on the train as far as bus transportation the buses are notoriously undependable I would be taking buses if I could get out to my job in sabastopol I believe in being healthy and in a perfect world let's all ride bikes but these roads are dangerous and we also have quite a bit of rain through the winter now if mr I believe his name's McNeil I want is good at riding and Sandra fell in the rain and maybe that's good for him but it's not a real great likely good year one of the things I'd like to make note about is the mall for possible work employment now I'm not sure when the last time anyone on the city council was in the mall but I go there regularly on a Saturday morning and there's no one more stores are closing on a regular basis I would be hard pressed to see macy's staying open or pennies past Christmas so that is not a viable opportunity for work employment and I think all of these things really need to be considered come by this Charles Schultz on a weekend I went door to door today down hearty's lane to inform the residents of this meeting and I told them please contact mr mckay for any comments because they felt like they wanted to say something and I encourage them to be either for or against it didn't matter things should be said and their voices heard as far as somebody recommending parking on hearty's I'm pretty sure that the population there would be against it so please try to find a resolution either fewer units and I really believe that more should be low income fewer units or more parking but it was both those over us that they got in and got all of those privileges under a certain thing and mr mcdeal doesn't live here so I ask you to support the appeal thank you very much thank you next step will be kirsten followed by the listener who's using Samsung kirsten go ahead when you're ready good evening kirsten land president santa rosa sonoma county branch of the nacp and resident of santa rosa I live in the neighborhood for which this project is being built and would respectfully ask the council to consider rejecting the appeal what is a sad and missed opportunity for the arts collaborative and museum hubs to be a welcoming force for new community members from all backgrounds and think creatively about solutions to work together they've rallied together neighbors with a concern of parking but if folks are still concerned about parking why haven't they been vocal community members advocating for light up crosswalks so that during halloween young children are not being hit by cars and if they're concerned about the ridership around the smart and use of access why are they not advocating with the smart board to ensure ensure that the fairs are reasonably accessible and to point of my own work and community advocacy speaking directly with centers of city transit to talk about bus routes and of accessibility for more youth to utilize the bus and community members which we've seen through some of the uh progressive and positive pathways forward all of those are detractors and what has been a common theme in this community meeting this evening before your council are the haves and the have nots those who have and have maintained a lifestyle here want it to stay the same way they're rejecting the change and the progressive nature of housing that is needed to afford for families to live and live and work in this community stores in the mall all of those are all anecdotes that are beautifully noted but not necessarily relative and relevant to folks being able to have a place where they could afford to live I too to the previous caller would love the opportunity to be considered as a tenant in this possible building which would put me in the city center and allow me to use public transit more rapidly but unfortunately if upheld would be a deterrent and I hope that you all really think and consider deeply around some of the coded language that's been used quite a bit on all of these issues what it really boils down to economic balance and connectivity that we definitely don't have in our city and while you cannot solve the poverty that folks are experiencing you can definitely make decisions that afford folks a place to rest their heads in the evening and continue to be working contributors in our community I yield my time the next step is the person who signed in as samsung and then followed by nima you've been asked to unmute there's a listener who is signed in as samsung sm okay i'm gonna go and go ahead and go to nima nima go ahead when you're ready perfect hi am i coming in yes hi my name is nima my parents own the liquor store right in a shopping center next door they've owned it since december of 93 and i've been working in that store since i was 11 and i'm turning 41 next month i've been there a very long time and i'll be honest with you guys everything i'm hearing tonight really sounds like a bunch of bs it needs to be built i mean my parent my father's 92 years old my mother's 75 they just had to borrow $50,000 hard money loan on their home so we can keep the doors open the economy sucks our rent is up we're arguing about some parking spots we need more homes more apartments in that area to bring more business to the local businesses in the area snoopy's worried about parking spots the more people living in that parking in that structure more people come to your cafe you're so worried about them taking your parking your cafe can accommodate the people in there on the weekends my my kids are there three four days a week the reality is all the businesses in that shopping center next door in codding town down the street from the railroad tracks everyone needs these apartment complexes to be built from the time it breaks ground the contractors everyone are going to bring business to that center we're barely holding on that's the reality of it and we're sitting here arguing about five spots traffic this that i've been there 30 years and the only time it's thrived is when the place is busy when the area is busy the church has parking spots our shopping center has parking spots we're arguing about a moot point in my opinion i mean we're spinning our wheels on something that's a complete waste of time i've been on this call since five o'clock we've never ended this at six o'clock if we're just logical about it my parents have paid a lot in permits alcohol fees tobacco fees business fees for 30 years we've been paying into the city of santa rosa it's time to get a fraction of that back and help us keep our doors open in this apartment complex these 39 units that's going to help us keep our doors open just breaking ground the construction people anyone just starting that process is going to help us keep our doors open there's no other way about it and being worried about five extra spots 10 extra spots extra cars the city is growing whether you let this be built or not steel lanes going to be busy i witness one car accident per week on that traffic like by the church it has nothing to do with this apartment complex being built maybe if anything with this apartment complex being built more police will come and go it'll be a safer area i mean there's no wish ways about it i support it the appeal should be thrown away the appeal was a joke from day one it should be thrown away we needed this built six months ago sam sung your permissions are you there hello hello we can hear you go ahead when you're ready oh fabulous thank you um my name is don cougar i am a born and raised resident within one mile this area i own a home right on the west side of this area and just have to say that the traffic is astounding in the morning in the evening um as the previous caller said you know he owns a business and has seen many traffic accidents in that particular intersection being a traffic issue parking in itself um i don't know who has done these parking um has done the parking evaluations but they obviously are don't live anywhere in this area we have no parking as it is to begin with we are all fighting for spaces you have 36 units going there which is fantastic we're you know giving people places to live there's going to be some affordable housing and the thing is is it though i apologize the thing is is that um the public transit is not really used you see one or two people on the train every day if that you see three or four people on the bus every day if that and yes we are right by conningtown fantastic okay but the reality of it is there is usually one to three cars her household you have 36 units and the gentleman that is going to build on this property had mentioned that he is built right down the road if on mcbride if you speak to those people they all have parking issues they all have to park on the street because there's not enough parking parking and traffic is the problem it's not the housing it's traffic and parking we all fight for it as it is i have grown up in san rosa in fact charles schultz allowed us as kids to ride our bikes down to play on his tennis courts while he sat there and um you know drew his cartoons and his two things were have respect pick up after yourself and that's as you know that should be what the community does so um i really hope that you consider this supporting this because you know we have so much in in our lives that we can't grow from and support the whole community thank you for your time like you're supporting thank you we have no additional callers on zoom we will now close the public hearing bring it back to council council do you have any questions of anyone okay councilmember rogers thank you mayor i have a question for our staff and i've just has there been any discussion uh either through this process or before this process of putting a posted uh parking time limit on those impacted uh courts because what we're talking about is the allocation of a public good nobody has a sole responsibility for it nobody has sole ownership of it out of any of these groups who have been talking it's a shared resource so has there been any discussion about posting for instance a two hour three hour limit that would meet the needs of the patrons of the businesses that would make it more difficult for people to park there all day during the day and take up the spots if that's a concern but then in the evening when there are no patrons there or when there are fewer patrons there that they open that for overnight parking for people who are going to be living in the area uh thanks councilmember rogers um i'm not aware of any discussion of that nature um but if rob sprinkles on and has anything to add to respond to that question um i would welcome that thanks one moment while we promote rob and while we are promoting rob uh just for some of the folks from the neighborhood that i heard from we do actually have a parking permit program that neighborhoods can apply for but that doesn't solve the issue from the appellant in this case who are worried about some of the on-street parking that they've relied on as well hello good evening can you hear me uh if you could speak up a little bit you're kind of quiet thanks sure this is rob sprinkles deputy director of traffic engineering for san rosa um as far as the parking time limitations um my understanding is that the the issue with parking is in the evening when everyone is that was my impression of the um of the parking study is that that's when it's most crowded is it in the evening when everyone is attempting to park during the day my understanding is there is less issue with the parking arm metal brook so maybe i'm not understanding the question correctly yeah my question is how later are we talking though and i read the parking study uh i believe if i remember correctly that you've got your peak that goes until i think it was 10 p.m was around when we'd have to plan for uh why is that a possibility then to have posted limits you know two hour parking or so uh that uh people can park there after the 10 p.m or after the peak that could be something that's considered um i think we want to dive a little bit deeper into the to the actual numbers of the parking and when it's being affected the worst um i think it is the it's the residents that are really challenging one another for for the spots out there um as susie did mention we will be adding some additional spots along the frontage by having them restrike um and we could also look in the future about the reduction in the time parking on hardys if that's something that um is i mean able to uh um snoopy spokes that's they're the ones who have requested just time restrictions in the in the in the past council member rogers do you have any additional questions nope that'll do it for now thank you oh rob disappeared but i was gonna ask when the zoning administrator has spoke she stated that there were cars that had not been moved in a long time has anyone thought about maybe asking those people to move their their vehicles or to make sure they're still running or like they're just not stationary there for a really long time if the concern is parking and you have cars that are there for a really long time i know we do have our 72 hour rule that can be enforced by the police department and there's also an abandoned vehicle program that the police department does run um that may be able to address some of those uh vehicles that are uh stagnant thank you council member alvarez thank you the statement of we could have presented the project with zero cars is that factual or zero parking spaces that was referring to the new state law um ab 2097 that states that projects that are located within a half mile of transit including the smart station and some other kinds of transit do not have to provide the city cannot mandate any parking in those projects that became effective january of this year you all took action to incorporate it into our code earlier this year um but it did become effective on january 1st um regardless of the fact that it took us a short time to incorporate it and one of the caveats i believe was a historic designation that could have maybe changed that that wording but i'm hearing that the snoopy was not designated as a historical site correct are there any additional questions council member fleming yeah i'm wondering uh it's the city attorney might let me know if i can ask a question of the applicant yes you can right now is the time to ask staff the applicant or the appellant um questions thank you my question is um for the applicant if you would be willing to help subsidize at least for the first year uh transit passes either on smart or and or center as a city bus for for your tenants yeah i think that that both the applicant and appellant could benefit from encouraging uh greater ridership it sounds like there's a belief that i mean which is not what i see when i get on the smart train but that that there is underutilization of transit ridership in the area and we'd certainly like to encourage that are there any additional questions seeing none council member alvarez would you like to make a motion yes thank you madam mayor i would like to present resolution of this council the city of san rosa denying an appeal and adopting an addendum to the certified north san rosa station area specific plan environmental impact report uh state clearinghouse number two zero one one one zero two two zero three four for the one six five zero west steel lane apartment project located at one six five zero west steel lane san rosa apn zero four one zero four two zero one two file number prj two one dash zero one zero and wave further reading of the text second we have a motion made by council member alvarez in a seconded by council member fleming is there any further discussion without seeing any further discussion i would like to call for the question madam city clerk council member step hi council member rogers hi council member fleming hi council member alvarez hi vice mayor mcdonnell hi mayor rogers hi let the record show that passes with six affirmative votes and council member o' crepe key abstaining i would like to move on to item 17 which is our written communication through the mayor we have two additional resolutions that we need to take motions on individually would you like to read it no i appreciate that man i would like to present resolution of the council the city of san rosa denying appeal and approving a minor conditional use permit for a supplemental density bonus of 65 percent for the one six five zero west steel lane apartments project located at one six five zero west steel lane san rosa apn zero four one zero four two zero one two file number prj two one dash zero one zero and wave further reading of the text second motion made by council member alvarez in seconded by mayor may you please call the vote thank you council member step hi council member rogers council member fleming hi council member alvarez hi vice mayor mcdonnell hi mayor rogers hi let the record show that motion passes with six affirmative votes and council member o' crepey recusing abstaining council member alvarez thank you madam mayor i would like to present the third and final resolution of the council the city san rosa denying an appeal and approving minor design review for the construction of a three-story 36 unit multifamily dwelling for the one six five zero west steel lane apartments project located at one six five zero west steel lane san rosa apn zero four one zero four two zero one two file number prj two one dash zero one zero and wave further reading of the text second we have a motion made by council member alvarez seconded by myself may you please call the vote thank you council member step hi council member rogers council member fleming hi council member alvarez hi vice mayor mcdonnell hi mayor rogers hi let the record show this motion passes with six affirmative votes and council member o' crepey recusing abstaining thank you moving on to item 17 our written communications we have 17.1 and 17.2 madam city clerk can you please facilitate public comment thank you we are hearing public comment on item 17 written communication if you are in the council chamber and wishing to provide public comment please make your way to the podium if you are participating via zoom please dial star nine or raise your hand i'm seeing no one in council chamber wishing to provide public comment so i'm going to turn it over to our zoom host where we have one hand being raised thank you Gregory i'm allowing your permissions please go ahead when you're ready thank you mayor and members of the council i'm here at the very end to raise a very important issue sorry to be doing this but i can't avoid it this communication on the agenda is all about a bond act that is being proposed and it raises the issue of what affordability is um this is going to dog you for a long time and i just want to raise the issue of the variations on what we call affordable housing uh a couple of weeks ago i ran into bill Gallagher's staff member effin koreal who talked about his project out in the western part of the county or southeast i guess um where there are 207 units of housing and they're they're saying that it's going to be a low income which is 80 percent of median income and he was promoting it as 100 affordable 100 affordable 80 000 bucks to get into it and it's a affordable okay that's on one end you just had a proposal that you just decided on that had three one-bedroom apartments and one three-bedroom apartments four units out of 36 and it's getting lots of bonuses because it's calling itself affordable affordable is in your hands to some degree and i want to point out that there is a definition from affordable from the federal point of view from the state point of view from even your own housing and community development departments and that's where residents only pay up to 30 percent of their income on housing now you can check with them but i don't know anybody in this count that pays 30 percent who's a renter they're mostly up around 40 and 50 percent of their income for their housing costs so um it's it's really hard to be able to produce housing that gets them down to 30 percent but that's what the state and federal government thinks of as affordable so in that variance between 80 percent and 30 percent and 50 percent which you know of as extremely low income very low income and low income i i don't want confusion and i don't think you should be confusing people as to what you accept people calling their developments as affordable you should come up with something either through the legislature or through yourselves that says this is what we will give for affordable and this is what we think of as affordable either put it down at 30 percent or put it at 40 but don't accept an 80 percent of median income as affordable that's embarrassing all right thank you very much thank you we have no additional public speakers on zoom and we have no prerecorded messages thank you we will now proceed to item 18 which is our public comment on non-agenda matters madam say clerk may you please facilitate public comment thank you mayor we are now taking public comment on item 18 non-agenda matters this is a time when any person may address the council on matters not listed on this agenda but which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council if you're in council chamber please make your way to the podium if you are participating via zoom please raise your hand or dial star nine i see mr frazier at the lectern i will unmute you yes thank you can i use the projector please certainly one moment while we get it fired up thank you very much i appreciate your patience city council you're working hard appreciate that okay thank you so much eric frazier you know me well and i'm reporting out good grief and the war against short-term rentals as you know you grappled with a short-term rental ordinance and finally today i was able to see this final verbiage i'm sorry my marker isn't my highlighter isn't really showing up very well but did you realize that at the last minute what was inserted in this ordinance that was signed by the vice mayor is that this language right here that the council according to this ordinance will have an opportunity to review it in august 24 but if they decide not to review it or they don't make any changes this chapter shall remain in full force and effect as written now that differs pretty substantially from both the discussion and the information that was forwarded to both the planning commission and the public hearing for the city council this is just yet again another thing to put on our timeline before i was interrupted actually or denied the opportunity to speak during public county public comment during that meeting where the short-term rental ordinance was on a public hearing i was about ready to report out that true to my word i'm getting traction to review santa rosa short-term rental ordinance in a scholarly setting on a national level quite frankly this ordinance is a witch's brew of backroom deals illegal maneuvers last-minute changes abuses of urgency ordinance allowing for people citizens with their unresolved complaints to be turned into flying monkeys to visit their neighbors to assault their neighbors to trespass you know no facts come forward from this ordinance and your findings it's just really quite an atrocious mess but it is a glorious mess because we're going to be able to study it and pick it apart with economists and sociologists and psychologists and the political process and i know it bore some of you here it's been a long meeting i'm sure but you know respect is earned and i'm looking forward to digging deeper about this issue when i read this ordinance and i compare it to ordinance that were constructed during the height of redlining and civil rights violations this is right up there with it you know at the heart of this ordinance if somebody just has a guest one night in their own home and they have a vic deschers neighbor they can be turned into code enforcement and all of a sudden they're liable to all sorts of different penalties including criminal penalties you guys didn't really think about this through you're just responding to your own craft's political needs and i look forward to seeing the end of that good grief thank you thank you um we will be adjourning the meeting but before we do um i would just like to say i would like to adjourn the meeting in the name of bob geyser who worked really hard for us to get the greenway so i'm happy to say that he was alive when that transaction went through and that he spent many many years and he was actually able to see it um come through so again we will be adjourning this meeting in the name of bob geyser and everyone have a great night thank you