 Welcome council member Alvarez. Can we go ahead and test your audio and video, please? Hello. Hello. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Absolutely Vice Mayor Rogers, are you able to test your video and audio for us? Welcome Mayor Rogers. Can we go ahead and test your audio? All right should be working. Wonderful. Thank you so much All right, Magali. Are we all ready to get started? I believe so We have everyone From the team here Excellent. Great. I'll go ahead and call us to order here at six o'clock Madam City Clerk, do you want to call the roll? He was not hosting the meeting or who's clerking who clerks the meetings, but Vice may council member Alvarez President Vice Mayor Rogers President Mayor Rogers And I'm here at the record show that all committee members are here See you just you showed up and so we put you to work It's all good Yeah, before we get too far into this Do we want our hosts to explain for the public how they might better participate in today's meeting and In particular how to do public comments. I'm not quite sure who is hosting tonight to be honest Well, Mayor Rogers, my name is Madeline Brown I am your virtual host for the evening for those who are attending if you would like for those who are attending via zoom You can go ahead and raise your hand for public comment. You have the option to Make a public comment once for item and you'll have three minutes That will be timed and if you are calling in you can go ahead and raise your hand by dialing pound nine And we will allow you again three minutes to talk. Thank you very much Excellent. Thank you so much for that and I apologize should have done the introductions a little bit earlier So with that we will go to public comments for non-agenda items for folks who are interested in having a Discussion at a future agenda item or if they have questions go ahead and hit the raise hand feature Due to the Brown Act We can't typically get in the back and forth with folks and we can't discuss items that we haven't previously Agendized but we can definitely take down notes and try to get back to folks. So first I see Pat I didn't mean to raise my hand. I will go Okay. Thank you Pat Pat is just doing what we call a practice run. Thank you. We'll go to Eric Eric Frazier you can go ahead and make your public comment. Do you see the timer on your screen? Yes, thank you. I don't see the timer yet, but hopefully you can hear me. Okay. Oh No problem. There we go Yeah, hello everybody hope everybody's staying well and thank you very much for the opportunity to comment on a very important topic Appreciate the work that's been done so far and of course I've been following along with progress that the city has made and spearheaded by our Great mayor appreciate that Chris There was some Subjects that were not covered that I had brought up earlier in the process And I've also brought them up with the county and other agencies and we'll be dialing in on us a little bit more And that has to do with how records are prepared and just sort of the process of how information is Collected and presented by a government agency So as you know, I'm pretty frequent flyer when it comes to Cpra and also to you know Trying to get at the base for Mako facts in order to serve them back to decision makers But also have access to everybody involved so that they can have Facts to agree on and get away from emotional charged arguments Some of the things that I see are defects and surveys that collect information And I think that there should be a standard for how surveys are created and utilized Another area of a problem is when reports are done either by outside contractors or by city staff A lot of times those really need to be peer reviewed Those reports sometimes can be very inaccurate and misleading because they don't complete a picture They don't present the whole picture or they actually present information. That's not factual can't be verified Furthermore within a report information. That's presented as an opinion should be marked as such The authors of the information should be listed on the information And there should be an opportunity for them to correct the information if Contrary information comes to light The author should be held to a high standard of putting their name on something and being held accountable under penalty of perjury quite frankly A lot of these reports are used to make important decisions that affect people's life Lives and I think then that they the people that are producing the information that makes an issue that issue actionable Need to be held accountable Furthermore if you do have peer review that goes with a report that should ride along with the report and so somebody Has a public records request that that peer reviewed opinion should go along with that original report Reports should be dated a lot of times information comes forward doesn't even have a date on it. It's ridiculous So I think just within the preparation of information and documents There's a lot that can be done. I appreciate using the three minutes. I hope it was helpful No, absolutely, and thank you Eric and One of the conversations we'll be continuing to have is how the ordinance actually operates and how to bolster that so I appreciate your comments I took some notes down for as we get into those discussions Did we have any pre-recorded? voicemail public comments on this No pre-recorded and no email comments and there are no further hands raised Perfect, then let's go ahead and go on to item 4.1 and update on the open government ordinance implementation Sue are you leading us off on this? Yes, I am and Also, we'll note. I will sue Gallagher city attorney and I will be walking through the PowerPoint presentation I do want to point out that we have both the city clerk and the director of community engagement here and they are both available as well to answer questions and I also invite them both to Speak up whenever they have anything to add or to clarify. So thank you very much As you know see as San Rosa embraces a Culture of open government in an effort to ensure public trust to engage the community and to establish a system of Transparency public participation and collaboration. This is a very high priority For this the city government as you well know Last December the council adopted the open government ordinance That ordinance codified some existing practices and then added some additional requirements to increase Opportunities for public participation and access to local government So we'll start in on the Slides next slide The new ordinance included eight primary elements Agenda requirements for city council meetings the requirements for broadcast of meetings Some new requirements and some codification of existing requirements on closed session items and litigation reports Some new requirements and some codification of existing requirements on public access and public comment Some again new requirements and codification of existing practices with respect to the minutes of city council meetings Then we have a whole section of the ordinance that addresses public records Including the responsibilities of staff in those efforts and the disclosure some standards for the disclosure of records We have a full section on Open data data being available online at the city's website and then finally several procedural provisions for For Residents or others to file a An appeal of an action taken by either the council or staff And then also for providing for enforcement of the terms of the ordinance The ordinance and all of its provisions will go into effect on July 1st 2021 and in the interim period that the council really designed that so we have an interim period to ramp up To begin implementation and to work out any glitches The council directed staff to return to the council in March to report on the status of that implementation And to report any impacts that we were seeing So today's report is just the start of that initial Evaluation of how the implementation is going and today we'll really focus primarily on the agenda Requirements and the meeting requirements. I know there's a lot to talk about in the other elements as well But tonight we'll be focused again just on the agenda and meeting requirements when we come to the full council on March 23rd We will address those other sections as well the next slide in terms of the agenda requirements that ordinance a codified several existing requirements including the Obligation to provide a meaningful description of each item on the agenda to Provide for publication early publication of supporting documents and also Provisions about how we might proceed if an item has failed to appear on the preliminary agenda but But it is council's desire or staff's desire that it be heard Based on publication in the final agenda. So those are some existing agenda requirements and provisions and the ordinance codified those into the into the city code But one of the most Significant new elements is the requirement that all city council agendas be translated into Spanish And that practice we have implemented that practice. So beginning with the February 9th agenda all city council Agendas including preliminary and final agendas have been translated into Spanish The translated agendas are readily available online through the city's agenda link And that is there on the slide Santa dash Rosa dot legis star calm and You can see on the slide again. It's a prince rather small but that is a screenshot of the legis star page and you see between the meeting details and the Agenda in English is a link to the Spanish language agenda But note that also the delivery notice for city council agendas is also now issued in English and Spanish Next slide and if I I do want to Note that with those new translation Requirements those new requirements do add three additional business days to the agenda process To give our translation service time to complete the translation So now we can turn to the agenda requirements on timing and these are new provisions Each element is new Preliminary agenda is now required and is now published No later than 12 business days prior to the council meeting We had that began again on February for the February 9th City council meeting and Has continued so we are publishing the preliminary agenda 12 business days prior to the council meeting at that time if there are Agenda items that are completed and our agenda ready. They are posted at that time as well a Week later the preliminary agenda is now republished at eight business days prior to the council meeting a Date with any additional documents, so it's our our goal to have all remaining whatever was not yet agenda ready 12 business days prior to the council meeting. It is our we are aiming to have all of those remaining agenda items Agenda ready and published eight business days prior to the council meeting Gov delivery notices are sent out as documents are available So gov delivery notice will go out with the initial preliminary agenda and then when the preliminary agenda is republished This the eight business days prior I will note that there are no changes to the agenda itself between those two dates The preliminary agenda is set at that 12 business days prior to the council meeting The final agenda is now published no later than four business days prior to the city council meeting date In the event that there are any agenda items that were not published with the preliminary agenda second republishing of the preliminary agenda, they will be attached at that final agenda date Next slide Thank you Or we now turn to The meeting requirements and in a later slide will review some of the new meeting procedures But again the one of the most Significant changes to the city council meetings themselves is the new provision for Spanish translation at all regular city council meetings and I We have on the The web page How folks can access That Spanish translation and as you know That is also announced at each council meeting as both in English and in Spanish of how How people might access the Spanish channel to hear hear the live Spanish translation That will be we have in fact provided live Spanish translation at several of the meetings since early February and beginning Next week's meeting March 16th and going forward that live Spanish translation will be provided at all regularly scheduled meetings I do want to note that apparently There has been some confusion About whether live Spanish translation is required under the new ordinance and it is and the Citation to the section is there on the slide 1-10 point 030 Subsection in Apparently and we're looking into it It is Appears that the wrong version of the ordinance was signed and And put into our system, so we will obviously correct that very quickly and have the proper Version the version that the council did in fact adopt we will have that up and in order in our website very soon Next slide This has to do with publication of the ordinance itself The open government ordinance does require that the ordinance itself be readily available to the public and those steps have been taken the ordinance is available to the public at the the link shown on the slide and Beginning a next week language is added to the city council agenda on how to obtain a free paper copy of the open government ordinance Should you so desire? Next slide So now we turn to some of the impacts that we've seen thus far And this is evolving we will have Additional reporting out on the 23rd when we come to the full council But at least thus far the impacts of the ordinance have been tied to the length of the advance agenda noticing So first some operational Impacts the preliminary agenda. I will note that this is there's an error on this slide and I apologize for that The preliminary agenda language in fact must be completed three full weeks before the council meeting This is a result of the 12 business day posting requirement combined With the translation services need for three business days prior to posting so 15 business days before the council meeting Staff needs to have the preliminary agenda language in final form We have started to see some challenges with this timing and in particular The federal funding and grants submit submittals Often work our initial preparation of materials is being done based on early estimates And those estimates often change by the time we're getting to council three weeks later And so that results in changes to the published documents as well We are also having some challenges and turnaround time from the planning commission review and decision to then get it to council to the council agenda and If we wait until the planning commission has made its decision, we're going to be too late In some instances, we're going to be too late for the preliminary agenda and we're going to have to delay Bringing it to council Another area of challenge is community engagement This means we have to really have things very well prepared and able to engage with the community Prior to even the posting of the preliminary agenda three weeks earlier In order to be able to have that language reflect what the staff's recommendation is actually going to be we're also seen some challenges in Having that earlier community engagement Trying to work through any changes that come out of that in time for final posting of the agenda materials And then that delay between the times that we've talked with the community the time We're going to council and having maintaining that momentum of community engagement Next slide Second want to talk about a little bit about the impacts We're seeing on staff Because we are publishing a preliminary agenda republishing a second preliminary agenda and then publishing a final agenda and Sometimes then republishing the final agenda with modifications after that initial publication We are republishing the agenda to release the additional documents has become available and You know to make any revisions that are happening and then more of delivery notices being sent out to subscriber That is adding burdens on on particularly on the clerk's office In addition due to the shift from calendar to business days The final agenda publishes on one day and the preliminary agenda publishes on a different day So in general absent a holiday the final agenda will be posted on Wednesday The preliminary agendas both the initial and the republication will publish on Thursday We've also found that the new deadlines make for a very tight turnaround to get agendas translated into Spanish for the preliminary agenda And so we are finding that we need to be traditionally Agenda review is now set from Mondays in order to avoid having to have one agenda review for the pre-lim and one Agenda review for the final we're setting that all on Mondays That means though staff has to be ready on Monday to make any changes that come out of agenda review Because we need to send that that preliminary agenda To the translators that same day later that same day next slide Thought would give you a couple of examples of impacts that we're seeing Again, this is just a couple of the impacts of this slide and a couple more And we'll provide you with more detail and more More examples on the 23rd. So this is just an example of Where the timing was such that we had to rely on exception to the ordinance This concerned the county eviction protection ordinance our preliminary agenda was published on February 4th This was for the council meeting on the February 23rd So our preliminary agenda was published on February 4th on February 9th five days later The Board of Supervisors adopted the urgency ordinance That urgency ordinance stated that it would be operative within the city limits Absent some alternative action by the council We then brought it to council to run up just a simple report out on February 23rd two weeks later And it required special findings to allow the council to even consider that report That required under our under the ordinance and under our existing policy a finding of good cause and again Just to remind folks the finding of good cause is a finding that As a result of exceptional circumstances beyond the control of the council Compliance with the 12 business a notice requirement would impose a substantial burden on the city's ability to conduct its business Or result in prejudice to a private person The council did make that finding and did hear that report I will I will note that Then the council directed us to come back It was difficult to try to turn it around quickly to get it back before council quickly Given given those Early publication requirements. So we are now intending to bring that Back to council In fact, I'm not I don't don't recall whether it's on the the 13th. I believe or or maybe the 23rd Next slide Another issue that has come up is concerns construction contracts from public works Construction contracts must be awarded within 60 days of bid opening And so that doesn't allow much room for delays There's little time to discuss funding in case bids come in over budget There is very little leeway if a council meeting is cancelled or continued Or if the council meetings weren't scheduled Or if a vote is delayed or continued due to absences and or abstentions The risk is that the city does not meet the contract award timelines We are looking at whether we might address that through a revision to our template in the public works construction contract To increase the number of days To award a contract We are also looking at state law to ensure that we can remain consistent with state law Next slide Another excuse me another area of concern is the timing of requirement the timing of items that require prior Approval or recommendation from the board of public utilities The In the past we've often wanted to have the vpu meeting on the Item and be able to have the council meeting on the same item within a couple of weeks That's no longer possible We need to We have the option of either publishing a preliminary agenda with tentative language About the the the board of public utilities actions. I'm guessing what that might be Leaving it leaving it some with some flexibility Um, which Raises some legal questions if we do that Um, or second we can delay the council consideration of the item and again sometimes these items are time sensitive So that has been uh been an issue that we've we're looking at how to address that So those were the just a couple of examples of challenges that we've uh identified at this point or that we're facing at this point But we will come back again on march 23rd With some additional examples and details as well as Some of the things that we're looking at to address those challenges and try to find some some solutions Next slide broadcast requirements The these are some of the other requirements of the ordinance and the status of their implementation The uh ordinance codified existing broadcasting procedures that all the meetings be recorded indexed and archived along with closed captioning in english the Ordinance now also requires that the closed captioning Also be translated into spanish for the archived videos And so we are in conversation with the it department It is researching the cost for closed captioning in spanish Looking at what that is all going to entail looking at what options we might have for outside contracts For that work. I'm still getting still getting those details Next slide The ordinance also codified a number of existing procedures and practices related to public access to the city council meetings and Ability to comment to provide public comment It codified procedures required related to the overflow of city council chamber. Of course, we don't have that issue currently But we are hopeful that one day we will actually be back in person in council chambers The ordinance does set Does codify our public comment periods for non-agenda items It does specify as we already provide that public comment must take place prior to action By the city council It provides some limits on the start time of public hearings. So public hearings as is in as is in our existing Regulations no earlier than 5 p.m Now also an upper limit of no later than 9 p.m start As has already been implemented changes or continuances of items are announced by the mayor at the beginning of the meeting And and I know often you and the former mayor would Reannounce that periodically through the meeting for the public's convenience And then documents from applicants and appellants are presented Before a public hearing is open. So that is is now codified Next slide And again, I should should should mention on that prior slide that we have had no issues all of those Items and requirements are already current practice And so that is simply codification of those In terms of public access and comments in progress We the preparation of the citizen's guidebook is underway And the guidebook will include city policies regarding public participation and public comment It will provide a section on this Giving information on the city's governmental structure organization Responsibilities and basic functions That will also include a glossary of local government terms and definitions And We'll also include information on how to participate in local government activities and in meetings and various proceedings And the citizen's guidebook will be available in English and Spanish on The city's website And I don't know Macaulay has anything that she would like to add on that Sure, just essentially we're trying to help folks who have not traditionally participated to have an avenue in a way of understanding How to do so so just that thank you And I will mention the chair of the community advisory board And I had a discussion earlier today and she's very excited about this and the work that they're doing on it Great very good I Next slide Meeting minutes these are straightforward and For the most part they codified existing procedures with some minor modifications So the public comment speaker cards have an option for a one sentence description Which the city clerk can use to create a brief description of the comments for inclusion in the final minutes Uh video of the meeting is not available Then the draft minutes of the meeting will be available for inspection copying upon request No later than 15 business days after the meeting. So three weeks. That is a new requirement under the Ordinance it applies only if a video of the meeting is not available The video of the meeting is available the 15 business day deadline does not apply And finally the officially approved minutes shall be available for inspection copying upon request No later than five business days after the meeting at which the minutes were approved And the meeting minutes are posted through the city's website once they are approved Um, again, these are straightforward and I would invite if the city clerk has anything that she would like to add Well, no, I don't have anything to add at the other than that the link for any approved minutes Will be are on the same page where we have the agenda the Spanish agenda. So there's a column for each of them. So they're easily You know, they're you can find them easily and click on them and download them And if somebody wants a copy they can always contact the city clerk's office if they want a hard copy They'd be happy to mail out a copy to them Thank you And uh next slide These are just our initial estimates Of the costs incurred. This really relates to the costs of translation. So Translation and then preparation of the citizen's guidebook The translated agendas that Projected monthly average is based on the February agendas, which were significantly shorter in In written content than many of our agendas So we did estimate a slightly larger number based on our expectation and experience of longer agendas Um, and that the projected monthly average was $2,400 Interpretation services for lives live Translation in at the council meetings Are actual for February included one regular meeting and three goal-setting meetings The projected monthly average is based on Estimate of three meetings per month requiring trans translation services at an average of a little over 17 hours per month And a cost of approximately 114 dollars per hour plus premium costs for evening work And again that is estimated at just under $2,000 a month The closed captioning Translation into Spanish is estimated at $3,400 a month And then the citizen's guidebook is a one-time cost is for graphic design And this is based on average for toolkit designs that we've done in the past and it's at $3,000 So the total monthly projection for translation services Is $7,776 or approximately nine a little over $93,000 a year in increased costs And that is our update To this date And happy to answer questions again. We'll be providing additional information On the other elements of the ordinance and some additional details with respect to the agenda posting and the translation services and some of the other elements at your council's March almost at February March 23rd meeting so happy to answer any questions and again Both the city clerk and the director of community engagement are here and available Thank you so much Sue and and really appreciate the overview. It's something that I know we're all trying to figure out How the best practices that we're trying to implement are actually going to work out in reality So council members anybody have questions to start Questions that I did just want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much to our staff who work so diligently To help execute this and realizing that it is a ton of work that were You know additional work Um that we're putting on you guys So I just wanted to give them a gratitude and see if you know, there was any way that we could assist mayor That we make sure that we do that because we we do want to provide to the community But not at the cost of burning out Our staff so that's my two my two cents Yeah, my question is sort of just a general one and uh, you know, just asking sort of for a candid Candid response with some of the challenges that that you laid out Sue Are there parts of this ordinance that are are being felt to be unworkable? And are there sections that staff would be interested in offering amendments to? from from my perspective, um, I don't think we're ready to um To address any potential amendments. Um, I think that there may be some refinements that we may Uh, we that we may suggest but I don't but we're not ready to tonight to make those recommendations Um, I also want to say that we all very much appreciate That the council set a effective date six months out It's very helpful for us to be able to work through these to implement it in in a more gradual fashion Again, our focus thus far has really been on the Agenda requirements and the translation requirements the timing and this is giving us an opportunity To try it out. And I think we all very much appreciate Not only that ability to roll it out in a gradual way But also the ability to evaluate and the opportunity to make suggestions if if we If we feel that that's uh, necessary or appropriate so very much appreciated Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things that interested council was to see Because things have been done The way that they were done prior to this for a long time Is this the sort of thing where once we work out the kinks and everybody gets in a rhythm? It does that make it easier? Or as I just asked are there process changes that we need to consider to to make it So that we're achieving what we'd like to achieve Like Ali Stephanie anything to add um Like um sue said we appreciate the six months time to work out the kinks and Figure out what's going to work. Um, this report out is really only taking into a couple of Meetings so far and they're fairly short. So I don't think we have enough information or enough meetings behind us to give a Full evaluation of impacts when we start getting into more Complex agendas. I think that's where we're going to really see Where the impacts are um With staff and to provide More meaningful information, but for you know this subcommittee and for the meeting on the 23rd We'll have a little more on the 23rd, but it's not until we get a few more meetings under our belt to Assess the impacts that we'll have more Meaningful information to get to the council, but the clerk's office does appreciate The time to work things out the kinks out and figure out what's going to work best for Our purposes and then also to help staff You know guide them in a way that will get their agenda items in To meet the ordinance requirements Great. Thank you. Uh, and I would like the record to reflect that when you said that we've had short meetings so far Uh eyebrows were raised from every member of the subcommittee Um, I just I just want to say I'm very appreciative of the fact that now we'll be providing translation Uh for meetings and it's going to really make a huge difference. So I it's an honor to be part of sort of the Psycho historical uh time that we will be living as as we see other committee members um show up to the table So, um, just really looking forward to seeing that unfold Great. Let's go ahead go to public comment. Uh, see if folks have any comments on this item If you do go ahead and hit the raise hand feature of zoom We'll start with eric Unmuted your microphone. Do you see the timer on your screen? There we go. You should hear me now wonderful. Yes. Okay. I will go ahead and start your timer Okay, thank you very much and thanks again for allowing me to continue to contribute Like mogaui said, I also am very excited about what's happening I think that uh, you guys are, um, setting up sort of a Model approach to uh, the this open government issue So I encourage you to keep a logbook or journal so that other jurisdictions can really get in on the inside of this And I think what you're doing may be a little bit novel Compared to other jurisdictions Here's my list of things here. Um, I noted that the cost projections did not include a summary of staff time Expenses, I don't believe that just seemed to be external costs Public comment should probably include av materials For reference, you can look at the california coastal commission and how they do that But I know that the an informed public is going to be want want to be an engaged public And the use of av materials would be the way to do that When we look at legis star, uh, currently, uh, meeting locations are listed by address When in fact the meetings are being held online And as we open up again, I think in order to quell any confusion you should be very careful about Listing meetings as virtual meetings versus putting an address and clean up that legis star I wasn't sure where the gov delivery Is signed up. It doesn't appear to be launched off the legis star. I think that's off of the individual pages pertaining to a board um, and also, I wasn't sure if this ordinance applies to other boards and Working groups and so on and so forth, uh, that the city has and if so I if it doesn't I think that it should and there's certainly our elements that All meetings should really subscribe to like having a video or audio recording The minutes the agendizing all these types of things. I think should apply carte blanche to all government meetings It is interesting seeing sort of the unintended consequences Of what you're doing and so I really appreciate being you know here now to sort of take a look at that I think it's you know incredibly fascinating The last thing that's on my list Is that by state law, uh, you're supposed to be publishing a list of the platforms that you use for information collection And dissemination and I don't think I've seen that from the city yet The county does have that list posted on their website, but it is really helpful to know What type of how the information is available what type of systems are being used as far as platforms Thank you. My three minutes is up. I totally appreciate you guys. Thank you Really appreciate it Eric. Do we have any other comments from folks? There are no hands raised for public comment Okay, and how about voicemail public comments? No voicemail public comment for item 4.1 Perfect. I'm going to go ahead and bring it back for the subcommittee Do we have any additional thoughts? Councilmember alvarez. I'll start with you. Thank you, sir. Um First of all, thank you Thank you for the for taking on the add a workload and I know it's being appreciated Throughout my tuner. I've listened to a lot of spanish speakers make the presentations on different subjects I would say if there's a log to see how many participants are are being had Although I would say internally, uh, I believe that this is a seed that's being planted And as time goes on, I know that there will see more participation But I think just for internally for us to be able to engage How how we're doing with our with our spanish speaking community And I'm wondering if that's something that's being done thus far Um, I can answer that um or part of it, but right now Zoom does not have a way for us to gauge who is actually using the spanish channel We have asked them and I know other jurisdictions across the state has asked zoom if there's a way For us to find out who is actually Tuning into the spanish channel to use that Um, but currently there is not a way I do know that um at our city clerks round table through the league There was some discussion about the league possibly reaching out to zoom To ask them um to create some platforms or some programming That municipalities can use especially in engaging the public and they would include that request Through of zoom to kind of figure out a way for us to um You figure out who is actually turning tuning in and using the spanish channel But right now everybody's On as an attendee and we don't know if somebody needs those services until they come on and State that they need a translation services Well, hopefully we'll be back to live personal meetings before zoom Creates that addition to the to their to the platform, right? I don't know if there's anything Magali wants to add or that I missed Yeah, I mean we've uh, you know community engagement. We have some conversations around that But at this point, uh, like Stephanie said, it would be really difficult unless we created an additional mechanism Which would end up being you know another obstacle for folks to um to go through so we unfortunately don't have a solution yet to Figure out a number of participants And I would have advocated against that an additional platform or Or as really again, it's a seed that's being planted and and as as our community becomes aware that they have this option That's really what we're after and even if even if there wasn't anyone who's participating in this yet It is good for the community to know that they have this option And that the option is is being available and the efforts are being made to provide that option to our spanish community All right, madame vice mayor So again inclusion is a high priority. So i'm just happy To see it all manifesting After so much hard work and again, thank you For our staff and their flexibility and willingness to make it happen I don't I don't hear grumbling or anything. So I'm just very thankful that they have seen our vision and they are able to implement it Um and give us give us feedback. So again, I wish we anything that we can do to help assist Please let us know as the mayor has already asked so we can try to help you guys to implement what we would like to see Thank you Yeah, and I want to echo the comments uh from both of my colleagues And in particular councilmember alvarez. I'm glad you brought up the idea of planting the seed and letting it grow Uh, you know when I first got on council I started doing community office hours once a month and the first Six or seven months for sure were pretty lonely Uh to sit there at your office hours with nobody showing up or one or two people showing up And it really took building the expectation Amongst folks in the community that they could show up if they had an issue They could have that kind of a dialogue before I started to see regularly folks who are interested in it And I feel like it's the same way with with most of what we do in government if we provide that opportunity It's going to take a while for people to figure out that they have it and once they take advantage of it I think it'll continue to grow I will note that we've had a number of issues so far this year where I've heard from people ahead of or after the fact that that it was uh A last minute thing that they had no advance notice It's been a great opportunity for me to educate them on how to get better engaged How to check the agenda and see things are coming And I have sincerely loved being able to say that santa rosa has one of the longest lead times Where the public knows what's coming up on the agenda out of any jurisdiction that I work with And talked to across the u.s. So that's been a nice feather in our cap and an acknowledgement of the community engagement work That that so many folks at city hall are doing and the apparatus that we're building for the next generation To take over so huge. Thank you I look forward to our full discussion at the city council level And I know some of our colleagues will have additional Comments as well. I do think the suggestion that was made about including staff time To to do this would be a very important metric for us to consider when we get there Any final comments? Yes, mayor if I could uh speaking of public comments the journal Where we can actually reproduce the the efforts that have been put forth by staff In regards to not only our surrounding cities to be able to to use but also for different departments But within our city of santa rosa to be able to mimic and replicate I think if if there's a way for us to really journalize the efforts have been put forth um Just so a council member knows we do Um document our best practices as we go along And that's what we did with zoom when the pandemic first hit it We as we learned it and troubleshooted any glitches we documented it and Created a best practices document that we have shared with other jurisdictions as they were going through because we were Pretty much in the forefront of a lot of jurisdictions and using that and so with This effort we are documenting and You know creating best practices as we go along and that's that's one of our best practices is to create a best practice Um document as we implement new um procedures and policies And Stephanie that is why we're leaving the bay All right great let's go on to item 4.2 here What I'm doing Neil hello Good evening everybody I'll wait for my slides to come up here as I All right here they are great. Thank you Uh, so good evening mr. Mayor madame vice mayor and council member I'm here tonight to give you an update on the open government task force recommendations next slide please So in 2014 as many of you may know former mayor then formed the mayor's open government task force Which began meeting in january of 2014 this task force held a series of public meetings with input from the community And used that community input and discussions to create a series of recommendations which were presented to the city council on december 2nd 2014 The areas of recommendations really focused on improving community engagement Increasing communication and strengthening policies related to transparency. Next slide please So the immediate actions for council were to set a goal of openness and transparent government Um, and then set three strategic objectives for the organization which included hiring their communications director Adopting the sunshine ordinance based on task force recommendations and creating a city mission statement Which embraces community engagement next slide please In addition to those immediate recommendations They also recommended that the city develop a culture that values public engagement Develop a culture focused on communication and develop policies that promote openness. Next slide please Next slide please So, oh that doesn't look good. I don't know what happened there. Um So Update on the immediate actions for council. So that first one of setting a council goal of open and transparent government This has been completed in council goals Actually goal number six It states to provide the community provide for community safety valued city services and open government And dml. I will just mention really fast for the public that the linked presentation on the agenda item Does have all of the information that's that's in there. It looks like there's just a translation issue between Yeah, I'm not sure what's happening there. Uh, thank you um for those three strategic objectives I will talk a little bit about them and I'll in just a moment in some upcoming slides, but Both the hiring of a communications director and adoption of the sunshine ordinance were completed However, when you take a look at the city's Mission statement that has not yet been completed. And again, I will get into that in just a bit. So next slide please So looking at the culture that values public engagement The task force did come up with some objectives and strategies Which they recommended in this report The first objective being that uh, the city genuinely engage and partner with neighborhoods volunteers businesses institutions and other organizations which support our community next slide please And I'm really sorry. I don't know what is going on with these slides here, but again The information is in the presentation that's linked in the agenda So some of the recommended strategies included Shifting definition of partnership to include community involvement coordinating use of Volunteers citywide looking for opportunities to form partnerships with other community organizations and groups And create opportunities for partnerships and ask for help in getting people engaged So the updates around these are Really in the programming that we have implemented over the last few years Including the community empowerment plan um Working with our americorps vistas to partner with sonoma state. So our vistas actually work one day a week at sonoma state each and they work with staff and faculty at sonoma state to Find out what students needs are around volunteer hours and service learning hours And then they connect them with staff here within the city to Get get them the hours that they need for graduation In addition to that Programming through the violence prevention partnership neighbor fest and again the community empowerment plan Are really Helping us get to where we need to be with these strategies I will note that These are just Programs and not necessarily things that would Build that culture or institutionalized community engagement. There are just actions that We are doing currently and i'll talk a little bit more about what I mean about that in a couple of slides. So next slide, please One moment daniel i'm actually going to be just pulling up a pdf version of the presentation so we can have the updated slides Thank you Of course Thank you everybody for being patient Yay Okay, perfect. Thank you. So um another recommended objective Um is to further incorporate the community advisory board In civic engagement practices and we've done a lot of work with the cab over the last few years in this area Some of the strategies recommended were to clarify their role and mission Educate an outreach about participatory government working with the team council emergency preparedness and also regular communication with the council So in 2018 the cab went through and completed a strategic planning process and developed our strategic plan which was Then adopted by city council or approved by city council in 2019 um part of the work that the cab is Then i'll actually i'll just mention the cab's mission is to connect city government And residents so the public can have a voice in decisions that impact their lives and build a stronger community In addition to that the cab also Worked on developing a vision strategic categories and objectives and one of the cab's um Priorities is to educate and connect individuals and groups on how to best participate in our government They're currently doing this through the development of civic 101 videos and their citizen engagement academy We are currently not working with the team council. We don't have a team council And one of the primary reasons for that right now is just lack of staffing resources resources and a budget for that Um as far as emergency preparedness goes one of the cab's strategies is to implement neighbor fest with city staff Which is really centered around disaster preparedness, although as we all know it's suspended currently right now because we can't hold large events of gatherings during covid and regular communication with the council the cab does really try to um report out regularly so individual cab members with their individual council members Doing presentations to council. Um, they also develop talking points and a recruitment flyer full council to use when recruiting new members Next slide, please additional strategies include Reassessing and restructuring the cab again as I mentioned before they went through the strategic planning process Which really helped refocus Where they put their energy into? And making more of an alignment with council goals and priorities An addition to build on the excellent engagement model of the center as a prevention partnership Um, so the cab is doing this through neighbor fest our goal in the future once we're back in person and able to hold these events Is to then really start to reach out to businesses and other local organizations to help create neighborhood hubs Next slide, please another objective under this Recommendation is to make use of key strategies outlined in matt laying hymers or laying laying jurors discussion to effectively engage the community during decision making Um, and we're doing a lot of this work through the community empowerment plan our listening sessions So involving citizens and structured facilitated discussions um And giving participants in these meetings the opportunity to compare values and experience So we're doing this right now. Um In very specific projects and programs so things like the community empowerment plan that are aligned with Improving relationship community relationships with the police department Um, whereas we haven't really developed this structure yet Um to make it part of the culture and what we do Um for the organization An example of how we could in really institutionalize this and make it a part of the everyday work that we do Here at the city My best example right now could be around council bull setting So we have heard from other jurisdictions That in addition to doing public hearings, they also hold a series of open houses where City departments come out they get to residents get to learn about different city services programs and projects They get to answer or ask questions of um city staff they get to do Activities with city staff like learn how to develop a budget and then develop their own budget To to kind of practice and see how that works Some communities in these open houses Actually allow participants to use legos to build their ideal communities and really have that Facilitated activity with other residents so that people can get others viewpoints Um, and then city staff can also collect that information and using those open houses to do voting on district priorities And collect feedback from community and in addition to that Using digital engagement platforms to gather that input for those who aren't able to come to the open houses so that's just one example of how to Really make that part of the culture and some of the bigger work that we do as a city So next slide, please All right. So another strategy Within this bull is to establish there as a as a leader in civic engagement with the bull of increasing Openness transparency and accountability next slide um so These strategies include developing a cross departmental framework in order to institutionalize a more collaborative approach to public engagement So using that example or going back to the example that I just gave that's part of Of making community engagement part of the culture Another way that we are doing this Currently is developing a community engagement toolkit and staff or sorry training for staff as well as developing tools such as meetings in a box where We might not want to hold a community meeting In a specific area town because we know people won't show up or for example right now covid But we take those meeting materials and distribute them to community members By using a variety of different places like community centers grocery stores Other community leaders who might want to go door to door as part of helping us out So we're we're in the process of developing those tools as well Expand the use of city mailing lists Through our city connections newsletter. We were able to get Our mailing up to over 90,000 subscribers online Which we also use for emergency alerts and then Speaking of the city connections newsletter The next one is to increase direct communication from the city council And the city manager and one of those recommendations was to create an electronic newsletter or city-wise White newsletter. So we did do that In addition to that the open government task force also recommended things like brown belt lunches coffee with a council member Um listening forums. Um, so to note, I know that the mayor does Mondays with the mayor So that is one example of that um an action as well as our community empowerment plan listening sessions And I believe another council member Um, has also worked with our staff to do some Community listening sessions around park development Next slide, please Um, and we're getting ready to wrap up. I believe this section here. So, um So another recommendation for increasing transparency Is around information sharing using bilingual kiosks overhauling the city's website Um, and encouraging in the next charter review, uh district elections and pay for council We all know we have those those districts already in place. So we've completed that It sounds like pay for council is coming up as a point of discussion on the city council Um, and then uh, we have completed the overhaul of the city website that happened in 2017 Uh, so the one thing that was not complete are those bilingual kiosks Um, when uh director barns was with us in 2018 She worked with other city staff to conduct an analysis on how much that would cost I don't have that number with me this evening, but I can get it to this group. Um, and based on that cost They decided to not move forward purchasing of those kiosks Um, so next slide, please Um, and then finally closing the communications loop So in us, uh in order to foster spirit of collaboration in problem solving and decision making Um, really closing that loop. Um, and we are currently doing this through our community empowerment plan So we held those listening sessions last year We're currently developing a report and we plan to go back out to the community And report our findings from that report before we take it to the city council And I know that uh staff in the general plan update also have that as well as part of their community involvement strategy Um, and we are currently in the process of developing a community engagement strategic plan for our department Um, which will include information about helping our other city staff when they're working on projects really closing that feedback loop with the community Uh starting critical conversations earlier with the community I cannot stress enough that this needs to be part of, you know, that developing that culture of community engagement here With the community oftentimes we see or hear a lot of public comment around why I didn't know this was happening You know, this is the first time I've seen it happening Um, so I think that our planning and economic development team that's working on the general plan update Is doing a really fantastic job with getting out there earlier in the process And getting that input and that engagement going Much earlier than um, you know, we normally see Again, we also did it with the community empowerment plan and we hope to incorporate that into our community engagement strategic plan as well next slide please all right, and so, um Just wrapping up again wrapping up here. I know we're we're getting close to finishing off the the culture that values public engagement um increasing opportunities for diverse community engagement and effective participation Um, so this is still in process So some recommendations could be utilizing council districts to identify meeting locations strengthening neighborhood relationships with neighborhood groups. So we're doing this through the cap and we are actually um as of today our agreement with bang the table which has a digital engagement platform Called engagement HQ has been finalized and so I will be beginning next week to work with their staff to develop our digital engagement sites So more information to come on that but that will allow us to engage with a broader group of residents And then finally build a strong civic infrastructure And how to engage people or educating people on how to best engage um So we are again working on our strategic plan The civic or civic engagement academy through the cab The civic 101 videos and our civic uh citizen guidebook for participation and next slide Finally moving on to goal three developing a culture focused on communication. So um I mentioned before that we have hired a communications director Um, so there were different iterations of this. Um, so first we started out with a director of community engagement Uh, the first director was hired in october of 2015 second one in march of 2017 And then our new division director, uh, magali Here with us tonight was hired in 2020 in addition to that we also created a position Called the communications and intergovernmental relations officer Most of you are familiar with her adrian. Um, she became That officer in january of 2018 and handles all of the communications citywide Um, overhaul of the city's website. Um, so the new website was launched in 2017 We have heard a variety of feedback from community members about the website Some of it Being that the website, um is better. However, it's still not that user friendly and so, um We are uh In early talks with uh with staff about how to address that But as I mentioned before we also are um In the process of developing our digital engagement site. So that might help with um Some of the engagement issues with our current website Next slide, please A goal for us to develop policies that promote openness And so the first recommendation was around adopting the sunshine ordinance, which as you all know happens last december um, and then uh policy recommendations that exceed minimum requirements for meetings and public records again that happens through these, uh, open government ordinance And we are also currently as I mentioned before developing that citizen's guidebook on participation. Next slide, please So as we wrap up looking at the um recommendations And updates on those recommendations from the open government task force some things to think about um I strongly encourage uh you to assess current staffing budget and resources for implementation of Remaining strategies particularly those uh surrounding community engagement Uh prioritized with the remaining strategies As well as the strategies that are already in the process of the documentation. So what should be done first? uh looking at funding to keep virtual engagement strategies ongoing um, and We didn't really talk about um translation here in this presentation. Although, I know it was brought up in the last presentation um Really think about assessing the need for in-house or staff translation services versus the contract services as Those types of services. We're going to see an increase in those with the open government agreements next slide And with that I will take questions Hey, thank you so much Danielle, and I I really want to appreciate based on our last conversation How many of these don't say complete but say uh ongoing? Right, and I think that it is really building that culture at city hall I see it in our day-to-day when we're talking about issues And I think that the public is definitely starting to see it as well Uh, you did mention that one of the I had three things down That we don't have in-processor that we don't have ongoing or complete Uh, one was the team council that you talked about When was the electric the electronic kiosks that you talked about and then one was the mission Uh, and can you just remind us uh specifically? What was the language in the open government task force recommendation around the mission? and And if you could remind us, um Why we're missing that that'd be helpful Yeah, so um the language in the recommendations is to create a city mission statement Which embraces community engagement And the current council um mission statement, which i'm graphing right now Is To provide high quality public services and cultivated vibrant resilient and livable city so That's a very broad statement It doesn't uh mention community engagement although it could be implied in there somewhere But I think I think it could go a little bit further um A vibrant resilient livable and engaged city would probably do the trick um, but I you know, unfortunately I came in in 2016 So I wasn't part of the initial conversations When they were talking about developing that mission statement And the report doesn't really go into any detail as to what they exactly they were looking for And I do if I remember correctly. I think we last updated the mission statement 2018 early 2018, I think was Okay, uh council members any other questions I did have a question Go ahead vice So one of my questions I think would be I've had people reaching out from like SSU and SRJC about uh Being of assistance to myself or other council members in what direction Should we Point them because up until tonight. I didn't even know that there was something In place to assist with that so Yeah, if you would like to send them my way Um, that would be great. And then based on what they are requesting or what they would like to help with I can get them to our vistas Um, and then our vistas can can help to you know, find where they need to be Okay, uh, secondly, uh Coffee with the mayor or hanging out with the mayor or whatever it is Any assistance that uh, you guys can provide To other council members. I don't know the scope of what you do to assist with that or chris is Excuse me, the mayor is doing it on his own Um, but I also was interested in doing something like that and I brought it up But I was not ever told that there is uh Any way that I could give assistance with even publicizing it or trying to get it out to my constituents um In district seven as far as uh wanting to get people To come and have the ability to do that So if there is something that you guys do if you can just get it out to all the council members So we can kind of know where we can get uh supported assistance from that in that way I will hand that over to magali and the mayor. I know the mayor did that on his own Um The staff has been quick to tell me that while I don't have them assisting me While we do the monday's with the mayor that doesn't mean that it doesn't create additional work for them on tuesday Yeah So go ahead. Yeah, just to kind of uh address that as something that we would love to be able to to provide Um, and as danielle was mentioning earlier, uh, community engagement is going through a strategic planning process So we are trying to borrow capacity. Um through our through our violence prevention partnership as well um If if we are able to have this opportunity of of an intern, which we are hopefully finalizing um Our processes with we can definitely look into it But again, I mean they you know that that capacity would be super limited because we're looking at I mean It's what a great experience for a young person, right? Um, so we are looking into that and we can definitely have more discussions around that. Um But we are we are wanting to make sure we're Not addressing capacity to Yeah, I would love to to look at that and also I am all for Interns and youth and bringing them in just so they can see how things work and how they're done I think that that is a part of us diversifying our leadership here And also the staff that we have on at the city is by bringing them in when they're in school and when they're young So we can get them, right? Um, so yes, anything that I can help and assist with that. I'll be more than happy to do that Yeah, we would love the opportunity to work with interns. Uh, we build that capacity in there Um, however, also being a first generation college student myself I think paid internships are really important. Um, so we are we want to be mindful with um With that as well. So but more more to come definitely And I will mention vice mayor, um, there's a standing invite to council members Uh, that if they'd like to join one of the monday's with the mayor and have it be focused on their district and issues in their district That i'm always happy to do that as well. So let's definitely talk offline And uh and set that up. I want my own day of the week mayor. Thank you very much But the vice mayor gets every day of the week. Oh, I love it. I love it Council member alvarez any comments? I appreciate that invitation and and I do need to take you up on that You've made that offer plenty of times and I haven't taken you taking you up on it Uh, mainly a comment for vice mayor rogers Uh, I believe that I was able to get some resources out of the city when I picked up issues that that were standing and uh, we've had great luck with it And I've been fortunate enough to be able to work with gustavo and, uh, gen santos From the city of santa rosa. So I'm very appreciative of the staffs coming into let me move Projects along that that have been instilled water for myself. It was actually the santa roger creek project And and moving that project ahead. It's just a recommendation of what I saw working for me All right, let's go ahead go to public comment See if folks want to weigh in I'll start with eric and then go with pat Followed by gregory You know it and thank you very much for allowing me to participate again I suppose you can hear me. Okay. Yep. Go for it, eric count thomas started So I do of course want to reiterate that as we migrate to physical meetings that you strongly consider in fact plow ahead with having A virtual component to it. I think that just totally makes sense for people that don't want to leave their house or Are into technology now in order to participate Things need to be not only bilingual but on omni channel And so a lot of times i'm seeing things that are still pretty linear and i'm i'm not really seeing sort of the multifaceted or omni channel aspect of outreach And here's where my comment's got really critical I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of what you mean by engagement I think the city's main role is to be sure that they inform and educate the population And from that comes organic engagement of people that want to be engaged If you're saying that only engaged people are informed You're never going to get A decent percentage of people that then are informed If the processes are created it created around this concept of engagement And that's how people become informed 90 of the people are going to remain ignorant I think that's a colossal miscalculation by frankly And I I have to be very critical of it because I see a lot of situations Let's use neighbor fest as an example where you're saying okay, this is emergency preparedness Okay, this is complete because we had this concept called neighbor fest. No Emergency preparation is here now urgent It is incumbent that the city take a role in informing and educating their population Look at if you were a superintendent of a school district and you had 179,701 people that students that were your responsibility You would be held to an entirely different standard of performance You would not just be able to say oh, jeez. It's just the students that were able to lead to an engagement strategy That are going to benefit from the pedagogy No an educator starts with how they can reach the lowest common denominator Not always just cater to the cream of the crop I know from being a community organizer how much effort it takes to continue the outreach And you're never satisfied because you're never going to get other people standing with you in engagement Most people just want the information. They want to be engaged. They want to be educated They don't want to be engaged. Thank you All right, thanks there pat followed by gregeri Please unmute your microphone and identify yourself for the public record if you so choose It looks like we might have left we might have lost pat So let's go to gregeri if she can either rejoin Or gregeri could perhaps hand her the phone after wonderful gregeri Please unmute your microphone and identify yourself for the public record if you so choose Hi, this is gregeri faran um I sort of disagree with uh eric About engagement, but I won't go very much into that The conversation in the past about getting people engaged Was in a context of a city council that as I remember Nobody really could talk directly to the staff Uh, you know an individual citizen who wanted to talk to the staff had a really hard time getting all the staff because We are all supposed to be either going through the city manager who then went to staff Or or to our city council person who felt very uncomfortable engaging with staff about our issue Now you're raising chris. You're raising the exact uh Opposite of that because you've boldly said, you know talk to me and I'll connect you with staff So my question is how's that going With sean, I mean it we have not had a real clear Avenue to partner with staff to become engaged with staff to really, you know become active in the development of our city except for You know avenues like going through cab or going through uh, or going to the city council and talking, you know to them in public comments Yeah, so I guess what I'm saying is you've opened up an avenue that says welcome to Our staff and to their activities Um, if you come to my you know, monday's with the mayor and tell me about something and I say I'll connect you, you know Connecting us with the staff is really crucial to engagement and connecting us as groups or individuals is really crucial I would like to know what you think Has been the pushback from either The traditional way of doing things which was don't mess with staff talk to either the city manager Or to the council as a whole but They didn't really encourage us to be able to start Working with the city Directly and now you're suggesting and all of you were I think doing the right thing Which is opening up the door for real partnership between the community and the city Employees and department heads and other folks So if you could give me some, you know feedback about is that going to continue is You know the city really changing its culture and by the way in the very beginning when I heard Uh, our city attorney talked about you know her work on this. I said to myself These aren't just words this lady believes in it. I just want to thank her for that Yeah, absolutely. Gregory and I'll touch on that after public comment when we come back All right, and let's go to pat Okay, can you hear me? There you are. Oh great I missed the unmute button Um, I just want to acknowledge that the staff report From community engagement really is a very very initial response to the recommendations Of the open government task force and I want to point out a couple things I totally agree with eric Neighborfest is not going to get us to compute from emergency preparedness. There has to be a much more significant effort An organization to get that process going The community the community empowerment strategies we have to acknowledge Came out of a response to a citizen's uprising and civil disobedience and really That response is really was an emergency response I would like to say that we can and I hope that we will expand that discussion There was some excellent Targeted discussions, but I think the whole community has to engage in that effort and I really would like to see that happening I also think a computing empowerment strategy can be much broader than the police and I hope that that will be in the future I think the community engagement department strategic plan Should not just be a department strategic plan, but should be a community What is our our strategic plan in this city for community engagement? And I would really like to see that happen or be included and again that process be much more open. Thank you All right. Thank you so much pat We have any other public comment There are no more hands raised for public comment Okay Any voicemail public comments on this item? No voicemail comments either Perfect. I'll bring it back to the subcommittee and so first, uh, I mean, thank you Eric and pat and Gregory and others who have been involved in this for a long time and For continuing to hold the city's feet to the fire On what we had promised to deliver and whether or not we are there And obviously you've heard I think many of us talk about this being an ongoing process. So so there is relative, right? And I know we'll have our next discussion will be about future agenda items And I've heard just in some of the comments some suggestions on where we could go next In some of these conversations. So I appreciate that Gregory you asked specifically about um I think it was more of a culture question around the willingness of staff to engage directly with the public And I think from my perspective and I can only really answer this from my perspective I think that one of the things that we have done very well over the last couple of years that helps Facilitate this is our goal setting process and getting very clear direction from city council on what issues and priorities Staff are to be spending their their time on And I think and at least this could be the perception that I had Prior to getting elected it oftentimes felt like because staff are so overworked that if they didn't have a clear majority from council Authorizing them to work on an issue one issue or another That sometimes it felt like that there was a lack of interest and I don't think that that's quite what it was I think it was focused on the goals and the expectations I think we're being much more clear as a council and as a community on where we need to go And I think that staff has been doing a really good job of trying to be engaged on all of those different aspects And I've certainly in my time on council have always when I have Had somebody email me or call me with an issue and I connect them to a staff member They've always been fantastic about helping to Get whatever that person needs done. So I don't know if it's a change of perception I don't know if it's something that we're doing different But I I certainly feel like staff is being responsive to the community and really does value that input And understands that not everybody knows how to navigate city hall and trying to be respectful of that and trying to help folks out I'll see if Any of our staff members in particular have Something that they wanted to touch on with that If I could just kind of comment to The community empowerment plan and I just I just kind of want to let folks know that Through the framework that C collaborative will be applying which is targeted universalism We will be providing space for the rest, you know for the entire community Moving forward. I mean that was just a very sort of concerted effort But that that is something that we're looking at and we're Going to be having their guidance To set something that is sort of aligned across the city Right anyone else council members any thoughts Well, I really want to echo what you stated mayor Really looking at at the obstacles that the covet that the covet that covet has has really put it in our way And yet seeing the amount of engagement that I personally witness From our city staff in regards to community issues It's quite impressive and I'm very excited of of of thinking towards the future once covet is not Or or is no longer an obstacle or hindrance What we can actually accomplish. So I'm very excited to see what we're able to do together moving forward Excellent vice mayor um, well, I heard the request to keep the virtual component when we go back to the communities and I think uh Having people participate virtually has um allowed us to broaden the people like you can cook dinner and do it You can technically Be on your lunch break at work and and participate, you know, so I think that those are all Um, all great things. I do want to say I don't know how it has been in the past with staff um, and then directly, uh Uh Helping community members. Um, I think that's why it's very important for us to be As council members kind of gatekeepers so that we can stick to what our goals are if we have 20 members of the community asking one staff to do it to do something anything Then I think it does It does concert the efforts to go in different places and it may not be The way that the council as a whole won't the the staff time used So it's very important to look at that that also that we're always open to hear your comments questions or concerns, so if there's something that Needs to come along or you want to have a meeting with us by all means send us an email and I know, uh myself and The mayor and eddie so everyone that's on right now I know that we make an effort to meet with people when they request to have a meeting or they have Have a comment or a question or a concern So just keep bringing it back to the council members and we are Have opened our policies and we're we want to hear what you have to say Yeah, I especially feel that way now with district elections as well Is that uh, there's a level of Uh intimate understanding of the the issues in in the districts and so I want to highlight that as well Stephanie, do you have something to to add? Yes, just going back to um, the issue of That was brought up about hybrid meetings. I just want to let the subcommittee know that um, I have Directed a staff to research how to do hybrid meetings and look at best practices So we are in process of looking at those and how we can implement that once we go back into physical meetings and to continue hybrid meetings because we have recognized that It has increased community engagement In our meetings and so we want to keep that going so just to let the subcommittee know that that is currently being researched and best Excuse me best practices looked at um, again We probably will be on the forefront of that and developing best practices for other jurisdictions Well, thank you, Stephanie, and I do intend for for this Subcommittee to have that conversation to to look at what those best practices are when staff has a chance To put that information together and Stephanie. Do we have any data that we've started to collect? to compare engagement so that we can Really articulate to folks what the impact of a virtual environment did from an engagement perspective I do not have any of that data. I don't know How we would capture that other than looking at how many attendees were at each of the meetings but just from my own experience the public comment and Email comments submitted has been A lot more than it was when we were just in physical meetings in the chamber So I would say that the engagement just right there has increased Significantly, I would say Okay, well more on this to come for sure Uh, we'll move on to item number five since this is dovetailing Perfectly with that conversation. It's future agenda items quick discussion On what could potentially be coming up on the next agendas for the open government subcommittee sued Did you want to were you introducing some of this? I I Did not have specific items. I do I would mention a couple of things that will be coming forward and and may touch this committee, which would be Our redistricting We will be required to by state law to reexamine our districts After we receive the federal census We do expect to receive that data in By the end of september and next september And we will then have a relatively brief period of time to consider revisions any needed revisions to our our Our current council districts The council will also have the opportunity to consider whether to do a complete review and perhaps revamping of the districts or to keep it a more narrow Adjustments to adjust for any changes in populations. So that's one area And that may come to this committee or it may go straight to council. That would be Certainly within your prerogative The the second item, which I'm sure will come to this committee is That we will be looking at the possibility of some charter amendments and the There are a few charter amendments That staff is looking at one in particular Is to align our charter with our current district based council elections And there are some other cleanup items that that we'll be looking looking to Kind of a variety of things one came up the other day and In considering whether we want flexibility as to whether our meetings will continue to be required to be on tuesday Because if we end up at some time in the future Joining in a civic center with them with other public agencies. We may need to have some flexibility So a number of kind of cleanup items there, but You'll also have the opportunity and council will have the opportunity to consider additional items For a potential charter amendment, you know, one has already been raised This evening, which is a paid a pay payments for council member Council members So that is certainly a topic that that may come to this committee And certainly will come to the full council I will caution As I have cautioned before That the more significant items that we put into a potential Charter amendments The more work Is going to be required by staff And we will need to look at overall at the council's Goals and priorities for this year and balance that with How much can we take on in a charter amendment? So those are two areas that I don't think that I that may come to this committee I appreciate that sue and uh, I've been very clear with people on some of the ideas Hundreds of ideas that I have for charter review and sue is making sure that I only Push a couple of them Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah paid council members rank choice voting and at-large mayor are currently my top three But that might that might change sue Let's go ahead and start with public comment on this in here from you There is a couple of things that were on the agenda that were listed that we are interested in talking about Revising the lobbyist ordinance as one that we have previously talked a little bit in this this entity about next steps for the open government task force recommendations as well as additions To the community engagement work. And yes, we heard some of those public comments On the last item as well and we'll keep them in this discussion I'll go to eric to start Thank you very much. I really appreciate you guys. I really do Um, and I don't uh have any disagreement with reg I think the the issue here is that Engaged citizens are great. But just as this meeting tends to prove There's just a handful of us participating when in fact the stakeholders number in the tens of thousands And wherever we look when it comes to the engagement equation We're never going to get a robust number of people being informed. We just aren't So what I propose is that we do have measurements about the general public's knowledge base And there are tools that you can use To understand how knowledgeable the general public is about important issues Uh, you can contact me and I can tell you some of those best practices Hand in hand with that is Understanding civic engagement best practices. There's there's a lot that's been omitted from this It doesn't even come close to best practice when you look at some of the things that Technology companies are doing in the gubtech space Um, some of my clients are the leading firms that do that And there's a lot to be learned there in their knowledge base. Um, I would also suggest that uh, you Orient things so that people can engage in an ombuds approach I know as a community leader Even though i'm not an elected official on the city council My neighbors look to me to handle problems and be able to triage problems successfully I might say that one of those civic engagement best practices is built around 311 technology The ability to have questions, whatever the question is come from the citizenry To a uh help desk where it's triage through technology that can terminate with an actual Caller taking that call And uh, you know helping that citizen resolve whatever question it is or whatever Complaint that they have or whatever that's true engagement. That's that's Lowest common denominator engagement and that's really what I mean about best practices When it comes to the charter amendments, I'm all yours. Yeah, it's a great time to change I think with the district collections I'm I would really be excited to see somebody You know put into place an elected mayor As opposed to the structure that we have now and perhaps that will draw some of the Problems that we have As informed citizens wanting to get involved and finding that there's roadblocks really getting at the information Getting at what seems to be cooperation or a perception of cooperation And we can knock down those barriers. Thanks again. I appreciate your time and have a great evening. Stay healthy, please Absolutely you too Eric next we have gregory Okay, Eric. I agree with you Because we really do need to figure out how to get a robust conversation Among the citizenry about the issues not just a few of us You know calling in and giving our advice and not even just a few people getting appointed to Charter committee or a district meeting committee and talking among themselves We've got to broaden it the conversation has to engage the community by exactly what you're talking about Getting them to either talk among themselves and then reveal it to us or talk directly in a large scale Maybe electronic, you know vehicle Unless we get people both educated and talking to Either the council or or large groups of people who the council trust We're never really going to know what they think and we never really get a more than that Engage them in solving problems. You know srt has always consistently said that you know We're not looking to the city to solve all the problems of the city It really is a partnership between the community and the the city and it just seems to us that For a long time the city hasn't really taken the community very seriously About solving problems and identifying those that we need to work together on All of those things you described chris about, you know, what we should do with our city And all the things that we heard a report about in terms of trying to figure out a way of getting people educated Take a partnership. They take a real Working relationship and we still don't have the tools to do that All right. Thank you. Gregory. We can keep working on that for sure Are there any other comments On this item? There are no more hands raised for this item Okay, and any voicemail public comments and no voicemail comments for item five Perfect. I'll bring it back Council members any additional thoughts on what you would like to see on a future agenda For the subcommittee For for me, it's it's a really it's a compliment for for city staff again Right now during the pandemic. I love to see that we are taking the steps to To formalize strategies that that will be implemented once we can we can engage the the community face to face And and and I love to see that vice mayor I just wanted to thank Gregory and Eric for you know Calling in and letting us know their viewpoint and thank you Gregory for acknowledging that really it takes a team And we all have to play our part on the team to get things done We can't do it on our own. So thank you for I knew it But thank you for verbalizing it because it really does does make a difference. So thank you Great, uh, I don't have any additional Input other than what I said at the beginning Really, this is going to be an ongoing conversation. So Eric Gregory others Absolutely happy to talk with you anytime And we'll keep working on this to to build that plane so that it doesn't matter who's flying it But that we can continue to see that engagement in the coming years and decades in Santa Rosa Soo, Stephanie, Magali any last thoughts? All right, uh, then we've been uh, we've been efficient tonight. We're gonna adjourn nine minutes early Thank you everybody for participating and we'll see you soon