 Well good afternoon and welcome to our 12 30 p.m. public portion of closed session of the September 10th 2019 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council and this part of the meeting the council will receive public testimony Thereafter council members will move to the courtyard conference room for our closed session I would like to ask our clerk to please call the roll. Thank you mayor council member Cron your lover here Myers is absent today Brown your Matthews your vice mayor Cummings and mayor Watkins here Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to items on closed session? I see At least maybe one if not more. Okay, so you'll have up to two minutes And we're also hoping that Alicia will come from the union of the homeless But we're plaintiffs in the case that you'll be discussing And the Susie O'Hara and other city officials testified Under oath and federal court that there was plenty of shelter for the people at Ross camp to When there was a vote here to evict the people from Ross camp and I think everybody here would Agree that those people did not have adequate shelter and are fact found living in the doorways and the bushes and now and On the main beach in Santa Cruz so We are here to continue to offer the settlements that we've been attempting to settle with the city and We've provided and you have this Points here that we've given to the city attorney. These are similar to the same arguments. We attempted to make twice at in settlement hearings at federal court and And we hope that you will enact on on these provisions here and One of them is a city would provide a comprehensive list of all vacant city owned and city controlled and tax delinquent properties and This would be useful for finding ways to house people that That the city will designate a transitional homeless encampment and safe RV and Vehicle lot to be open no later than the start of the new year and you can go through and read the rest of them and and And Alicia wanted me to make sure that you know when Justin voted to shut down Ross camp he's wanted to see if the city staff was actually being honest about all the potential Shelter spaces and as we know there were 60 spaces ultimately at 1220 River Street, which are desperately in need of showers and fresh water And so that was the only Ultimately the only space that was provided was for 60 of the several hundred residents of Ross camp. Thank you very much All right other speakers House members. Yeah, you have a copy of this which I encourage you to look at closely We've not been able to get the city attorney and tell what yesterday to even agreed any kind of meeting What I present to you is on behalf of a Huff homeless United for friendship and freedom We can no longer reach some of our members after the destruction of the Ross camp And I joined with food now bombs on these 13 points. They're fundamentally much needed reforms Long stalled here instead of damage claims for individual plaintiffs. I mean if that's really what we want We seek the obvious fair treatment until shelter is available shelter storage potable water laundry access Your city attorney first went to court with false claims about available shelter This drove Ross camp residents out into the neighborhoods the green belt the downtown and as you just heard and have you seen the main beach Away from the sanitary facilities away from community support away from public visibility This settlement is intended to forestall this problem in the future and the future is upon us main beach encampments are now proposed for the Whack-a-mole homeless removal plan tonight Ross camp refugees being back on the beach and they are back on the beach This is where some of them were last year at this time with nowhere to go Lead plaintiff Desiree Quintero was there on the beach last week Are you looking for a future lawsuit as this wretched process repeats itself? I don't think so When you don't negotiate reasonably with people in serious need they do what they need to do in Santa Cruz This means they sleep where they must They shit where they must and they sue when they must we've given you 13 concerns Present yours and let's talk. Are there any other members of the committee who want to address the council? Just a question which one on our closed session agenda are they speaking to I Think it's the Quintero case. That's right. It's Quintero and then litigation. Okay. Thank you Okay, so we'll see no additional public comment. We'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting to our courtyard conference room Okay Well, we'll go ahead and get started Good afternoon everybody Welcome to our 2 30 p.m. Session of the September 10th 2019 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council I'd like to ask our clerk to please call the roll. Thank you mayor council members crone your lover Present my ears will be absent Brown here Matthews your vice mayor Cummings and mayor Watkins here If I could have our clerk, please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance so we before we begin our Meeting today I'm going to ask that I Call on our colleagues and those in attendance here with us to join me in observing a moment of silence to honor the victims of The conception boat fire that occurred in Santa Barbara on September 2nd As well as the innocent victims of the seat senseless attacks on September 11th in 2001 As I'm sure all of you know the conception boat fire hits close to our home in Santa Cruz and in our community as We know there were multiple residents from Santa Cruz on board And so we will fly the flags at half staff today tomorrow and Thursday To symbolize our community's care for the victims and this moment of silence will be time for us to come together and Thought prayer or reflection in an effort to keep the victims and their families and our thoughts and in our hearts Thank you. All right Yeah It's been a difficult a couple of weeks for our community in this way So I appreciate those joining the moment of silence At this time, we'll go ahead and move on to our agenda And we'll start with the introduction of new employees and we have our director of libraries here with us I believe Susan Nimitz to introduce her new employee. Hi, I'm Susan Nimitz the director of the Santa Cruz public libraries And I have the pleasure of introducing Eric Howard Eric is our new deputy director He comes to us as an assistant director from Palo Alto and Salinas public libraries So he has lots and lots of experience He's moving to Scotts Valley We hope soon because it's he's commuting from Pacific Grove and With his lovely wife and two four-year-old daughters So we're so happy to have him on board. Hey, I'd like to invite up now our director of public works Mark Dettel to introduce his new employees Afternoon, come on. Um, it's my pleasure to introduce three new employees To my left is Eurek Hines he's a new parking attendant and Actually was a part-time Temporary employee that's that has now an existing position Born and raised in Newark, New Jersey and spent most of his late teens in New York City Till they joined the military. He currently lives in Scotts Valley for the last five years He's married and has a seven-year-old son and almost 11-year-old tuxedo cat His past work experience includes he's he's been with the city a bit over three years and before that He was in finance, but banking marketing and advertising He's attended Carrillo College has an AA and he also has a bachelor's in business from the University of Texas San Antonio and Let's see when he's not working He does mainly kid related activities by riding treasure hunting on the beach with his son With a metal detector playing Minecraft and also kids gym class Lifting weights and that type of thing any fun facts Story possible many of you may have heard him on the radio or TV as He's done some voiceover work for the NBA and one of our local radio stations So please join me and welcome and Eurek Next to Eurek is Daniel Gomez Daniel is also a parking attendant and He also was a temporary and parking tenant as now a regular employee Born and raised in Santa Cruz currently lives in Santa Cruz. He Single with no kids What what his past work experience? He used to be a co-owner or the Tampico kitchen. So So you may have recognized Daniel I went to Soquel high when he's not working. He enjoys golf and playing darts and So yeah, the fun fact is grandparents actually started the Tampico kitchen in the 50s by the boardwalk Before they moved actually on Pacific Avenue. So it was handed down through generations and he and his sister were co-owners before It's you know before he sold they sold the business. So please join me and welcome Daniel Daniel is Ryan munget munginetti Okay he's actually he's a new Let's see wastewater operator three and he comes to us He was born in Monterey grew up in Hollister and he currently lives in prune Dale His girlfriend and he are expecting a baby girl in November. So he's gonna be a father and they also have a house cat From from oh 9 to 14 He worked in a small family owned wastewater treatment plant and then from 2014 to 2019 he worked for the city of Soledad at their water reclamation treatment facility Which is great because we're getting ready to do tertiary water and recycled water at our wastewater plant He attended San Benito High School in Hollister and when he's not working He enjoys eating out at restaurants and enjoying winter camping and a fun fact is he enjoys reading Zen Buddhism books. So please meet please join me in welcoming Ryan Welcome everybody, you're it. I feel like we need to hear something from you if we're gonna recognize your voice I don't know. Say hello, maybe Welcome welcome Okay, but last but certainly not least we have I think okay We have Miguel Valencia to introduce his new employee from The water distribution superintendent of water distribution welcome. Yes. Good afternoon. Miguel Valencia water distribution superintendent Here to introduce David Tanachi He was hired as a water distribution operator in the water department David was raised in Watsonville. He studies uology at UCSB and then community Ecology at SFSU After his years of schooling and working. He's happy to call Santa Cruz home He has always looked for a way to contribute to his local community and has worked In two connected yet different fields biology and construction His work experience has been in biology education and construction David utilizes his time in the splendor of natural surroundings Forest ocean and the beach He spends his free time with his family his friends outdoors in the garden or in the sand he likes teaching his nieces and nephews and enjoying time with his wife who is a nurse at Dominican Hospital Well, welcome to all the new employees So we're gonna go ahead and switch now to our presentations and our first presentation is going to be on the Sanctuary Exploration Center and we'll invite up our presenters to share with us Great hi everybody good afternoon, my name is Chelsea Prindle. I'm the manager of the sanctuary exploration center Here we go Great So you I know you're all aware and at least I know I've personally introduced most of you to the Sanctuary Exploration Center in the past We're right across the street from the wharf We kind of like to explain that we are a kind of like a visitor center If you were go to go to a national park or a national forest Except our park is out underwater. It's the whole Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Which is a federally protected area of ocean that encompasses our entire Monterey Bay We are the visitor center for that place because of that. We are Funded through the federal government through NOAA. We are free admission open Wednesday through Sunday And I just wanted to kind of give you guys a heads up about what we've been up to our review of what we've been up to in the Last seven years and what we're looking at doing coming this this coming year So just a reminder that the city of Santa Cruz did donate the land and still owns the building We rent it for a dollar a year. It's a great deal And they originally for the conception and design of the project co-managed our grants and our projects to get it done There was a capital campaign with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation to fundraise three million dollars to get all of the interior in the exhibits built and Currently I mentioned it's funded through NOAA partially basically for facility funds To kind of pay for our utilities if you will as well as to full-time equivalent staff members Everything else we do we fundraise ourselves through our gift shop our donations grants facility rentals In partnership with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation to do all the programming that I'm about to get to So I mentioned we are one full-time and five part-time staff. So we're a very small staff But that's very productive And we really get everything done because we have 65 Volunteer docents so I anytime I speak in front of anybody I have to mention that our volunteers really carry the center From everything from working the front desk working the gift shop assisting with our field trips and Interpreting our exhibits to the roughly 78,000 visitors that we have a year and we are almost this year We're going to pass a million visitors, which is pretty exciting you can Guess that most of our visitorship is in the months of July and August and mostly is from people out of the area Almost this isn't a scientific study But it seems like eight times out of ten when I'm talking to people in the community who are locals They say oh, I haven't been there yet And we know that actually from our demographic surveys that it is about 80% of the people that come in the summer Have never been there before and are from out of the area. It's slightly less in the off season because we have more locals So what do we do? We have a variety of public programs to help engage those local communities and get them down to the center Across all age levels and varying interests. So we have a weekly preschool story time. That's very successful We do first fridays. We do art science info nights and celebrations to try to Again, just get the local community involved in the center We are just starting this year in partnership with the city actually a Family science Saturday, so we're in the parks and rec guide this fall for the first time Doing two of our field trip programs, which I'll talk about in a moment for families or or Just general public who wants to sign up on Saturdays. So I'm they're already At not capacity, but they're going to run. They already have a Minimum enrollment and so I'm hoping that they're really successful and we can continue it year-round and add programs to it We also do deep-sea discovery days. So whenever our researchers are out In the sanctuary doing research and are able to have live interaction technology We like to invite the community in and have them actually Have an interaction with our researchers because we are a research organization as well as an education and resource protection agency Um, so actually this fall we're doing that Quite a bit in october and november. So if you get our newsletters You'll get some information about ways that you can come and actually live chat with the scientist Doing research in the canyon or doing research at david And then finally really quickly we do seasonal beach interpretive pop-up So basically where we bring our exhibits out onto the wharf onto the beach or this summer We did it weekly at the dream in which was really fun to engage people When they're actually out enjoying the sanctuary All right, finally our education programs We've been building on this for the last couple years and this last school year the 2018 2019 school year was um It wasn't our launch, but it was definitely our most successful full Uh array of programming that we've run so far. Um, you can see on the slides that we have Various uh different thematic field trip programs that are grade specific and aligned to california state standards Last year we um reached approximately 50 classes or just under 1500 students, which was really fantastic those students Get an overall overview of the sanctuary they tour the exploration center and then they do On field experience using real scientific tools either on the beach or on the wharf Um, and so we've had great feedback from our teachers this last year. I've worked with um The santa cruz county office of education to make that partnership with the teachers more formalized and make sure it's meeting their grade specific standards And this next year we hope that um We're able to expand that even more and get those classes and numbers Um, this is our one program Well, not our one program, but it's our main program that really is reliant on Outside grants and funding to help support the program coordination and this last year one of the reasons We were so successful is because we were able to get a $30,000 grant through the national marine sanctuary foundation, which um Janae is going to talk about in a second and we hope to be able to continue partnerships expand partnerships And expand funding so that we can reach more local and regional students That's it. Do I have a minute for questions before I pass it off to janea or do you have any questions? Uh, maybe we'll sit here from uh janea and then we'll say see if there's any questions. Thank you Hi, thank you for the opportunity to be in front of you. Let me get my slide show up and my name's janea Jenae cali. I'm the director of the new monterey bay national marine sanctuary foundation So we are a new chapter um, yeah And we are the non-profit partner of the monterey bay national marine sanctuary And right my job is to raise funds for the programs of the sanctuary and to create awareness and support for those protections that the sanctuary provides You know Essentially i'm we're dedicated to preserving the long-term health of the national marine sanctuary and what Makes me excited about, you know, this local sanctuary is that we are on par with The grand canyon with yosemite with yellowstone. We have the monterey bay national marine sanctuary It's as spectacular to this community and to the country as any of those other parks It's just less visible right because most of it's underwater But I think it's yet another thing that our community gets to hold dear and be very proud of The reason we were able to get this sanctuary designated status is because it is such a special Entity and a lot of for example a lot of people don't know how large it is, right? So the sanctuary actually Spans from marine county all the way down to camberia So it spans five counties two million residences or residents It has san luso bispo county monterey county santa cruz san mateo marine county So it spans 276 miles of coastline Uh, it averages out about 30 miles from the coast and at its deepest it goes down two miles So that's part of what makes This area so unique and why we got the sanctuary designation is we have one of the largest underwater canyons on the planet certainly in the in the nation Right here in monterey and in in between santa cruz and monterey county And because of that it's created all of this biodiversity. We call us the serengeti of the sea There are 36 species of marine mammals that call this place home 525 species of fish we have extensive kelp forests Ruggy rocket shores sandy beaches estuaries It's a spectacular place and the reason we are Uh, the the the protections the sanctuary affords us is resource protections research education and public Use which includes commercial fishing and recreation And the journey i'm sure many of you know the journey to sanctuary protection started back in the 1970s And this is a picture of our former us congressman sam far There was a threat of oil drilling off of our shores and in the 70s Sam far dan hay flea a group of very committed community members fought that tooth and nail and were able to Prevent oil derricks from or oil drilling from happening off of our shores And while they were very successful in the short term it didn't it didn't guarantee long-term protection Right and so in 1992 Uh under the tutelage or the leadership of secretary lamb penetta sam far Fred keely dan hay flea they were able to Ensure and get the sanctuary designation for this area Which means in perpetuity there can be no oil drilling no ocean dumping no seabed mining in this area So it's a fantastic Accomplishment and what's really exciting to me as the foundation is that all four of those gentlemen I just mentioned are on our board of directors now along with ted ball astrary who owns cannery row And hillary bryant our former sanitary city mayor and nova covington So we just have an all-star, you know board of directors who are very committed to the long-term health and welfare of our sanctuary Oh and one one thing that one story i like to oops to Um mention is this is an oil derrick off the coast of santa barbara And I went to undergrad at uc santa barbara as i'm sure there are many people here And before we were allowed to go into the dorms There was a bottle of paint thinner and some rags in a bucket And we were instructed to use those to clear the tar off of our feet before we went into the dorm So we wouldn't stick that tar into the carpet So it was just expected that when we walked up and down the beaches those little blobs of oil and Tar that got in your hair and your clothes on your feet was just a natural occurrence And so but for the sanctuary protection, we might be looking at that same sort of an environment Ted has the great quote about we all love and it look out at our shoreline And we all love the beauty and the splendor of it. And as he says it's not that way by accident Right, it's that way because it's a sanctuary protected Area So some of the ways that the sanctuary Lites to protect educate and engage the public is through many of the programs that Chelsea just mentioned we have education programs through the sanctuary exploration center We have two docent programs that right now we're kind of focused on raising funds for team ocean bay net They put docents out to greet the public talk about the sanctuary and make sure they don't interfere with wildlife We also are raising funds very specifically for whale rescue Which is disentangling whales who get caught in the crab pot fishing lines and all the other fishing gear that's left in the waters So we're doing a lot to train the rescuers, but also look at preventative measures many many programs that The sanctuary puts on that we're raising funds for and We talked about fundraising So there are many ways that the sanctuary that the community can support the foundation to support the sanctuary Um, you know one of the ways is to volunteer you can volunteer for to be a docent for one of the programs or volunteer for the Foundation and help us put on events and it's a fun way to volunteer Another way way is to serve on our board of directors or on a committee Um to donate we always like donations. That's great and go to our website. There's easy ways to do that You can host an event for us make us a beneficiary and then speaking of events you can attend events So I think you all have an invitation on your desk. We are starting with our first our inaugural sea stars brunch We're going to be desi or the secretary and miss hillary bryant will be providing awards for people and businesses and five different categories who have given back substantially to our our sanctuary in the last year It is on september 22nd at 10 in the morning in marina at the sanctuary beach resort You'll have invitations there. We would love to have your participation and attendance and please spread the word And there's another event that you might be interested in it came about very quickly, but on our um Board sam far has a piece of property in big sir called point 16 which meant maybe some of you have been to It is one of the most beautiful places on the planet overlooking the sanctuary and we have a concert this sunday With alex digrassi who is a Grammy and nominated acoustic guitar, so if you're interested Go to the website reach out and I can get you more details, but we'd love your attendance participation and spread the word and you know We're so grateful to be a part of this community and to have this sanctuary So thank you for your time. Do you have any questions for either one of us? Well, I'll just say thank you so much for your presentation, but more importantly Thank you for all your work in protecting our incredible Resource here in our in our Monterey Bay Wonderful opportunities ahead. We don't have a whole bunch of time for questions But if there are any pressing questions from the council I'll go ahead and see if we can have a few of those But definitely encourage my colleagues and others to look into following up offline as well councilmember crown Just wondering. I'm glad you're reaching out to the dream in is there any Reaching out to the boardwalk as well because there's such a presence down there Have you been able to work with them on anything? Yeah, we have a bit we Opportunistically we will sometimes host their education programs. Sometimes their schools have an education requirement for schools in the spring who come to do Basically a boardwalk trip and they have an education component So occasionally we'll do that they have a pretty strong partnership with the marine mammal center who's currently doing that for them but we have been working to To either have kids come visit the exploration center when they're at the boardwalk or have us come educate them a bit not as much as we'd like Lots of opportunities All right, well, thank you again. Thank you. Yes So our next presentation is an outstanding recycling program award and I'll go ahead and invite up less less leo malli who's going to be Presenting and she's our interim wastewater reduction program manager Hi, thank you for having us really quick presentation But I just had to show off this beautiful Award that we just received from the california resource recovery association or c r r a I'm here on behalf of our team from waste recovery and outreach and education As you recall, we've been upgrading and updating our outreach material over the last three years Even ahead of the national sword crisis And so part of the recognition is that new outreach material, but also our recent master recycler volunteer training program And I had a few members here raise your hands if you're here So we have quite an active group of volunteers that are stepping up and Leveraging our team's ability to be out in the field and conduct outreach We've been tabling on the weekends at the west side farmers market in downtown So it's really helping our small staff to leverage and get that message out there and we are seeing a difference in Waste reduction and a lessening of the contamination in our recycling stream So we we appreciate and we encourage your ongoing support We'll be recruiting soon for the next cycle of the master recycler volunteer training program to start february of 2020 But I think we've moved beyond pilot and we're showing that it's a successful program. So Beautiful. All right. So thank you. Congratulations. Thank you And thank you to all the volunteers. I just want to personally Commend the department and all the volunteers. I have several friends have gone through master recycling They Get into it like religious fervor Seriously, so you are making a big imprint Good work. Absolutely. Thank you Great Okay, we have our last presentation Which is our health and all policies evaluation quarterly report and dr. Tiffany wise west is here To lead us in this presentation Thank you, mayor. Good afternoon council members tiffani wise west sustainability and climate action manager And the point staff person on the health and all policies initiative. Um, I think We're bringing it up here in just a moment I'm here today to give you the quarterly report that we called out in our work plan Just to refresh your memory on this Health and all policies is an initiative that touches upon the three pillars of equity public health and sustainability And really recognizes that No one agency can do it alone that local government decisions do indeed impact community well-being And this is this is a slide that you've seen previously There are five key elements to health and all policies and i'm not going to read these all but they really It supports collaboration across sectors. It benefits multiple partners And engages different stakeholders and helps us to break out of the silos that we often work in In terms of the work plan goal for the committee It's to develop a collaborative and coordinated process both internally and externally For using these three pillars as lenses In decision making as well as in design of projects programs and policies That will ultimately result in improved community well-being. So really here We're looking at what are the opportunities to institutionalize these concepts within city's date the city's day-to-day business So just to refresh you on the timeline You did give direction to the committee and staff In october of last year to return with recommendations In april of this year you approved the committee's work plan Over the summer we began executing that work plan which consisted of Conducting the mayor's listening session, which i'll tell you a bit more about Conducting research and having discussions with other jurisdictions beginning to Make some of those partnerships and build relationships Of course today i'm giving you the quarterly update that was called out in the work plan And what's ahead we are working on the policy and implementation recommendations With the committee that will be in a report format that we will bring back to city council in november That will also include Recommendations for staff training as well as metrics for us to monitor going forward So in terms of the mayor's listening tour the mayor has been busy this summer out and about talking to folks. We've had two community meetings And we have two more in september one of those meetings was in the beach flats community We'll be meeting with teens and seniors later this month. We've also had four other community I'm sorry stakeholder meetings. We do have three more in september We have a community survey that is active through September 18th both in english and in spanish and have worked very closely with beach flats Leaders in pumping that out to that community to ensure that we have a good diversity in responses And all in all In a city staff survey in which about 18 percent of those that That were asked to respond responded all in all Aside from the surveys through the meetings that we've had we've reached close to a hundred folks so far And we are really checking back in with those folks by summarizing what we're hearing And making sure that we heard them correctly and if we missed anything We're giving them an opportunity to correct that And if you're interested in what that looks like we actually have summaries of all these meetings at the health and all Policies website which is under the city manager's office department Okay When we're in these meetings we're really the mayor is talking about what is health and all policies Really opening that up giving examples of how other jurisdictions have operationalized this And she asked several questions about what is and what isn't working with respect to the three pillars And also what's possible so What things that are working we're hearing back. So this is the majority of the groups have have Discussed or have highlighted these as things that are working As positive contributions to community well-being and those include citywide jump bikes as well as other active transportation particularly bike Infrastructure the green lanes and so forth access to organic fresh produce As well as the health consciousness of the community is something that's working And also a sense of innovation and open-mindedness not only throughout the community But with our community's leadership That leads to a better understanding of the three pillars We also ask what's missing and what's possible and really we found that the themes that emerged from the Outreach so far really overlap in the answer to these questions Folks said that obviously affordable housing As well as child care along with the lack of a living wage hinders our vision of community well-being The folks from downtown also perceive that there Is a lack of support of of the businesses with respect to understanding what to do in the case of disasters As well as active shooter situations, which is the first time that we had heard this They also are confused about enforcement of illicit activity in the downtown area We also are missing and what's possible is mental illness support systems and community support for immigration populations And then we also heard that there is a perceived lack of awareness of the severity of climate change And how the actions of the community are exacerbating and can help our situation with climate change So again these overlap in terms of what's missing and what's possible The most popular response in terms of what's possible is affordable housing Followed by mental health outreach increasing diversity awareness and providing facilities for child care It's also been mentioned that there are so many opportunities with uc santa crews and other institution education institutions in terms of increasing our community well-being so One one question that we ask also is in one word What does successful community well-being look like and some of the themes that have already come out in the other questions You see here fed thriving resilient And resilient was given in the context of both climate change, but but other Contacts as well Safe safety is a big theme that we're hearing participating equitable Healthy happy was something that was cited across all of the stakeholder groups and housed Let's look at what the staff survey said. I'm just really giving you a snapshot here We have collected so much data, but these were some things that stood out. We asked staff that responded How does how much does the city focus on addressing equity public health and sustainability? The blue bar is are the folks that responded the right amount or too much The light green bar is not enough or no focus and the dark green bar is no focus So you can see It's it's fairly close between the right amount and not enough of focus So that tells us that there's really some opportunity here as well as with respect to training It was interested interesting that only 76 folks of 125 employees who participated in the survey So about 60 actually answered this question So those that answered the question you see about 39 percent have been trained in equity About 41 percent in public health and about 23 percent in sustainability So again lots of opportunities that we're seeing with our employees There are also a number of free responses that that were shared with us where we see that there's a lack of actually understanding about the framework and the three pillars and in fact employees Who have responded to the free response questions are also confusing the concept of fairness treating people Fairly and equally with equity. So we do see that also as an opportunity for training. Those are obviously not the same thing We are also preparing a gap analysis of policies projects and programs aligned with three the three pillars We have drawn from a number of policy documents the employee survey Work plans and so forth and we're beginning to categorize those by city functions Those efforts that align with the three pillars and that's really going to show us throughout our Day-to-day business. Where are we? Where do we have gaps in our use of these lenses? And Something that you will be very interested in when we bring this back as we're starting To evaluate Implementation options policy process and training opportunities. So along the left hand side This is of course in progress. You'll see a number of things that have been mentioned In previous times that we've been in front of you city council As well as other best practices that we're seeing in other communities in terms of how we can operationalize Health and all policies here at the city and you see some criteria across the top And so we're beginning to work with the committee on how do we evaluate these opportunities? And then rank them so that we can come to you with some recommendations that are based on data With that, uh, this is the last slide We also have spoken to a number of folks in the communities who are really excited to partner us with us on this endeavor For example, that county health services agency director has indicated her support and commitment to facilitate and convene around health and all policies issues, which is A movement forward for the county and indeed the city of watsonville is watching what we're doing and are about They are about ready to pursue development of high up at their city as well And they're looking at this process that we're in right now to try to replicate it The last thing i'll say is that in the state of california, uh, just this fiscal year Governor Newsom in a historic decision The california state budget in the california state budget has established three health and all policies positions at the cabinet level And has provided funding to the california strategic growth council to promote healthy communities Racial equity and environmental sustainability across state government and within the programs that The strategic growth council funds And with that We are finishing listening tour this month Completing the evaluation report Again, we're going to come to you with policy and process recommendations in november And then we'll start training and implementation in the new year. I'm happy to take any questions that you might have on this presentation. Thank you Well, thank you This makes me really happy and I just want to applaud and recognize Just the incredible work that's coming out of your division under your leadership tiffani. Thank you so much This is exceptional. I think it's a bit of a teaser for what's to come in november But just anecdotally i'll add without kind of going too far That it's been really well received by the community by the partners There's a lot of interest in intuitively feeling how they can work with the city But also look at incorporating these pillars into their work And moving us in a direction that I think really leads us towards a path of community well-being So i'm very optimistic and hopeful and I look forward to having a more complete conversation in november And thank you again for all your work and for this update Unless there's any questions from the council No, thank you again, and we'll see you soon. You're welcome. Thank you Okay So that will then conclude our presentations For today's meeting I have just a few announcements And then we'll move on to our regular meeting So today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 And is streaming on the city's website at cityofsanacruz.com All city council members can be emailed at city council at cityofsanacruz.com If you would like to communicate with us about an agenda item We'd like to receive your email by monday at 5 p.m. Before our council meeting This provides us with an opportunity to review your email and include it in the rest of the agenda packet Please do bear in mind that all items of correspondence with the city and the city council constitute public records and are generally subject to disclosure of palm requests by any member of the public Accordingly if you have any sensitive or private information that you do not wish to have made public You should not include that information in your correspondence Our rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left And it's my job to keep the meeting running without Disruption and we ask that you respect your fellow citizens when you are inside and outside of our council chambers At this time, I'll go ahead and ask if any of our council members have any statements of disqualification today Seeing none Um city clerk, do we have any additions or deletions? We have none Seeing none I have a quick announcement about oral communications Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to address us and speak to us on items that are not on today's agenda Oral communications will occur at or around 7 p.m. This evening I'll look to our city attorney to report out on closed session Yes, thank you mayor. What what can members of the city council? This afternoon the council convened at 12 30 p.m. In the courtyard conference room to discuss The following closed session items First was a conference with legal counsel concerning liability claims The claims of sharon lee garner and the claim of sentinel insurance company Representing wun property management llc The garner item is also listed as item 11 on your consent agenda this afternoon Council also received a report from and gave direction to its negotiator real property negotiator, uh, bonnie ellipscomb Concerning the property at 125 coral street owned by james p. Gillespie and gene gillespie trustees And harley f and sandra. I gillespie co-trustees Council item c Considered an item of anticipated litigation involving significant exposure to litigation There was one item discussed under that category There were two pending litigation matters that the council received a report from legal counsel and gave direction Those were hatch pomerance versus the city of santa cruz case pending in the santa cruz county superior court And desiré quintero et al versus the city of santa cruz Case pending in the united states district court for the northern district of california Finally the council met with its labor negotiator to discuss Negotiations with the fire Ia ff local 1716 There was no reportable action on any of those items Discussed in closed session today Thank you, mr. Condadi and then we'll go ahead and Move on to our city manager report and I think we have a report today from city manager Yes, brief, uh, just a presentation on an exciting new program that We've launched recently really with the leadership of our parks and recreation department And our director tony elliott who who had this idea of initiating this citizens Academy and got it organized and started. So just wanted to give you a brief overview of that There we go, so the santa cruz city government academy. So this is a Essentially a program that's being offered That is really a behind the scenes exploration of local government And it's really about introducing to residents to all the various services that are provided in the city in the various departments It's a eight-week course With participants in the end, you know having a just a greater understanding of how the city works City government works and what we do for the residents of the city, which is a lot We're a full service city. So we do a lot more than most people. I think even realize and so It started last week on thursday september 5th And it's due to end in october the 24th, and it's it's in the evenings from 6 to 8 p.m Yeah, it's as I mentioned the parks and recreation Staff is really who's taking the leadership here They serve as a liaison for each week and they really helped to organize in plan the whole the whole course again under director elliott's leadership and There's a experience a presentation that's prepared every week and the department team was really Enthusiastic about moving forward with this and really got into the spirit of creating some really great programs and presentations for For each of each week and cancels if you're interested in attending and coming you're more than welcome to do that And we there's tours as well as other sort of hands-on experiences like for example the one that happened recently with respect to our office And we introduced them to the city council as well as far as what you do We had the the actual participants set up here and pretend to be the council and mayor and it was very interesting experience for them And it's a free to attend participants have to register the parks and recreation department like they would any other parks program And at the end of the program, we hope to have them here before you to recognize them for their participation. We've have about The minimum is 10 the maximum is 30, but I think we have about a little over 20 participants signed up thus far So this is a schedule as I mentioned the city manager one was On september 5th. We also did an overview of the budget A lot of people just again don't understand the basics of our city budget the difference between the general fund and enterprise funds And so on and so forth The whole budget process tracy from the finance department did a very nice presentation on that And then there'll be another seven sessions starting This week with public works followed by police fire And as you can see here you can out development and planning will be together water library and then parks and recreation at the end of of october And that's it. If you have any questions be happy to answer them also. Tony's here if Any questions he can answer as well. Thank you well, thank you for the presentation And thank you, Tony and to your team for putting this on it's a really fantastic New program that the city's offering and Very similar to what I think is exceptional with leadership santa cruz inside education to other jurisdictions showing light into what the work is Of the city is it's great. So I look forward to meeting the first cohort in october and appreciate the The drive to make this happen Questions vice mayor coming one question And uh, I want to thank you for the work that you all did on this. I think it's pretty cool and um, But just wondering how frequent this is going to be offered to the public moving forward Tony can answer this, but I think this if it's successful, which it looks like it is we'll we'll continue to offer it on an ongoing basis but Yeah, we plan to offer the next semester if you will next fall In a year, but depending on the feedback that we get this fall. We may do another one as soon as this coming spring wonderful Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Great. Thank you All right We'll go ahead and now move on to our city council memberships in city groups and outside agencies So this is a time for our council members to report out on actions at external boards committees and joint powers authority meetings Um, and just if you want to share a brief update on anything that you think is important for the council and community To know in terms of your work, uh, please do so at this time I generally start to my left, but I'll entertain the opportunity to maybe start to my right today and we'll start with you council member crown Thank you. Yes. I um attended the uh integrated waste management task force, uh this past week and um The crisis of plastics continues, um really Sort of unabated. I think there's some things we're kind of working at the edges of You know with plastic bags and plastic straws and the elimination of those um, but I think really where the um The real heft in that whole struggle would be Are a couple of bills that are wanting wending their ways through um through sacramento And really putting some pressure on The the the folks who produce the plastic and that they be responsible Uh for what they produce And I think that we'll see some real changes Coming down in california and I think california, of course Leading the way in a lot of areas. Hopefully we'll take this on. I i'm i'm really hoping the governor will see this as as one of those um california leadership, uh Tasks that he um takes on The other uh group that i'm a part of is the um The community uh advisory group which um is made up about 22 different uh community members elected officials Folks who are a part of different groups. Um We met with the chancellor the new chancellor for the first time this past week and It was a it was the beginning of a meeting we are we put together We put forward some principles that we want the university to agree with before we enter into this New l r d p long range development plan process Uh, and I think they're still mulling those principles over because what it's trying to do is put us a little more on an equal footing And that we have some real teeth in in in what this group decides um And that the university be bound by some principles that we all can agree on and that's Led to difficulties in the past without having principles. Um where the community and the university agree upon um And I think the the big thing that that I noticed came out of this is that They're shooting for 2021 with a draft l r d p before it was 2020 so Essentially we've been given another one-year reprieve which means they will not go over 19 500 students Which is the current um long range development plan? Limit cap on on the university. So that was for me a really good news And hopefully will continue um in that vein and make Santa Cruz You know, I think that's what we're looking for we're looking for a sort of The Santa Cruz exception because we are exceptional here and that we do care about education and that's the reason we don't want the university to grow without Sacramento providing resources which they they have not for the number of students that are up on campus now The the last one i'll say is the public safety committee meeting is next It's on the 23rd 5 30. So that's that's our next meeting. Thank you, mayor Thank you councilmember ground councilmember clever Thanks. Well, I thought I was going to safely some for me But uh, what I was going to let people know about is the public safety committee meeting Which is scheduled for next monday the 23rd at 5 p.m. I will be discussing issues of gun safety as well as a variety of other issues that impact public safety here in The city of Santa Cruz so encourage everyone to come other than that and nothing to report. Thank you I'll just briefly report. Um, we had update on the health and all policies work that's happening within the city There's a city select committee meeting coming up in a couple of weeks. Um, we haven't met since the last time I reported out on that The one thing I do want to share that I think is interest to the council and the community is the criminal justice council Is having a gang violence prevention symposium Focused on the role of women and girls in gangs and that will take place on september 27th From 8 a.m. To 12 p.m. At the twin lakes church And I encourage you all if you're available to look at the flyer and if interested attend that And to share that with any networks that you have that might be interested as well And I just forwarded that flyer and information onto at this time um And I guess briefly I will just uh also share out that the two by two met um briefly in august to Have a presentation on fire season updates from our Please our fire chief chief hideu as well as um discuss some shelter program updates from the county And then some systems improvement work that they uh apprised us up as well Um, and I think that briefly summarizes the work that we have Yeah, vice mayor comings Um In august was able to attend the lafco meeting. Uh, it was really brief Edward banks was selected to be the new special districts alternate on lafco. We also adopted to Voted to adopt the service and sphere of influence review for the santa cruz port district And jim anderson will be the voting delegate for the cal lafco annual conference, which is coming up in october And um aside from that just briefly because I know it's of interest of folks in the community the uh library subcommittee has been Meeting fairly regularly. We've been having um presentations by transportation Economic development. We've selected jason architects To look at what our current funding would be able to get us in terms of renovations at the current library And we'll be doing um a more formal update in the near future Great. Thank you Many of the programs have already been covered By previous reports. Um, I will say Metro has concluded labor negotiations on most of its units has one outstanding still and um is Continuing to work on the pacific station Groundwork with with the city which is encouraging Um The mid county ground water agency. We had a presentation from rosemary on that recently so they will be having their um public hearing on the sustainability plan Uh on uh thursday Um, this I think it's the 16th. I don't know a calendar right in front of me But that will be a public comment period on the um two years worth of work That's been undertaken by the agency and that will ultimately result in The adoption of a sustainability plan for that mid county ground water aquifer By 2020 And then other than that the downtown management corporation has been involved with the Consulting which is one of the assessment districts in our downtown area has been involved with the Consulting by puma the progressive urban management association that's been brought in Collaboration between the downtown association and the city um and just to review the overall management opportunities and future for downtown Exciting process Oh, I got one more and then visit excuse me Visit Santa Cruz. We're on together Um, I they they continue to to do good work on marketing one of the things they do is um collaborate with visit california Which is a statewide tourism agency which operates nationwide and internationally and visit california um is uh This month uh celebrating california surfing day one of their big promotions. So I'll give you one. I'll pass these on and so um Visit california is promoting california surfing day and uh, I just am passing out some of the work that Visit Santa Cruz county is doing Building on collaborating with the work of visit california. So if it's an active Marketing and motion district right here in our local agency that leverages what the state and national groups are doing Yeah, thank you councilmember brown right Let's see. I will start with the regional transportation commission We um had our monthly meeting on this past thursday and um at that time one highlight actually two highlights one was uh decision to approve a process for the regional distribution of surface transportation funding which is kind of um the state and federal Funding that comes to each of the jurisdictions within the county and um in the past that has all been competitive We have finally with the help of staff from the respective jurisdictions and rtc staff Uh decided upon a distribution a formula distribution that allowed will According to our public works department allow for the programming out of projects in uh more Clear a clearer uh more coherent way. So that was good news. We also in that process did leave some funding aside for metro and Some of our community partners nonprofits who work on sustainable transportation and active transportation projects So that was good. We also had a really cool presentation by Uh company out of southern california that has is going to be bringing a hydrogen train It's a possible um higher capacity but not super high capacity Rail transit Program that we could kind of look to in the future and um, I won't give a lot of details But um, you can find out more about it at the rtc website and stay tuned for The actual demonstration, which will be occurring Probably on one of the segments of the rail corridor that in the city of santa cruz And we're not exactly sure when but it'll probably be sometime in Either the fall or the spring depending on the weather. So stay tuned and um, it'll be really fun get on the get on the train um In terms so um vice mayor comings reported on the library subcommittee, I would just add that um for those who are interested in More information about what that subcommittee is, you know that work program We do have a dedicated site uh page on our city website Which you can go to and there you can also find a link to sign up for office hours if For folks who want to communicate with us in addition to our publicly noticed Meetings with programmed meetings. We have set aside time to meet with Groups and members of the public. So um, you can check the website and sign up if you'd like to talk with us Um directly in that setting um, I think I gave my President I think I've already talked about age friendly cities and the Area agency on aging So I'll Skip that one the last item that I would mention is In addition to the CAG, which is the university sponsored community advisory group that we have representation on I am on Along with council member matthews city county task force committee to respond to you see growth and to kind of Guide our advocacy efforts around the advisory measure Measure you That was adopted passed by city voters. So we Have and at our city budget at budget time we did allocate funding for an advocate position There's an rfp out now And we are currently looking for Someone to Fill that role and so you can find the rfp at the city's website at our on the planning Departments page. Is that where it's located? Business and bidding. Thank you. It's at the business and bidding site page on our website We are also as part of that process establishing a community advisory group for that committee So that we can further engage stakeholders in that process And so we'll be reporting back on that once they convene and start meeting All right, thanks Well, thank you and see manager martin. Yeah, just a couple of items. First with respect to the library joint powers authority, we had a special meeting last week to Approve their response to there was a grandeur report on the use of patron data and data analytics And so the staff working with the board prepare responses to that so that was approved last week It's long and detailed. I won't go over it. But so if you're interested, you can find the report and the analysis on the library's webpage And then secondly with respect to the 9-1-1, which is the emergency communication center I serve on that board as well The big news there is that we are moving forward with the acquisition of a new records management system Which is something we've been really looking forward to particularly the police department In order to get better data and do more analysis And so that will be actually before this council at your next meeting to approve the agreement And then we'll move forward with starting the implementation of that early next year So I just wanted to give you an update on that that that is moving forward All right, well, thank you And thanks to all of you for your work in our community and behalf of our city council We'll go ahead and move along then now to our council meeting calendar And I'll see if there's been any revisions or updates from our city clerk So that takes us to our consent agenda portion of today's meeting and Those are items 6 through 15 on our agenda All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion I will ask my colleagues if they are interested in pulling any items today I had a question on number 12, but I don't need to pull it. Okay question for number 12 Okay, I said one comment on 10. Okay comment for 10 any items pulled Council member matthews I'm looking for my agenda, but I want to briefly comment on the earthquake. I don't remember. Okay What's that number eight? I don't write a comment. Okay You have no agenda items pulled from our consent agenda. Okay, so we'll go ahead and move then through Um, we'll just maybe go ahead and start as opposed to going chronologically I'll go to my right council member crone for your question or comment. Yeah, this is for um, uh, I guess for laura schmitt Just wanted to I talked with a groups two groups of people this week and who are sort of like active and local you know, they follow san juz city council and The site that we go to it's really it's really important site, right? I mean because that's where we get all our information People might go to it several times during the week or in a meeting even Um, and I know we're thinking about changing over and I'm just my question would be Uh, I'm concerned about the process of that change over and how it might affect Not only the council, but the general public who use The the the site often so the impetus for the change over is Highland is a company that acquired sire and sire is our current software that handles The agendas and the production of the agendas and all of the document management. So we have about 2.3 million files in sire related to meetings and their attachments and then it also does the um Video overlay and the marrying of the documents With the video that get gets recorded through magic in that back room and also gets broadcast through ctv So that's the entirety of this scope highland purchased Sire and highland already had an existing set of systems for all of the solution And it's called on base and that happened several years ago So when a company acquires this in the software market They tend to eventually go with one set of flagship products And this case highland is going with on base. So our product sire is at end of life. So we need to replace it So it is um Not necessarily a voluntary process It is a thing that is driven through the acquisition and the merger and acquisition However, the team um and the team we went through a process last fiscal year of mapping The current sire processes and into on base and would they go well? And the team's conclusion was a very complimentary and on bases Consultant and they actually have teams that are focused Of moving agencies seamlessly from sire to on base So if you will they have these conversion teams that have been going around with their existing Customer base helping them do this move And we had a consultant onsite last fiscal year who worked with a team here to do that mapping and the team's conclusion was very Positive and that not only could we make the move relatively seamlessly But that we would also get key back office functionality that we're missing today And and some of that is kind of not apparent to our end user community But if you look at some of our agenda reports The four meaning of them aren't isn't very sophisticated So something like a word editor which you're used to using at your computer When we use sire right now. It's very a text editor. It's not very robust So the readability and consumability of our agenda reports will improve as far as the end user goes and then our staff will have More capability to be able to produce reports that are I think more engaging and able to be understood easily by the public In the interest of time just my simple question is when the public interfaces with our system Will there be much of a change will they be like, oh my god, what's going on here or would be pretty um You know, I think it'll be pretty seamless the the technology that on base has has a Capability and when I Looked at it. It's cleaner. It's more modern I think the font itself that you're able to choose from It's it's it's more open. There's more white space. I think the readability is improved And but the basic navigation doesn't change. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you Thank you Vice mayor Cummings Uh not on this item and okay Is there anybody else you'd like to just or have any questions on this topic? Thank you. Thank you, Laura sorry Vice mayor Cummings, so um with item number 10 one of the objectives is to Commit to a thousand new job placements in 2020 and I just wanted to make the comment and emphasize that these job placements are really focused on Placing people who are currently residing in Santa Cruz county in these jobs So that we're really providing jobs for people who are within our current unemployment market And so that's that's all I have to say on that item I'll just say here here to that and I think there's a lot of potential and hopefully we'll um be successful in our Efforts to try to receive this um potential funding source to really support the next um kind of generation and pathway for these uh Kind of high wage type jobs that we need here in our community. So good luck and um, thank you for pointing that out Question common, uh councilor matthews Just want to briefly um remark and bring to the attention of the public October 17th is the 30th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake And there are a number of observances happening in the community the city has reached out to connect with Other entities that are planning things and we're involved in several of them Our emergency services departments are doing some emergency preparation workshops one on the 13 sunday the 13th at the civic in collaboration with other Preparedness organizations the library is collecting oral histories of people who are here During the earthquake and what their experiences were and at the museum of natural history. There's a lecture on the science of earthquakes and There will be a moment of silence At 504 on the anniversary date and things are things are just coming forward now So these will be on our I think on our website for people to Access and for those who are here it was embedded in your memory and for Those who were not and particularly younger people. They're thinking. What is the big deal? But in fact it did affect the community profoundly in many ways Yeah, thank you and we'll maybe continue to provide any updates on any of this We'll do the updates. This is what we knew when we went to press Thank you very much and I think we all remember where we were on that day if we were here, so I appreciate that Was there any other questions or comments on any of the consent agenda items from the council at this time? Seeing none We'll go ahead and see if there's any members of the community who would like to address this on our consent agenda That's items number six through 15 in our agenda packet Okay, seeing them. We'll go ahead and return back for a council action. Oh, forgive me. Please come right up Okay, we're going to go ahead and have you reserve your comments until we hear that item We're on six through 15 at this time 19. I believe That will be on item number 19 and I will announce that item when it's time Okay, so, um, I'll go ahead and see if there's a motion on the floor. I'll make a motion Okay, second. Okay I'll go ahead and second that a motion by vice mayor coming seconded by myself to move the consent agenda all those in favor Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed. Okay. That passes unanimously With council member meyers absent with council member meyers absent. Thank you. I'll remember to do that From here on out Okay Next on our agenda is our consent public hearing And this is item number 16 on our agenda. Is there any council member who would like to poll common or Discuss item number 16 on our agenda Okay, seeing none. So any member of the community who would like to address us on item number 16 Okay, seeing them. We'll go ahead and see if there's a motion I'll move item number 16. Okay Motion by vice mayor coming seconded by Council member Glover. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed. That passes unanimously with council member meyers absent All right So we'll move right along to our general business portion of our Meeting and next is the opportunity for us to have a sister cities committee appointment and with the term expiration of january 1st 2001 In the order there will be a brief Sort of discussion if if applicable for this item But in general for our General business items will have a presentation questions public comment, and then we'll return back for council action My understanding is we'll go ahead and take nominations and our clerks lead us through this council. We do have someone here Someone's here public applicant. Okay before we go ahead and move that them We'll go ahead and maybe and have public comment before We hear any Decisions on this please come forward and you'll have up to two minutes My name is Douglas Hall, and I'm here to essentially ask for your vote to be appointed To the vacancy and to present my qualifications One is I already have some experience With local government both in the city where I live for 14 years As a chair for task force or as commissioner for parks and rec But also here in Santa Cruz where I put in some time with the measure k committee where essentially nothing happened for two years And then one year on the arts commission But more importantly, I'm already active With the sister committee as a member of the exploratory committee that's driving the initiative to Establish a former relationship with the beaheats, which is a really really significant and potentially important relationship for both cities and particularly center crews with economic and intellectual benefits And that's it If you have any questions I have 48 seconds left We're okay, but thank you for being here and thank you for your interest in serving in this capacity Okay, so we'll go ahead and see if we want to have our city clerk Maybe run us through this process. And my understanding is we'll take nominations and then given who's nominated Decided if then we'll take the vote after the nominations. Okay. You nominate one person. Okay, so I'll start to my left councilmember Brown. Do you have a nomination? Oh, I'll nominate Dennis Adler Councilmember Matthews Yes, I'd like to nominate Doug this whole because he is already involved with the commission activities has some experience with him Are there any other names for nominations? Seeing none We'll go ahead and have the vote on the two potential nominees um Did we start to my right this time councilmember chrome? Are you able to vote for both nominees? Sadly, no. We only have one opening. We only have one opening Uh, I vote for uh, douglas hall Oh Douglas hall Douglas hall Oh Okay, with uh douglas hall with all uh councilmember's present support and councilmember meyers absent Okay, congratulations, mr. Hall. Thank you for your service and we look forward to what's possible with the new exploration of uh partnership with france Okay Thank you. Okay, so we'll go ahead and move on um to our next agenda item Which is our daily vega golf course operations plan and um, I believe tony elliott is going to present Not quite here yet. Why don't we we're a little bit ahead of schedule We'll take a five minute break and let tony, uh come back and we'll go ahead and start when he gets here on this on this item All right, are we ready? Okay So we'll go ahead and call this session back into order And so for those at home and those in the in the public here We're on item number 18 of our general business agenda items This is our daylaw vega golf course operations plan And as a reminder, we'll have a presentation from our staff We'll have an opportunity for council to ask any clarifying questions Open it up to the community for public comment and then return back for council action and deliberation Um, I'll go ahead and turn it over to our park director tony elliott All right. Thanks very much Good afternoon mayor and city council. Uh, we'll jump right in here to the golf Presentation this is a follow-up from our budget hearings Back in this spring. So a little bit of context on where we've been and and the reason that we're here today Back during the budget hearings the golf course was A hot topic because we looked at this. I'll call it an enterprise and air quotes It's not a true enterprise, but one of the the kind of one of the operations within the parks and recreation department The city council back during the budget hearings directed staff to explore a variety of strategies and develop a plan for the golf course to break even The goal really was financial sustainability in a in a break even staff has explored and presented options to reduce costs as well as increase revenues, which we'll look at Here this afternoon The council also directed staff to explore options to open harvey west pool year round And look at different options or models there and we'll discuss that as a Actually, this the next agenda item after this one I mentioned that here because they both connect in a way because obviously they're both Financial impacts to the parks and recreation department in both general fund Funded operations within the city and within parks and recs. So they do tie together just from a budget standpoint So a little bit of the background here. So again, this is a follow-up from our fiscal year 2020 budget hearings A little bit of context again from the the budget standpoint. So the parks and recreation approved budget For fiscal year 20 is approximately 17.3 million We reduced our supplies and services budget going into fiscal year 20 By about 650 thousand dollars 650 thousand dollar reduction 115 thousand of that included the golf course. So we've already made through the Process leading up until our discussion tonight. We've reduced our budget at the golf course by over a hundred thousand dollars annually parks and recreation brings in approximately five million dollars in revenue Um, so the net annual expenditure from the general fund is around 12 million dollars So another way to look at that is the Santa Cruz taxpayer Really, uh, the net um is paying uh into a budget of about 12 million dollars For the parks and recreation department to operate. So that's all parks open spaces beaches golf course recreation programs summer camps on and on So a lot of our parks and recreation services have low or no cost or no fee to the public the department for example spends Approximately six million dollars a year on parks and open space maintenance Um, and our parks are free. They're free and open. We're not charging a gate fee To get into our parks And so I share this a little bit in terms of how we fund things and where we collect revenue or where we don't collect revenue Within parks and recreation. So six million dollars a year we spend to provide neighborhood parks Regional parks and open spaces to our community and we don't collect revenue off of that. We're not there's no again no fee for example Special events such as woody's on the wharf family fund day that we had at harvey west a few weeks ago And many other events are free to the public So again, not charging fees for those And then operations such as our civic auditorium the municipal wharf Between those two Those cost approximately three and a half million dollars per year combined Between the civic and the wharf and bring in a combined two and a half million back to the city So even the civic auditorium and the wharf are not self-sustaining. So we spend three and a half We bring in two and a half. So again some of the context on how general fund dollars parks and rec budget dollars And tax payer dollars go to fund the amenities and services within parks and recreation So back to the golf course. So the golf course in in this context in the budget context Over the past several years. We spend approximately two million dollars per year at the golf course And it brings in approximately 1.5 million per year And we'll get into specific Numbers here in just a moment I mentioned the pool and we'll bring this up again In just a little bit, but the harvey west pool specifically Budgets about 175 thousand dollars per year So it costs us about 175 thousand per year to run the pool And we bring in revenue of approximately 75 thousand So a net Support or subsidy if you will From the general fund of about a hundred thousand dollars per year I just wanted to mention that again the general fund It doesn't just fund parks and recreation But funds the police department the fire department as you all know And so as we're having these discussions and similar to the budget conversation Where we Kind of play the shell game within the parks and recreation to fund different areas to save money in different areas Increase revenues and areas reduce expenditures All of this is within the broader context, of course within the general fund budget So I just wanted to put that in context that The golf course isn't an assilo parks and rec is an assilo, but there are a lot of impacts there as well So talk a little bit about the park itself to la viega park As you all know, it's a multi-use park. We have the golf course and on the golf course itself We have multiple uses. We have the paved cart paths on the golf course That are often used for dog walking things like that. We host a number of events and weddings of the golf course the golf course also Intersects with a disc golf course a paid disc golf course Where a fee can be paid to play disc golf on the actual ball golf course But also in the park. We have santa crux shakespeare. We have in the lower park Another disc golf course that's ranked in the top five or ten in the world We have a kind of a secret hidden archery course, which is amazing Playgrounds ball diamonds and so forth. So to la viega really is a multi-use park A really incredible property with a variety of uses And again, most of those uses do not bring in any revenue the golf course does And we have an opportunity I think long term to look at revenue generation through some of these operations But wanted to share a little bit of that context on the multi-use nature of the park So we'll get into some of the numbers here of the golf course. So this is our operational analysis So I've got two slides here to dig into this. So Really the bottom line here Is the most probably important to look at the number of rounds that we're offering And booking to for the community per year So you'll see in fiscal year 19 We hosted just shy of 44 000 rounds of golf at the golf course Four contexts about 50 almost 5700 of those were free. So we gave those to nonprofit organizations We gave those to school groups Those are free rounds That we gave back to the community 2018 about 45 000 rounds with about 6500 of those Given away Non-revenue rounds to community members. So I share this and we'll talk about this a little bit more But to la viega is a of course a public course And really is sort of the the the people's course if you will in santa Cruz We have a another golf course near to us at posa tiempo But it's a private course and it's a very Expensive course frankly about 250 dollars a round Compared to our approximately 50 dollars a round So this is a course really multi-use and really the idea is that it can serve the community not just for golf But in a number of ways and so here are the some of the numbers that reflect The type of use that we have at the golf course In terms of expenses and revenues here is a snapshot so As you can see on the bottom line the trend We do run a deficit every year at the golf course And again, this is not uncommon compared with other Functions within the parks and recreation department. So we're running deficits at the auditorium and the wharf and and virtually everywhere else So But as you can see from the the golf business if you will Here is the amount the negative amount in the bottom line Is the annual Net impact to the general fund through the parks and recreation budget One thing that i'll note a couple of the big fees a couple of big dollar amounts that you will see here One is water and water. You can see over time where the new water rates went into effect So in the past two years, we pay approximately $570,000 a year and water At the golf course For some context we budget Three quarters of a million we budget 750,000 in water So there is a water savings if you go up to the golf course right now the course is pretty well browned out A lot of dry areas. We're not watering the the course everywhere And we make it a point For water conservation as much as we can And so you can see even though we budget 750. We're spending about 200 000 less than that almost Another big expense for us is personnel And we'll talk about this a little bit more in just a moment We have nine fte's At the golf course. It's a skeleton crew in 2010 After the kaiser marston report that's included as part of your packet One of the recommendations was to reduce the number of staff following that 2010 report So the so we did reduce staff at that point down to a skeleton crew, which we're really Operating with To this day, so it's a minimal number of staff to run the golf course Nevertheless, our personnel budget is almost a million dollars a year and it was over a million dollars a year a few years ago Um, but I mentioned this because a lot of municipal courses And i'll go to this next slide here a lot of municipal courses in the bay area in the past two years in particular Have started to privatize their maintenance. So our maintenance is done in house. It's done by city employees. It's done by parks and recreation staff A lot of other muni courses in the same situation that we're in in the same spirit to save money And break even have privatized other maintenance We recognize that in a sort of a business mindset that that is Potential option, but we believe that it's not within the values of our city and our parks department To to lay off our people And into privatized labor. So that's just kind of our viewpoint on it We don't see that as an option So we did not put that forth in the operations plan, but certainly if the city council wants to review Or consider Privatization of the maintenance side there could be cost savings there But it would mean potential layoffs to To the staff at the golf course So I just wanted to put that out there in some context. We have not put that forth as part of our recommendations So the near-term strategy, so we have put forth in the operations plan A three-part sustainability strategy So this starts with our annual expenditures. So we aim to minimize our annual expenditures As much as we possibly can while maintaining the quality of the course So we are putting forth In the proposal to reduce our annual water budget by 20 percent down to 600 thousand dollars per year We it's a hedge if we need that extra water We wouldn't necessarily have it available unless we came back to the city council for additional appropriation But that is 150 thousand dollar savings in the budget that we could implement In this next budget cycle by reducing that down to 600 thousand per year Other expenditures, I think that we could potentially minimize again. It's very difficult With staff with personnel With skeleton crew, but there are other ways that we could reduce and so we'll talk about that a little bit more But one that's coming soon as a well. So an installation of a well That well has a one-year payback on it until we start to See the benefits of of installing that that well So we'll bring that to the city council in the coming a couple months as a proposal So minimizing expenditures but maintaining that course quality The second one Is increasing our revenues. We have to increase our revenues. And so we have approached this In two different ways through the proposal number one is a proposal to Increase the rates at the golf course. We have not increased rates In about a decade and so we've proposed increasing rates, which we'll get into in just a moment Those range from a six percent increase To the walk-up rate to a 20 percent increase To the annual membership Which are a lot of local users kind of the most dedicated users and heaviest users at the golf course The other way that we can increase revenues is by getting more people to the golf course to play golf to go to the restaurant To to have events up there And so this is an area that we can work with our operator and plan to work with our operator And this is in the operations plan But we need a we need a marketing plan. We've got to go out to the community We've got to get more people to the golf course And we'll discuss that again here in just a second And I allude to that here in the third point again It's getting more getting more people to the golf course and that again gets to the marketing side of things So I'll go ahead and move on So right now our users at the golf course. It's about two-thirds community member or two-thirds residents of santa cruz county and one third non residents of santa cruz county This ratio used to be flipped. So when we had Higher rounds in the 90s, for example This ratio was flipped two-thirds of our users were from out of town One third were local and so we know From this number that there's something that we're doing now that we that we didn't used to do And so that has kind of changed changed our numbers Bay Area golf in general virtually all of the municipal courses in the bay area Have more annual rounds at their golf course per year than what we have in some cases It's 50 percent more rounds We uh de la viega used to have probably 60 to 70 thousand rounds per year And as we saw here, we have about 44 thousand rounds per year. So there's a huge opportunity we believe Seeing that most of our users are local and we don't have a large out-of-town user base And also in comparison to other muni courses. We know that we're not capturing the visitor santa cruz county is a one billion dollar tourism industry just in our county And so if we can capture just a couple people out of that and start to start to turn this around I think there's a lot of opportunity and upside For increasing revenues at the golf course. So I think a lot of a lot of potential there And that'll get done in marketing. I think in terms of outreach Here's some national statistics. I wanted to put in here In terms of so this is across the country Total rounds of golf across the country just kind of big picture And this has gone back and forth over the past five years Almost two percent decrease to an almost two percent increase Down to almost a five percent decrease in 2018 This is across the country On the right hand side the pie chart you see here the number of rounds played The 434 million rounds of golf played in 2018 about 80 percent of those are at public courses So just for a little bit of context. I think on the importance of our public course Now this is a little we're a little bit different in california on the west coast As you can see across the country the decline in golf and the decline in golf across the country is in the aggregate But if you look at the west coast, we are increasing. So we've got about a three percent growth in golf Within this timeline. This is from the national golf foundation. So on the west coast and and kind of the mountain region if you will There continues to be an increase despite the downward trend across the country So getting back to our rates. So these are the rates that we have proposed as part of the operations plan And these for some context Have been recommended by our operators. So our operator Has a long history in the business of golf And these recommendations really come from them as the subject matter expert They believe that if we increase rates too dramatically, we're gonna People are going to stop playing golf It'll price people out and they'll stop playing golf. So in terms of the general public, we've proposed a pretty modest increase Which is six percent But as we go down you can see the discount card holders the annual member programs a pretty significant increase To those again, those are the people who are golfing almost every day And would like very likely be willing to pay a higher fee Just based on that based on that use and this is based on some Um, I I want to say non scientific surveying but from our operator discussions. They've had with their the regular golfers This is the feedback that we've gotten that the that our market Could bear these increases Um, but not a lot more without affecting the the number of rounds played So here are a couple other key steps that we have in place Reduction of water consumption We're seeking options for for a well at least one well that we discuss Or other types of detention or retention if possible We are in ongoing discussions with the water department to look at tertiary treated water to get recycled water to the golf course rather than using potable water Utilization of variable rate pricing. So this is a new thing actually that we've put in place since our budget hearing back in the spring But we have variable rate pricing based on demand at the golf course. So for example When the u.s. Open was at pebble beach This summer a lot of people were in the area for the golf tournament And so our rate to play golf was about 98 dollars around. So we knew there was increased demand So that price point went up based on that variable rate pricing But right now in the winter when it's cold and in rainy We could uh through the variable rate pricing lower those fees So at a time of year where we're very slow, we don't have a whole lot of golf play We could lower those rates significantly To incentivize people to get out to the golf course and better balance our schedule throughout the year To bring in revenue Uh delaviga grill the restaurant at the golf course is still under construction and we hope to open that Yet this fall um as of today. I think they are this is our operator that's doing this work at this point They're looking at november december to open up the grill And then I mentioned a little bit marketing For special events uh into the travel industry Again, I think we're a very uniquely situated golf course. We're in a tourist hub here in santa Cruz A lot of really marketable assets that that we have at this golf course, but we have to get out to The expos we have to get out to these different opportunities That organizations like visit santa Cruz provider that they engage in we've got to get out to To a broader community and market to encourage people to play golf when they come to visit our city So sustainability in the plan we talk about I'll just touch on this briefly, but there's a lot of detail in the operations plan When we talk about sustainability, we look at it from a triple bottom line approach So financial sustainability environmental and social and so we've talked a little bit about the environmental the wells the tertiary treated water Things along those lines. It would be a goal of ours if we could to be the most environmentally efficient golf course in the state That would take some significant investment To get to that point upgraded irrigation Alternative energy sources potentially and a much more comprehensive approach toward water conservation And storm water capture potentially on the social side social sustainability to us means proactively Going out to our community to make sure that all members of our community Know about the golf course and have access to play golf And so we can do that by connecting with the schools, but with elementary schools We can work through programs Like the first tee program And we at the golf course have done this historically, but at some point we sort of got away from doing some of these things So there's a lot of opportunity to get underserved individuals or communities up to the golf course to learn the game of golf or the business of golf Or disc golf or shakespeare for that matter So there are a lot of different tactics and those are articulated in the operations plan On different strategies for a social sustainability approach To get more people to the golf course And give that opportunity at ideally no cost to Especially underserved communities to to provide access So the staff recommendation for the city council today is that The council support the draft operations plan that we have before you Which includes the the near term and long term strategies that we've talked about For some context as well. We at the parks and recreation commission Last night the commission voted six to one to uphold To uphold this recommendation on the draft operations plan The one addition that they had to their motion was a request To get the financials from our operator. So just kind of a detail there So this would be staff recommendation to adopt the draft operations plan I'd be happy to open it up to any questions that the council has Councilor Mathews I do have a question on the and you don't have to go back to the slide, but This year the revenues were down And I think you've alluded in your report that that was significantly due to the closure of the the shop or the Cafe restaurant restaurant grill And You also refer to the fact that when that is up and running it will be much more attractive you Expect more than a bounce back a real improvement Do you have any Reflection on how that might help you accelerate the um closing the gap I would say we don't at this point. I would love our operator to chime in on that. They are not here today, unfortunately The going back to your first question the decrease in revenue and play For this past year was in large part due to the rain. We had a really rainy season And so you saw To some degree our water consumption was lower this year. Our water bill was a bit lower But our play was a bit lower. And so when the rains come we save in one area, but we we lose revenue in another Okay Well, I I was just really impressed and you know when the time comes I'd be happy to make a motion Thank you. Any other questions from the council at this time for the staff? Thank you the question I'm really disappointed that the the vendor isn't here. Um I don't know. It's kind of like a an oral, you know that you take for a dissertation or or something You know that your thing is coming up and he's he's he or she's not here to represent the uh The group that's uh, I don't know what to say Uh, because there's a lot of questions that we might have um for for the vendor. I was wondering from you Maybe do you know other cities? I didn't see any um I saw some comps on what other cities charge for green fees, but have you seen any? um General fund expenditures from those cities and how does that compare with ours what what we're because so far this It's the last since 2013 from the information you gave us There's a little over 3.5 million dollar deficit. We're running at the golf course And it looks like we're on track to have a 750 thousand dollar one Although you said that maybe a hundred thousand we could back off on for the for the water But do we have any information like that from other other cities? We we did some research on that As part of this effort to put the operations plan together to look at other golf courses what their fees and rates are In comparison some of that data is in the pro forma report from 2017 as well I don't think we have specific data in terms of what other cities are Funding that sort of net general fund Impact from other cities, but we we did compare the rates only we could certainly get that information though What was the member discounts program This is our membership card and i'll lean on these guys if they want to describe it a little bit more, but it's basically um basically a card that you purchase it's uh 100 or 150 dollars To buy the card and with that card you get a discount on the daily rate of playing golf So it's kind of like getting a Safe way card or something and why not raise that card? What was the idea behind that not not raising that fee? A mile six on the golf course superintendent That fee was just something that was established at the time that the program was started and and much like our rates Not changed and probably should Probably should There too, but it's not recommended on our thing. It's that's the one that didn't change. I don't think Was it was recommended So there are two different ones here There's the annual pass and that's the one where we recommended increasing it right there membership member discount programs no change Yeah, that one I don't recall exactly from our operator. There's another great question for the operator. I believe that I don't know. I think they felt there wasn't a whole lot of flexibility there I think the price of that card is relatively low 100 or 150 per year And so we talked about bumping that up to we bump it up 100 bucks or so But I think that one in particular they felt They felt that that there's not that elasticity there if you will and raising that fee so they recommended no change You talked about the the Drilling for water and you and I have talked offline about kind of like not using potable water to water the golf course Have we checked in with the water department and what the the water situation the water table there at the golf course how that might affect You know, just overall water capacity or Availability in Santa Cruz Yeah, we have with the water department and Quite a great amount of detail. I can't probably speak to this in the best detail My understanding is there's sort of an isolated layer of groundwater Where we would propose digging this well and so it would not affect Would not affect the water department generally again, I sort of out of out of my Realm of expertise here in terms of speaking to that but when we bring the well item to the city council the water department has done a lot of research into that In terms of the in terms of what the environmental impact would be and they would present that as part of the proposal for council Um, you did quite a bit of Talking on how all these different programs cost the city I'm sorry about that because I don't see the golf course necessarily on a par with programs at loudon nelson Or or the basketball programs that the city has or softball leagues To you know, take our water department. I think that's a better You know apples to apples kind of comparison they are Raising fees and have been raising fees because that's what it takes to Have a product that that's that's clean and good and gets it distributed to the people in sanikers And so I think that would be a better way of like the golf course It it doesn't make it still doesn't make sense to me so much and I know you and I have talked about it And you know, I think there's some room here too Of raising, you know green fees I think the vendor Probably cautions against that because it could affect a lot of things, but it seems to me he might have some leeway to like okay merchandise restaurant alcohol all those other things that he We get a certain percentage of but There is you know, if he doesn't want the green fees to go up Too dramatically. It seems like we need to negotiate a better agreement with him I'm understanding that we we negotiate a 10-year agreement just recently with with um, I guess the lousalot family That's correct. Yeah, I'm looking at the numbers here just to provide the best information So we have two two leases with the lousalot family One is for the restaurant And that is that's the one that was updated most recently. That's a 10-year term for the restaurant And then they the other lease that we have with the lousalot family is for the what we just called the pro shop And that's really for the business or the operations of the golf course. So Happy to go into those numbers in terms of what that looks like But Let's see generally on the pro shop side of things So let me see here the lease on the pro shop or the operation goes through 2026. So we still have seven years On that lease And to some of the details here the concessionaire paid six percent of all greens fees and green fee discount cards Golf cards seven percent and I might have travis beck our park superintendent come explain this a little bit better Seven percent of gross revenue on golf courts seven percent of sales of the pro shop These are the items that come back to the city. So seven percent. They get 93 percent driving range 15 percent up to 325,000 And 14 percent over 325,000 golf lessons five percent of gross revenue disc golf concession seven percent Of gross sales on the restaurant Six percent of food eight percent of alcohol 10 percent of merchandise at the restaurant So just a there's a lot of numbers really quickly, but just a snapshot on on that lease On an environmental question I had was does the um, does the go does the dale vega park Does it currently have a management plan in place and when was that adopted? On the park as a whole we have a master plan that was adopted in 1960 And has not been updated since then. We don't have a management plan of the golf course But that's really what this operations plan is intended to do is serve as a management plan for the golf course specifically I mean that what's in front of us correct for the management plan for the golf course. Yeah Just for the golf course. Yeah, and to your question about about revenues overall I think it's a really good question. And so we talked about kind of the multi-use nature Of dale vega and we could look at this across the entire parks and recreation department But a best practice for a parks and recreation department is to have a revenue policy in place So what type of operations what that would really guide us on is what type of operations do we seek full cost recovery? Where are we willing to subsidize? And everywhere in between we do not have a revenue policy in place As a department and so that's something that long term And really separate from the golf course We could look at all aspects of our operation within parks and rec to say Where do we similar to the water department example? Where do we want to capture? That user fee and and what are we willing to subsidize? Thank you, mayor I have a motion also um, and I but I'd like to hear from other council members and what what kind of issues or questions they might have I advice mayor Cummings councilor brown and then councilman Matthews and then council member clever But typically do most city run golf courses, you know, do they generally run in a deficit because the idea being that they're gonna Offer And supplement some of the funding that it costs to run the golf course so that people Have morbidity of access and as a result they end up running in a deficit But that's also similar to for example Um based on some of what you said many of our parks the maintenance of those open spaces So that they're free for people to go to comes at a cost of you know Not generating revenue off that so just maybe wondering if you could speak to that with regards to the golf courses in general Yeah, I think you hit perfectly on kind of the the core of the whole discussion among Excuse me municipal golf courses and uh, that is you know in the 80s and 90s All these golf courses were making money and giving money back to their general funds And supporting other functions and parks and rec and so I think the general decrease in in golf play But I think more importantly in the in the 90s and in the early 2000s The number of golf courses especially in the bay area exploded I think if I recall it was it was about a 44 increase in the number of golf courses In the bay area over over 10 years or so. I think that was in the in the in the 90s And so all of a sudden, um, you know golf was booming everybody built golf courses And then it kind of started to trend downward but with a huge supply of golf courses So muni courses municipal courses Uh, really we're all in the same situation where Uh, really we're all kind of facing the same thing. We have declining number of rounds And so that values judgment is very similar to the discussion We're having of what do you do with a golf course? Can you make a multi-use? Do you privatize? Aspects of it. Do you close it? What's what's the right thing to do? And I think in the case of our golf course We see a lot of upside a lot of opportunity just based on past trends and kind of how our trends are now Which is why this operations plan and recommendation is structured as such Councilmember brown and then councilmember matthews and then councilmember Thank you for the presentation Thank you for thinking about how to proceed and make the golf course operations more sustainable financially and Also kind of I think we talked about uh at our meeting thinking about the the value of having a one a public golf course, but also one that is green it's um, it is greener than a lot of golf courses and um, so I think that's something that I'd also like to see um us pursue in terms of our outreach and marketing or the The operator to the extent they're doing any of that outreach and marketing question is so in the so 10 years ago nine years ago and a half we Received the city received this report about the um golf course operations and the feasibility of Doing a range of things to try to make it self-supporting and one of the items that is listed in the gap This is page nine Section eight potential options for reducing the gap and golf the golf course enterprise fund number two was related to debt service And so I'm wondering and there was an expectation that The those that debt service would decline and which it has But we still have a similarly sized gap so That didn't happen. I'm just wondering if If you have any thoughts on that if there's you know, if there's something more that i'm missing here about why that Did not come to fruition as a way to close our gap and um if There's anything that can be done. Um, you know, I guess i'm just kind of overall kind of It's a little frustrating to see 10 years later similar gap and You know feeds have not gone up another question that I have just it's kind of a Just a kind of your sense of kind of question Um, we were um Where we're at with in in compared to other muni courses um I mean we're kind of We're pretty competitive, right? So it I'm just wondering about that how that fits into the thinking about raising rates and and the how that might be off putting for consumers or golfers Well if I could offer your Your point about the debt service being retired. That's true. We still carry some debt service on a 30-year bond that we took out in 04 and 05 which is a three million dollar renovation project So we still hold that debt service But in conjunction with retiring some of the other debt service and also refinancing our current debt service The unfortunate uh coincidence was that the water rates skyrocketed and also pensions went up for employees So everything that we stood to gain from retiring those debt services was lost to these increases And yes, we are competitive and that's with our pricing Which is also what gives us reservation and nervousness about raising our rates too much to cover that gap because Unlike our colleagues in the water department people have choices when it comes to golf courses And they can go somewhere else to play for cheaper or better quality So it's a quick follow-up question in that regard In terms of our what is our competition because when I it's hard for me to understand The the nature of that competition Because we are in a community that doesn't have very proximate Golf courses of the same caliber at the same cost So it's not like being in San Jose and deciding I'm going to go to Campbell instead of Sunnyvale You know because the course there is cheaper So if you could talk about that a little bit from your perspective that would be helpful for me I would just say as tony mentioned earlier in his presentation that Currently two-thirds of our players are local and one-third is out of town, which was you know, conversely In our heyday And because we've lost that that group of of bay area folks coming over They have so many choices that unless they have a reason to come over to us They don't have to go that far to find golf So one of our challenges is is enticing them to come over through good quality and good pricing And that's part of the challenges that we're facing As we go forward and especially with developing a marketing plan Yeah, I think kind of building on that During the budget hearings, I mistakenly compared our golf course in terms of competition to pasta tiempo And it's really not a great comparison So but I think the to miles point I think a great competitive advantage that we have is that we are the affordable course here in Santa Cruz And again with all these people coming over the hill visiting here There's an opportunity to capture that segment of the market That we're not doing at the moment so locally The locals are are playing golf the locals Obviously we're seeing you know two-thirds of our users are our locals But it's that out of town the people visiting here who were not not capturing Councilmember Matthews and then councilmember Glover Um, I I did want to also ask about the increase in rates over time. You talked about Doing it stepped over a period of time. I think did you say five years? Was that your and rather than in one fell swoop and a shock to the system let people adjust to it Yeah, that's a great point. We propose if I recall three years so phasing these increases over the next three years Oh, and I like I said one of the um, you did mention also development of a revenue policy for the department overall Which I think is Probably overdue What's sort of a timeframe work program? Do you see I mean obviously that's not immediate, but it's something you'd want to You know get on the list Yeah, that's a great question. We have strategic planning meetings. Um this fall We've got a new team a new management team in parks and recreation So actually beginning at the end of this month will be the first phase of multiple phases of strategic planning And in that we'll talk about a revenue policy. So I'm hopeful I don't want to over promise. Uh, these guys are gonna Uh, uh, roll their eyes back here or something. Um, but I'm hopeful by Next spring or summer we can have a revenue policy in place Great Let's have a break over Thank you Thank you director alien and for the rest of the parks group for being here to talk about the The golf course I know this is important to a lot of people and even before it was on this agenda When we're talking about before I had a chance to meet with some different people in the community that Really believe golf is a really important Sport to be able to have access to especially for people from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds Uh, so I want to acknowledge that as we enter into this conversation Um, I notice that there we're talking doing a lot of talk about the cost of the city and all that kind of stuff And I it's important Uh, I'd really love to understand the operator and that's why I'm really disappointed that I'm not here today because there are some specific things That I would be curious about but maybe you can answer it is how long have we been working with this operator? The the current golf professionals father was the was the original pro and conception of the course So since 1969 1970. Oh, wow. Okay. So 30 40 years somewhere in there. Thank you. Um, and then, uh When you were listing off those numbers as far as the profit sharing that was going, you know 5% 4% 7% 10% is there a reason why those are so low? Yeah, I can't speak to that exactly we could get that information. Um, I don't know off and uh, the economic development department may have likely been involved in that We for reference what we could follow up with as well is kind of a comparison of some of Our lease rates at are at the wharf for example some of the wharf tenants But we did a lot of that research going into it. I'm I'm not sure why these numbers are the way they are though and do you Do you know the general report of the profit for the operator every year that they're making off of the municipal golf course? No, I do not. Oh, so it's a lot unknowns. Okay. Um Because that's a that's just a little Disconcerting to me, you know a group that's been running a golf course for 40 years with unknown amounts of profit and we're subsidizing that for The community but if we're having a private entity generating a profit off of the municipal golf course And we're talking about increasing fees Uh, that would make it less accessible for low-income people to be able to participate in a sport that should be open to everyone um, I'm kind of concerned about Potentially perceived regressive price modifications that would make it so become less accessible I know that in other You know Areas of whether it be sports or access to things for admission there are tiered uh Teared rates for people based off of their income, uh, or stuff like that So i'm not sure if that's anything that y'all have had a chance to potentially dive into where if someone can prove that they Have an income of below a certain level then they would be given one of either the member discount cards or uh, potentially a pass for Low-income golf or however you want to frame it accessible golf a little bit less stigmatizing um But yeah, so stuff like that and then having a tiered set of uh potential things because You know if I was if I was able to talk with the operator here and ask them questions and get that kind of perspective But right now I would be much more inclined to figuring out how we can Rebalance the revenue sharing between the operator and the city so that we can start seeing some of that Coming back to us, especially, you know, we just spent a million Dollars or so on renovating the restaurant, but we're seeing five percent come back to us on food I think was the number you gave me five seven and ten so That's what there's a lot of red flags there for me with that and I hope that we can continue this conversation as we move forward Council for current and then councilor matthews. Thank you. Um, I just want to put forward this Motion I have a copy for you. So maybe go ahead and pause for a second on the motion. Um, until we take public comment Okay, any additional questions from the council at this time Councilor matthews, it's not a question, but uh, I want to give just a little perspective on the operator the Previous operator was interested in retiring and you are going to know a whole lot more about this than I can recall but It did come to the city at the time of Renewal of the agreement and the younger generation was interested in coming in and making very significant Very significant private investment of their own in the facilities Which is why the decision was made. I'm thinking of the The grill for not just a one year Or a short term but a longer term because they were prepared to put in both the financial commitment and the vision to Make a significant improvement and market and expansion of activities and so forth. So It was not just an arbitrary same old same old. It was it was a um, a very thoughtful decision which involved both parks and rec and economic development and As I think has been mentioned The rates return to the city as on the war if it's different percentages for different amounts, but they're they're hardly arbitrary So I would just like to say again, I'm very impressed with the How the staff and the commission heard the concern of the council About dealing which it has been a dynamic Situation in the golf industry What's out there with the prices play and so forth and I think there's been an interest over time in keeping our course accessible making improvements in the Environmental water and so forth the expenses But I believe the staff has truly heard what the council directed And has given a lot of good careful thought to not just a quick fix, but a plan that can be implemented Over a relatively near term three to five years that will make significant improvements in all of these areas and give us A course that we can be proud of and is an asset to our community. So for that reason, I favor Adopting the staff report before us. We'll go ahead. I will go ahead. I just want to I recognize that we're we're going to be I'll just sort of reorient this We're still at a time for questions. We'll have an opportunity for comments after we hear public comment Um, did you have an additional question? It was just I'll wait till the next The next question was to respond to something that was said, but yeah, absolutely I think you know, my questions were primarily answered already I did have a question about the local discount, but I kind of understand the dynamic in regards trying to increase Out of town or so that was sort of by default responded to Um, okay, so at this point we'll go ahead. Do you have additional questions? I do have one more. I'm during that transition from The older generation to the younger generation was there an open request for proposals for a new operator for the golf course? Or was it just a Family handoff I believe the term is just a typical municipal lease where this the Son and uh, to go over for the retiring father and the and the lease perpetuated through time. Great. Thank you Option to renew it Yes, but the I just want to add that when the lease expired that question came before the city council as far as what Approach the council wanted to take whether you want to do an open rfp or do you want to negotiate with existing? Um operator so that question was brought before the council and the council decided to pursue negotiations with the current operator Do you know what year that was Several years ago. I'm trying to recall when the when the uh, I'm not mistaken It's happened more than once over the last 15 years for this been brought in front of this council and it was about Four or five years ago, maybe maybe a little longer. I think 2010 and then again around roughly 2015 if i'm not mistaken Okay, yeah, i'm thinking of the 2015 probably Thank you Okay, so now's the time for us to hear any members of the community who want to address us on this item This is item number 18 of our general business Agenda, please step forward and you'll have up to two minutes Good afternoon. I'm scott ram. Um As the so-called water district puts the pipeline in for the uh reclaimed water We should put a t somewhere Which would be the optimal point to send some reclaimed water up to the golf course to water to the golf course with reclaimed water or Lay a secondary pipe coming from that point to their secondary uh Treatment plant so that we can use some of what they call pure water to water the golf course Um instead of using, you know potable water I mean, it's quite a bit of water that they're using up there And eventually, you know, the city's gonna have to like limit the number of hookups for new water supply So if we can take that potable water and then save it for Uh new hookups that would be really great as far as um Maintaining the golf course I'd like to know whether or not other municipal courses are maintained by the cities and their Parks departments or are they maintained by the vendor that they've leased the course to? Because that that could be quite a bit of savings too if the vendor was responsible for You know mowing the lawns and cleaning bathrooms and doing stuff like that instead of the city and then having uh Them take take that over um And as far as fees go, I think that you know, you could raise them Probably six to twelve dollars on a sliding scale And most people would continue to play. I don't think you know, I mean our nearest competition really is boulder creek country club Because pass at tiampo. It's just way too costly And then there's another uh, you know lower Anyway, thank you You'll have up to two minutes to just thank you. Good afternoon council I actually came to speak about the the next item the pool We'll go ahead and pause your guys, but as I'm but I'm gonna speak on this but I have some for this item I understand that but there's something relevant because There are two recreation programs and I've been swimming at simpkins. I'm not a because I'm on A city resident I have to pay a higher fee than if I didn't live in the city of Santa Cruz So it strikes me that I mean that In the rate structure the city would be justified in charging Um out of city residents, even if they were local higher fees They don't have to be 50 percent higher But I mean unless the county wants to give us a break At simpkins and other programs. I mean Why don't we do the same? That's it. Thank you Is there any other members of the community who would like to address us on this item? Okay, seeing them. We'll go ahead and return back for council Deliberation and action. I'll just make a few comments before we get started I just want to thank the staff for this really thoughtful and comprehensive plan and I think Clearly there's been areas where We've been able to kind of I mean we absent being able to sort of fix the past I think there's things that we can learn from the past to move forward and I appreciate the aspiration of having You know the most eco-friendly golf course in the nation. I think that's really in line with our values I like the elements around the social access piece sort of similar to council member clever around sort of an equity fee scale rate I think really is about The principles that you alluded to around this being the people's golf course, right? And so I think golf is often thought of as for the elite and it's nice to know that our community is still Committed to providing this as an opportunity for those who couldn't afford that Um, I think that there are aspects that I think there are areas where we would like to learn more But absent kind of knowing that this is fluid I think there's a lot of opportunity for us to take what you've proposed here and move forward With potential solutions in next steps. So that being said, I'll go ahead and return back to my colleagues I know we had council member clever who I stopped originally It's okay. I'll pass for now. Okay, you'll go ahead and pass Vice mayor Cummings and then council member brown and then I think we have two potential motions We'll go ahead and hear comments and then we'll go ahead and see I have two potential motions that were brought to my attention To start by saying thank you for bringing this forward because I think that it's incorporated a lot of Some of the concerns that folks up here have had over the past year and probably longer Um, I think that one thing that's been reiterated and I'll just say for myself I think it would be really good to understand, you know, what are the Cost expenditures and revenue that's being generated by on the operators end because it's really transparent for us on the city's end But kind of better understanding that on the operator side would be useful for us And really happy and excited that you all are going to be working on a marketing plan It would be good to I think one thing that would be Interesting if it's not if you all don't have it already but learning more about the demographics of who is coming To the golf course that way, you know through through that marketing plan Kind of identifying where there might be gaps and then shifting Sometimes advertisement or marketing to draw in more people who might not be typically using the golf course and And also I think it would be good to understand the investments that have been made by the operators So we can understand how much is the city investing into this how much is the operator investing in and kind of where Where all the the money is kind of penciling out But thank you Yeah, I also want to thank you To thank you, mr. Elliott and also the folks who have kept the daylight vega golf course well maintained for so long it's It's it's just really nice to be up there and and I appreciate the other kind of benefits of of having that space in addition to being able to Golf on it So the park aspect I also want to mention because I was not aware until recently All right. I guess I hadn't really Had it presented to me in that manner that yes, the city has made a large contribution to improvements for the The clubhouse the lodge the grill That facility and but the the operator has as well and and so I want to recognize that and Not suggest that any of my comments or Interests here or want to suggest that We don't aren't aware of that don't appreciate that and are not i'm not suggesting that we kind of renege on you know Negotiations that we've made and and the contract is established, but I do think it's important to Have some additional information about that So I don't really feel comfortable and I also wanted to say I appreciate the The Planning that's going in I you know, I want to support the staff recommendation in terms of the near-term strategy and long-term planning I don't feel comfortable making a decision about you know three years out on rate the rate structure without Having a better understanding and you know some kind of business plan presented To us. I'd like the parks and rec commission. I apparently they were interested in this and I'd like for them to be able to look at that as well And I also want to say that I am very happy to hear our parks director Suggest that the the department is not interested in contracting out the maintenance because while I it could certainly save A significant amount. I think there's there's big loss there I don't generally don't support contracting out public services as a public course It is if it's going to be the people's golf course And we should be the people of Santa Cruz should be able to Have maintain those You know better paid Benefitted positions union jobs So I wouldn't support contracting that out to say as a way to save money I know it's not on the table right now, but I just wanted to say that since you brought it up Thank you for that and I think I'll leave it there For now, but that's aside from the rate structure I appreciate where you're going you know making a definitive decision today about that. I'm not comfortable with but the rest of it Thank you Thank you I'm wondering if we can get the recommendations put back up at this point I think we have two potential folks interested in the motion and I'm wondering I think if I Could see you have one written out. Is that correct? Maybe councilmember chrome We can have us all look at that and you can see if there's alignment potentially with your Direction and if not we can mine mine was going to be very straightforward frankly Well, but why don't we pass it out? Why don't you you I'm gonna make a motion And I'm just gonna pass it out If folks would I don't want to I don't want to make a substitute motion if you want I'll make a substitute motion if councilmember matthews wants to go forward or we'll just talk about this one first and Maybe see what see what happens Well, I just um councilmember matthews I'm sort of stuck here because councilmember matthews brought to my attention an interest in making a motion Prior to to councilmember crown. So why don't we go ahead and honor that Once you make your motion if it's required that we do a substitute motion We'll do that But just want to acknowledge the fact that that was brought to my attention go right ahead Could I take just a minute to look at this? Well, you yeah, that would be that would be ideal I think maybe Given what I think I'm seeing here. Why don't we go ahead and have councilmember crown make the motion We can divide the question if necessary to areas where there might be alignment. Does that make sense? I'm disappointed Because I was very honest that I wanted to make My motion and I feel like I've been preempted. Okay. What I will honor that I agree Okay, go right ahead make your motion. My motion was simply going to be and to Accept and adopt the proposed draft operations plan for the la la vega golf course And I would be happy to add Other elements to that some of which are reflected here I think many of the items reflected in councilmember crown's motion Were implicit in the presentation that was given to us and in the operations plan So they don't need to be called out specifically, but my the motion I'd like to put on the floor is Accept and adopt the draft operations plan for the la vega golf course So we have a motion by councilmember matthew I'll go ahead all second that for the purposes of discussion and maybe we can build on that from there I would just say what I see here that seems entirely Consistent with the discussion that's been had it would be to look at variable rate pricing If I could get feedback that's something that you Would be incorporated in what you've laid out already, isn't it? Correct. Yeah, what we've talked about today are the kind of the base rates And around that base is where we have the variable rate pricing. So That is already in effect, but with the current rates. So that would apply to these new updated rates as well Yeah Certainly in consultation the water department discussed and returned to the city council With details concerning drilling and installation of future wills and I would say or use of recycled water That's consistent with what you've already laid out in the plan. So I would be happy to incorporate that it's it's Already in it Um Work with a vendor and visit Santa Cruz developing a marketing plan I wouldn't say necessarily intent of eliminating the current deficit. I would say achieving Greater fiscal sustainability for the course But I think the intent is there Vendor will provide a business plan In order to determine how much the agreement with the city may be worth Well, to my mind that that's number one in councilmember crohn's proposal and also Examining the current vendor agreement with the city and discuss specifics We have an existing agreement And so That's what we have And this I believe Um is comparable to when we Make leases with the wharf merchants. That's that's what I think of most But we also make leases with our properties in the downtown garages We have a number of commercial leases around the city and when those come to us My recollection is that the specifics of those are in closed session Because there's some confidential information there and we In none of those do we expect the business operator to In a public session reveal All their finances, but we depend on our staff to go over The business plan that they present and what their The strength of their business plan what they're putting into it, etc. Et cetera Why do we believe that they will be successful? And that's part of what they review in great detail and comes to us So i'm not at all comfortable with Number one Or number four because I think we have an existing agreement It's certainly legitimate that the council might want to Their new council members they might want to understand the thinking that went into that but that To my mind would be a closed session discussion So if i'm understanding you correctly your motion is to move the recommendation to incorporate um two three five into your motion As elements that were brought forward by council member crone and then Not incorporate the remainder And I still process all future improvement expenses to the course including irrigation water Vendor green uh and water use be covered by green fees vendor agreements and any grants Again, I I don't want to be absolute in that because I think we do make um Uh, certainly we do subsidize Currently virtually all our parks and rec facilities and activities, which I think 100 appropriate People expect good parks and rec programs from their city and they get them and they love them It's already been discussed that the golf course particular has been a very fluid and dynamic Industry over the last 10 15 years So of course we're looking at it but I think the operations plan that we've been given Anticipates all these elements, but it's not rigid. Okay. So we'll go ahead and maybe so it seems like again. I'm I'm I'm I'm pretty sympathetic to a lot of these but I'm not comfortable with the Exact language. So anyway, okay, where we're going so in the interest of hopefully coming an area that we can see alignment and It sounds to me that there is possibility for us to find commonality between The motion on the floor elements that have been incorporated from the proposal by councilmember krone And then I'll go ahead and hand it over to councilmember krone to if you'd like to further discuss here Can I just clarify something really quick? The the minutes was to adopt the draft including two Three and five at this time that councilmember krone hand. That's the motion at this time And then further discussion on Thank you, mayor I I think we can do this. I think we can erase this deficit And this is we're not talking about the overall de la viega park. We're talking about an enterprise known as the The de la viega golf course and lodge and you know if you look just to respond to um Councilmember matthews There's a line in our report here in front of us 18.5. You said we're looking out and we're going to erase this deficit or we're going to improve the situation because The lines on the chart here on 18.14 of our packet Even to 2022 we still have a 500 thousand dollar deficit And in 2010 because I you know, I've been thinking about this for a long time. I sat through this in 98 to 2002 and that and I think when I came off the council The golf course became from an enterprise fund which our enterprise funds usually You know our self-sustaining and and and generate something It became a Part of the general fund and I don't know what year that happened In 2010 just to follow up on the councilmember matthew said Kaiser marston associates produced a report to the city of santa cruz parks and recreation department with data and trends Of the de la viega golf course in comparison to courses around the bay area The purpose of the report was to evaluate the performance of the golf course and develop strategies to make itself Supporting this was you know, it was 10 years ago. We were talking we were 20 years ago when I was on the council I think with you in 98 99 We were talking about making the golf course self-sustaining My sense is that we can We can do this we can we can get it to be self-sustaining I just think it needs the fact that the for example the operator Not showing up today Doesn't really help the situation. I don't I don't understand that At all I'm looking for my motion. I had a I want to speak to it I attended the I think what's critical and that the reason I'm going to make a substitute motion I think it's critical that we send this back to the parks and rec Commission I know I sat through their meeting yesterday I missed the last 10 or 15 minutes of the discussion on this item This is the very last one on their agenda But they're very interested in this. There was there was lively discussion from the parks and rec and After having spoken with two commissioners They're very much, you know, be in support of of of a motion like this as well So I'm gonna I'm gonna make a substitute motion to have to make the motion first Tony or or just the fact that I'm making a substitute motion My substitute motion would be a motion to direct staff to work with parks and recreation commission and the vendor lausala family And return to the council at the first meeting in february with a two-year It's very important that we put some pressure right now a two-year plan to balance the golf course budget Eliminate any future deficit and move the business City relationships to solvency in order to carry this out out the solvency plan and avoid Past losses which range from 300,000 to 750,000 per year Over 3.5 million since 2013 according to our staff report Of the general fund expenditures over the several past several years the city council directs parks and rec commission The city staff and the vendor to meet And you've seen my my motion. It's up on the screen And that's and I would add a number eight and that would be to develop a revenue policy as the parks and rec director Said that they will be working on Which I think it's a great idea That's my motion because so there's a substitute motion by councilmember crone. Is there a second for the substitute motion? Second a seconded by councilmember brown so what we would do at this point is make a Take a vote whether or not to adopt the substitute motion if that fails then we would go back to the original motion, correct that's right. I just a concern that occurred to me is to the extent we Have existing agreements with the operators I think part of that report back would be the constraints under which the city is currently operating given its current contractual obligations But what I was thinking was is the lease agreement and I know we spoke and you said you might get the council a copy of that I haven't I've not seen it yet, but I was hoping the group could also look at that lease agreement To to find to see if there's any room not that they're going to be negotiating for the city But the business evidently runs on You know green fees you want to keep them at a certain level to bring people to the park and then sell them, you know Stuff from the the pro shop as well as you know stay for dinner and you know buy drinks, whatever I thought there was some room for looking at that and that if the the Tim Laustelot was involved in this that we can get a better idea and we can get some good recommendations from our From our commission, but if you're saying that possibly Examine the current vendor agreement with the city and discuss specifics with the vendor. That's what you don't that's what the one you're Not not comfortable with I have no problem with the discussions. I'm just I just want this conversation to be in the context of Existing contractual commitments, which may have a bearing on our ability to carry out all of these directions So I'm going to go forward with that motion and I'm going to I really like to see the parks and rec commission take this issue up And I would really love to see our gall of course get a big A burst of enthusiasm enthusiasm. So in two years we can have we can zero out this this deficit Okay, so we could um vice mayor come in I just have to ask a question the parks and recs director because my understanding Is that ideally what we're trying to do? Overall is you know get rid of our deficit and that You know the the today is that we're adopting a draft Of this and that based on the recommendations and all the information that you've heard today that We're going to get another draft report coming forward to us kind of really flush out some of the details around Pricing and all the the aspects we've spoken about today Is that correct? Yeah, we would be adopting it. Oh, okay, correct. And I'm saying So councilmember crona then councilman, I'm saying since there was so many Missing, you know, and it's not our director's fault. It's just that what's going on is that the The vendor wasn't here and there's just like oh I've heard that about six questions that were left unanswered a couple by yourself and That's that's that's what I would think would come back to us after Parks and Recreation Commission takes another bite at it Yeah, I think that's the side that we're missing frankly. I think everything that's in the draft operations plan is Is about our complete proposal for you So the adoption of that I don't think there's anything much that would change necessarily unless directed by the city council, but the piece that we would come back with Based on the direction So far would be Essentially the financials from the operator And then the the lease that we've talked about And as the city attorney said within the within the context of the lease what May be flexible and what's not flexible to have to have a broader discussion Councilmember matthewson, then I have a comment um one one of the um Actually several concerns I have with the current substitute motion is that By february there'd be a two-year plan to balance the golf's budget. That is a highly accelerated I think what we're talking about here is Some three-year projections, but the idea that those trends would continue out and we'd see Resolution closer to five years. Am I am I Yeah, the the challenge the challenge with the the two years and if that's the direction of council We'll certainly bring it back and in february A couple things so the restaurant likely will not open until late fall or early winter this year And so the timing of that will have a maybe a couple months before we would review that with council in february The other piece of it is the the new rates that we've proposed we could implement those upon the direction of city council We could implement those at any time But the most appropriate time that we've discussed with our operator would be to implement those in the spring So that's kind of the beginning of the new golf season. So we would implement the new pricing effective Probably around april one And so a review in february again can certainly do that. But it would be Prior to those new revenues. Yeah I'll just have a quick question then we'll we'll take a vote on the substitute. I have one more question very specific Okay, why don't you finish your specific and understanding I think a general interest in accelerating this but my interest is is being Rational about it and you've talked about some of the timing issues here and also the pacing of them What direction if if we were to proceed with adopting the operating plan as presented Could there be further direction to look for opportunities to accelerate? closing the gap without Fatally damaging the overall underlying philosophy. Do you see where I'm going with that? Yeah um In terms of rates kind of setting those rates here or well Yeah, all the all the all the things that might Uh contribute to closing the gap um Or it's about as fast as you see it being able to happen in terms of again the restaurant implementation of pricing I think that Again, we can bump that up a little bit on the pricing anyway I would say and I don't mean to speak on behalf of our operator, but it's in their best interest to get this right as soon as possible For no other reason than their own than their own self-interest frankly Since it's a for-profit for us certainly The same thing, you know, we want to get this right We want to make sure our staff feels comfortable the direction we're going and so yeah the the sooner we can Turn this around and make it happen. Certainly. We will do everything we can Well, thank you. I guess I'll just say before we take the vote to accept the substitute motion that there's elements that I agree here with um I think one of the areas that I have concern about is Sort of the the pace and speed in which it's outlined here and kind of knowing how these sort of Transitions work I I don't at the cost of it not being the people's you know golf course that seems like a risk to me I do think that there's areas where it's already sort of aligned with the existing Plan that is being proposed to us at this time I think that it's going to be a Sort of somewhat fluid process. There's obviously an interest in having from the council to have this a bit accelerated But at the um for me, I just I don't feel comfortable with this specifically outlined to have a completely cost recovery process in place within two years I think partially what We have here before us is an opportunity to kind of be in action But to move us in the direction that we want to go and so I am hopeful that um Regardless what the outcome is today that there's this interest in maintaining this Stewardship this environmental stewardship the social element of it But this business model that's going to work for our community that isn't going to be jeopardized by um A more accelerated pace so it's sort of finding that balance. So I um I I just I recognize that there's elements that I agree with your proposal council member crone Um, and I think I feel more comfortable with the integrated proposal that was brought forward with the original motion But right now we're voting on the substitute motion So we should go ahead and take a vote whether or not to accept that mr. Gaudi. Okay, and then we'll go to you can buy some air so I have a question around this substitute motion We'll have a further clarification around the substitute motion specifically I'm just wondering if there is an opportunity to incorporate You know The timeline will having this go to the parks and rec director some of this information to be incorporated with providing us with the timeline so rather than having um the Why don't we go ahead and take the vote to whether or not to accept the substitute motion And if there were amendments at that time then we would go ahead and have that conversation around adjusting the changes Does that seem accurate to how that we would flow? Okay. So though all those in favor, please say I am Opposed no Okay, so that fails That is so we have three in favor council member crone Glover and brown Matthews vice mayor Cummings and myself voting against so we have a tie with council member mires absent That's correct. So we'll go ahead and uh motion fails So the motion fails, right? So we go back to the original motion then is that correct? Correct Okay, so by default then that goes back to the original motion. So the original motion Brought forward is now the motion for debate on the table on the table And that is to accept the staff recommendation and then to incorporate two three and five Of council member crone's recommendation into the motion At this time Is that feel accurate council member matthews? Yeah, and i'm uh, I will see if I can Find a way to include a couple of the other elements as well So let's just go ahead and pause for the purposes of the clerk. So do you are you Where you need to be with the motion that we're debating at the same Okay, so as we move forward we can be very specific and clear about what we're trying to do um clearly the um Council members are interested in the vendor agreement. Um, uh, I would be willing to add Provide to council members Background information on the vendor agreement And business plan And I would just leave it at that because of my concern about Confidential information So council member brown and then a council member lover And then vice america did you Yeah, I um You know, I wish I could support this because I um, I do feel like It's moving in the right direction, but I feel like right now we are at a place where We Have not there has been no pressure to do anything and as a result Nothing has happened for a long long time and I do not want to spend any time hashing out or rehashing what has Been come before but I'm just saying that to provide the context for the sense of urgency that I feel about Asking the you know the parks and rec commission The staff and the operator to put their heads together to see if we can move faster And if we don't vote to say that we we are going to do that, then I don't see a whole lot changing so That is is a challenge for me. I also think that with respect and I appreciate council member Matthew is your willingness to Try to get some additional information from the vendor But I think a business, you know a business that has no business plan And I'm not saying the operator doesn't we just we don't have it and so I feel like that is You know a way that we could get a better handle on the you know the possibilities and limits because I don't feel like we have that now and So I can't make decisions about that set in stone a very very small percentage increase in our rates And I understand and we've talked about Not I'm not interested in Just moving so rapidly that there's a major sticker shock But if we're talking about less than you know, like maybe two percent a year increase for the next three years and we lock that in today Without seeing that having some of that additional conversation and and access to information. I just don't feel comfortable with that so I can't support this Motion we have council member clever, but If I could be for for clarification My understanding is that there's sort of there's the legal constraints possibly associated with some of the contractual requirements of our relationship with the vendor but also That there is a potential for us to get that information to use that information to inform the strategies moving forward and potentially accelerate those Does that preclude us from trying to get to where we want to be If we adopt it as is today in your opinion If I look at the city attorney to help answer that I don't think so I mean, I think essentially what the council is asking for is additional information to help guide that decision making if I understand So we can with the commission or with council follow up with that information to help to help guide where we go But I think it's a matter of the actual lease in terms of what can we speed up? Can we look at those percentages differently? I think I would Assume that we're limited on our ability to change those but I think there could be information from those that could help guide the council So if we were to adopt this but I guess for more sorry for further clarification So we were to adopt this plan tonight or today Then and then receive that information That that could potentially inform modifications to the plan essentially In the future, correct? Yeah, I think so. So I think it's kind of a both and if I'm hearing you correctly Okay, I'm going to go to councilmember clever Glover and then back to councilmember brown and then vice mayor coming Thank you. So very, uh, disappointed that we didn't accept the substitute motion And I'm also not feeling very supportive of this original motion variety of reasons The possibility of legal restraints. So I hear that but are there legal constraints? Do we know? It seems like we should explore Issues and then come back with these are the legal restraints before we Decide or had I've been aware of this motion in advance of the meeting I would have had an opportunity to review those documents. Yeah, I mean, but at this moment We don't know if there are any legal constraints so to require request or to direct the exploration into looking at Examining the current vendor agreement as well as some of the other aspects I think is isn't something that should be stopping us personally also, I think it's It's funny. I could use the term irresponsible But I think it is problematic to use the term rational When talking about a proposition or a suggestion being made by People on this body because that suggests that the suggestion that was made is irrational And I don't think that it is an irrational statement or an irrational goal To possibly come back at an expedited expedited timeline with a potential way to solve a deficit Especially when the staff said that if we gave that direction there would be the possibility to come back And even if for say you weren't able to come back on that first week of february You could let us know and say hey, I need another two weeks or whatever it is But it again creates that sense of pressure as council member brown mentioned Also, it seems like There's a desire to have the conversation of lease agreements behind closed doors. Now. I don't know is the lease confidential The lease is not but lease negotiations generally are right, but I mean this is to examine the current vendor agreements and then look at Different aspects of it with regards and then and then having a business plan. It just seems like We need to Especially with a operator that's operated for such a long period of time I have no idea how much their investments have been in the business the first time I've heard that they've made investments and they're not here to tell me about their investments. So I'm just really disconcerted about this and it makes me wonder like we want to close this deficit, right? So why are we doing it as council member crone pointed out? On a timeline now, this is a no fault of yours The staff so I want to make sure that's very clear But why are we as a policymaking body okay with the possibility of even after Plenty of years not meeting that deficit goal and not taking a more aggressive or proactive stance On making sure that people are paying their fair share and we are not again balancing our budget on the back of the poor Or low income of the community when they want to access golf. So I'm again really disappointed and I will not be supporting this motion I think we had council member brown and then vice mayor coming so then Yeah, I just want to make a comment on the question about the contractual relationship In no way am I suggesting that I would support doing something in violation of that or or proposing something like that I mean, this is a an attempt to have a conversation with the various parties that are involved to see if there's a way to accelerate our timeline here and So it if It turns out, you know, if the operator suggests that that appears to be in violation of their contract Contract then we can come back and revisit that and figure out what to do with her. There's nothing That there's no violation to ask the question. Can you provide us with this information? Can we have a conversation? so that's And that is um the reason that's how you would support you won't support the motion Even if that's incorporated into the action moving forward as part of the recommendation so that we can still be in action But still use that information to inform potentially an accelerated route If that were incorporated into the motion in the interest of trying to get us maybe moving on this potentially Um, I'm gonna defer to I can answer your question in a moment, but I'll Let people who are wanting to speak speak okay, just something to think on and then vice mayor comings and then council member so one thing Looking at what has been brought to us today some of the other recommendations that have been made by council member crown I think that one of the things that we can do is Move the item and then provide a motion that i'm Hopefully making as a separate motion, but and I can I don't want to state it all now, but Having this motion move forward and then having parks and rec the vendor The part um the parks department work on a business plan and to To bring back recommendations on the timeline for that business plan to close the gap I think that these are two separate things that we have an operations plan that we want to have for the golf course to move forward There's also a desire for a marketing plan There's also a desire for a business plan neither of which have been fleshed out And so if we can provide direction on that I think that's a separate item then moving forward the operations plan Has just been brought to us within the corporate with the incorporation of um the items that have been uh, suggested by council member, uh, crone I follow your rationale. Okay, council member crown council member matthews in the backs council member brown The whole reason and I consulted you before before this motion even to get your input was for There to be a little bit more democracy going on here that the parks and rec commission actually Looks at all of this We still can have this conversation I was I was trying to get more input from parks and rec when I saw the dearth of Of responses because the absence of the vendor here today. We don't have that information I don't think we have to move forward with the operations plan. It's not like it's not hinging Operations plan not you know our vote today. There's not going to be anything that different I don't believe that's going to take place Until we hear back from parks and rec In february in fact the director said we probably won't put fees up Green fees up until um april So there is some time here And I was hoping to save time in this discussion. So we'd have a future discussion But instead we're having this discussion now because there's a whole bunch more to say about the operations plan Um, that hasn't been said as well And I was hoping maybe parks and rec could look it over give us their input. They had a brief look at it They didn't really be able to go over it Super well Again, I think it could be a both and and we can still be in action and still refine along the way So I I think at a certain personally, I feel like at a certain point We have to make decisions and with the information that we have to the best of our ability And we'll have an opportunity to refine it So I prefer to move forward with something and then knowing that we'll refine it along the way So we have councilmember Matthews brown and then vice mayor coming to them. We'll go ahead and maybe I am also happy to add Condition that directs Um Staff working with the vendor To come back with Or to explore immediate options to accelerate the revenue above the currently stated levels through both Vendor Arrangements and fee adjustments So so that's an added element that I'll accept that As an additional as the seconder of the motion That yeah, uh-huh that kind of gets at some of the areas that we wanted to have vice mayor come. Oh, I'm sorry councilmember brown and then vice mayor I'm just going to reiterate. I'm not comfortable setting the green fees For because I don't think it's a both and if we set those fees Now without the information When I personally am saying I'd like to have that information in order to Make a decision about setting the fees Particularly given that we cannot interfere with the existing contract if that is the only way to increase revenues for the city That we are we are just eliminating that Leverage that opportunity that possibility for ourselves. So I don't Feel comfortable doing that today. I appreciate the language about In consultation with the operator considering, you know revenue, you know other possibilities, but To leave it in the operator's hands Ours as well Okay, um So you're saying you're suggesting then Okay, well You can go if you could clarify that for me because I again, I'm just I want to try to be clear about my position here To go back Talk with the operator Our own staff our own parks and rec staff and what you know about the industry and the market I mean, that's what's so important. What's out there and what could we do to just Accelerate a little bit and and I I fully endorse the Concept behind the initial proposal. We're not going to do a wholesale overnight one one being leap that That disrupts the The ecosystem But can we can we do some more to increase Our revenue and cut our costs In the shorter term so we can start closing that gap sooner You've heard this loud and clear. Does that get at what you were hoping to have address comes from brown? Well, um Unfortunately, no because Without setting a time for this to return to us um as a like I thought february was pretty reasonable um and Sending it to the parks and recreation commission Which as um councilmember crone suggested was a way to kind of try to flush that out before Coming to us to hash these items out without or you know with only part of the information and speculation about It you know, I died doesn't unfortunately. So um, I'm I can't support this I And then I just have one Take the vote just gonna See if we can make a if I can make a friendly amendment that we um Take the considerations that have been brought forward by councilmember mathews and the mayor and Send these back to the parks and rec commission And we bring this back for review after the council has had an opportunity to Review the lease agreement and the parks and rec commission How does that fit in? adopting the operations plan It would be putting it all on hold until after that review until after we had that review. That's that's a different motion Okay, I will second it if it's a motion Okay, why don't we go ahead and um I would suggest that I mean Pretty clear the direction this is going I'd recommend that you vote on the motion that's on the floor And then make a follow-up motion if the motion fails. Okay Let's go ahead and take the vote. Um at this point all those in favor. Please say I am I any opposed. No Okay, so that's a tie vote at this point So with so that was at councilmember mathews vice mayor comings myself voting in favor councilmember brown crone And councilmember glever voting against with councilmember meyers absent Okay, I would like to make a motion I didn't acknowledge you. I didn't acknowledge you quite yet. I realized that you I will acknowledge you But I saw councilmember mathews and then vice mayor comings and I'll come back to you So councilmember mathews vice mayor comings councilmember crown What's typically done or sometimes done is to bring it back at the next meeting. We'll have seven people Um, there will also be a week for people to think really hard on this So that's a suggestion Vice mayor comings. Yeah, I'm just going to just stick with the friendly amendment that I had that we you know Is now a motion which is now a motion to yeah, the motion will be to um adopt the recommendations that were brought forward by um councilmember mathews and vice mayor walkins um with The understanding that they will come back to the council and parks and rec commission after Each group has had a chance to review the agreements with the That the city made with the operator So a motion to adopt the original motion but have that temporarily Under review for further suspended suspended temporarily suspended until brought forward Is that correct? I'm not I'm sure I guess I'm not clear on the motion so the motion would be that we take what was agreed upon by councilmember mathews Council and mayor walkins that will go to the parks and rec commission for review And it would come back to the city council after Both the council and the parks and rec commission have had a chance to review the agreement between the operator and the city Okay, so there's a motion I just interject that in the absence of a Of a majority vote on this item the Councilmember guidelines require that the matter be brought back at the next meeting If the tie vote is the result of an of an absence So it seems that that's already predetermined for us at this point. Is that correct? I think it's not unlikely So why don't we go ahead and just recognize that this is just going to come back to us for further discussion Based on our city attorney's interpretation of the fact that the motion failed on a tie vote. Is that correct? Yeah, what the rule says specifically is that a tie vote during the absence of one of or more council members Shall cause the item to be automatically continued typically to the next meeting Except as to matters on which action must be taken on a date prior to the next meeting Okay, so I interpret that the same way that you do which means that we'll go ahead and move this I am concerned about it coming on the next meeting agenda to be quite frank with you So it might have to be it's not required that you have okay, so if we'll have some discretion over the timing so There you have it We have no action at this point tie vote. So we'll have it return at a future meeting in the future time You can bring that proposal forward at it We're going to go ahead and have that motion withdrawn at this time because of the fact that that already predetermined the outcome Councilmember matthews I just want to say if it's not going to come back for a couple weeks That gives all a good chunk of time for people to get a lot of information and maybe come up with some further suggestions Vice mayor Cummings does a motion need to be made for us to receive the contract to be able to review that because That's been the biggest concern That'll be I think that could be done just a request to staff. That's a request That can be included in the packet for the next councilmember curtain Well, and also my interest is also creating a culture of Of when the parks and rec commission I I'm pretty sure the parks and rec commission Did not take up the the original lease and I think that Delegating responsibilities like that Gives the council, you know a broader input when it comes to us And so that was my main thing of sending this stuff to the parks and rec was to develop a culture of folks reviewing Really important significant stuff. That's within the realm of parks and recreation Okay Okay, okay. So we're going to go ahead and move on to item number 19 Tony hi All right, still here. Here we go. All right. This one will be short. Harvey Westpool. Okay. Go right ahead. All right So this is regarding the harvey west pool And let me switch over is it coming? Okay. Thank you All right The volume is up on this. We'll have a nice audio in our transitions here. This should be exciting. I don't know if we'll have it You can barely hear that Sorry That's a park little parks and rec Uh addition there. Okay. So the background on the harvey west pool So similar in the context of the discussion in the spring budget hearings The city council directed staff to look at different options to operate harvey west pool On a more regular basis. So a little bit of background here Beginning in the early 2000s The city council directed parks and rec the parks and rec department to make cuts to the harvey west pool To reduce expenditures. So similar discussion to what we're having today In 2008 the department ceased full-time operations of the pool in an effort to reduce costs and increasing Contributions from the city's general fund to support operations. So again, very similar story Since 2008 the department has leased pool programming operations to an external contractor Jim booth swim school And the pool has remained open only from march through november each year During the 2020 budget hearings The city council directed the department staff to explore operational options related to harvey west pool Again, it's open seasonally operated by jim booth swim school for swim lessons The parks division Maintains and manages the pool from an aquatics and facility standpoint The recreation division manages the contract with jim booth swim school And coordinates special events at the pool such as family fun day So again the background the city council expressed interest Back this spring in evaluating strategies to open the pool year round So the purpose of the document that's part of your agenda packet this evening again an operations plan of sorts The the purpose of that is to present the operational and fiscal details Related to the current operation and a couple different options For future year round operations. So we'll get into these. So this is pretty straightforward. Hopefully on this one So option number one. I'm not sure if you're catching that sound effect there So it's it's a dive into a pool. I think is what that is Um, the so this is the current operation as we mentioned earlier approximately 172 000 a year to operate the pool With annual revenues in the ballpark of $74 000. So the net General fund impact each year is about a hundred thousand dollars. Just shy Under any of these options option one two or three that we will discuss we really need a capital investment at harvey west pool The boiler and our heating system Is failing and we've barely patched this together to keep it up and running But we also need accessibility improvements from an ada standpoint facility upgrade. So any of these options The recommendation from staff is that council approve or consider approval for the fiscal year 21 budget capital funds that could go to Making these necessary upgrades at the pool Unfortunately, these are not available for quimby funds or park tax funds since they're Main interrelated. So it would have to be essentially general fund cap dollars for this option two the estimated annual budget for a year round operation is approximately 1.2 million The estimated annual revenue is 400 000. Now the assumption there is that we could get to 400 000 But it's going to take a little while. We've not operated the pool year round um in almost 20 years and so I'm sorry a little over 10 years, I suppose And so we would need to get back up to this point of revenue, but we think once we get to that point We could bring in 400 000 dollars in annual revenue. So the net General fund impact would be about eight just about 800 000 a year Another option would be the um a potential partnership. So we've had discussions With sanikers county parks that operates simpkins swim center And there may be some economies of scale with simpkins. They Obviously know how to run an aquatics facility Down to they make their own chlorine. So They they know how to do this. So we have discussed with the county a potential opportunity To work with them such that the city city parks would still maintain the pool Um, uh from from a maintenance standpoint operation standpoint But the county would oversee the day-to-day operations the lifeguard function The front desk function as well. And so under that model we estimate That we would have to Upgrade our efforts um in terms of maintenance. So that would be a new maintenance staff new supplies and so forth Um, so we estimate that our city annual budget would be about 427 000. Under this model though county parks would recoup all of the revenue So they would take on the cost of operating the pool much like our operator at the golf course in a way But they would capture all of the revenue the key for the county county parks is that They they would have to break even it would have to be a break even proposition for them to to do this If they were to make profit then that money could come back to the city or we could establish a profit sharing A model with the county, but the first order of business would be for them To know if they could break even in this relationship So we're right to the recommendation. So, um, we um in the context of The budget reductions that we made into fiscal year 20 and forecasted budget constraints staff recommends that we stick with option one at this point, which is the the um existing operations at the pool With about a hundred thousand dollar subsidy annually We also recommend that council Consider the strongly consider the needed capital investment for fiscal year 21 For the heating system and facility improvements And the last bullet point that's up here. This really comes from the recommendation that the parks and rec commission made Yesterday evening. So we had this idea. We had this idea that's floating around That we've called our community access idea and the idea is is pretty simple It's that if we were to open harvey west pool year round Let's make that investment in a way To lend toward getting every youth to our pool to learn how to swim We are a coastal community water safety is a huge Important priority and so we've discussed internally this idea That rather than focusing on revenue. So this would fall into revenue policy rather than focusing on that revenue What if we essentially subsidized swim lessons so that every kid in santa Cruz Could learn how to swim and if they want to do advanced swim lessons They could go to simpkins or elsewhere But this would be a way to engage every every youth every member of the community to get them to the pool To become water safe and get that baseline swim lesson To do that there's obviously a cost to do that And so what the commission recommended last night in discussing this idea Is that they recommended Staff's recommendation here to choose option one But they also recommended that we make this effort to engage the community for example A donor a sponsor who could help support Community access to swim lessons. So the recommendation before you Is what the parks and rec commission recommended last night as well So open it up to any questions. Well, thank you Okay, um, I just have one question Which you kind of answered which was the constraints of the quimby funds Um, but in terms of potential capital dollars to to seek Would um solar or Monterey Bay community powers or something like that we Has that been floated around as a potential option for a more sort of sustainable system there? Yeah, it's a good question. We have looked at on bill financing potentially. Um Uh, Travis, do you want to weigh in on any of this? Yeah, let me get a little bit more details We've looked at options. I'm not sure the specifics Okay, I think there are a couple of issues at play here. Good evening, uh, council Travis back superintendent of parks um What uh, Tony was just referring to is we have been exploring with public works the option of paying For improvements to the heating system through an on bill financing mechanism If we were able to do that it would not require the input of Capital funds either from the general fund or from our parks taxes um We've also explored the possibility of doing a low interest loan Through the ambag The neither of those would create the sort of solar or all All green approach. However, uh, we have put in place existing variable speed Pumping systems that we're not able to fully utilize without making these capital investments. So were we to Through whatever mechanism create the Fix the boiler problems that we have we'd be able to get the energy savings that come From the other technology that's already in place Other questions Councilor Matthews quick one, um, it sounds as though We really need to budget for those capital improvements how we pay for them is We'll get to that later. That's Correct. Yeah Could you remind us how this got back to us? Uh, this this was an item we discussed during the budget process back in the spring And it was a I think a directive to bring it back similar to the golf discussion to look at different options To operate the pool year round. So we brought it back So basically the option one is operating the pool how long? Uh from each year from march through november And through that we could There are different ways I know there have been different ideas among council members and community members on different types of programming that we could do at the pool So adopting the the the status quo if you will in terms of operation Doesn't preclude us from still being creative in terms of new programs. So there are things we can do within that time frame But again, it's march through november and largely working with Our contractor through jimbooth swim school What I heard was a consensus from council at that time that we wanted the pool opening year round So I guess this is the only option either we spend eight hundred thousand dollars Or or not that's that's that's our only option going forward Or the third option which would be a partnership. We look at this partnership with the county Such that the county would run the the daily operation So it wouldn't be an eight hundred thousand dollar would be a 400 plus thousand dollar Net annual impact. I'd love to hear from other council members if that's at all And I mean we've been at this for many years. I know we all have and we'd like to see the pool open And it's not serving that many people right now Okay, I'm wondering if there's any more questions at this time for staff and then before then we can move into deliberation and action question Yes So why Option one and not option three is there a reason you don't want to work with the county and do the revenue share Um, we I think really we're looking at it from the from the budget context, but I mean really Um, we're just seeking the direction from council on this. We're relatively objective on it. I think the fight. Whoops I'm not sure what I just did there. I'm sorry, Bonnie Um So the the final option the recommendation anyway Um On option one leaves the door open to find a way a more creative way to open a year round. Thank you Um, and that would be to find to find some sort of Sponsorship or grantor an endowment in some way if you will to help run a year round. That's something that Um, this I this idea of getting community access to the pool at no cost is a relatively new At least among staff a new concept that's come up So we haven't had time to pursue it leading to this presentation today for council okay, um and Do you see a value from your perspective as staff to subsidize that to allow for 24 access 24-hour access to the To the pool considering that we're spending Roughly twice that to subsidize the golf course Yeah, I think there's a need I think there's a lot of interest in the operations plan that we put forth There's a a market much like the golf course. We've got a pool market Um, and we know that swim lessons are expensive And so there, you know, that's kind of where we lean toward how do we get Affordable or free swim lessons out to the public. So we see a lot of value in it and really again, we're relatively objective on this in terms of What the council directs us to do the county is enthusiastic about this We would need to work through an agreement with them That we would bring back to city council If council directed us to pursue option three and what's the time on it? I just I just heard that Transfer sound so now you're talking about it sounds like a rain stick, but Yeah, what what's the timeline associated with option three That's a good question We would work with the county following direction immediately following the council meeting This week getting into next week It's a good we'd have to coordinate with them in terms of their budget cycle what our budget cycle is We I suspect would bring a budget recommendation to the city council In march april may of next year for fiscal year 21 So what I would suspect is that It's a good question It would be great to open the pool in spring or summer of 2020 But it's going to be right before the budget cycle so we'd have to reconcile that timing. Thank you And I'll just one last question before we open it up to public comment My understanding is option three could be an element that's explored in option one It doesn't necessarily it could be a component of that really those types of sub okay So I'm just saying I think the other one's more encompassing which I actually I really like the idea of Every kid being able to learn how to swim for free in our community But that could also incorporate a partnership as it is further fleshed out in the future Okay, one detail that the park superintendent mentioned to me is our lease with uh gym booth swim school as well So we'd be similar to the operator discussion at the golf course. We'd want to be sensitive to that existing lease Okay, makes sense. Okay. We'll go ahead and open it up for public comment Those here who want to address us on this item. Please come forward and you'll have up to two minutes to speak to us on this item I've been here for almost three hours two minutes seems kind of stingy, but I'm a swimmer I lap swim. I have two great grandchildren. I have brought them to the pool all summer long this year I bring the kids on monday and friday. I swim Tuesday thursday saturday and sunday There are not only children in this community There are adults and there are elders who would like lap swimming programs Who would like to have some water robics and I want that pool open all year round It is a gem in this community and it has been wasted for years And I want that pool open all year round for everybody for the entire community And as far as Jim Booth is concerned I don't know, you know having free swimming would certainly conflict with his program, but um I definitely would like to see some programs for adults for seniors in particular I have a daughter who has a disability swimming is the one exercise she can do I have no cartilage in my knees in my shoulders swimming is the one exercise that I can do It is so conveniently located for west side residents And I would really truly like to see it open and thank you. Thank you Even council I want to echo the previous uh previous commenters comments I laps home as well at UCSC and Simkins They both have issues UCSC has access issues as well as closure issues when it's been closed all summer It closes during school breaks and just You know if you want to go up there at night, which people who work usually do sometimes It's just it'd be great to have a pool in town I think it's a basic expectation of a city of our size and wealth And um, it's it's crazy that it has been open in it Most parks programs are subsidized as the director mentioned at the beginning of the golf course presentation I think this was aside from public safety Water public works. I think the pool is sort of a basic the most basic city function And I think it's a disgrace that we haven't had it also in the the the report You mentioned I think it was under option three under the longer discussion. You said keeping it open until six That's not sufficient if you're a working person and you want to lapse when you need it to be open at least until seven Um, there's another way as well St. Lawrence of valley residents can use the SLV high school pool for a very nominal fee now. I'm this is my property tax Assessment there's 10 separate special assessments that I'm paying For the city schools. We paid one of the bonds. There's there's six bonds and four special assessments One of the bonds was to to build a high school pool Why can't you guys talk to the the city the school board and get them to do what sand Lorenzo valley high does and open Up the pool at night for the community. It only seems fair They ask us as a community to support them and we do i'm happy to i'm not begrudging them this But they should give back to us as well. So I'd like you to maybe parks can Looking to that as another synergy with with simpkins, but I really it's always irked me that you know, and it'd be so great It's a great location. So Thank you Are there any other members of the community who would like to address this on that item on this item? Seeing them we'll go ahead and return back to add to the council I'll just honor the input that we received Particularly that it is a resource for people of all ages and just really hearing you in that regard for elders for the lack of Options for low impact and for those who may have disabilities. So the pool for everybody So really just want to acknowledge that We'll go ahead and bring it back for action at council member brown and we'll see where we can go Thank you for The report and thank you for giving us some options here, um, which I think Are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I think we've kind of that's been corroborated And so I want to try I have a motion that I'm prepared to make And I but I do want to I'll put it out there and see if I can do that in the spirit of kind of supporting what has been recommended what the parks and rec commission is suggesting as You know possibilities to explore and also Um Not interfering with our lease agreement with the swim school but with the intention of moving forward in Being more expansive in the pool and access to the pool. So my motion is and I don't know Can you is it possible to put it up Johnny from the email? It's very um It's very simple to sink to sink So I'll just say it and then Bonnie can put it up if people want to look at it and try to wordsmith it But I'm trying to be succinct So my the motion would be that the council one express its intention to open the harby west pool to the public For as much of the year as feasibly possible To a point of subcommittee and I'm going to just go out on a limb because the two council members that I have talked About this with and who have brought forward with me in past years are Also interested I think in working on this in a more concerted way A point of subcommittee comprised of council members brown and mires And mayor Watkins to work with the parks and recreation department staff To develop options for funding pool operations I would add here if the parks and rec commission is interested It would be great if there are members of that commission who would be interested in Kind of signing on to work with us. So I'm not sure if that would need to be official or if we could just kind of if we do Go in this direction just invite them But I just want to express that interest And three return to the council with specific options at the second meeting Cross out the in january this would give us some time to have more of that conversation and You know kind of see Ourselves to recommend the cip investment For the next fiscal year and try to begin to look at how we might move towards year-round Access beginning Sometime, you know, whatever point in 2020 or you know when we can we can find kind of figure out What other options there are for for financing? I know I mean it's going to require a subsidy if we want to do this but I'm really excited that There may be interest for that and that parks and rec Staff are and the commission are interested in looking at that with us. I mean we're subsidizing other functions We have left the pool has been sitting there. It's a beautiful pool has been sitting there for 15 years And with like all kinds of people wanting to use it and I just feel like it is You know, it's it's I think it's it's in all of our interests to to really push More aggressively to try to do that. So I'll second I'll second the motion And and just thank council member brown for bringing it forward Because I mean we I think this has been as to what was already expressed. This has been something that for years We've shared I think majority of the council has shared even the prior council wanting to see movement on and We have this incredible resource that we need to figure out how to provide access to The only thing I would say is second meeting or near there for the sake of the mayor who may have constraints with agendizing For that sort of practical purpose Yeah, absolutely. I'm just trying to get us You know somewhere in the early in the year so that we can have time for the budget Okay, so a motion by council member brown seconded by myself Council member clever and then councilor matthew. Thanks just to give some clarity on the the motion So is which option is this that you're none of the above none of the above so express it It's intention and to open the harvey west pool to the public as much as Of the year as feasibly possible So year round is is what I'm hoping will be feasible And with the Second meeting in january is there a reason you chose those council members? Uh, well, yeah, I can tell you why so, um, What I think one of the first conversations I had with um, mayor Watkins when we first Got on the council was about this and we brought an agenda item and so we At that time expressed the intention of you know wanting to move in this direction and we've, um, not been We've not had the follow-up that you know, we could have and then at budget time council member ryer's approached me because she knew that I was interested and so I felt like just having Heard that and that there was an interest from these these two council members to You know roll up their sleeves and work on it with me that But you know that that's so that was my thinking you know, we could Do that together. Okay, um Council member matthews and then council member crumb and then vice mayor Cummings My support this is quite open-ended feasible will include some kind of fiscal Considerations and it also leaves open Any number of possibilities currently kind of being discussed which would be sponsorships or Contract arrangement with the county, etc. And it from what I read that's those are still in early stages So, um, and this really doesn't affect anything for now. We just keep going through end of this swim season Okay, council member crumb and then vice mayor Cummings and council member clever then maybe we could take the boat I really like Tony's idea of getting people to swim in Santa Cruz. I think it's a wonderful, um Thought and dream and and I but I also the person who came to speak because my mom was the same way She used the pool to get some exercise because you know, so I think we have to make it for everyone to swim in Santa Cruz I wonder if the maker of the motion would entertain putting, um, what was it? What was the price of number three? 427,118 If you'd include that because I think we both know you and I both know that if we don't attach any money to this It's just going to be another thing that's going out the door And it's going to get lost somewhere and we're going to be back here a year or two from now talking about the pool again but I think If we suggest to our um a city manager that hey, this is important to the council. Let's let's find the money. There must be trade-offs um So you're talking about the general could I if I could to clarify um the putting the Anticipated general fund impact for a city county partnership On the table without add that add that to your motion add the 427,000 as a fiscal impact I just don't see but how it's going to happen. I'm sorry You know, I think if I could maybe if maybe I could offer a little bit of clarity I think one of the things is that um, it could be that price or it could be more depending on what's feasible and impossible And that this could be a potential element that's explored as a cost I mean as a kind of a cost share operations type thing So I think it could be a both and but ultimately recognizing I think what your intention is behind the suggestion is that we want to put resources behind this intention And I think that's something that both council member mayors Council member brown and myself share and so if if absent sort of a specific funding amount The resources and behind it will absolutely be considered That's a little accurate. Yeah, so I'm if you can we look at the motion or I can look at the motion Because so I guess um it and then just to follow up response I'd be a little concerned about attaching a dollar amount that is um specific to and the county city partnership option um I think may suggesting, you know If we could and return to the council of specific options um Honor around the second meeting in january um, and you may or Watkins you said something about um including Invent financial resources to be yeah, the you know options for investment Invest yeah for funding is that capture. I think ultimately what I think the intention is Okay, that feels accurate to me and it could be more or less than that amount But it's essentially it could be that we're gonna it could be more resources behind it I just confirm it now on on or around the second meeting not at the second meeting Honor around the second meeting in january with specific options including um Funding, you know, yeah financial resources I think we yeah, I think that sounds good from the staff perspective. I think obviously this affects the general fund It affects the parks and recreation budget potentially So as we've thought about That dollar amount. What is that investment? I think it's right in line with what we're saying I think we've thought about that as part of the fiscal year 21 budget process Which I think can start certainly in january february into march, but I want to be sensitive To that in thinking that you know if we are Committing $400,000 to the pool, which I think is great. I'm just Uh, I've got a bit of anxiety of where that comes from because I think ultimately it's from parks and rec Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah We understand and we'll work out solutions. I think is that hopefully be the work No, actually we close public comment at this time I was just going to say that Yeah, the second meeting in january what we have we have a mid-year budget update schedule too So there'll be more up-to-date budget information and and you'll have the ability obviously to talk about the budget then too So it correlates in that way. Yes Motion to call a question. Okay, is that appropriate or I'm sorry go ahead Okay, would you want to withdraw your motion? Yes, I would draw a motion. Excuse me. Councilor. Thank you. Um, so I just want to Make the comment of my disappointment We had a great opportunity today We could have left the meeting with a development of a business plan and revenue analysis for ways to close the deficit on the golf course And incorporated a democratic process of incorporating the parks and rec commission We could have walked out of the room right now with a plan for a 24-hour access to a pool and creating a stronger partnership With the county and moving forward towards that solution and all of the other programs and benefits that that would have offered to it But instead we have in my opinion given no real direction zero direction on the golf course because Of the splitness of this body, but then on this Why respect the intention of the motion? the It's so open-ended And it gives is there's no real pressure except to come back to the second meeting of january Which again is In the future What's going to happen when's it going to happen is going to come back more conversation when we could move forward on it and it's just more talk which is To me very similar to the issues of homelessness that we're dealing with here in Santa Cruz as well as a variety of different things So whether people are having lack of access to a pool or having to sleep under a bridge We are consistently sending into commissions or committees or for talking or for analysis as opposed to taking action Which is what we were elected to do. So i'm really just disappointed in our inability to Move forward with seemingly anything uh of importance Okay, so well all those in favor of the motion before us, please say oh, did you have additional comments before we move? Oh, sorry. No, actually I didn't have all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously So we'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting until 7 p.m. At which time we'll have oral communications Okay, well good evening everybody Welcome to our 7 p.m. Session of the september 10th 2019 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council I'd like to ask our clerk to please call the roll Councilmember it's crone Happy to be here Here So right now we are about to have the oral communications portion of our agenda And oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to items that are not on today's agenda And if I could get a sense of who's here to speak to us that and items that are not on today's agenda Okay So we usually allow approximately a half hour for oral communications And what I'll do is invite up anybody who wants to briefly speak to us for one minute first And then we'll try to capture everybody else so we can get a sense of Who we can capture within the half hour We want to hear from everybody and we want to Ensure that there's this is a space where everybody has an opportunity to speak to us Without a threat or intimidation If you have a sign, I'm going to ask that you please lower your sign to Approximately your shoulder length and if you're blocking or obstructing the view of the person behind you I'm going to go ahead and ask you to put down the sign Mr. McHenry, I'm going to go ahead and remind you to go ahead and if I see the sign go up And it's blocking those behind you I'm going to ask you to put down the sign and if you refuse to put down the signs I'm going to go ahead and ask you to please leave So this is an opportunity for all to participate in government. We want to hear from you It's my responsibility as the facilitator and mayor of our governing body to ensure decorum is met and I do want to Respectfully request that those who are here this evening for oral communications or for the 730 item Respect their fellow citizens and their abilities to participate in our government I'm also going to remind the community members who want to address the council either now for oral communications or later during our public comment portion of our agenda For the 730 item that Your opportunity is to address the council and we sometimes have staff addressed or the community addressed And and folks sometimes feel inclined to turn their backs to us. It's actually The the the protocol is for you to address the council. So if you do turn and Start to address the community or address the staff. I'll ask that you please redirect your comments to the council And if you refuse to then I'll go ahead and ask that you take a seat And if you want to continue your comments to the council, you'll be welcome to for the remainder of your time But this is an opportunity and this is how The government operates in a way that feels safe for all to participate in it So I will go ahead and invite up anybody who wants to speak to us in one minute briefly during oral communications For items that are not on today's agenda If not, we'll go ahead and start the two minute time frame A one minute comment Approach the thing and talk to Chris Okay, well that won't be until after the meeting Well, we'll see when we end. Okay. Well, we'll go ahead. Why don't we go ahead and get started for the Oral communications items not on today's agenda. Please step forward and you'll have up to two minutes Honorable mayor and council members. My name is Sue Powell. I have been a resident of Wilkes circle for 36 years I am here to ask for your support to prevent the demolition of the circle church at 111 Errett circle I know that you are all familiar with the proposed subdivision and development plans for the property I have submitted three documents for your review The first is a statement from friends of the circles summarizing our concerns The second is our save the circle church petition with 871 signatures We'll be getting more And the third is an article that describes good city planning with a focus on creating lively and diverse neighborhoods And that provides a model similar to what we have in the circles neighborhood with the circle church at our center As you know the property at 111 Errett circle has been a spiritual and community center for 130 years The site and the circle church are historically significant But have been overlooked by the city's historic designation process Perhaps because the church is modest and simple in architecture and in a lower income neighborhood Younger churches in more affluent neighborhoods are included on the historic building index, but the circle church has been ignored If the circle church had been listed by the city of Santa Cruz on the historic building index Normal procedure for the proposed development Plan and demolition permit application would include review by the city's historic preservation commission Because we believe that the circle church is historically significant We would like the historic preservation commission to be allowed to review the proposal Including the project review as an agenda item at a public meeting of the historic preservation commission Would provide an opportunity for community members to voice their concerns for protection of the circle church I have very little time left but what I'd like to say is the circle church and surround That's it. You're welcome to leave your comments with us and we're happy to take a look at that. Well, most of it's in what I Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay next speaker, please Hi My name is John Sears. I'm a resident of the circles neighborhood since october 1976 and One of the things I like about Santa Cruz is it's a community with a lot of artists and some people are dedicated to truth and beauty and not just Chasing the the drudgery of money grubbing every square inch of where we live One of our local writers jonathan franzen was recently published in the new york times or new yorker magazine an article with a cheery title What if we stop pretending the climate epox apocalypse is coming to prepare for it We need to admit that we can't prevent it In it. He says that anyone under the age of 60 will witness the end of civilization or perhaps the human race I'm almost 72 If it ends, I'd hope to be there Still hoping it can be averted Why do I passionately advocate for the preservation of the circle church as a community asset and not just another disingenuous sacrifice of the but we need more housing Montra of the development interests who are not solving our low and moderate income housing issues jonathan franzen Said at best keep doing the right thing for the planet. Yes But also keep trying to save what you love specifically a community An institution a wild place a species that's in trouble and take heart in your small successes Any good thing you do now is arguably a hedge against the hotter future But the real meaningful thing is that it's good today as long as you have something to love You have something to hope for so i'm hoping that you will join with us in preserving this Special place. Thank you and thank you for your community service I'm jan harwood of the raging grannies And i'm capi israel of the raging grannies were connected with wilf And we're um speaking on singing actually on behalf of a great many raging grannies past and present Let's see We all want civility Let's keep it formal If you feel strongly you're abnormal But here in santa cruz. We don't recall Cause someone has tons of gall We need to listen To the planks of you know who Those bad bad boys Crona and glow much for the poor Just ignore insist on the floor Heard won't be deterred Let's hear they might say something brilliant Yes, sir, we treasure civility But in a democracy Everyone can have their say Oh, hey, hi bruce thomas and i'm here on behalf of do4 neighbors I'm going to be a regular presence here because um It's time to really get some follow-through on the petition the do4 neighbors filed to the city of santa cruz One year ago. You've heard me talk about this in the past There's still some ongoing issues. I'm gonna There's one in particular i'm gonna bring up tonight, which is that of double parking delivery trucks And it's affecting the health and safety of the street and neighborhood it came about because um the city approved building permits Allowing a bank building to be converted into two fast food franchises and never allocated or specified a loading zone So the neighborhood has suffered the consequences of that and we're trying to get it fixed It's taken a lot of time and energy from a lot of people So I would hope this problem doesn't happen again in the future But right now we have two solutions floating Grateful for council members crone and brown coming out and surveying the situation two fridays ago And we came up with an idea of where the loading zone for blaze pizza could be the trick of this Property is there's two businesses. So they kind of need different loading zones just because of their loading schedules And but on on friday of this past week We got a visit from two members of the transportation department and they insist on trying to park the loading zone for both businesses Right outside the starbucks. It's not realistic. I sent an email And so i'm asking the city council to please help oversee or supervise that we get a solution here That really be long term and effective. It's been going on for a year Listen to the neighbors. Maybe we do have some good inputs And um, I also asked the city council if we could help facilitate Meeting with the new building the new property owner because um, he will be part of the long-term solution also So thank you very much for your help My name is lee brokaw in the spirit of mike ravella. I intend to read the rose report into the record Page 11 before staff makes his presentation regarding the homeless agenda item We observe councilman crone immediately raised point of order quote We are not done with oral communications yet We observed mayor walkins interrupts councilmember crone to say you are not recognized The video shows councilmember crone confirms he is addressing mayor walkins Repeats he has a point of order and asks the city attorney to look what point of order means and states his belief He does not need to be recognized by the mayor to raise a point of order The video shows councilmember crone then states I am profoundly saddened and I apologize if there was anything that I did The video shows mayor walkins interrupts councilman crone to say We'll go ahead and pause your comments if we could for a moment to allow the city attorney to respond to the question before you The video shows City attorney reads the definition of point of order that among other things allows for a point of order to be raised immediately Permits the councilmember raising the point of order to interrupt the speaker The video shows councilmember crone responded. I was actually trying not to Try not to interrupt and wait for you to finish Martin Bernal spent 18 000 of my money On a report and there are recommendations And it would be unconscionable of this mayor to not take up those recommendations All council members should avoid making public accusations of misconduct and bad faith against one another without first privately And internally addressing these concerns and attempting conflict resolution rectifying when possible for all members of city council should immediately participate in professional mediation and conflict resolution Mayor has that been scheduled? next Gareth phillip I Oops needed glasses. I was going to read this and then I read it over and it's a little snarky and petty so I But it met well at least the way I like to mean things In that it did talk about the false narratives that are so pervasive here that are really a big problem and I mean i'm not going to go into the green new deal a lot of people like it But it is probably the biggest false characterization false narrative ever in our lifetimes And it just goes over people's head. They don't question the lies There's a Like for instance, and it isn't a big deal, but say earlier There was that speaker that talked about the marine sanctuary whatever that was and I didn't catch the whole thing But the part I looked at was her with her picture of the oil derrick in the ocean and talking about oh the poor use usb students having to wipe tar and oil off their feet and everything and You know kind of implying that that was why that was but I went to usb for two years and you know There's a six mile rift in the channel islands that leaks tons of oil For millennia and will continue to do so and those beaches there will have oil and tar forever And those students will be wiping it off forever and it's not a natural disaster. It's natural But there was you know a three million gallon spill in the channel islands in 1969, which was You know the truth and it was an environmental disaster and it was arguably the single With a catalyst that started the entire coastal environmental movement in california And was the basis of every coastal environmental regulation for 50 years And uh, that would be more like the truth, you know, and so I don't I don't kind of like the false narrative approach of blame and stuff I'd rather go with the Reality and truth and and we hear Next speaker, please My name curtis relevant Dear god, please give me the words to say up in here right now Am I going to mess up if I say something about drew and and chris With my time at the end of the meeting you could go ahead and pause his comments This is an opportunity for you to address the council for anything that you want to address us on for two minutes Well, y'all this ain't right. I heard about this way back in el Paso And el Paso got me in touch with how many people are getting killed and shot over trying to do something, right? These folks I see them down there beating the concrete talking to the public bringing people together That ain't no easy test I drive a peace truck saying love compassion caring and sharing and they call them me nigger this nigger that Go back to Africa. You can't park here. You can't do that Man, where are the good people change people with guns and weapons? You got permission to do that and I got permission from god to serve this book of the constitution How many are you are in touch with love compassion empathy for all people? And still are the money. It's a money raise hall Man, I appreciate what y'all been doing. I appreciate all the encouragement you gave me I appreciate all the work you've been doing out there I honor what you've been doing man and these people who bringing this stuff up If they ain't got time if they judging you they ain't got time to love you They judging you they too busy to love you when they wrote this book. What no black people's up in there So you got something to deal with mr. Guru you got to deal with all of that I get criticized left and right brother 15 years now But ain't letting it stop me and don't let it stop you all because you're doing the right thing You're doing the right thing man. We need people like you We don't need all these complainers talking about what you can't do and what you can't Lord Jesus come up in this room That kiddles and accrues Tomorrow is the 18th anniversary of 9 11 And uh, you know, it's okay if we stick to the script Some crazy muslims did 9 11 But if we present factual evidence That a certain clique of jews were primarily responsible for 9 11. Whoa, that's hate speech And it must be censored the sentinel censored me for doing that. They banned me from their Comments. I didn't make any threats. I didn't use profanity. I didn't use slurs. I didn't spam I merely stated facts and I invited anybody to show me where I was wrong Nobody ever showed me where I was wrong. All they did was say, oh, well, some people said you're anti-Semitic I'm reporting you and so I got banned. Well, that's kind of the way it's been for 18 years now There's a lot of evidence that israel did 9 11. They were primarily responsible Of course, they had cooperation from others, but it was Primarily israel and it's mosaad Which engineered 9 11 they had the they had the means they had the motive and Nobody else but the cia had both of those so If you go to a website my favorite website, which is in my opinion run by an honorable jew by the name of run Unz Unz I highly recommend you remember those three letters and look up The uns report simply you and zeal get you there now this guy Ran for governor of california at one time a brilliant guy highly ethical He will run everybody from the horrible people on the right To democracy now You and zeal look him up israel did 9 11 Hello, at least casby. I asked that I not be filmed, please. Okay. Um, I'm here to talk about the yellow journalism that has been Utilized by the sentinel and the good times. It's been utilized by department heads in our city manager and the police chief It's true that we're living in times much like the early part of the 20th century the robber baron period is quite well known I think it's been referred to a lot these days Yellow journalism was distinguished or actually discredited by its use of anecdotal information and sensationalist journalism Flat out lies and distortions It was an era marked by greed Piracy when it came to things like land use and so forth and we are sitting in the middle of it here in santa cruz It's so disappointing We have department heads who repeatedly completely and smugly defy reports by experts and and uh, you know pretty much underpaid consultants such as dave seppos Who are making rec recommendations to try to bring some harmony? and some What you might I don't know. It means lack of bias, but some kind of objectivity to the council that so that it could work together And it seems that his recommendations although in front of the public the mayor and others Pretended to care about his recommendations. They've been flatly ignored uh police chief, uh The police chief who has directed people to a bigoted film on the homeless Is that I mean do we have to have a police chief who really only wants to serve a small part of our population? But most of all right now. I just want to call out the sentinel Stop printing the lies Stop printing misdeeds when in fact They were minor errors Good evening council members. My name is grace blakesley and i'm staff to the santa cruz county regional transportation commission Thank you for hearing us this evening I'm also staffed to the regional transportation commission's elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee The elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee is one of two citizen advisory committees to the regional transportation commission It advises the regional transportation on different transportation policy planning and funding programs And really looks to advocate for the needs of people living with disabilities and seniors Annually the elderly and disabled transportation advisory advisory committee develops an unmet transit needs list This list is used to advise funding recommendations as well as policy needs Representing the seniors and people living with disabilities We currently have a number of vacancies on our committee And i'm here tonight to invite you and the public to contact rtc If you are interested in serving on the elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee We are conducting a variety of outreach activities We have fliers on the santa cruz metro as well as paratransit vehicles And we have newspaper ads running as well as public service announcements And we also invite all those watching if they are interested in knowing more about our committee to contact info at sccrtc.org Thank you very much Hi council mayor brent adams representing the warming center program tonight Really honored to talk about the warming center and i want to invite you back a little a little about a year ago to Shelter plan that was put forth by this council two of you weren't here But what was actually going to happen this time last year was that there was going to be Moving towards the navigation center interim shelters that were never established in five different different neighborhoods were proposed And there was some resistance What ended up happening was there was no winter shelter proposed at all this time last year There wasn't going to be a winter shelter. So the warming center We we we follow in and try to get ready uh to protect anybody else who doesn't make it into the winter shelter They population cap traditionally at 100 people last year there was going to be uh, uh, with the finally, uh, Opened for 50 people, but the river street camp closed So, uh, what warming center did was prepared to open for twice the number of people on twice the number of nights That's not with not one penny of city Money and a little bit of money for watsonville. I want to invite you in to now is anytime you think or talk about winter shelter You also have to think about warming center warming center. It opens for everybody else. There's only one City council person or former city council person in this room We're showing the royan whoever has even visited the warming center program I invite all of you to at least darken our door to see what it's like It's truly all volunteer community supported shelter for everybody who doesn't make it in we keep the door open all night long We have a hotline that anybody can call and we'll go pick them up at any hour of the night It's truly the one thing that is is saving people's lives Of so whatever you think about shelter or whatever imaginations around Uh things we're doing around homeless sheltering warming center always has to be on the top of your mind and thinking about that It's it's been glorious. Thank you Before we before you get started Mr. Norris you're speaking on behalf of not on the evening item at this moment for oral communications Okay, you'll be our last speaker unless mr. Posner. Are you planning to speak you're speaking in front? Okay Are you speaking on the item? The on oral communications items not on tonight's agenda. Are you speaking later for the evening item? Okay, we'll go ahead and have you wait until we have public comment for that So, um, you'll be our last speaker in front. So you'll be our final three. Please. You'll have your full two minutes Great. Yeah, um, you know, I really appreciate go ahead. Sorry pause. Forgive me Why don't we go ahead and just chime her in then at this moment Yeah So count just for the for those in the audience or those watching at home council member mires is calling in for this evening session And I think Okay, okay Please you'll have your full two minutes. Great. I hope she's enjoying Paris I like Paris. So maybe she gets to be involved in some of the yellow vest protest So, uh, I really appreciate that the council has decided that they're going to Create policies in the event of an economic collapse As we already know we're unable to handle the number of people living on the streets currently Because there's been a lot of blocking of solutions and denying Agenda items to be put forward to try to solve these problems So your interest in in actually dealing with the Huge increase of people moving on to the streets, which is likely to occur In the next year or two I really appreciate that you are developing these plans already to help Make a comfortable transition here in Santa Cruz for those people losing their houses And your suggestion of having housing in place for people whose homes are being foreclosed on I think is brilliant The idea of of seeking new ways to use the abandoned Storefronts on pacific and then throughout the community. It's just fantastic that you're thinking ahead like that And I really appreciate the idea that you are Considering some transitional camps that are self-managed with sanitary facilities Unlike the one at 1220 which could use Showers and and and drinking water two things that you would think 20 million dollars could afford But for some reason is unable to be achieved and Because of the eviction from ross camp we still see many many people living in doorways And on water street and in the bushes and and so on because it turned out there really wasn't A shelter space for those people. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, mr. Mr. Norris Oh the ninth circuit court has ruled that expressive behavior at the microphone Whether singing cursing or turning one's back Which I'm doing now On the mayor and the mayor's agenda is we'll go ahead and pause this time We're going to go ahead and pause this time people in the audience should know this I'm going to go ahead and ask that you please sit down and and You're welcome to face our I spoke with our city attorney in advance around oral communications and public comment And it's up to you to address the council and we welcome you back. I am addressing the council. I'm addressing it with my back I'll continue with what I'm saying. I'm going to go ahead and pause your time And ask you to sit down and I'll go ahead and ask you to leave. I'm in the middle of my oral communication No offense met We're going to go ahead and we'll go ahead and take a break. Okay. We're a nursery school Mr. Cagnati, can I get your opinion on this, please? I think it is important that the chair not address the agenda It seems to me that this is just The brown act it allows a member of the public to address the council on any item of business that comes before the council Okay, so this is not addressing the council. I'm addressing the council. I don't I'm addressing you Okay, we're going to go ahead and ask that you go ahead and sit down Is there anyone on the council who can't hear me with my back? No, I don't think so Okay, mr. Norris. I'm going to go ahead and ask you to leave. Okay. I'll go ahead and ask our sergeant of arms Right under the brown act to be here. You know that Okay, well then we're going to go ahead since you're unable to allow us to conduct city business And you're disrupting our proceedings. We're going to go ahead and ask you to leave Madam mayors refusing to leave unless he's arrested you have to make a citizens arrest and we'll see you in court If that's what you want to do. I was told by our city attorney that you can take his advice and go to court And meet me there. Good. We'll go ahead and do that then. We'll go ahead and do that then If he wants to stand there and put his back towards us We're going to take a break we're going to have five minute break We're going to go ahead and take a break. We're going to I know I wanted to finish my two minutes Well, anyway, I guess if we're Hi, sherry sherry peterson well What when I moved to town? It was a sweeter town people People were friendlier and people walked up to you with food and they wanted to share their barbecue or Their loaf of bread or you know, we made friends easily. It was Much easier to live in the town, you know, I've been in the street. There'll be six years here And another week or so if I make it Last year I must died on September 28th, and I lost three and a half quarts of my blood. So I'm glad that I'm still here It's hard to be here because there's no best to where I go And I live in my van, but I'm begging you I am begging you to get a shelter We need a shelter we need if you can't find a place that people can be A camp like at the university or somewhere in all of the parks harvey west park There's a million places that you can think of that are just Like the vets hall or whatever in the daytime for people and the permanent people people need somewhere to be Everyone needs somewhere to be I need somewhere to be I have to get up at dawn and Wait for the first bus, which is like five hours from when I wake up or what You know and it's ridiculous the bus system needs to be 24 seven There'd be a bunch of homeless people on there with They're scared because we have no shelter And I think you ought to think of that as an option I mean there should there's a million options out there the university land over there at the camp in the village Nothing's happening. There's no carrots potatoes nothing, you know You could have some part of a here or the family over here could be the people that don't want to pay attention There could be just children over here the students going to college You can make use of that land instead of leaving it as the field and the farmer Whatever every time I hear that I'd say what? Field and a farm your time is that please help us Okay So that is going to go ahead and conclude oral communications I'm going to go ahead and check here with our our clerk to see if our Call-in council member is here quite yet. Mayor could I just um I just wanted to direct if it's appropriate There was two issues that came up the circle church Folks were saying something about the historic preservation. I was wondering if staff could come back to us And see if that's something that could be agendized on the historic preservation commission And then the due for neighbors Sounded like something that could Possibly be taken to the transportation and public works commission for an opinion and a discussion because it I was out there. It's not going away City attorney kandadi or city manager Bernal well the council can't take any action on those items, but we can look into it and report back Okay. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Okay. Are we good to go or do we? Oh, okay, well we can hear you Thank you for calling in council member mires. We're just getting started with our 7 30 general business item And i'll go ahead and announce the title at this time So um as I sort of uh spoke to earlier, but for those who are now just joining us what the process will How the process will go is we'll have a presentation from our staff Will allow the staff to present without interruption at which time then the council will ask any questions for clarification by our staff Once those have been the questioning has been concluded then we're going to go ahead and open it up to public comment I'll ask that folks who want to briefly address the council for one minute feel free to come forward Then we'll honor those who reached out in advance for a group presentation To come forward and then we'll have the two minute public comments time frame I'll remind you then and I'll reiterate it now. We do want to hear from you We value your your opinions and we hope that you um have respect for your fellow citizens as they are able to voice their Opinions to us at that time as well as respect for our staff when they're presenting to us during our time So there will be a time and place for everybody to weigh in who wants to weigh in At this point we'll go ahead and ask that those who are from our staff presenting on this item Please come forward and this is item the one evening item. We have it's the main beach public access policy and I see tony elliott Coming forward, so we'll go ahead and invite you up to do the presentation Councilmember chrome one moment, please I was just wondering if it'll be appropriate if you know how much time your presentation will be so people in the audience A lot of times they're frustrated or they they don't know how you know they have to go and they can't stay that long Yeah, good question. I would assume Maybe 20 minutes or so on the presentation All right, we'll get going here All right, good evening. Good evening mayor and city council members for the record tony elliott director of parks and recreation All right, thanks All right over the course of mid august Until the current date overnight camping as many know on main beach His increased very rapidly The city over the course of these two or three weeks has received numerous complaints and requests to address the unmanaged encampments Developing at the beach City staff has concerns related to the potential for increased litter Waste syringes and potential for fire risk at the municipal wharf Daily maintenance or i'm sorry daily beach maintenance and operations have become increasingly challenging for staff as well And at times threatening to staff Park staff are having to dodge campers Currently on the beach to clean the beach each morning In order to properly clean park staff Really must be accompanied by a uniformed law enforcement official at the moment So what that literally looks like in the morning? When our team goes out to sift the beach sift the sand and kind of comb the beach We're dodging all the camps on the beach in order to have camps move Temporarily so that we can sift those areas and clean the area We have have to have a uniformed officer out there to accompany us to to help that help through that process essentially So it's an impact daily on parks and recreation staff The recent increase in unmanaged camping is on top of already ongoing challenges at main and cow beaches Related to syringes litter and public safety, which we'll talk about here a little bit more The city currently has a curfew in place at cow beach, which is effective from midnight Until one hour before sunrise That includes the area underneath the wharf as well Currently main beach though does not have a curfew in place, which is what we're here to discuss in part this evening So what we'll focus on here in the staff presentation Is the status of the current beach camping kind of what's going on? We've got a number of photos that i'll fly through here very quickly Information and data associated with public safety And i'll ask the police chief and potentially fire chief and others to come up and speak to this item And then some of the applicable ordinances and regulations the beach management plan until look toward the the city attorney to weigh in on some of those details So the status of current camping as of monday yesterday, there are approximately 40 campsites on main beach And this kind of varies it's hard to say exactly what a campsite Is but approximately 20 campsites Located near the volleyball courts approximately five Underneath the wharf kind of taking refuge and shelter under the wharf At about 15 down at the river mouth at the san lorenzo river So This again has ballooned from just a couple weeks ago at the aloha Polynesian festival during that event the parks and rec event There were literally one or two tents on the beach and this is a matter of two or three weeks ago So we've seen that number very quickly increased to this number Somewhere between probably 35 and 40 tents So just a number of photos just to kind of provide some context if you haven't been down at the beach just Some of these at the river mouth some of the debris Just kind of move through these very quickly here And some of the impact here obviously there are tents on the beach, but we're seeing this expand obviously into our restrooms into Beach street and some other areas shopping carts and so forth So yeah, we've just got a number of pictures here. I want to reference this one really quickly Here's a bag of charcoal and I think the fire chief or somebody from the fire department is best equipped to address this but we have signs at the entry of the beach that Literally say this is not coal country and that is because what happens with hot coals They're buried in the sand and they will stay hot for a long time So if kids or anybody on the beach may step on those it presents a potential hazard So again, here's some of the tents underneath the wharf So just a quick snapshot on on kind of what's going down going on at the beach Some of the community feedback that we have received and I'm sure this is not all encompassing I know the city council has received a number of emails and correspondence from the community Parks and rec in particular is heard from the dream in the beach boardwalk The business community the chamber of commerce the volleyball players on the beach the junior guard Santa Cruz junior guard and boosters Numerous residents so there's all been a lot of community feedback on this which I think is a big reason why we're here at council to discuss this based on that community feedback So again, I mentioned that the the growing Encampments on the beach are on top of some challenges that we already have at the beach So just to put some of these numbers out there on an annual basis the past two years The city parks and recreation staff the wharf crew collected 265 needles at main and cow beaches And to 2018 that number increased to 530 syringes at main and cow beaches The locations of these vary it's on the beach. It's at the river mouth some in the restrooms Some some disposed in trash cans, but a lot of these are are on the beach There are other organizations that are collecting syringes. We know that save our shores And the dream in perhaps among others have data On syringes as well in terms of an august comparison. So again, this camp has really Developed quickly in the month of august here into september For some reference in august of 17 Six needles were collected At main and cow beaches last year it was 28. This august was 40 needles at the beach In terms of the environmental quality. So the city's wastewater Department the public works department did water quality testing last week on the 5th of september And the next two slides this indicates the water quality on the east side of the municipal wharf What this is showing is that the bacteria levels. So this is fecal coliforms The bacteria is a thousand times higher than what essentially what it typically is and beyond the standard the dash line that you can see is the How do they have it labeled the sample single single sample max here and I'll Lean on the public works department to speak to this exactly what this means And so forth, but their chemists share this data with us in terms of The bacteria levels just from The Trying to look at the dates here nine six and then the week prior to that So in a matter of a week Our bacteria levels on the east side of the wharf where the camps are have dramatically dramatically increased and so this is a A year-long horizon that you're seeing so the at the very front of the graph you're seeing what it was at this time last year so a drastic increase In bacteria in the water We'll go ahead and ask that you you'll have an opportunity as community members who want to speak to the council on on this At public comment at this time. We're having a presentation From our staff. So I'd ask that you please Remain quiet so that our staff member is able to present to us and we'll have an opportunity to hear from you later Please continue All right from a staff perspective Again, tornado articulate a little bit what the park staff is dealing with again. We are having difficulty frankly doing our job 100 day-to-day basis We're weaving in and out of tents just trying to sift the beach and trying to keep it clean So that's a major operational challenge literally every morning We do have a and share a concern of fire We have a wooden wharf And there are camps under the wharf there are potential for fires We've got a major concern with fire under the wharf Especially with one point of ingress and egress on and off the wharf that that's a lot of concern We do have concerns also with retaliation. So our park staff have experienced cases where Citations on the beach Due to to various violations have led toward retaliatory behavior ranging from vandalism of facilities and restrooms to threatening behavior to to human waste outside of restrooms We've also recently experienced unmanaged camps as we all know including gateway plaza and the ross camp And we've seen how conditions can quickly evolve to be unsanitary and unsafe which causes us concern at these camps And I would say with respect to managed encampments or transitional encampments City council and staff reviewed several options in the spring for potential sites For future managed camps and the beaches were not on that on that list for consideration So we would not recommend the beach as a location for a managed camp Let alone in this case an unmanaged camp. So I think That's a broader discussion on where camps can go a transitional camp But in this case an unmanaged camp at the beach Is not recommended by staff I'd like to send it over to the police chief chief mills to talk about calls for service Good evening mayor and council members. I'm andy mills the police chief and We're going to take you through some slides to as best we can articulate the calls for service that we're seeing on the beach And in the beach area So this year 2019 we've had 261 Calls for service as opposed to the same time last year, which was 254 and you can see previous years there was a little bit more It certainly depends on some of the events that are taking place in the beach area However, as you can see in the in the future slides That the time of day when these calls are coming in is mostly during the middle of the afternoon In the day, that's when alcohol gets a little bit more Heavy and and there's a lot more people at the beach So when people leave the beach there's not as many people to call in complaints And so therefore we have to proactively go and check some of those things so so you can see it tails off pretty quickly After after the heat of the day is done Types of calls for service. I think is where the details are So 261 calls that we've received were for camping Another 109 for medical emergencies And 91 for being drunk in public And and then a variety of other ones such as municipal ordinance violations 80 and disturbances 69 Missing juveniles at risk 57 children getting lost on the beach and so forth and you can read the rest for yourself I think what this slide tells me is that the kinds of calls is indicative Of some of the calls we saw at at near the Ross camp Which is what would concern us is if there was Additional people down at the beach Who are staying there? And that could increase the calls for service as well as the types of calls that we don't want to see at that location For us to be able to adequately address The issues that are popping up on the beach in my opinion before it gets to a point where it becomes unmanageable We need tools to do enforcement Because of the Boise decision we can't do just straight camping We do go down and write as many tickets as we can and warn people and offer assistance to people to go other places As well as housing that's available But at the same time For those that choose not to go there does need to be some leverage that we can employ In order to be able to get people off of the beach And i'll turn it over to I believe Susie is next Or you're next. Okay, there you go All right, so again some context on the existing curfew cow beach Has an existing curfew that starts at midnight And expires one hour prior to sunrise A little bit of the nuance here I just want to explain is that the curfew applies to the dry sand area of the beach And not the wet sand the wet sand area is open 24 hours and really the idea here Is that for surfing for example or fishing that people can access the beach They can walk through the dry sand area to access the wet sand area or access the water But the curfew what it does is Prohibits essentially setting up shop staying in one place during those During those curfew hours. So this is much more flexible than a lot of the other curfews that we see around the Monterey Bay area state parks for example A natural bridges state beach Closes at sunset and doesn't open until 8 a.m So it's a much longer period of time and during that closure it's closed For us our closure would be much shorter 12 a.m to an hour before sunrise And even during that people could access the beach To to paddle out or swim or whatever they might be doing Again for some context the beach management plan we enacted In 20 excuse me 2014 The beach management plan guides the activities of public agencies and private property owners This is the guiding document that we use In coordination and association with the california coastal commission in terms of what activities we do at the beach Um, the beach management plan as it says here is a means to protect natural resources provide for public safety And maximize the extent and quality of the recreational experience For residents of Santa Cruz residents and visitors of Santa Cruz So we are going through that process as a department currently to update that that's a five-year plan That expires in november of this year. So this discussion of the curfew Activities at the page lends right into that process with the beach management plan In our communications with the california coastal commission Two weeks ago at city council. We worked on a new city council policy regarding park hours And that was accompanied by this administrative policy order this apo that forgive me is in very small text But I put this up here not to read through but just to reference that two weeks ago the city council Um adopted this and recommended that we move forward with this apo to guide us in these exact type of situations and so I brought out a couple of those criteria the environmental criteria that we've referenced already with bacteria in the water and some of those issues And in the public safety side of it as well in terms of Everything from unlawful behavior to vandalism and so forth. So really going through the apo We've referenced what we discussed two weeks ago and we've gone through that process to come to you tonight With with our recommendation that we'll discuss momentarily So I wanted to send it over to the city attorney. Tony kandadi for a general legal review Yes Thank you, tony First of all the backup a little bit the 2014 beach management plan Incorporated a beach curfew that restricts access to the dry sand portions of the beach During the hours of midnight to one hour before Sunrise it does not speak to the question of camping on the beach at all And there's a simple reason for that and that is that Prior to the martin versus boysy decision The city had the ability to enforce its camping ordinance chapter 636 to anyone who set up Attempt and attempted to just camp out on the beach Anybody else have that problem? That That was odd That same applied on main beach We didn't need a curfew on main beach to Restrict the ability to set up an encampment there because Chapter 636 applied And when the martin versus boysy decision Uh was adopted and as you recall from our discussion back in april until we amend chapter 636 To make it consistent with martin versus boysy. We aren't able to enforce that Ordinance at this time on main beach that same rule applies to city parks and other city property or public property The exception is however if someone is creating a nuisance in a city park We have the ability to enforce the park after hours ordinance elsewhere But because of the interplay between Our police power authority to protect public health and safety and the coastal act which requires a coastal development permit for any Action or activity that changes the intensity of the use of land These guidelines have been developed in order to give Cities the limited ability to restrict access to beach to address specific health and safety concerns So the resolution that's been prepared prepared is consistent with the coastal commission guidelines and And is limited to make it consistent with those guidelines and so This is all based upon a june 1994 beach curfew guidance document issued by the former executive director of the coastal commission peter douglas and In ratified by the coastal commission in 1999 and what it requires Is before adopting a curfew the city should make findings effect sufficient to us To enable a reasonable person to conclude That a public safety problem in fact exists on the beach that warrants the imposition of a curfew The findings should also include a discussion of what alternatives to the curfew were considered And why their implementation would not effectively address the public safety problem And then it goes on to say that a coastal development permit will not be required So long as the curfew is narrowly tailored in the following respects first The geographic area to which the curfew applies should be specifically identified And should be limited to those beach areas with respect to which the city has identified the public safety problem Warranting the limited beach closure Second the curfew should avoid The prohibition of all public uses of the beach during curfew hours and to that end It should authorize and make provision for fishing The use of the wet sand beach Area for other purposes typically associated with beaches Such as walking surfing paddling swimming kayaking sightseeing and nature observation And the curfew should allow for the possibility of permitted special events on the beach during curfew hours Further the hours of dry sand beach closure should be minimized So as to assure that the beach is only closed during those hours when it is Reasonable to conclude that the public safety problem that the curfew is intended to address is most acute And Generally the guidance Specifies that the hours of midnight to one hour before sunrise are appropriate hours And lastly that the curfew should contain a sunset provision In this case the proposed sunset Uh Of the curfew would be six months which would enable City staff with input from the council to Bring forward a an update to the 2014 beach management plan potentially to address adopting a similar type of curfew as part of that beach management plan Or not depending on whether or not the council believes that adequate findings can be made Um, so those are the elements evidentiary record documenting the need for curfew a finding That there aren't any reasonable alternatives To address the public safety issues that have been identified limited geographic area with specifically identification of the area to be To which it will be applied Allowing public uses during curfew hours and Minnable curfew hours And posting of notice for the public access policy what this would do It would enable the city to apply its park after hours regulations On a limit in a limited basis to main beach During the time that the curfew is in effect for that six month period Happy to answer any questions the council may have Is that the conclusion of the presentation? I think the city excuse me city attorney covered the the recommendations here I think relatively well, but yeah, just to recap here the request for the city council is to implement the main beach public access policy Authorizing the public's use of the dry sand portion of the beach To establish the curfew as we discussed midnight to one hour before sunrise I don't know if you want me to read through this entire thing There's the language that the city attorney covered there the second piece is the Directing the main beach public access policy automatically sunset as the city attorney recommended And then Declaring that a doc that the documented conditions are requiring implementation of the policy constitute a public nuisance So as the city attorney mentioned that's a key part of that curfew process that the coastal commission Guides cities on from the 1994 document. So those are the three pieces of the recommendation. I'm happy to answer any questions Thank you for your presentation I'll go ahead and see if there's any uh council member questions for clarification at this time Council member crumb and vice mayor just a couple um so Martin v. Boise is in place right But it says that if there is enough shelter beds or Accommodations Then we can ticket Folks who are camping So i'm wondering A is there in a do we have sufficient shelter space and b How many are we short and how much more shelter space would we need to accommodate? Our homeless population on any given night Yeah, yeah, so we can answer this we have adopted standard operating procedures as you recall That the council approved specifically to address encampments like this and I think Yeah, thank you councilmember crone suzie o'hara assistant to the city manager um Good thing is that we have a lot of experience in this forum So i'll talk a little bit about what our plan is and how to get to the conversation about what um What shelter beds are available and how best to outreach folks that are out at the at main beach So the number of shelter beds unfortunately is not actually the silver bullet in this equation It's more of how to develop A robust outreach strategy that gets to the individual needs of the folks that are out there So for instance at the ross camp We had people that entered into detox. We had people that homeward bounded We had people that went into our shelter bed system Both our emergency shelter bed system, but also our mental health Bed shelter system as part of the hopes team And we had motel vouchers. So thinking about that entire spectrum of stock that we have in our community It really is incumbent upon us to have that one-on-one interaction with folks and understand their needs We do have available shelter beds right now. It does fluctuate night by night The good news is is that we do have beds now and beds to offer And um, we do have really strong partnerships with the salvation army and our local hotel system That has also offered the motel vouchers as well So then we can take it because we do have enough shelter space I think that's the legal part of the question and um I don't think that moving forward with a limited curfew on in this particular area implicates Our ability to enforce chapter 6 36 Which is the camping ordinance? And so we would not be citing people out on the beach for violating the camping ordinance Thank you vice mayor coming Just a couple questions and susie. Maybe this one can go to you first How much time will we need in order to conduct outreach and provide alternatives because I would imagine for example if we adopt this and You know, we said effective immediately That's you know, pretty much like four hours until people have to get off the beach And it might be a little unreasonable to kick people out in the middle of the night. So I'm just wondering how much time would be Appropriate in terms of when this should go into effect from your perspective and then other members of staff as well So there's two sides of that equation There's the capacity resources that we have from staff side to do the outreach and go through the standard operating procedures Which requires a 72 hour notice But there is also the from my perspective a need to ensure that we are able to go tent by tent and have those individualized conversations we have convened an internal Encampment assessment team here at the city that is comprised of a multitude of city departments We met today to kind of talk about strategy should this curfew go through tonight And we're going to meet again tomorrow morning and kind of come up with that tactical plan But you do need to balance both the capacity and resources that we have from the city staff perspective and also with our partners Across the county as well as the sheltering partners and motel partners But we are also obligated to give that 72 hour notice So it it won't be happening tonight from from my perspective Okay, I just wanted that to be clear from the public's perspective and just so we have some clarity on the timeline of when this would take place Have another question Part of this is a bit I know that for some folks it might be a bit confusing You know the idea that you can use the dry sand to get to the wet sand But at the same time there's curfew on the dry sand So can we kind of get a clarification of what that means? So like if i'm walking across the dry sand at night to the wet sand That's okay. If i'm on the wet sand, that's okay, but if i'm hanging out in the dry sand, that's not As long as you have a house, we'll go ahead and we'll go ahead and have our staff answer this question And i'll ask our community members to refrain from making comments and disrupting the council meeting We'll have an opportunity again to hear from you during public comment. Feel free to read the Uh Consistent with the coastal commission guidance document The intent is to allow people to get access to the wet sand portion of the beach to engage in in whatever beach Rated activities Are available and so yes, it's essentially It leaves the dry sand portion of the beach open as a means of accessing the wet sand But not as a means of just remaining in place on the dry sand portion of the beach Thank you So thanks for the presentation and all the different staff that went into making it happen Um So the wet sand a little confused. Maybe you could explain that to me. Um, I'd send you an email Day before yesterday or some something like that with regards to a map or some kind of visual representation on to where that line lands because I was just looking up the language for the coastal commission And it talks about 20 feet inland of the wet sand area, but it has to be within the mean high tide So do you know where that falls on the beach that would constitute the wet sand area for people to be Not allowed to be on it That's a good question. I think in city attorney, please chime in here when we're thinking of the wet sand Portion of the beach. It's literally where the tide is at that moment. Literally the literally the wet sand I think in terms of the mean high tide Um, I think identifying that it's going to vary by season. It's going to vary by weather There's going to be a lot of factors there. Um, and I believe right before this meeting We got information back from tiffani wise west And usgs with some of the feedback on that response So in terms of the mean high tide and some of that discussion will provide that information as a follow-up But when we're talking about the wet sand portion of the beach, it's literally wherever that wet sand is I think it at the moment and and would that city attorney kandadi Correlate with the coastal commissions policy language on action 4.3.6 of the public beach closures in curfew I'm not sure what directly what specifically you're pointing to. Yeah, it's from the coastal commissions policies on uh public beach closure in curfews So just their language in their policy packet Um, I would have to locate the specific language Mr. McKenry, I'm going to go ahead and ask you to please lower your sign I uh believe that the sign is obstructing the view of the person behind you So I'm going to go ahead and ask you to please lower your sign To respect your fellow citizens in the audience So could you just say that again? Looks like the document you were referring to um indicates that at least 20 feet in from The wet area of the beach would be considered The wet sand portion of the sand portion and then with the mean high tide as Director Elliott mentioned it fluctuates throughout the season But I looked on the Monterey Bay average tide charts from the national or the federal government and says it's about a 4.6 with regards to the mean high tide So is that suggesting that the enforcement of this curfew would be from the 4.6 mean high tide level of the beach plus 20 feet? Mm-hmm leave The document that you just showed me referred to 20 feet inland from the wet actual wet sand wet area of the beach Yeah, it just says uh public or closure to public use of any portion of the beach inland of the mean high tide line Is not encouraged and requires a coastal development permit which must maintain the public's right to gain access to state tidelands So I don't know. I just wondering in a year. I came across this language rather recently So I just wanted to get your I'd be happy to look at that and report back, but Yeah, I'm not I just want to make sure we don't open ourselves up to litigation or issues with the coastal commission by violating their policy on curfews I don't I don't anticipate that that's going to occur. Okay. Good. We've been in consultation with coastal commission staff And then I'll I'll stop there for now. Thank you. Are there any other questions from the council at this time? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and thank you for your presentation I'll go ahead and orient us to where we are at this point in This evening's item. We're going to go ahead and open it up for public comments So any member of the community who would like to address the council on this item is welcome to I will ask that if somebody wants to just briefly speak to the council in one minute That use come forward and that could be we support the staff We don't support the staff, but just briefly wanting to share your insights You're welcome to come forward at this time Is there anybody who wants to briefly speak to the council in one minute? Okay, please step forward and we'll go ahead and Hi, um I I went with my son to hawaii to three different islands and over there you're allowed to sleep on the beach and And supposedly you get a five you get a you get a five dollar ticket if you don't get a permit But people live there as big families and they all get along and they have A usual dugout and I've been asking you for fire pits for years and years and years Like I've been asking you for shelters the back 40 was one of the best things We had in this town and now like it's all divided up and there's hardly any people that can fit over there You can't fit all of the people like used to fit over there that we camped out and You know, I felt comfortable over there. I spent the night there I I had I knew a family with eight children that lived there people got along there People volunteered to watch the bathroom day and night. We had bathrooms of glory. We didn't have to stiff through the sand for nothing Okay, thank you Hi there. I'm one of the board members of the junior guards boosters club and As you know, our children go down there, especially during the summer for the guards program It's a great program. As a matter of fact, a lot of the guards Members the other day helped out a life-saving technique at toilet bowls where there was an incident where a young boy Hit his head was unconscious It was the junior lifeguards that actually pulled him out of the water Anyways, there's always been a worry or concern about the cleanliness of the beach down there the needles And just the sanitary conditions and trying to get our children there on a daily basis The guards program is not just a great teaching tool but a lot of the People that live in the city depend on that Almost as a quasi child care During the summer. Thank you I would just like to make sure that If there were any sort of curfew that got got passed that the public would be made absolutely crystal clear Where the boundary lines would be? And and what behavior would be allowable like How do you define walking towards the wet sand? How do you define where the wet sand is? I think that needs to be crystal clear I also think we really need to establish that there truly is a public nuisance with data We've seen some tonight The fecal coliform just went back a year. I believe last year was one of the lowest levels. We've ever had A fecal coliform counts on on cowl beach. So I would like to look at more data beyond that I'd like to look at more Like the calls for service for last year to compare those to this year And just more data to really establish that there is a nuisance Good evening. I'm brett garrett and I just have this feeling that this situation is occurring because ross camp was closed Before there was an adequate place for the people at ross camp to go Um, I really appreciate the council members who tried to make sure that there was an adequate plan in place before closing ross camp Thank you Okay, so I'm seeing no others that want to speak to us briefly within the one minute. Oh, please come forward Hi, uh, I'm robin bloomy. I just want to say that I Oppose this curfew. Um, I view it as another means of criminalizing homelessness. We'll go ahead and pass. I'm sorry Go ahead and putt. I'll just want this is we're gonna allow this person to speak And without disrupting if we agree or disagree. So please continue without disruption uh, this is uh A matter that an issue that matters a lot to me extending compassion to our fellow humans It seems inhumane to me to institute a curfew that is deliberately intended to Displace people who are there because they have no place else to go right now and that's all One minute Yeah, so I just see it as as ross camp 2.0 and uh It's a big concern. It's right there on the beach and and i'm just wondering Like uh Here we go again, right? Like this is the same thing that happened last year and And it's like I wonder how much City council time police time planning staff How much money as a city we're actually spending Dealing with this issue and not like in research at the same way that you're researching uh What um, what it's costing to live here also. This is uh, it's just you know, it seems like we're focusing A lot of energy on a very small portion of our population and so um It's just it just because it's just overwhelming and I guess I guess my biggest concern is um Let me think uh is uh I guess if doing nothing and allowing this go to go on will definitely ensure that there will be a recall election So good luck Next speaker and you'll have one So a lot of the people who uh support this are the same people who oppose run control and let's just be clear We live in a town where average people just can't afford to live here I'm semi homeless right now and I have a professional job of 15 years and my family is dual income And like the cheapest one bedroom home Is would put me in the category of being retten burdened So then like people can't afford to live here and then we go. Oh my gosh. There's all these tents on the beach Where did those come from so you know like I I think Obviously, there's a problem camping on the main beach if we have the fecal coliform bacteria spiking. That's a real problem but We need some solutions for people to be able to Live in the city You know, of course single mothers are living in their RVs And of course like poor and working people are camping on the beach We can't afford to live in this town. We need rent control and we need a managing campment where people can go and be safe Hey guys super stuck to be here. Nice to meet you. I'm having fun So Unhappy users equal addicts. I just wanted to throw that out there. Thanks to drew and chris for being inspiration to me Like you have support. Okay from young people I'm the chair of the use of the youth advisory board. So right now i'm creating Homeless services for young people because I was homeless as a youth I was homeless as like an underage youth. So is that my fault some people might think so I don't think so It's really personal to me and i'm so glad to like see some of these like like good people here, you know Like showing compassion and it's actually not surprising to see some like really hateful comments from people as well But yeah, I just wanted to say something mostly gives you guys props Hi, i'm jane mule and I want to bring another aspect into this the um, the river mouth and the beach Is a area where the migratory birds come in and list Unfortunately due to all the camping that is happening so close to the river The migratory birds aren't able to land you see them circling and then heading back out They are protected so that to be considered as well and maybe have a biologist look at that Thank you. Good evening. My name is Corbett Wright. I own and operate the west cliff in at 174 west cliff I'm a law-abiding citizen who invests in and gives back to our community by supporting the arts second harvest and our schools Increasingly, I I feel like we're under attack by lawlessness We have always had a homeless community which i've endeavored to help through my church Um, but this is different The the drug use and related crime is seemingly out of control from a business perspective. I live there At the west cliff in our occupancy is down this year. It's been up every single year since 2007 which since we opened It's down this year. We have had employees threatened We have had homeless sleep on the front porch We have had homeless enter the hotel and try to use the microwave in the bathroom Our complimentary guest breaks have been stolen multiple times Vehicles have been broken into needles on the sidewalk our landscape has been damaged and you're welcome to email your comments I'll send you my comments. Thank you so much Any last one minute speakers here? I would just like to implore city council to limit my children's Exposure to human feces and needles which have been a regular part of their childhood And I like to imagine that my children who don't feel safe in city parks might still feel safe going to the beach I'm Sean Davis. I'm uh born and raised in Santa Cruz. I'm 51 years old Um, I'm also a recovered drug addict from 11 years. I've been homeless in Santa Cruz I'm a renter. I vote. I'm an African-American and I think I'm for this curfew. I think it's completely I agree that we need a solution Camping on the beach is not a solution to homelessness and it's not where people need to set up shop You know, we need to take care of our people and that this is you know, it's all people It's people that votes people that use the beach. It's homeless people. It's drug addicts. It's all of us We all need to take care of each other and this is not the solution That's what I got Mr. McKenner, are you speaking for one minute? No. Okay, we'll go ahead and have uh any last people who want to speak for one minute to come forward Okay, if not, we're going to go ahead and honor our presentations. I don't have a request from you So we'll have that open up later We're going to go ahead and invite up. Mr. Norris. You're welcome to speak on behalf of huff for your four minutes if you'd like Yeah, but we're going to go ahead and start your first on my list You were the first to request so you're welcome to come forward I prefer it if you'd like to come up now would be the time Well now's the time to come up if you want your presentation if not, we're happy to have you come a different time This is your four minute presentation on behalf of huff and I do it chronologically Will you requested a presentation on behalf of huff? You are required under the brown act to give members of the public the opportunity to address the council But not at the moment of their choosing Okay, so now would be the time if you'd like to address the city council for your four minutes Thank you for the clarification All right, so I'm speaking on behalf of huff homeless united for friendship and freedom, but I think it also concerns the entire community And um, I the reason I asked whether You can't hear me How's that? Oh good, we'll go ahead we'll go ahead and allow I was we'll go ahead Go ahead, but I prefer to speak this way because people can't hear me. I know I've observed it from So homeless people might otherwise be here are faced with a conflict because the catch presentation just let out And so this has kind of been organized So that people who are most impacted by it can't be here So we have this business of a drug war paranoia and anti-homeless hysteria We're various members of the audience before me. I don't know whether you spoke or not Are Expressing things vaguely, but we don't have the documentation that really shows a public safety minutes So needles on the street is of course an important issue no question But the issue is is there is is that a problem specifically related to these campsites? There's been no and you can't now you feel there is and I hear that from the audience and I appreciate that But but I think that you have to show do you have any evidence of that? I mean that's we'll go ahead This is not I'm going to go ahead and pause the uh time here This is an opportunity for you to address the council is brought to my attention You can address the council with your back toward back turn to us point good point And we're gonna not open up a dialogue between you and the community. So we'll go ahead and listen I apologize to the audience for that You can start the time back in all right. Thank you This matter has not gone through the public's safety committee It hasn't gone through the parks and rec commission which met yesterday It hasn't gone through the catch commission or the police chief's advisory body which met last week So it hasn't gone through any of these bodies. It's just here at slam bam Lynn renshaw special Right through and I understand some people feel very strongly about it But nonetheless It's important that there be a process where this happens because the same people that want to stop encampments generally in the city anywhere And I think that probably includes people in this audience Perhaps not Want this process for what they're concerned about? So this needs to be carefully considered it needs time You don't really you don't really have that situation now And that needs to be sent back to one of these commissions to examine it Particularly I mean the fact you have calls for service Is not it's not a crime. There's no indication of the number of citations Or the number of convictions or what exactly are the crimes and if you talk to people who are on the beach You find this is the cleanest campground area that actually It's no ross camp. Let's put it that way to use that kind of a metaphor Um, you need obviously more open bathrooms You don't need the horror stories of isaethrae or read the lagly which we got rolling at us from the staff here from Tony elliot and and chief mills Without really a lot of particulars. There were no particulars in the staff report The only thing we finally got was this sudden presentation here at city council I requested of council member clever that he send me this information in advance, but apparently he didn't get it either So, you know, it's it's one of these done deal things where justin comings is essentially roped into a council majority And rolls right along with the assurance that everything will be okay because the data will come in later um, I I think that that's Really sad and it's something the community has to respond to Um This Apo that's being used to close this down is a new excuse or what chief mills perhaps calls tools The tools to go after homeless people that they don't want on the beach whether they're committing any crimes or not And camping is not a crime, but it is in essence being treated as one here and this is a sneaky way to try to do that Thank you The next person no, we're still on we're if you're interested in the two minutes, you're welcome to get in line We're still on up presentations. So the next person who reached out was um a phil postener on behalf of conscious inaction And you're welcome to come forward and you'll have four minutes. Thank you My first of all, did you receive what I handed out yesterday? Okay, and can we put that up for the public to see why'd you go ahead and pause the time In in this document I tried to deal with the issue of the ethics That we're faced with regarding homelessness. So I have two columns on the left is A situation as described by a couple who's experiencing homelessness And on the opposite side is a couple that just got a new mattress And their dog gets to sleep on the mattress and I try to create a tension between the homeless people who Are trust are accused of trespassing on coral street And therefore are looking for another place to sleep. So they go to the beach Whereas the other the couple that just got the mattress They they have a dog that has a peaceful shelter place Dogs and human beings I just heard and I like animals too, but I just heard a comparison About birds A concern for birds on the beach What about human beings who have no place to go? And who are getting citations at coral street for trespassing? I suggest to you that the real issue is the lack of communication between The city council and its agencies and close quote homeless people And this doc this this whole new thing exactly reflects that it suggests that the public And the homeless are adversaries that there's an adversarial relationship and therefore we have to protect the public as if homeless people are not part of the public The solution I think is to create A committee of people People like me people from parks and rec from the police department Who and I think I do think that the city managers tried to do this to a degree To meet with some of the homeless people right now at the beach and say look at we have a problem We We know that there are drugs and their situation and evidently there's a rise in bacteria There is a legitimate problem homeless people who are living here But we also want you to have a place where you can sleep So let's get together and see how we can resolve the differences and make the The and arrive at a solution so that there can be Beaches for the public and beaches for the homeless people Lastly, I want to suggest that this issue this ethical issue reflects this whole thing about My god the public gets the parks and the homeless people get coral street or the river street camp if it's if there's enough people Why can't we use parks In an organized way or beaches in an organized way with Enforcement necessary when when it's required And at the same time Create a situation where homeless people don't feel like they are the adversaries As I think chris said or drew at a recent meeting Why can't we think outside of the box? San Francisco LA some of the other major cities are doing that with some suggestions with some Successful opportunities. Thank you very much. Thank you And then our last group presentation is on behalf of stepping up santa Cruz and we have surge here go ahead stepping up santa Cruz Hey, my name is surge and for stepping up santa Cruz for anybody who doesn't know me I made a website with immediate resources and stuff. So I do a lot of stuff with the homeless, but I really Like what the council does sometimes about wanting data and wanting to understand a problem So As rabbi posner was just talking about about negotiating communicating I wish that there were that the conversation was different about Each group making demands and opinions about other groups and it was more about the needs that absolutely I'm going to agree that no child should be stepping on used needles And no, but no child should be stepping on fecal metal absolutely agreed That doesn't mean that the city doesn't have the option to continue doing the The straining of the sand thing that they've already set up So it seems to me that these are mitigatable factors to keep people safe We couldn't find a place in any community that was willing to accept these people and they found a place where there's no homes Yes, there are absolutely issues about cleanliness and making sure the beach is safe and stuff like that Super true. So the question to me is is that possible? Not I assume it's not possible um the the question on public safety and accountability versus social services and Compassion there has to be a balance there because Three strikes zero tolerance capital punishment. These don't change people's behavior Homeless people will be sleeping outside. They will be defecating. They will be peeing people who are addicted will be dropping needles We're just moving them closer to people's houses again, which is not solving the problem Trying to get the social services in there and trying to get them to move forward and be engaged in the system In different services like ross camp that was a place that a lot of people actually got signed up for Calfresh and food stamps who hadn't been before because they just weren't accessible There Tony Was talking about the potential of needs in trash, but it actually hasn't even come up yet Like the numbers were not added significant So it's can these things be managed? Is there somewhere we can help them? Put needles or have trash cans the fecal matter is up the bathrooms are closed you could open the bathrooms and So for me Those are absolute issues, but it's how do you deal with these different things employees being unsafe? Absolutely employees should be safe Susie and you guys when you guys were talking about the depot park idea was just a nighttime thing It was going to be completely managed Well, maybe that's a possibility for the beach as long as depending on how much beach is available in the winter and stuff But that idea of it's just the night thing and it's managed for the things that haven't even been problems yet I just want to really be clear There was no data on actual problems on having calls for service Again, the police chief definitely knows also that calls for service doesn't equal arrestable offenses Like there's a super high percentage of calls as opposed to arrests Um, so the health and safety concerns is a potential if it was not managed Ross camp was not managed It was managed later when it was already spiraling out But managing things early. I think is something that we should think about Somebody said something about focusing a lot a lot of energy on a very small problem I think that uh, we're focusing on moving them and not moving them forward. I think that's sort of a difference Drug use out of control in that area. There weren't more needles in that area particularly found There's a lot on the national level there's a lot of stuff about the opioid Empodemic and pharmaceutical companies paying billions of dollars because of what they knowingly started and a lot of empathy for that But opioids got more and more I'll stop. Thanks guys So now it's the time for members of the community who want to address us in two minutes And if you kid, please line up to my left and we'll email Yesterday to ask for four minutes. I didn't receive your email Yes, I Yeah, I apologize. You're welcome to do two minutes. So if you like Okay, you're welcome to come forward I would like to do uh Be quick though. Yeah, you'll have your two minutes. Go ahead So, uh, I uh do a facebook page called homeless outside in santa coups Obviously, I uh Administered to the warming center program and coalition on homelessness and really I'm focused on on basic hopes I'm not an act activist. I'm not a protester But I'm trying to build things and try to bring the floor of our community up I'm trying to find ways to work together with the entire community Uh, I understand the fears of the community around poop and needles But I decided to go camp there That's my tent right there at the lower left or and I stayed there for two nights and three days What I found was starkly different than what we're hearing There were no, uh, there was no crime that I discovered. I overnight. It was pretty peaceful There were no needles. In fact, people got up and cleaned. I didn't see any police Helping with the sifter for the three mornings. I was there not one cop The sifter waited for people to move their tent over we moved our tent over we moved it back It actually worked perfectly. This is an easily manageable thing. Uh, there's there many spaces in between This these poles that we're talking about here Uh, fecal matter. I understand uh, this the cows you shouldn't even be talking about fecal matter because E. Coli goes up and down. We understand we've been talking about this for many years Uh, syntium matthew matthew's Can a test we at first there was a leaking pipe then it was a bird and uh Seals and then it was homeless people. That's why you put the curfew on cows. Uh, so it's kind of ridiculous Uh, what we have here is just a lack of planning. We're not getting out ahead of this I stayed uh, also at the benchlands and I spent a lot of time at the ross camp We're not getting ahead with transitional encampments that show promise all over the northwest. This is our our fault as a city Uh, um, let's not blame it on those people down there. They're actually behaving amazingly well Let me just assert. This does not qualify for coastal commission alarm That's this doesn't warrant it at all. In fact, there's no reason for a curfew Let's get out with some of these nonprofits and work with the people Let's let's find manageable ways instead of extreme, uh, circumstances. Thanks Okay, Garrett philip. Uh, I kind of think a curfew applies to everybody seems fair to me. It seems like, uh, You know As to all Anyway, some time ago I sarcastically suggested if we really wanted to advertise sand crews as a place where homeless would migrate Would be by having food dot bombs locate to in front of the boardwalk Maybe remember that that does not now seem like an unimaginable degenerative fantasy. I engaged in it is happening with a new ross camp Emerging on the main beach. You can call it main camp boardwalk camp. It doesn't matter It will be an unimaginable decline of public morals and Sacred places into a morass of people behaving badly defiant homeless on parade And an economic short circuit of a hallmark institution that defines the city There appears to be no boundary between the public good and total disregard for it It matters what our public spaces degenerate into whether they are preserved for all or allowed to become militant expressions of individual failure And self-reliance. Is there no place in the city whatsoever off limits to the spoil of public spaces? With blight and those that cannot function with respect for societal norms Let's get real. Santa Cruz has 560 more homeless than the state average per population No one wants to ask if that's too many except for me. It is No one truthfully wants to answer why It is because they come or stay for the free stuff be it a concentration of government subsidy Subsidy really mostly just here or a multitude of some nonprofits That's some nonprofits who do nothing but attract and subsidize homeless here in an orgy of back padding virtuosity For instance the militant demeaning public sidewalk feedings in front of major institutions Bleeding heart other blaming liberals abound But that hasn't made it better has it really only worse and they actually need to accept some blame for these numbers I know compassion is not genuine when it is accompanied by self-interest assertiveness rudeness militancy and disrespect There may not be an amenity solution Thank you, mayor and council members Dan smart director at dream in been working on cow's beach for seven years And we were very pro the curfew that is currently in place at cow beach and as well as looking into this to come on to main beach A couple things I wanted to look at and listen into some of the other folks that have been speaking tonight I personally have picked up over 15 needles on cow beach in the past three months Two of those needles directly at the entrance to my pool deck Were many and most of my guests and children's go to enjoy the fruits of what we offer here is our beaches in Santa Cruz Within my two minutes. I wanted to read a few comments Just so some of my guests and our guests that have brought over 10 million dollars of toot tax revenue to this area Not sure what you can do but the homeless on the beach with their tints is awful We want we went for a walk on the beach and had to turn around to come back not a good look for Santa Cruz overall comment card When you pay to stay at a lovely hotel, you don't want to see homeless people having intercourse on the beach It was quite disturbing and especially if children were to witness this display. We will not be back next year Overall guest comment card great stay overall the second day homeless were shooting up and camping on the beach right below us They also peep pooped below our balcony been coming for years. However may not return Stay improvements fewer homeless and close proximity to the hotel It makes walking around the beach and the boardwalk not an enjoyable experience for my young children and family Overall guest card comment. I realized the difficulty of the homeless situation in Santa Cruz However, we would have liked to see a little more urgency in resolution regarding the couple sorting trash all over the beach And staying overnight in their tents while we were here We could have been a very dangerous situation for our children playing in the area So this is something that we see a lot of I personally work with save our shores to do many area beach cleanups Collecting over 450 pounds of trash half of that. Thank you Good evening mayor Watkins council members. I'm Maggie with IV with visit Santa Cruz county We are the tourism marketing agency for our community I'm here to support the ordinance for a curfew on main beach The recent occurrence of camping on main beach is causing concern that there is another Ross camp in the making Causing incompatible conditions for our visitor serving main beach and wharf area Behaviors such as hostile behavior littering including syringes are examples of problems that have been talked about tonight by the public and staff Also of concern is that regional and statewide media have seized on the opportunity to tell this story Identifying our community and the main beach as a homeless encampment The main beach is clearly not equipped to deal with overnight camping for the homeless or anyone else for that matter In terms of facilities or environmental impacts From an economic standpoint As northern california residents consider their next vacation a community that's featuring a main area as a homeless encampment inebriated individuals threats of contact with syringes human feces Will not this community will not be on the top of their list. We will not be on their list The city our locally owned businesses their employees depend on this one billion dollar industry every year for survival Whether you like tourism or the tourists are not we depend on the tourism industry and we can expect devastating impacts If a curfew is not enacted immediately Council members, thank you for the opportunity to talk to you tonight. My name is chris reyes. I'm from the sancroose seaside company I want to share our perspective on this. We obviously support the curfew We've heard from quite a few guests over the last few weeks from clients customers Parents of employees very concerned about the situation expressing a lot of reservation Hesitation about having young people work there visiting things like that So it is a real impact. We've heard concerns from our own employees as many of you know We clean the beach as part of a decades-long agreement with the city Our employees that are out there cleaning the beach daily during the summer and on a limited basis this time of year I've expressed a lot of concerns about the conditions they face out there and the harassment they face from time to time So I want to share that with you so you know that perspective I suspect that that's not much of a needle mover though Really what we're talking about tonight is setting limits and sometimes as elected officials Y'all have to set limits and what the staff has brought to you. I think is a modest limit To address some issues that are happening on main beach And so you have to decide what those limits are going to be You have an overwhelming number of letters in support of the curfew people asking you to set that limit And so tonight we hope that's what you'll do Uh, but I want to address something real quickly that's solutions Every time we have a meeting like this. We're not really able to talk about solutions We spend an exorbitant amount of staff time public time Council time working on these limits and we never get to really discuss the solutions So what I suggest is tonight, let's set a limit The limit that's before you buy staff and let's have a broader conversation about how to really solve these problems Everybody here wants to solve these problems even though we might differ on the way to do it I work for the largest private employer in santa Cruz locally owned family business been here since 1907 I'm happy to participate in any meaningful dialogue about solutions But first we need limits. So please vote to enact the curfew. Thank you Good evening. I'm Nancy cruzo And Let me move this down What I want to say is That I would like all of us to question our premises About people who sleep outside We have some kneejerk responses That there will always be A mess and there will always be criminal activity Now I have not seen enough data to support that I know some has been presented tonight, but I also know that firsthand data has shown that the Extreme mess and debris that was expected Isn't there. There is some cooperation. There is cleanliness I think sometimes we have to rethink our own Premises in order to allow any change at all Because we talk a lot about transition for homeless people You can't transition without change And change probably starts at the top because we can receive. We're not separate people. We're not separate groups of people How's people leave needles How's people leave messes We never look to see who did it We just see the needle and automatically go homeless person And I question those assumptions and I would like my city government too as well Thank you It's in this room. So I'd rather not people know my face Since I've had that happen My name is Elise Kazvi and I'm here to discuss the fact that I really suspect this is kind of an underhanded ploy by Bernal and city staff on one hand The authorities such as our police chief who clearly hates the homeless and the fire marshal who is very concerned For a lot of people's health and safety, but not the health and safety of homeless people or poor people And mayor Watkins, Matthews, Meyers and the minority on the council So first of all, it was really interesting how quickly this issue got on the agenda I have council members who are telling me they are absolutely having a difficult time getting anything on the agenda They are not included in discussions. They have barely met with the mayor at all for anything Communication here is clearly favored towards certain business entities. So let's start with the sentinel The sentinel comes in with its usual splash yellow journalism Oh, no, homeless people on the beach. We quickly see an item put on the city council agenda And now we're hearing about what blood and feces poop blood and feces poop All the anecdotal information This is really kind of sad that a city of the quality of Santa Cruz comes up with such lurid anecdotal information all the time by department heads Um, so This has not gone through any committees staff are being quite selected and their data is highly questionable DAPO is flawed the california collusion Constitution by the way City attorney, uh, mr. Condadi allows and requires for maximum public access to the beach Drew's question to you is quite civil and appropriate So I found the faces you made a little difficult to swallow And I'm tired of the faces being made to our Public servants who are trying to protect all people and not just the wealthy I think the dream in is squatting on that territory How cheap is the cheapest room and let's look into their environmental, uh, degradations My name Curtis Rutherford again, and I'm here and This this is not the solution y'all First of all, I think the native americans for having this here I think we should give this back to the native americans and follow their lead We don't look everything the rich They on the dry land the wet land and they out there digging 365 days a year in that oil Picking in the ground These plants are miles in big cities Huge And we talking about this little speck in Santa Cruz the homeless The homeless is going to Bring this to a foal. I love you I love this community This is where I found myself 33 years cleaning sober 33 years of counseling and groups and therapies and Help that I got But what they taught me to go out here and do something about love Express love be the only person downtown and expressing it to the top of your voice Can you feel that Can anybody feel that Do you have compassion sir? Do you have some compassion ma'am you talk about it? You look like lambs But I say I hear a bunch of wolves up in here There's no love here But you can shoot me kill me knock me down I am expressing it and I'm expressing it loud Give me as many tickets if you want this guy approached me as soon as I got out of my truck talking about the law Those rosy par laws Rosy par laws talking about the dry land the wet land to get the fishes Those are rosy par laws if you pay attention These folks talking about helping people and y'all ain't paying attention to that Your time is up My see your time is up time is up for what for your time for public comment We have other members of the public ain't nobody talking about nothing. This ain't no solution. Okay, Curtis. I'd rather be put out Yeah handcuffed me shoot me kill me because this ain't right y'all all the rich just takes over everything You sit out there like a whole bunch of Okay, we're gonna go ahead and ask you to either sit down or to Go ahead and go outside if you'd like but we have still members of the community who have their two minutes to address the Can I use your two minutes? No, that's not how it goes Okay, you're welcome to come forward I think a steam person like Curtis should be allowed to speak four minutes um Now homeless people are not going to just die or disappear By moving them from what the oh, it'll be a rock from ross camp and then it's going to be Oh now there's the the people at ross camp move to the beach. So now let's move the people from the Beach to wear your doorways Even these so then if a transition camp is determined like at Davenport The same individuals here against there being people camping on the beach or at ross camp Or there's going to be a drug rehabilitation facility place somewhere or Navigation center, they'll be out here in force against that as well The reality is homelessness is not only going to not go away It is clearly going to increase Dermatically And so we need to be getting ahead of that rather than Pushing people around the neighborhoods. It is not to the people here who wanted to fend the beach And I agree the beach should be clean. It shouldn't be a campground But the reality is there is no place for people to even be In our community unless they have the money to get a hotel room Or buy a house or rent some Outrageously expensive place you have to make 35 dollars an hour to rent a one bedroom apartment in Santa Cruz That is as extreme So today we're having this debate and it's I find it very interesting because who else spoke nationally About getting rid of the homeless today and getting rid of the camps and that was donald trump And his administration has got plans That are very similar to these plans that we're hearing here So if you want to vote for uh trump's proposal I Go ahead. Thank you Here we go again So I have two things in my hand One of them belongs on the beach One of them does not all of us are well aware of this It's become normal in Santa Cruz and i'm so sick and tired of it I shouldn't have to carry this with my seven-year-old when I go to my beaches I shouldn't whether you're a parent or not There's no excuse for it Keith Excuse me Can you stop my time for that? I think we just did. That was great Are you finished? Yeah, I gotta pick everything up. You got to talk and nobody in around you If you got if we can have you all bring the attention back towards the city council And once sir you're in the front once you're done if we can please Thank you So we hear always the same people up here Norris and all his crew Homeless want to be activists for the past 30 years Not offering any solutions can't even point a homeless person to a shelter or a place that actually serves them We have open beds. We have rehabs. We have motel vouchers We have all of these things Ask any public servant who actually treats the people the population that you guys are trying to solve this homelessness This crisis, okay You don't ask you don't ask the nurses who actually save lives administer the narcan You don't ask the police officers. You don't listen to your city park staff. The reason those beach Sites right now at main beach are clean is because your workers are cleaning them Did you hear what your director said? They're going down there at risk of violence to themselves and their families to deal with people who are heavily Like loaded right and are going to OD right there on the beach in front of the boardwalk where our tourism dollars rely on that People come to have an experience. Okay, it's unacceptable It doesn't need to become normal in stana crews when we have solutions You've already been brought those solutions and you remain Silent on doing any of them and crone to deny mental health housing in your neighborhood And think that that's okay. That's one part of this piece. So you need to get on board too That's why people are not supportive of you. Okay. Thank you Before we get started, um, i'm going to get a sense of how many more members of the community want to address the council on this item Okay, okay, so it looks like we'll have the gentleman in front be our last speaker Um, I want to remind the community you don't have to agree with what your Fellow citizens are saying but you should give them the respect as we all want to be heard when we have our two minutes So i'll ask that you Not disrupt the speaker as they have their two minutes for public comment. Please Oh, that was your council member. Uh, my name is peter castillo Um, you know, I just want to say that and I don't want to repeat the same thing when others said a, uh issue with a homeless I mean everyone on the on on on the county Um, I work for the For caltrans and we see it all the time, uh cleaning In comments, you know by the by the freeway everywhere So there's something that it needs to be address it needs to be to getting care of I just want to say that I really appreciate the the work that you guys doing and it's a tough Job to do there's a tough decisions to make So I just wanted to say they really appreciate it and I want to thank you for the work that you're doing and then Let's keep working together on how to solve this issue. Thank you Hi, good evening council members. My name is rachel maryan I sat in your seats not too long ago and so I appreciate you being here and staying attentive as we all get up here and Give our opinions. It's really important to remember what your decision is about tonight Your decision isn't about solving homelessness. It isn't about providing more space for people to go What it's about is i'm gonna go ahead and pause your comments Mr. McHenry, I'm going to ask you one last time to please lower Your sign below your shoulders if I see you raising it again I'll ask you to stand in the back if you want to stand if you want to hold that up without Abstracting the view of those behind you. Okay, go ahead ahead So your decision is whether or not you impose a curfew on the main beach That's really what your decision is and you're and imposing the curfew you are Like an earlier speaker said setting standards for the level of cleanliness that we expect to have on our beach The type of behavior on our beach and the proper use of our beach I have to say when I was in high school I would go down to the beach and at around 10 o'clock and we weren't really doing anything But just hanging out usually police officer would come along and say Time to get out of here And and so I don't think it's oppressive idea to Have standards down on our beach We need them because if you've seen the local media has picked up on the story that we do have people camping at the Beach and thousands of people in our city and our county rely on the tourist industry to earn their income To be able to live here and a lot of these folks are not our biggest income earners in the state But they're working hard and they want to make a life in Santa Cruz and by allowing camping on the beach We're not being very respectful of that And it's also an industry that creates revenue That we use as a city to not only spend on your typical city services But we also give money to homeless services if we don't have the revenue we can't support Some of the causes that we all believe in here locally So I really hope that you make a good common sense decision and support the curfew. It's worked very well at cal beach It's been effective. We still see needles there But it's a whole heck of a lot less and I remember quite a few years ago We heard about people stepping on needles both children and adults. We haven't heard that recently. Thank you Hi, my name is Alitha Soares or alley cat and I am a homeless woman in Santa Cruz in transitional housing It's really important to me and I get really fired up Can we put the human back into homelessness? Because I did everything I was supposed to I was an independent hardworking mom and wife Lost everything. I don't have a raving drug problem. I'm not an alcoholic Um, I could be if that means I get help, but that's not the issue There's not enough shelter beds in this county. I live on coral street You can't where do you want these people to go? There's wide open spaces Granted it may not be aesthetically pleasing to everybody But you're forgetting that homeless homeless people are human beings Just like every single one of you on the council Just like people behind me everybody struggles So remember that when you're trying to remove these people from someplace when they have no place to go I have no place to go nobody to call There's nobody to call if I lose where I'm where I'm currently sheltered So remember that when you're trying to kick these people off the beach We're just trying to survive And there aren't shelter beds Serge was saying something to me right before I walked up, but I don't really remember um Just keep the human in it. You can't you can dehumanize us all you want But we're still human beings. We all have feelings Not all of us put ourselves in the situation. We've found ourselves it You know, you can all be one paycheck away from being homeless I was And a disability so Do you fault me if the beach is the only place I have to to lay down safely? So yeah, I'm in favor of seeing more data. I'm in favor of outreach to these people. Have you spoken to them? Thank you Before you get started mr. McKenry. I have to say I've heard a number of comments The last comment was directed towards our staff member. I've asked you numerous times to Lower your sign this evening. I'm going to go ahead and give you an official warning If there is a further disruption, I'm going to go ahead and ask that you please leave It's it's distracting and it's intimidating to have folks come up and try to speak and address the council When you're making comments the entire time behind them and intimidating them and not allowing their two minutes with respect to be heard Whether or not you agree with them or not So I respectfully ask that you refrain from making the comments. We've had your two minutes We've respectfully acknowledged and listened to those and I'm going to go ahead and ask that you Now do so for their your fellow citizens If you don't I'm going to go ahead and ask you to leave as I feel I have given ample opportunity for you to switch gears If you will So we'll go ahead and have you address the council as my understanding You'll be the last member or unless we have any others of the community who want to address the council for two minutes Seeing none any other members of the community wanting to address the council. Okay Oh, we have one final. You'll be our last speaker. Why don't you go ahead? You'll have your two minutes You'll be our last speaker and then we'll return back for action Good evening. I'm scott graham It's uh disconcerting that there is no map That shows where the mean high tide is And I believe that the reason there isn't one is because the ninth circuit court A few years back made a ruling that the mean high tide is not Where the tide ends but where it may end But if there's a seawall or some you know rip rap or some obstruction to keep the tide away That where it would go to so actually the mean high tide is probably somewhere past Beach street It's out there, you know right in front of the lobby. He is sidewalk or something and so You can't restrict that area that's everything below the mean high tide and 20 Feet opposite the mean high tide is Open to the public 24 hours a day so I think that you need really need a map to show you where it is and Like I said, the ninth circuit court has Ruled on this and they said that it's where the tide would go not where it stops at a seawall The other issue is Needles The reason people drop their needles is because they can get arrested for having a dirty needle They don't drop clean needles everywhere They drop dirty ones because that's an arrestable thing if the chief of police would order his police to stop arresting people I don't think you know and it got known around town that they're not going to be arrested for it They wouldn't be dropping them everywhere The second thing if there is actually a fecal matter in the beach Open the damn restrooms at the end of the war so people can use them all night long And try to get volunteers from the campers to clean the restrooms. I'm sure that could all happen. Thank you Hi, pa malo. Um, I've lived in Santa Cruz my entire life and I'm planning to do it for the rest of time if I'm able So I You know, I think that we should remind ourselves that either way this vote goes It's not going to fix the issue at best. It's going to push You know the issue to other places and that seems like the cycle we've been in for my entire lifetime really here I agree with you know, I grew up in the junior guard program. I was a junior guard instructor I was a you know Lifeguard and you know still use that beach on a regular basis and so I agree that Maybe it should go somewhere else But we need to locate that somewhere else on the double and I've watched for the last six months You know conversations really good ideas on all sides come up and we have been Unable to do really anything Because we're fighting about the problem instead of fighting to solve the problem And you know, I think that's for everyone in the room is guilty of that to one degree or another And you know, if we we all agree this is some sort of crisis either a public health crisis or a humanitarian crisis And I think we just need to you know Get together on the 90 of this stuff that we all agree on and do something fast because if it can't be there It's got to be somewhere else, you know, and I've heard a lot of good ideas again transitional camping Figuring out ways to stop criminalizing and start like moving to stabilize folks and you know, it's a Huge drug epidemic. It's a mental health crisis. It's all of these things true But it's you know a problem that it's on us to fix. So thank you. Um, I you know being the last speaker It's a pleasure and the seats outside are very nice. So thank you No, I'm sorry Brent. We're done with coordination. No, we're done with public. I'm gonna go ahead. Please please Please I'm gonna ask you to go ahead and take a seat. We've heard your public comment. All right, you can go That's you've been mourned as well. Okay. Um, we've had a chance for public comment I appreciate those who are able to come and speak to us on this item We're going to go ahead and return back to council action and deliberation vice mayor Cummings So I just want to thank everybody for sending in their emails and everybody who attended tonight to make the comments I think that you know, one of the things that We've all heard tonight and that we all agree on is that we have a homelessness crisis in our community We have a housing crisis in our community but Of all the places in our community where we could have people who are homeless Dwelling and sleeping. I think we can I think many of us can agree that our main beach is not the most appropriate place for that to happen We really need to think about solutions and we have A group right now who is from our community who's supposed to be going over What are potential solutions and bring back recommendations to our city council? I just wanted to ask very quickly before making a motion Can we susie if it's possible? Um, can you provide any kind of update on when we might be receiving recommendations because it sounds like If we continue to push people out of these places We're just gonna have the same situation happening. Sure. Thank you vice mayor Cummings So the catch the community advisory committee on homelessness has met three or four times They met again this evening and we we did convene until 7 15 so the catch members could be over here and a lot of them are here So they are in the process of developing there what we're calling phase one work plan And there is a strong intentionality to bring recommendations to you even in advance of the winter shelter season Um Those those recommendations are likely going to be around hygiene sheltering and the siting of encampments and and also including the program modalities that we would expect For that so I think that the intention is to come back as quick as we possibly can with recommendations on that And then come back again likely in january and then again ahead of your budget Sessions in in may So, um, I just also like to say we we can't wait until we have a public health and Environmental emergency on one of our main beaches I think that we need to actually deal with the situation currently And you know just thinking about what could potentially happen in the winter months if we had Um a homeless encampment on our main beach We've had storm surges that goes far up to the boardwalk And if we weren't prepared for that to happen We could see many people potentially lose their lives while sleeping on the main beach We could also see a lot of debris And materials from the tents going into our oceans And one of the things we really pride ourselves on is trying to protect protect our oceans Beaches and waterways and our environment as a whole so I didn't propose i'm uh proposing to adopt the city's recommendation And one small adjustment will be also to include prohibiting Unpermitted temporary storage structures from the hours of midnight to one hour before sunrise We have a motion by vice mayor Cummings seconded by council member Matthews I got notice from council member Myers that she would like to Way in here if we can Okay, can I ask for clarification just in the meantime the recommended action was to adopt the resolution But with that added clarification from uh vice mayor Cummings. That's right Go ahead council member Myers Do you want to repeat your motion? Sure It's um to include in the motion Prohibit Unpermitted temporary storage structures from midnight to one hour before sunrise And water quality You've been working um for over three years now on solving um our bacterial and Inderate pocket issues both on cow beach primarily, but also on And I just want to make clarification that um, if I would like to hear from statements um managing our beach for um the public for all of our for all of our residents That's the important for our for our um Finding the canisters and so we At the same time we absolutely have to start Identifying our solution for the near term for the winter season I think it's also very important that we acknowledge that maybe you should the primary as an For our community as well just like our And um with the cow's working group we have seen more quality issues Arise in the last 30 days and we want to make sure that you The true So I'll be supporting the motion Thank you council member Myers a council member Glover and then council member brown council member brown Okay, so I um, I want to appreciate the staff For putting this report together so quickly and brings to our agenda it is miraculous how quickly something can get onto the agenda when We feel the need to act quickly. So I'm I appreciate that Appreciate all the people who came out tonight to and the people who have communicated to us um I just want to preface my comment with the With another comment, which uh is related. I mean, I think we're here tonight because of Serious collective failure The past three decades that I have lived in Santa Cruz We have failed we have failed to have this body and all of its different iterations has failed to muster the political will To adequately address this problem. We are never going to solve this problem But we have not done that. We as a community have um as Several people Comments or suggested have continued to come and talk about what we can't do What limits need to be set? We are here tonight to talk about setting another limit And I appreciate that there are folks in the audience who have asked us to To do that and be honest about that So I I am going to support the motion But I'm going to do that with The full knowledge that we are not doing this because there is a public. I do not believe I have not seen evidence that there is an existing Public safety hazard I Understand that this there is a potential for this to grow and this is about setting limits about how we manage this resource and and provide access for all users because Providing access for some can limit it for others and we have to acknowledge that so But I also think we have to acknowledge our collective failure And I'm doing that right here and I'm hoping that we can get serious about the conversation about And and get the political will together to find safe spaces for people to be to sleep if we had the votes I feel like we could we could actually do that and I'm very heartened that uh, there are folks in the community Thank you. Mr. Reyes for stepping up and saying you would be part of that conversation and thank you for being realistic and saying This is about setting limits. That's what we're doing. So I I think i'll leave it there um, and I You know, I well, I do want to say one other thing. It This is not about for me at least this is not about um Dehumanizing people. I have been to the beach. I have I mean I engage with people. I am not afraid to do that these are I Easily understand that many of us could be in this same situation Were it for you know a turn in our luck or you know, some kind of crisis in our lives. So I am Not othering the people who are sleeping on the beach or who have are unhoused in our community I am not thinking about them as the other. I am thinking about them as needing to be part of the solution um, and uh, you know, I I feel like we have a lot more work to do in that regard Tonight, we're here to talk about this particular space and setting that limit which I um am going to support Comments member clever. Thank you. So many places to start Um, okay So, um, first, I guess, uh, I will ask the question of the motion maker. I appreciate your Your concern about the environment and also the concern about the potential safety of people, especially over winter months with the Storm surges that already makes a lot of sense where Where do you suggest the folks that are on the beach now go and what is that relocation plan? I know that we heard briefly from a staff member about the proposed need to go one by one tent by tent Uh, potentially starting tomorrow based off of their staff plans, but uh, how do you propose that that happen? What's the timeline and uh, people that don't get seen tomorrow for whatever reason? Maybe it's a lack of staff time or too many tents. What happens to them? uh in your motion To to to address that that situation Maybe I'll just interject if I could briefly is that my understanding is that that's not necessarily a component of the motion that within the Motion by accepting the recommendation. You're accepting that we would follow the standard operating procedure policy. Is that correct? That's correct. Absolutely. No, I understand that but uh, it would be enacting the standard operating procedures but without a plan of implementation except for the ones like how Can can someone explain to me? Maybe the staff can explain to me and I'll make it a lot easier to make the vote because I just I'm just really curious because as Alley cat said where do you want the people to go and I totally want to Uh, I want to communicate to the public that's come to speak and that have sent the emails and Most of things online About the concern because I totally agree that the the content of fecal matter in the ocean is terrible The possibility of people stepping on needles is abhorrent and unconscionable the issue of Trash getting into our ecosystem is terrible the the vandalism of bathrooms or the feeling of threatening Natures from the staff is totally unokay. So What are we going to do to avoid? Displacing people even further or where are we going to ask them to go? And then could you do you have a number of available shelter beds as of tonight with regards to asking people to go somewhere So the available shelter beds for tonight is actually not what we would be going off of it would be when we would be actually moving folks So what I do want to express is that the standard operating procedures are very explicit in terms of what type of outreach we perform So um the intention and and we also have the county who's interested in doing smart path assessments From the human services department They are waiting upon me and upon this council's direction to figure out how best to move forward with that But with regard to the sops It is very explicit around the outreach and the availability of alternative locations for folks to be and that will be something that we follow It's also explicit around the noticing time the 72 hours And it's explicit about how we handle the personal property of folks Back in april when this council body did approve the sops You added language with a friendly amendment to really consider folks Possessions in a more explicit way and that was added as well So with regard to where people will go I don't have an answer to that until we do the outreach and engagement. So it really is hypothetical Hypothetical at this point. However, as I mentioned earlier, we have really strong partnerships with the salvation army There are beds available currently at the river street camp In addition to Even though the last experience at motel santa cruz was very challenging They had a complete destruction of their hotel rooms by virtue of that process They're still willing to step up and help us And have provided an opportunity for us to purchase Motel vouchers as well for this period of time. So it really Is incumbent upon staff to develop that process But back in april when you approve the sops. It really does provide that explicit direction. Thank you Yeah, so in february as we all know I came forward with a bunch of suggestions about camps and safe parking locations and all that kind of stuff and All of that's been pushed into the catch which has the work plan timeline of hopefully potentially january is coming forward with some Some suggestions at least that's the reports that i've gotten from members on the body So we have Three four about three months or so between now and when those recommendations come forward So i'm just curious because uh another community member Mentioned here we go again just like rascam 2.0. How much money are we spending on the issue? This seems like we're doing the same thing all over again. We're closing the beach We're going to put a curfew We are going to potentially do some kind of outreach to move them around and put them somewhere else And then in a month they're going to be somewhere else And we're going to have to be having this exact same conversation Some of you I saw a couple months ago saying like literally the exact same things about rascam Now i'm not to not to say that rascam was good in any way except for the fact that it had the potential For us to retrofit the site and turn into something that was healthier than what was already there Unfortunately, we didn't take that stance. I voted against the closure of the camp specifically because of what we're dealing with right now Because of the reports that we hear in the harvey west and the businesses because of the issues that we see downtown on front street Because of now the encampment on main beach, which has been exacerbated by the coverage in the press, which I think was rather irresponsible but What are we going to do to alleviate having to have this conversation again in two months? Because I love seeing all of you But I think we could be talking about much more productive things and we could be using money in a much more productive way to offer much more productive services so I'm really torn on this decision because if I vote no Then people are going to say that I am for trashing beaches and that I don't care about kids safety If I vote yes, then I'm going to displace or be a company to displacing people without any Guarantee of shelter or without any knowledgeable place of where they're going to go because as the staff member just said everything is completely hypothetical at the moment So I'm at a moral crossroads as we all are on this dais and I'm really concerned about the direction That this is going because the people That I would have assumed would put up at least more of a conversation around what we're going to do Made one comment and then opened up into emotion. So that's really disconcerting As far as the way that we move forward. It's the fault of our city. I totally agree with you council member brown I to another member said that they were on the beach when they were in high school I also had that same experience except when I was in high school I thought it was because they didn't want us to be unsafe But in now in retrospect, I realize it is probably an anti-camping policy that was there. So What are we going to do and how are we going to move forward? I'd love For us to be able to say that we're going to establish safe parking programs and camps But I can't for at least another three months because of the resistance that we received initially when I brought those forward So I don't know what I'm going to do But I do just want to put that out there because there's so much Going out there that people say I just don't care and that is not true I care about the people that live in homes But just as much as I care about you the living homes I care about the people that don't have homes and right now We're about to pass a piece of policy that is going to criminalize their existence in a certain area Because they have nowhere else to go and I don't I don't know what to do I'll just I'll just say I I think you know, I think we all share that it is it's absolutely a struggle It's absolutely a challenge. There aren't clear solutions There isn't a pathway that feels like just the sole solution Which I think we all want to get to that place and so I recognize that how complicated this is and how there's areas of policy that don't necessarily feel Like the best things that were best decisions that we're making at the time But but here we are and we have an issue right before us that is impacting our community that for me feels like the right decision To make in terms of the curfew. I know that we've been through this before with the closure of the camp and then the different sort of realities that we want to ensure Take place based on the standard operating procedure So given what we know with what we have, you know, this feels to me like the right decision to make This is also an opportunity though for other council members to share other policy solutions or other proposals or amendments to the To the motion before us but before us now is the a motion to pursue The staff recommendation with the addition that vice mayor Cummings added That motion was seconded by council member matthews So unless there aren't any other policy solutions or further Discussion around that then we'll go ahead and make the the call for the decision if that feels accurate Council member crown They had a question for um, mizohara Uh, just wondering we can is it possible is it very difficult to get the council Counts of all of the various shelters each, you know the day after and Give us those numbers because I I'm I'm really curious. I've never seen them necessarily But like what's vfw? 1220 river street The laurel street and anywhere else that we have either people staying in motels or or I would just really appreciate that information Is that possible to get or you mean on an ongoing basis? Yeah, absolutely. Would you take that as a friendly amendment that that'd be part of but we get the council gets counts every um, each morning or When when possible the day after every morning, I feel like is a maybe a bit excessive um Maybe before the city council meetings or weekly would that be that'd be okay If if you Sorry, well, do you want to specify what's possible? Sure, you know, I I would like to talk to the county who holds the contracts for the winter shelter programs I think that they do get um the daily count, but I'm not entirely certain So I do think that they're that information is accessible And I certainly could provide that for the the city council in terms of how often they get it. It could be weekly I don't think it's daily, but it might be that'd be helpful just because we hear a lot of just different noises about what's available and what's not and Yeah, you said that maybe most people aren't in favor of folks sleeping on the main beach I I just Pretty much think that everyone up here does not think the main beach is an adequate place for people to camp I mean, that's just um, you know, that's That would be a non-starter But I'll be very brief here. I would just go with Some of the comments of of council member Glover and council member brown and add myself to those comments too I don't think we're We're doing enough and I think that we're still sort of just, you know, listing, you know, uh during this Huge crisis and it is a crisis not just in Santa Cruz. It's across california, but we're we're doing something tonight, but we're not um Leaving ourselves an out to say, okay, where are those? You know, I was on the beach today with council member brown. We counted 18 tents. Where are those 18? folks going to go When they leave the beach, they're going to be in the the pogo nip. They're going to be in the green belt somewhere or Maybe some of them will avail of themselves of of the shelter if it if it exists What mr. Malo said, um I think that We need to locate places on the double, you know, and I'm just going to end there and say we need to locate places for Our folks who are the most vulnerable on the double. Thank you Very briefly. I will be supporting the motion Clearly the camping on the beach has arisen and is a growing problem. I've been Thoroughly satisfied by the testimony that it's not appropriate for a whole lot of reasons I am encouraged by what we know not just from tonight, but ongoing conversation with staff that the county is much more Is interested in becoming much more engaged with us on solutions as well and This is is obviously a path I want to acknowledge the good faith effort of many many community people over the years to grapple with this It is a problem that has grown remarkably in Breadth and intensity in recent years. I think we all know that So the challenge is more than it's ever been Having said that I'm Comfortable with the motion as is. I think we can give additional direction To staff to come back with some accounting for Availability and use of beds working with the county In a in a time frame that's not burdensome on a daily basis does that sound good to you? Okay Okay, so unless there's any further Action or direction. We'll go ahead and take the motion again. Go ahead and want to restate the motion So the motion is to adopt the city's recommendation and also include prohibit Unpermitted temporary storage structures from the hours of midnight to one hour before sunrise and Have the staff bring us an adequate time of report backs Get the language from the tape regarding yeah regarding available shelter space Availability and use of shelter space in collaboration with the county and how often was that again? at a Frequency that is doable for them without being burdensome on a daily basis. That's it could do weekly We'll go ahead. I think it was left that they're going to try to Tell you Search I'm going to go ahead and I've noticed you. I know we're going to this is not your opportunity to speak. Thank you Okay, we're going to go ahead and acknowledge the fact that the staff said that they're going to look into what would be feasible based on the Partners information. Okay, and we heard from Susie that they do she thinks they do take account every night And somebody just said that too. So I just hope we get them. Okay Okay, okay. Is there clarity on the motion? Is there any further direction or additions or discussion at this time? I There's a there's a lot to say, but I'm not going to I'm not going to go long. I'm just trying to think of the best way to Summize these thoughts in like two sentences I find it difficult that we're choosing environment and economics over people um, I find it difficult to hear Someone that represents as they put it the largest employer in the community Many of which are People from out of the area international students that don't pay living wages for people to be able to stay in their houses also Claiming that we need to set limits Like the curfew on the beach Which is amazing at the speed that this came forward to the city council as we mentioned before And how long it takes for us to look at the actual solutions that y'all are calling for But so quickly that we can use these tools to criminalize people that are poor Also with the concept of limits We seem to have a really hard time limiting things like the cost of rent or arbitrary evictions But we're really good at limiting access to public spaces for people that can't afford either of those things Housing or even potentially a car to live in When we have places where people park in their cars and I suggest things like Providing resources so they don't dump things in our ecosystem I met with resistance talking about how it will destroy the ecosystem And then we don't take any action and now those cars are still parked there dumping into our ecosystem Because we haven't taken any action because we can't enforce them because of laws that are not in our control to enact like It blows my mind with regards to what we're doing and i'm at this Precipice this crossroads of do I fall in line with everyone else because It's this politically safe thing for me to do there are people in this audience right now that if I vote on this Will go and spread in my opinion a false narrative Because I am here to support the community now is removing people forcibly from a beach without any guaranteed place for shelter It's supporting the community It's supporting a portion of the community. It's supporting maybe your interests But it's not supporting the community as a whole because we found through science that the larger the economic divide the less Beneficial a community is So what are we doing to deal with our wealth gaps? What are we doing to deal with our housing crisis? What are we doing to deal with our exorbitant rents or our lack of living wages or All of these other issues that are compounding and impacting homelessness So We'll see what happens when the vote comes, but I really hate that a we've created the situation That b we've put ourselves in this position and that see that there are people on this body that are so ready to move to criminalize Poverty so thank you Okay, unless I see any other additional comments I guess I'll just conclude by saying these are always difficult topics This is always a difficult topic to have agendize These are complicated issues as council member Glover brought up just the the compounding social constraints that are happening within our city and within our nation and beyond and at times we're stuck in really difficult decisions and We want to be in a proactive space and at times we also have to enact policy that's going to Respect and respond to some of the issues that are before us at this time right now So With that i'll just go ahead and call the vote and we'll vote as we see appropriate as individuals Okay, all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye opposed Okay that And council member meyers if I can't get your vote. I heard earlier that you supported the motion Oh, she said yes. She's supported. Okay Okay, so we have council member meyers brown math use vice mayor Cummings myself Voting in support and council member chrome voting in support with council member Glover voting against That will conclude our evening agenda and we'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting at this time