 All right, everybody ready to go? Let's go ahead and call ourselves into order today. Madam City Clerk, can you please call the roll? Thank you. Councilmember Tibbets. Here. Councilmember Schwedhelm. Here. Councilmember Sawyer. Here. Councilmember Fleming. Here. Councilmember Rogers. Present. Thank you. Vice Mayor Alvarez. Present. Mayor Rogers. Here. Let the record show that all councilmembers are present. All right. Thank you. We will start our day with three closed session items. We'll go ahead and see if there's public comment on those items. Go for it, Mr. DeWitt. And then Madam Deputy City Clerk, if I could have you handle the Zoom after. Hello. My name is Dwayne DeWitt. I'm from Roseland. And I had wanted to comment on the idea that it's still important to keep the wages in check. Right now you'll be having your labor negotiations which go on continuously, basically. And the thing is, it's not like we have a lot of money that's extra, even though you feel you've got a big bank now because of the funds coming in from ARPA and the PG&E settlements and other things like that. I think it's very important you still have a hard-headed fiscal oversight in your negotiations to keep top management wages down and actually disperse whatever extra monies might be available in your mind to the lower paid workers at the bottom end. The maintenance people and the parks people, the ones that take care of our city. On the next item, regarding this property negotiation with the county, why does this have to be secret? If it's land that's owned by the taxpayers in negotiations with another taxpayer-oriented agency, you should be able to talk about it in public because it's not like someone's going to be trying to make profit off of this, which would be why a private property negotiation is protected. So this is between government agencies. And this should be out in the open so that we, the taxpayers, can see what's actually happening. Now, last but not least, I wanted to add something which is, I believe, a circumstance which justifies a continuance on a matter for public hearing later today. I have here a copy of council policy 00013 where people can ask for continuance and if they are the appellant, they need to do it as early as possible. So I'm doing it here during this session. The reason I'm asking for the continuance of the public hearing regarding old school cannabis is because as the appellant who paid my fees of $556 almost 10 weeks ago, I never heard anything back from any city employee about this matter. And yesterday when I came in to pick up a written agenda is when I saw it was on today's hearing. I went down to the planning department. It was 405 in the afternoon. The planner wasn't there that handled it. They told me that I could call. I did that. I got a request in to her for the appellant procedures. In the past, the planning department would give an appellant information on how to correctly do their appeal and how to handle things that did not occur with me. When I came in today to get what was available, they gave me a copy of the manual of procedures and protocols for the city council. And that's where I found this idea about the city policy for continuance. So I'm asking for continuance on old school cannabis. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dewitt. You know, do we have anybody on zoom? Mayor, I'm not seeing any hands being raised via zoom for items 2.1 through 2.3. Great. We'll recess into closed session. Hi, Pablo. Hi, Charles. Thanks for joining us. Do you want to do a quick mic check? Good afternoon. It's Charles. Oh, this is Pablo. Thank you both. Is there a preference of who goes into the Spanish channel first? I'll go ahead and go first. Okay, I'll pop in there. And then Charles, if you can restate the how to participate from the Spanish channel at the time I say that out loud, that would be wonderful. And then I'll move you over to the Spanish channel with public. Understand. For those just joining the meeting via zoom, live translation in Spanish is available and members of the public wishing to listen in the span on Spanish channel can join via zoom by clicking on the interpretation icon on your toolbar. It looks like a globe. Once you join the Spanish channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the Spanish translation. Charles, will you please restate this in Spanish? For the recent arrival of the meeting, the interpretation in Spanish is available and the people who wish to listen in Spanish can go to the Spanish channel. To change the channel, click on the interpretation icon located on the toolbar. It looks like a globe. I think that according to the Spanish channel, we recommend that you turn off the main audio so you can hear the interpretation clearly. Good afternoon and welcome to the December 14th City Council meeting. Madam City Clerk, can you please call the roll? Thank you. Council Member Tibbetts. Here. Council Member Schwedhelm. Here. Council Member Sawyer. Here. Council Member Fleming. Here. Council Member Rogers. Present. Vice Mayor Alvarez. Present. Mayor Rogers. Here. Let the record show that all council members are present. Thank you, Stephanie. Let the record also show it's the first time we've had seven council members at the dais in almost two years. So it is definitely a cause for celebration. Sue, could you please give a brief report out on our closed session items? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council did meet in closed session on three items today. The first item 2.1 was a conference with labor negotiators. Council gave direction to the negotiation team and took no final action. The second item 2.2 is a conference with the real property negotiator. Again, the council had a discussion and gave direction to negotiation team and took no final action. And finally, the council met and discussed item 2.3, which is a conference with legal counsel on existing litigation. That was a matter of Roseland Action and Dwayne DeWitt versus the city of Santa Rosa. Council gave direction to legal counsel and took no final action. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much, Madam City Attorney. Let's go ahead and see if we have any public comment on our report out from our closed session items. If you're interested, go ahead, either approach the podium or hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom. Seeing none, we'll keep moving. We have no proclamations this evening, but we do have staff reports. So, Mr. City Manager, Mayor Rogers and members of the City Council, our COVID-19 update today starts with information from the California Department of Public Health, announcing that effective tomorrow, December 15th, masks are required to be worn in all indoor public settings, irrespective of vaccination status through January 15th of 2022, at which point the state will make further recommendations as needed in response to the pandemic. Sonoma County Public Health officials do not anticipate much impact or changes to the existing local indoor masking order, but are actively reviewing this new guidance from the state and are anticipated to share more information within the next few days. Additionally, the California Department of Public Health updated requirements for attending mega events like concerts and sporting events. Prior to attending a mega event, attendees will now be required to provide either proof of vaccination, a negative antigen COVID-19 test within one day of the event or a negative PCR test within two days of the event. The California Department of Public Health also issued a new travel advisory effective immediately to recommend that all travelers arriving in California test for COVID-19 within three to five days after arrival, regardless of their vaccination status. On Friday, in alignment with federal and state guidelines, Sonoma County announced that 16 and 17 year olds are now eligible to receive booster shots of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine six months after completion of their primary vaccination series. Vaccination is still the best protection against COVID-19 as people gather indoors with the arrival of colder weather in the winter holidays, increasing their risk of exposure to the virus. Local data collected over the last three months show that Sonoma County residents who are unvaccinated are nine times more likely to become ill, 40 times more likely to become hospitalized and 16 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than people who have been immunized. As of yesterday, the county has 1,231 active COVID-19 cases and a total of 416 deaths since the pandemic started. That concludes our COVID-19 update for this week. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Councilor, are there any questions? All right, let's see if there's any public comments on that staff report. And I am not seeing any hands on Zoom, nor am I seeing anybody move towards the podium. Let's move on to City Manager and City Attorney Reports. We'll start with the City Attorney tonight. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Tonight, I will be reporting on our settlements and active litigation in the last month. As you know, under the open government ordinance, we are providing these reports monthly. In the materials that were published, indicated that we had no settlements over 50,000 finalized in November. We do have, however, a new case that was just very recently settled. That is a matter of Casey versus City of Santa Rosa and County of Sonoma. The case concerned allegations of a violation of civil rights during an arrest that took place in 2018. The matter was settled for a total of $110,000, and that amount was split evenly between the City of Santa Rosa and the County of Sonoma, each entity committing to pay $55,000 each. That is the only settlement to report this evening. In the litigation log, we have 30 cases. It's up a little bit from last month, but not dramatically. The one case that I would note that was new, we did have a couple of new cases, but the one that was probably of more interest was we were served with a lawsuit from the Owners and Renters Rights Association, challenging the City's new short-term rental ordinance. Plaintiffs in that action did apply for a TRO in the Superior Court. The court did deny that application, so there is no temporary restraining order. The ordinance remains in effect, but the litigation will now proceed on that. Among the 30 cases, we have nine code enforcement and receiverships. These are actually only the receivership cases and do not include just the straight code enforcement matters. We have nine matters of general litigation. That includes breach of contract claims, an ADA claim, another claim under the Public Records Act, a Proposition 218 claim regarding water rates, and then a couple of other general litigation matters. We also have six personal injury or dangerous condition of public property cases, five cases alleging police actions, and five rits of mandate currently pending. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Let's see if we have any questions from council members. Okay. Seeing none, Mr. City Manager, I have to start. So for those of you who don't know tonight is Jeff's last scheduled council meeting with us, and obviously he'll still be around City Hall for the next couple of weeks until we have the new City Manager officially on board, but this is our last meeting of the year. And I just wanted to jump in before I give you a chance to speak and just say thank you. For those of you who haven't known Jeff, and I didn't know him prior to him coming here to be the interim City Manager, he not only has a long history of working at the city, but also deep, deep, deep community involvement since then, and since he's come back to the city in his retirement and has really integrated himself into the public. When we needed somebody to step in about half a year ago, Jeff came forward as somebody who cared a lot about Santa Rosa, and I'll say it's been incredible getting a chance to work with him and hearing from staff how much his mentorship has helped them. And I think that even though it's only been a six-month stint, I think the city is in a much better spot for you having served with us. So I just want to say thank you. And like I said, we'll have a chance over the next couple of weeks to say goodbye to you, particularly behind the scenes, but I do want to give it an opportunity for the public to say goodbye as well, and just thank you so much for your service. Thank you, Mayor. It's been a pleasure to have the opportunity to once again work with the city and the City Council and to get to know some of the newer council members during this tenure. I'm so proud of the work that the city has done and continues to do. I look forward to being a part of this community in the future and continuing to serve on a volunteer basis with some of our community organizations. I'd also like to share with you that we're seeing the departure of one of our key department heads. Today's the final day for Eric McHenry, our Chief Technology Officer. Many of you know Eric and the leadership that he's shared with us here in the city and the technology area. Much of what we experienced today in our meetings is a result of the technology team and our city clerk working together to bring Zoom and hybrid meetings to the city, as well as a host of other technological advances. So I'd just like to say thank you to Eric. Thank you for all of the advancements you've brought to the city. I hope you enjoy your retirement. I understand he's going to be assuming a new leadership post as the president of the Airstream International Owners Club and he'll be traveling around the country in his trailer. And when he's back in the area, he's also going to be a board member for Exchange Bank here locally. So congratulations Eric and thank you for your service to the city. And thank you to Eric as well. He's been a fixture here at City Hall and as you mentioned, this last year has not been easy from the tech front and so just thank you to him and his entire team and I wish him the best in his retirement. Council members, does anybody have anything that they, any questions or any comments they'd like to make? Council Member Sawyer. Thank you, Mayor. And Jeff, you were my first city manager and I, 15 years ago, it's been an honor and a pleasure to serve with you again. You were the right man at the right time to be helping us get through these last months and just thank you for your service again and good luck and I know you're not going anywhere. You'll be definitely a fixture in our community and continue to be involved and thank you very much for your service. Council Member Svetom. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, if Eric is listening, congratulations on your retirement and knowing Eric as I do, I know Airstream is a big part of his life. He's quite the outdoorsman so I know he's not going to be sitting at home with nothing to do between fishing, hunting, traveling, three-wheeling. He's going to lead a very adventurous retirement life so congratulations, Eric and I really appreciate all your contributions to the city and for you, Jeff, I was so pleased when the opportunity came for this interim job that you were interested having both worked for you and one of the things that was nice being a staff member when you were the city manager, it was like I wasn't working for you, I was working with you and I'm hoping now that I'm in this role in your last six months, I feel like we're continuing to work together because one of the things that we have in common is we're doing what's in the best interest of Santa Rosa. So when you stepped in, very challenging times and you've brought some stability to the organization that was needed and with Marikisha coming in, I think you're the perfect person to basically have a transition of power between the Sean's administration and Marikisha's administration. So thank you and I can't wait to see the additional contributions you're going to make to the city of Santa Rosa. So thank you, Jeff. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Jeff, I mean, I thank you, doesn't suffice. Someone who's willing to take a call at any time to help guide a newly elected, including last night. Like I said, I thank you, doesn't suffice. I hope it does good for now, but I know that we're not done and I look forward to tomorrow and thank you for serving. And I'm happy that you were able to have an opportunity to want to come back and to make that happen for not only us as the council, but us as the city of Santa Rosa. Thank you, sir. Yes, I'll start out with Eric. If you're out there in space somewhere, getting ready to go out in your airstream, the thing that strikes me is that your next job sounds like a heck of a lot more fun. And I hope you have a ton more fun. Thank you for your kind words and your support along the way and your staff has been really helpful in getting us where we need to go with our technology. And I can't imagine the amount of work between your office, the city manager's office and the clerk's office that has had to be put in since the beginning of COVID. So thank you. A lot of jurisdictions experienced a lot of difficulty and I think we've had a pretty smooth ride and much of that thanks goes to you. And as for Jeff, most of the good things have already been said about you and I'm loathe to say anything bad. So what I will say is my favorite thing about working with you, Jeff, is your sense of humor and that even with a mask on and glasses, you ain't got no poker face. And I always enjoy taking a look at you when somebody says something absurd. So I will miss that sorely. Best of luck in your next stage and I know we'll see you around. So congratulations to Eric and your retirement if you are out there listening. And I would say that it is a loss to the city but it is definitely a gain for you to experience life at a whole another level and that is to have time because I know we have monopolized a lot of your time, especially with our transition with COVID. So thank you so much to your service, to our city and to our community. And I hope you enjoy your retirement. It sounds like you have a lot of stuff planned. And to Jeff, this has been a ride, needless to say, the first year on council. There have been a lot of changes and I feel like I have known you for a really long time. And I thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to grow for the time that you've been here and being open and willing to foster that growth even though you knew that your time here was limited. So thank you very much. Thank you for being available. And I wish you the best in your retirement and don't go too far because I still have your cell phone number. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor. First, I'll start off by saying thank you to Eric. I remember when I was first joining the council and we had our first goal setting meeting, I had the chance to sit next to Eric and also the fire chief Tony Gossner at the time. And I remember what an exciting and eventful discussion that was at lunch. It was ATVs, hunting, fishing, Alaska. So I'm really glad to hear that Eric is doing what he's doing, going to be going off and running the Airstream Manufacturers Association. I just think that's perfect and I wish him all the best. Jeff, I wish I could have the chance to work with you more over the last year. But the interactions that we had, I really appreciate. And I knew you coming from, I guess, both rotary, but also your job at Memorial Hospital. And I knew we were getting the best choice because what I saw in you there was just this huge amount of compassion for people and for this community, the vulnerable and the homeless especially. And boy, that just translated into your work here. And so I just wish you all the best. I look forward to working with you more in the future. I'm glad you're not going outside of the community. We get to still have you here. But a million thank yous. Sue? Yeah, I'll brief you. We'll have a chance. I'm sure to talk quite a few times in the next few weeks. But I do want to express my very deep gratitude for your service and for working with you. It is an absolute pleasure, an absolute privilege to have had the chance to get to know you and to work closely with you. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Let's go ahead and open it up to public comment. If you have a comment on our city manager and city attorney reports tonight, go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on Zoom or make your way up to the podium. And I'm not seeing any hands, so we'll go ahead and bring it back. Do we have any voicemail public comments? We do not, Mayor. All right. Let's go on to statements of abstention by council members. Does anybody have to abstain tonight? Vice Mayor? Thank you, Mayor. I will be abstaining from item 15. The public hearing for the appeal on old school cannabis due to my involvement in the cannabis industry. Okay. Anything else? Council members? I'll be abstaining from the minutes. I was not present. Okay. Did you note that? Vice Mayor? Great. And then I will also be abstaining from item 15.1. I did an independent consulting project a couple of months ago, writing a technical ordinance for one of the groups that's now assisting with the appeal. And so even though I don't do any work with them still, just to avoid any perception of impropriety, I'll be abstaining from that item as well. Let's go on to our... We'll see if there's any public comments on item number nine. Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on to item number 10. That's our mayors and council member reports. I'll start at this end of the day. I'll just work my way down. Nothing to report, Mayor. Okay. Council members, what on? Anything? Yes. I have a couple of things. I know we had a public safety subcommittee meeting on December 8th. And I'm sure our chair, council member Fleming, will report out on that. I also last week took a tour of Caritas. I think all of us were invited and I really encourage other of my colleagues to take that tour. It's going to be a fabulous facility and really bringing some needed assets to those who are receiving services from Catholic Charities. Not only will they be doing some improvements to the Ninie Gale Project, which they're increasing the capacity, I think from 17 beds, which what they have over on Brookwood. And the Ninie Gale Project is a project that someone who is experiencing homelessness goes to the hospital, gets released, but shouldn't be out on the street. They had 17 beds over there, I think at the new facility, they have up to 34, which is huge. Also with the new building, with family support services and drop-in center, actually having medical facilities on site in a commercial kitchen. I really encourage you to take a look if you have time and all of our busy schedules. Take a tour of it, because it really is going to be a game changer for our community. And then very happily to report, we had our Groundwater Sustainability Agency meeting on December 9th. And after the public hearing, the board unanimously approved the Groundwater Sustainability Plan. Now we'll be waiting on the State Department of Water Resources to approve the plan, and that could take a year or two. But it was a huge step for the GSA, and thank you for giving me the direction that was supported by everyone else on the board. That's all I got. Thank you, Council Member. Nothing to report from you, Mayor. Okay. We had a Sonoma County Transportation Authority and Regional Climate Protection Agency meeting yesterday. One of the items that we had was a pretty cool tool that shows all of the housing projects that have been proposed and approved, proposed and or approved on a GIS map for Sonoma County. And it maps it against our priority development areas and high resource zones. The link is very long. I did share it on social media. I'd encourage folks to take a look at it. It's really interesting and it's very striking when you start to see where we've been able to develop particularly affordable housing units and how many. Santa Rosa is continuing to lead the way on that. I think the number was about 45% of all of the affordable housing units in the county are Santa Rosa approved at this point. So I just encourage folks to take a look at that. Tonight we'll also be adjourning in the memory of Marie Durkin. Marie Durkin is the mother of our fantastic director for Santa Rosa Water, Jennifer Burke. And unfortunately she passed a number of weeks ago in emailing with Jennifer just to check in on with her. She did tell me that she received her passion for public service from her mom who had served as a planning commissioner when she was growing up. And so tonight we will be adjourning in her memory and wishing Jennifer well. Council Member Fleming. Thank you, Mayor. This last week I've had the opportunity to get to chair the public safety subcommittee with the assistance of Council Member Schwedhelm and Council Member Rogers. We reviewed policy 308 which is a use of force policy. And the police department has done an excellent job of reviewing this policy to ensure less force is used, less liability is incurred, and fewer people get hurt in the course of them carrying out their responsibilities. And the other main item that was brought forward was a complete revision of the terms that the police department will engage with calls on. And they went through Captain Marensik who is retiring at them this month went through nearly every possible type of call that they could receive. And they went through a thoughtful process of trying to reduce the amount of calls that they respond to in order to prioritize higher level calls to make things more digitally accessible and also to reduce the probability of negative outcomes with the community. And so I'm very pleased to have participated in that process. And you know in the future I think we'll be looking at Taser policy as I think or as if we've seen that you know many other jurisdictions don't use them because they can be lethal as we've recently recognized. And then this Wednesday we'll have our last meeting of the Metropolitan Transportation Committee or Commission excuse me at 9.30 a.m. tomorrow morning for all of you transit and housing folks who just can't get enough. Council Members. Thank you Mayor. It's with a really heavy heart tonight that I'm going to announce that tonight's going to be my last meeting with the Santa Rosa City Council. On Tuesday, December 21st will be when I submit my letter of resignation just one day after my last day as chair at the Renewal Enterprise District. The reason for this is really simple. It's that the public deserves a really attentive council member but so does my son and wife. And I've had a really hard time juggling the two. It brings tears to my eyes to think about the last five years. It's been ups and downs. It's been incredible. Working with all of you has been so special. I really mean that. I wish it could have been longer but gosh guys I thank you for it. And I'm very sorry to leave you with a selection process ahead. Having been through that myself I know that I don't want to wish it upon anybody else but I just hope you understand that the public deserve a hundred percent. So does my wife and child. So, thanks you guys. Thank you Council Member. I'm serving kind of a unique role because I've been friends with Jack since before either of us ran for office and then I've had an opportunity to serve with him through everything whether it was fires or the pandemic. And I'll say I don't know that the city council has ever had such a strong champion for housing for our homeless population for disadvantaged communities. And I just thank you for your service over the last five years. And I know Allie is going to be really excited to get her husband back. And I know that Casey is going to be really proud to be able to be with you as he grows up. And so I know you're making a hard decision. I know you're making the decision for your family. And I just can't thank you enough for being there for us for the last five years. Jack I'm sure this was a real tough decision for you to make. My comments are very short. It's been a pleasure and an honor serving with you. Your dedication to those issues that you were passionate about. You brought that passion to the table. Family comes first. You've made the right decision and I honor that. Thank you John. Tom. Thank you. And so sorry to disappointed to hear you're believing this because as others have heard me say it is a team sport and you've been a very valuable member of this team. But I totally get it. In fact, as I've announced, I've got one more year. Part of my reasoning for that is I've got a grandson coming. And so the value of family and being there for them, you're 100% making the right choice. Again, once you start thinking back over five years, it seems like it's been much longer with the fires. But I know where our paths have intersected with housing and homelessness. And it's been unique when she became the executive director of Saint Vincent of Paul. We couldn't talk on some of the things, but I know we're on the same page. So I know your efforts have made a difference in Santa Rosa and thank you for your service, but you're doing exactly the right thing. Congratulations. Very tough decision. Jack, I mean, it's kind of like how you just mentioned to Jeff about wishing that you had an opportunity to work longer. That's exactly how I feel right now. But families first. With that, I say congratulations. Enjoy the next chapter of your life. And also as I stated earlier, I know we're not done. Thanks, Eddie. Thanks. Well, Jack, I think that this must have been a really difficult decision. And I can hear in your voice how hard it's been. I'm personally going to really miss your leadership on housing, getting to work with you on the renewal enterprise district has been one of the highlights of my time on council. And I'll be looking to another council member to really step up and be my partner in pushing hard for all kinds of housing all across the board and taking those difficult positions. So, you know, it's with a heavy heart that I say, I think you've probably done the right thing for your family and for yourself. And that you point out, you know, by this example, you know, we point out that this is an impossible job to do in the way that it's set up. And I'm sorry that you couldn't continue in a way that was good for you and your family. Thanks, Victoria. I also look forward to the opportunity to get to speak candidly with you about homelessness and housing for indigent people going forward. I think that's one opportunity that that I can look forward doing this. Yeah, me too. And same goes for you, Tom. I was not expecting that. I like to tease you. But I am happy that you're going to be able to spend more time with your family. Definitely. I do like picking your brain. I am looking forward to being able to pick your brain still and for it not to count as, you know, my Browns Act. I don't have to count you as a person. I'm also looking forward to working with you on in a different capacity, hopefully, in other ways. So hoping that we see more of you just in a different capacity. I'm really, I'm sad because I hear that you're sad and that was a hard decision for you to make. But family is family is first. And this is a really tough job and it's hard to do with the family. And I think a lot of us that that have families and are struggling with that. So but we support, I support you. Thank you. I think we all support you 100% in making this decision. So we wish you the best. And know that I'm here for each and every one of you, for whatever you need going forward. I owe you all a lot. Let's go ahead and go to public comment for councilmember reports. There's NB in the public. Mr. DeWitt. I'd approach the podium. Okay. I don't see any hands on zoom. Did we have any voicemails? We do not, Mayor. All right. With that, we'll keep moving. And let's go on to our approval for the minutes. We have the October 12th, 2021 minutes for tonight. Council, do we have any amendments to those? Any amendments? I believe there is one there. And it'll be from Councilmember Nally Rogers upstanding for, or is that? Yeah, we'll come back for the motion in a moment. Perfect. Let's go to the public. See if anybody has any changes that they need to the minutes. Okay. Seeing none, we will show those adopted as presented with councilmember Rogers abstaining unless I hear objection from the council. Seeing none, we'll keep moving. Mr. City Manager, I believe we're pulling item 12.5 from the consent calendar. Correct. That is correct, Mayor Rogers. Staff would like to propose an amendment to that item for the council's consideration. Okay. We'll bring that back at another time. Would you please read the rest of the consent calendar? If we could do that tonight, I think it's a simple amendment. Oh, okay. That's yes. We'll amend the item then. Yes. And we'll pull that one separate and we'll do it separate from the rest of the consent calendar if that works. Great. So we have seven items on the consent calendar tonight, beginning with item 12.1, a resolution for approval for fire department to purchase two type one Pierce fire engines. Item 12.2, a resolution approving the national prescription opiate litigation distributor settlement agreements. Item 12.3, a resolution authorizing certain staff to enter into agreements to execute other documents with the California housing and community development department, community development block grant mitigation planning and public services projects developed in response to the 2017 Tubbs fire. Item 12.4, a resolution approving a parking agreement with airport business center and blue Fox partners for parking permits for garage five and garage nine related to settlement of the airport business center versus the city of Santa Rosa, Rosa lawsuit. We will take item 12.5 after the balance of the consent calendar and the resolution I'm sorry the revision we're proposing is removal of the request for funding for $50,000 for program monitoring services. Item 12.6, a resolution making the required monthly findings and authorizing the continued use of teleconferencing for public meetings of the city council and all city boards commissions and committees pursuant to assembly bill 361. Item 12.7, a resolution for the termination of the proclamation of a local emergency due to the 2021 floods. Item 12.8, an ordinance adoption and ordinance of the council of the city of Santa Rosa establishing the monthly salary of $22,500 and other compensation and benefits for the city manager. Okay, do we have any questions about the consent calendar? Council Member Svettel. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Actually no real questions just two requests on item 12.1 and 12.2 both of which I've supported for 12.1 just because there's some ifs in there. Six figure is if we're able to get the purchase order signed could we get an update and it doesn't have to be at a council meeting just at least an email how did that turn out just because that figure is pretty significant and then same thing on 12.2. There's some a variety of different ways that those funds could be utilized and I would like council to have a voice and to identify how they are again I'm making the assumption both of those will be supported. That's all, thank you. Yeah, let's go ahead and see if we have any public comment on these items. Hello, sir. My name is Dwayne DeWitt. I'm from Roseland on item 12.8 just a back of the envelope calculation. The wages are $270,000 a year for this person and that doesn't include the compensation and benefits which you don't tell us here what they are. This seems like just a really outrageous amount of money for somebody to be a paper pusher. No offense intended to anybody that's in those types of positions but these things are getting so out of hand in terms of how much money we spend for top management people. We're not getting what we really should be getting from this type of a wage. This isn't offered in the private sector. People don't get this much money just to be a Monday through Friday paperwork kind of person. This is really a stunning situation and it really begs the question when will you folks begin to stop the inflationary spiral that's been going on for years now? I can appreciate Mr. Cullen. I like his sense of humor. We've been joking occasionally over the last 15 almost 20 something years it seems like and when he came as a temporary guy he was also drawing his pension from another job at another place and it's like these guys are making fat money. Big bank off the taxpayers just doing basic stuff. They're not saving lives. They're not like the EMTs that are out there doing the hard work and it really just begs the question if we've lost our sense of balance and put our priorities in the wrong place. Like a nurse that's out there risking their lives right now during COVID is probably only making $65,000 a year with overtime. So please stop this inflationary spiral and hopefully hold the cost of living increases. You'll continue to give these people in the future to just 1%. This is fat money they're making now and it just doesn't seem fair especially during COVID that these folks would make so much money just to be talking in meetings with other highly paid bureaucrats. Thank you for your time. Thank you Mr. DeWitt. I see no hands. Do we have any other voicemail public comments? We do not Mayor. Okay let's go ahead and see if the Vice Mayor has a motion. Thank you Mayor. I would like to move Consent Items 12.1 through 12.4 and 12.6 through 12.8 with the exception of 12.5 being placed as the balance of the Consent Calendar by City Manager Jeff Coleman. We have a motion from the Vice Mayor and a second from Council Member Tibbets. Let's go ahead call the vote. Thank you Mayor. Council Member Tibbets. Council Member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council Member Sawyer. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Yes. Council Member Rogers. Aye. Vice Mayor Alvarez. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with seven ayes. All right now Mr. City Manager, can you tell us what the amendments are to item 12.5? Mayor Rogers, members of the Council, Magali tell us the staff member, our Deputy Director of Community Engagement. Let me know earlier this afternoon that we no longer need the monitoring services under this program. So if we can amend the approval to remove the $50,000 increase, that's the only change that we need. Okay, if there's any questions from Council about that. I think Sue is going to give us the language or where it needs to be. Yes, I was going to indicate that it is in the second to last be it further resolved that includes that increase of $50,000 for program monitoring services. And that is no longer necessary. Okay, so we'll strike that language that therefore be it resolved language. Thank you. I believe that the entirety of that paragraph can be deleted, but if Ms. Teyes is online, she may be able to confirm that. So thank you. Yes, that would be the only adjustment. Thank you. Okay, Council Member Spudel. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. So confirm because we still need to evaluate the programs. It just won't be through upstream investments at $50,000. I'm assuming there might be some other adjustments. Is that, is my interpretation accurate? Yes, so we will still be able to continue with the software and the dashboard that upstream investments established for us. There's actually a way for us to continue doing that work without necessarily having them directly overseeing that. And that's something we're able to sort of work out very recently. So it's sort of still in collaboration with them. I'm moving forward in this way. Great, thanks. Thank you. All right, let's see if we have any public comment on item 12.5. Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the Council. Council Member Alvarez, would you like to make a motion? Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to move item 12.5 with the amendment removing the section that speaks of the monitoring services for the amount of $50,000. So we have a motion from the Vice Mayor, second from Council Member Tibbets. Let's call the vote. Council Member Tibbets. Aye. Council Member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council Member Sawyer. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Yes. Council Member Rogers. Aye. Vice Mayor Alvarez. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with seven ayes. Okay, it's not yet five o'clock, so we'll come back to non-agenda items. Let's move on to item 14.1, Mr. City Manager. Mayor Rogers and members of the Council. Item 14.1 is a report item on the fiscal year 2021 measure 0 annual report. Veronica Connor, our acting budget and financial analysis manager, and Alan Alton, our interim chief financial officer, will present the staff report on this item this evening. Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Veronica Connor. I am the budget and financial analysis manager, and I am here to introduce to you the measure 0 annual report for fiscal year 2020 and 2021. Next slide, please. You will be hearing today from the violence prevention department, fire department, and the police department. And before we get started, I just want to say thank you to all the departments, as well as the budget team for their work in putting together this report and this presentation. And with that, I will turn it over to violence prevention. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Rogers and members of City Council. Next slide, please. My name is Jason Parish, Administrative Services Officer with the Community Development and Engagement portfolio, and I'll be starting off the violence prevention group, which consists of the Violence Prevention Partnership and Community Engagement, as well as the neighborhood services programs funded by measure 0 in the recreation division. Next slide, please. So the violence prevention group started out with a million dollars in fund balance and between the sales tax collections, as well as the total 2021 COVID expenditures, ended up with about half a million dollars in the ending fund balance as of the start of the current fiscal year. And if you'll remember that $510,000, that'll come up later in the presentation as well. Please advance this slide. So the most significant part of the violence prevention group in both recreation as well as community engagement are the salaries. Roughly one third of that amount, $300,000 approximately, is made up of temporary seasonal employees working out of the neighborhood services portion of the group. And then as well I draw your attention to the $799,000 in choice grants, which by the requirement of the measure 0 ordinance is 35% of the annual revenue, roughly. Please advance the slide. So and as you can see over the long term, especially with the measure 0 program, we have to ensure that the revenues and the expenditures track well. And in the last couple of years, as you could see, there's a very slight gap between the expenditures and the revenues as we've tried to continue supporting the public throughout COVID in the important work of ensuring community health and the health of our youth. So if you could please advance the slide. And I would like to introduce Interim Deputy Director Jeff Tibbets, who will be presenting the next portion of the presentation. Thank you, Jason. Good evening to Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council. Jeff Tibbets, Interim Deputy Director for Recreation. I'm going to present a little differently than maybe we normally do on our programs because let's face it, this year was a little different than most years any of us have experienced. I think it was a great example of how fortunate Santa Rosa is and our community is to have a resource like Measure O and the flexibility of the spending and the resource that it is and those funds that go to the Recreation Division and the section of Neighborhood Services to answer the call and provide services to our community as needed. I've been, I started with Neighborhood Services. I've been with the city for 18, 19 years now. I've seen a lot of things, but this past year and the School of Rec program is certainly something that I feel very honored to be here representing the Recreation Division, representing all the staff who put in the work to make this happen. It was truly a great accomplishment. The one thing I'd like to stress about this slide here is you can see that we have a participant in the middle and the slide was designed by staff this way because that's really how this program was created and developed is what does our community need? What does our participants need? So the idea of School of Rec was we knew that the schools were not opening and so academic development was kind of an obvious that we're going to fill that void and we're going to offer children a place to go while schools are closed and have some support and doing this distance learning that none of us knew really what that was or how that was going to work. So obviously you had staff that were there able to assist children. You had the gap of accessibility to technology being addressed. So using our community centers, working with IT, getting everything ramped up, making sure that we were going to be able to accommodate all of these kids assuming and doing those things. So that was kind of what the program was built around and the idea of the program. But there's so many other components that as we built out the program we realized so much more was being done. So as this program built, as we saw more going on, I can truly sit here and say I 100% believe that the kids who participated in this program, our participants, our students in many ways became very fortunate through the pandemic because they had a sense of normalcy that most people did not have because of this program. Schools were closed with these kids. They were part of a group. They were coming on a regular basis. They got to know their staff that were helping them and so they were able to get components of their life that otherwise they wouldn't have had. The other piece that came abundantly clear and kind of helped us develop these other pieces is that recreation played a critical role in bridging the distance learning relationship between the student and parent and the schools. So we were able to, as we developed these relationships, really helped bridge the gap and fill in some of these other missing points. So the first thing that came natural to us in recreation was that physical health piece. And of course, we're thinking we're going to play games. We're going to take the kids swimming. We're going to play pickleball. We're going to do these types of things that are going to have the kids being active and have them being healthy. What we didn't realize and what developed is that we became a big piece of collaborating with the county health services. We were a big piece in helping increase the reporting of contact tracing and also getting access to testing for participants and their families to the point that we even at times had testing services come onsite to our program to help administer that help keep the program open and make sure that everybody was safe. The other piece that early on was identified and became critical there at the bottom is the food assistance. So we had a collaboration with Redwood Empire Food Bank and San Rosa City's Kitchen. We had these kids 7.30 to 5 o'clock Monday through Friday. Obviously, food was going to become an important part of that and what we were providing. So those collaborations allowed us to run that program through the School of Rec as well. The other two pieces, I think, are really things that maybe caught us off guard of how involved we were going to get with those. So again, staff became very involved in the mental health of our participants. So our collaboration with the school, we had resources like the district psychologists, school counselors that we were building relationships we were working with. We were communicating on a regular basis and that became really huge in getting these participants the services that they need. We had special trainings that these staff would come in from the school districts and provide for our staff. Again, this was a huge undertaking. We were all hands on deck staff from our aquatic services, our Howard Park operations that was everybody on deck to come in and make this possible. And so we really saw that we needed to enhance the level of training for our staff. So between our resources and collaborating with the school, we were able to do that. And then the other piece of that is that our protocols and our safety measures in the program were at such a level that the school districts quickly became comfortable with what we were doing, how we are running the program. So participants that were in our program actually had the ability to still have some in-person sessions with their counselors. So that's something that children not in the program didn't have access to. They were still doing Zoom sessions with their counselors. But when something major happened with participants in our program, schools would actually send the counselors onto our site and they would get to have that in-person, which is a huge mental health of the participants and in dealing with everything that was going on. The other piece there is that social and emotional development. And that's things like having the positive adult role models of all the staff that stepped up and really made this program possible. Just the fact of being part of whatever you want to call it, right? The term for COVID was that they were a cohort. They were a group. They were a team. They were a class. They were a family. They were a part of something. And I think we all learned how important that is as we were isolated and stuck in our homes. They would use things in their cohorts like the community circles, where they would talk about things that are going on. I remind everybody as we look back on that year not only were we dealing with schools being closed, isolation, all those different things. We had movements like Black Lives Matter going on and different social pieces going on in our community. And the kids had an opportunity to talk about what was going on in their world, how they were feeling about things in these community circles with these cohorts that they got to know. And then we're recreation. So we had to make it fun. So we had theme days. We had events. We had different stuff to make it new and make it fresh. So that we were enjoying our time there. So again, I know a little bit different, but I really want to dive into that school of rec. You cannot really want to acknowledge all of the staff and everybody who made it possible from serving food to waiting outside in the cold to do health checks when the kids got dropped off, working with the schools, working in the classroom with the kids, everything it was all hands on deck and really an amazing accomplishment for our community and amazing testament to how important measure was for our community and the flexibility to serve our kids and our families in the ways that are needed. So next slide, please. So now I'll go a little bit normal of how we would provide these things. So a little bit of that diving into school of rec. So recreation staff implemented this program. It was involved kids in grades kindergarten through sixth grade. Through the measure portion, we were serving 125 youth. We did this for the full school year almost 10 months. And that's providing 50 hours of educational and childcare support each week. So again, I mentioned kids getting dropped off, seven and 30, they're through five o'clock. And so it was really quite a bit for the staff to take on and run the full gamut of the program. And again, we were in partnership with local school districts. The neighborhood services team able to incorporate education and programming to support youth with the greatest need during COVID. We partnered with Santa Rosa City Schools and Bellevue Union School District. We serve students from Lincoln, Helen Lehman, VLS, Steele Lane, and Meadow Group schools. We certainly would have been great to have that list go on and on and serve even more kids. But I can tell you the 125 kids was quite the undertaking for staff to accomplish. Next slide, please. So in addition to the school of rec program that ran during the whole school year, we did bring back summer programs. Cave out here on the information presented. This is the summer of 2021. When we're talking about financial reports, it's always difficult for summer programs because they get split of the calendar year. So the information there is 2021, just because it's easier to report that way. Better Together is a program. We did bring that back in 2020. So take you back to that calendar. We're all getting sent home and things shutting down in the middle of March. And by June of 2020, we were back and had summer camps running and we're one of the first programs to really come back and get back up and running. During the COVID and during the shutdown. So it was very little time for recreation to really flip that switch and get ready for running operations in COVID. By the summer of 2021, I should say the Better Together program, you may have heard recreation sensation. We rebranded recreation sensation better together just for COVID because it was going to be so different than what we normally operated. We wanted to have branding that would represent that it was a different program in that time. So 2021 and numbers would have been similar for summer of 2020. 205 participants registered. That equates to about 8,200 total service hours per week. The team basketball camp did not return summer 2020. We put that on hold for the first summer. But in summer 2021, we have the team basketball camp back. And 25 participants registered in that program for over 500 total service hours per week. As I present all this information, the one thing I'd like to really stress as I pass on to Magali to talk a little bit more about VPP, all of these programs are an example of the safety net that we really try to set out through neighborhood services in serving our community, serving our youth, serving our families. And as many of them as we can to create that safety net to identify youth and families that maybe have additional needs and then pass on and work in collaboration with VPP that are granted agencies to continue service, create a continuum of services for these families who need additional services. So with that, I will pass on to Magali to discuss the VPP portion of the award. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Good afternoon. Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Alvarez, members of the Council, Magali Teyes, Director of Community Engagement here to provide an update on the violence prevention partnership activities in the last fiscal year. We focused on addressing, acknowledging and articulating the need for trauma-informed care in our communities based on where we are currently situated and everything that's transpired. Our strategy in the last fiscal year was to take a step back and educate ourselves and the community on the community issues that have been at the forefront so that we can be better prepared to respond and serve. So aside from the work that we were doing with our choice partner agencies, which we'll talk a little bit more about in a second, we've also reached out to our colleagues from the California Violence Prevention Network. And for those of you that may not be familiar the CalVPN's mission essentially is to create a movement based on comprehensive approaches that focus on galvanizing of community-wide efforts and using an upstream approach to address community violence. We want to learn everything that we can on how our regional partners are operating as well as their set-up, structure, best practices and thinking about how any of that could be scalable to our program in addition to creating a support and a larger network for our work as we carried out locally. So our entire Measure O team created the first annual wildfire-ready program which spoke to the various concerns in community as they pertained to physical and mental safety from wildfires. We hosted a week-long series where Dr. Peter Nelson, a member of the Federated Indians of the Great Rancheria and a professor at UC Berkeley educated us on prescribed burns as an ancestral practice. How and why good fire was an essential way of life in Sonoma County before the colonization of this land and why it's important to continue to work with our local tribes on these practices. The team from fire presented crucial information on prescribed burns, the Wildland Urban Interface, WUI funding for wildfire prevention, home hardening and defensible space. We also held a workshop which resonated with many of the comments that we've been receiving and hearing from community members around our shared trauma with wildfires. We're fortunate to have members from the Sonoma community resilience collaborative provide resilience tools to manage times of crisis, as well as mechanisms on how to deal with stress from being triggered by smoke, fire alarms and other nuances related to fire. So I'd like to thank Visella Correa for leading that very important effort. Because we work with so many direct service providers and community advocates of color, we want to address and name where we were situated and much of what transpired over in 2020 and what 2020 taught us that many folks of color who are the boots on the ground are taking on additional stressors due to the climate and we found ourselves in and this needed to be addressed and recognized so that we invited Dr. Daniela Lominguez to provide a presentation on self and community care as an active resistance. And I think that's sort of a topic that violence prevention partnership will really be diving into. I think it's an important consideration as we look at how our providers are able to and if they're able to replenish and refresh so that when they go back into community they can go back as sort of a whole person and giving their very best. So the next slide please. Okay, so part of what has recently shifted in our community includes a greater acknowledgement for root problems like systemic racism, a lack of equity and poverty. This idea that there are deep roots under our social challenges is an idea that the partnership has been elevating. Violence in Santa Rosa has previously was previously described as a gang problem that came from outside our community but on deeper reflection research we learned that violence is rooted in social structures that exist inside Santa Rosa. Violence often erupts when one or two of these roots have taken hold in the community and I just wanted to share some of those roots with you all when we look at the 10 roots of community violence. One of them being families are disconnected from community and support. Another is students do not reach their potential. Re-entry is not supported and one that we are looking at closely is that historically government has historically not prioritized fostering relationships with marginalized communities to assess and meet needs and prevention services are lacking. So we just wanted to recognize that we need to do a deeper investment and providing support to our neighborhoods. The partnership provides grants to community partners to offer services that combat these roots of violence. So we'll talk a little bit more about that. Next slide please. So as you all know, the Choice Grant funds 10 community-based organizations, 11 programs, all of which made the changes that they needed to make in order to continue providing services to the community despite the obstacles provided by COVID. And we were also able to redirect some of the funding to meet immediate needs in the community such as food, face masks, hand sanitizers, summer reading materials and direct payments. We have been working closely with upstream investments team who's been, they've been incredible on results based accountability to the work that, so that we can collect. This is sort of the evaluation piece that we were talking about earlier and collecting with the RVA model. We are asking of our choice funded agencies, one, how much did we do with a given program or initiative? Two, how well did we do it? And three, is anyone better off as a result of it? And of course, we'll definitely have more information to come as we formulate the dashboard and the report. The next slide please. So in further looking at evaluation results, we found that Choice cycle 10 services continue to incorporate a public health model spanning across multiple generations incorporating both upstream preventive strategies as well as intervention components of preventing violence and just 100 families received case management services to assist with finding childcare and other family support needs. 76% of these families youth were enrolled in childcare and of course we have many more of these facts to share the community given our 2020 report which we're happy to share and is available on our website. Next slide please. So in terms of our guiding people successfully program, CalVIP did provide funding starting September 2018 with the COVID extension and funding took us all the way through August 2021. And the next slide please. And shortly after the fiscal year on August 2nd, we hired our new guiding people successfully services coordinator, Irma Fueras whom I'm sure many of you have already met or know and is doing incredible work already in her short time here at the city. So with that, I'm going to move it over to open it back up to Jeff for the next slide. Looking ahead in the coming year with the violence prevention partnership, of course we're going through a cycle 10 extension that will go through the end of the current fiscal year. And what that allows the violence prevention partnership to do is start the cycle 11 that anticipates a period covering the remaining years of the current measure out. And we'll see whether or not changes need to be made based upon voter output. So we're also looking at reorganization and strengthening partnerships when it comes to several of the committees as well as looking at how the best way to deliver services in the next several years. If you could please for the slide. So earlier I mentioned the $510,000 that was available on the front fund at the start of the current fiscal year. And as you'll see we use $346,000 so that leaving us a balance that's less than $346,000. And so what we are doing in the current fiscal year is looking at the organization and how we can reorganize the choice grant cycle and some of the neighborhood afterschool site programs as well as savings associated with that. So we hope to present you with a budget in fiscal year 2223 and our new city manager so that we don't have to go through any actual program reductions in the next year. But that something we'll have to evaluate. Thank you. All right thank you so much Jason, Magali, Jeff you know at the core your programs are about people and I just want to thank you for all of the work that you've been putting in over the last year at a time where it's really difficult for us to be in person. And so I appreciate the creativity. I appreciate the focus on delivering for folks in the community and I'll see if there are any questions from my colleagues here at the dais before we go on to fire. I don't have a question but I do want to just express my gratitude for the work that you did. I know that in the early days we had been working together with the economic development subcommittee with council member Sawyer to to get these programs up and running and you guys did so in a way that preserved the ability of so many families to maintain economic stability and so many children to not lose the an entire academic year and I just can't speak to how invaluable that is as a parent of a first grader that year who had to find this service on the private market it was expensive and yet still invaluable. And so my hat is off to you and you'll forever have my gratitude. Council member Swaddle. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Great job done by all but I do really want to just give a shout out to Jeff and his team the school rec because I think it kind of went on behind the scenes. So so many of our city employees ever since the Tubbs fire are finding themselves doing things that they didn't sign up for on a 24-7 basis and that was in the news but Jeff what you and your team did and the quality it was just a game changer so thank you so much for the value added to all the youth that participated in that and you and your team you just stepped up and created something that had never been there before. So thank you and I think it's going to be a nice beginning program that will grow on. What's that going to look like yours from now and how are you going to incorporate your learnings? I don't know but it doesn't happen without the success that you guys just demonstrated this last year so thank you and all of your staff a lot of people behind the scenes made that a reality. Okay seeing no other comments let's go on to the fire department. Well hello council this is Jim Aaron I'm the ASO for the fire department and I'll be presenting the financial slides and turning it over to Chief Wester for operational and program information on the next slide. So if you'll take the next slide please. This is our beginning fund balance as you can see it's just under 3.1 million dollars. We had sales revenues of 4.2 interest negative 10,000 expenditures of 3.9 and we ended up with a fund balance of 3.362 million. Now this is a planned reserve that we're building up over time we've been doing this since the beginning of measure O with the plan to potentially help fund some future fire stations and or purchase specialized equipment. Next slide please. For 2021 you can see this is where our expenditures came up and if you look at the the pie chart you'll see that 85 percent of our of our expenditures are on salary and benefits. We're people driven we have very little in other expenditures that we have control over service and supplies of about 3 percent that's about it because we've got debt service at 9 percent which is fixed and admin service charges which are another 3 percent which we have no control over. So we don't have a lot of room to cut if we needed to so we're pretty careful with what we do just as a recap of the year we were up almost 60,000 in salaries and that was based basically large to a large retirement payout that we had in measure O a measure O personnel benefits were up and workers cop and insurance and our vehicle maintenance works down. So overall we ended up with an expenditure increase of $56,000. If you go to the next slide you'll see where our revenues and expenditures line up except for 1920. Every year we really have been keeping our revenues ahead of our expenditures because we like I said we're we're monitoring and we're making sure that we've got some surplus left at the end of every year to help with future station bills. And the the reason we dipped down in 1920 was really due to a drop in revenues because of COVID and sales tax. So overall we we had a 2021 revenues of $4.2 million expenditure $3.9 so we ended up with a net of $265,000 positive of our fund balance. And with that I will go to the next slide 24 and I'll turn it over to the Chief. Thanks Jim and good evening Mayor Rogers members of Council Scott Westrobe Fire Chief of the City of Santa Rosa. This slide talks about is Jim referenced some of the people that we have assigned to measure O essentially measure O covers 10.25 FTEs within our organization three fire captains which are our frontline supervisors that lead the engine or truck companies. There's a fire captain assigned to our training division which is the the training tower. So they manage that six nap acre facility and all the programs that go on there including our recruit academies three fire engineers which are the apparatus operators and three firefighters. So if you look at those totals compared to what a fully staffed fire station is a fully staffed fire station with three shifts three people per engine company is nine personnel. So it equates to a full-time engine company being opened. It also accounts for 25% of a battalion chief who's assigned to our EMS division. As you all know that's about 65% of what we do on a daily basis. So to have that oversight management of the EMS division is very important to us and it provides the incentive pay to six paramedics. So essentially what that does is it brought our ladder trucks up to advanced life support service through Mejero. Next slide please. So this is sort of a recap of the FTEs that are assigned to Mejero and some of the impacts aside from personnel that Mejero has provided the fire department. So again we have the nine firefighters or nine positions and the training captain on top of the ladder trucks it provides ALS staffing or paramedic level staffing on three of our engine companies. Again the the emergency medical services management and oversight through 25% of the battalion chief. And then with all this it improves our response time and deployment of resources by providing not only the additional stations and personnel and the equipment but also bringing that level of service up to the paramedic level of service that we provide in Santa Rosa. So it brings down our response times it enables us to strategically deploy our resources better which in turn reduces fire loss improves the EMS patient outcomes and improves community outreach. We'll talk about it in the next slide more but Mejero did fund the construction of fire station five that was on new gate court that was lost in the Tubbs fire. Next slide please. So as far as the stations that Mejero has built it built fire station 10 in 2008 built fire station 11 in 2009 which serves the junior college neighborhood station 10 serves the southwest and station five which services Fountain Grove which as we all know was lost in the Tubbs fire in 2017 or working on reconstruction of that fire station right now. Next slide please. As far as the specialty equipment that Mejero provides to the fire department we purchased two type one fire engines which is the fire agency on the street on a daily basis represented by engine 10 on the right side of the screen and purchase one type three wildland fire engine which is there on the bottom left four command vehicles which are the the Tahoe SUVs that we we use as battalion chiefs or as duty chiefs to respond to incidents and then one one swift water rescue trailer and as I was reviewing these slides earlier right down on me that every one of these resources was utilized very heavily this year uncollisionably and to finish out the financial portion I'll turn this back over to Jim. Okay you want to go to the next slide and this is giving you a snapshot of where we're at for the for the current year they're projecting based on budget that we're going to have a deficit of about $28,000 and this is a slide that says what are you going to how are you going to cover that shortfall well we actually don't expect to see a shortfall for twenty one twenty two based on the way revenues are working out right now if sales tax goes up like we anticipate they will there won't be a there won't be a shortfall we will actually be able to add to our surplus again and continue with that so in if by some chance it doesn't come to fruition as you saw from the previous slide we have plenty of fund balance to cover $28,000 and with that I will open it up to questions Council do we have any questions on fire go ahead so my comment would be I believe that the the fire department does a great a great job and I'm very thankful that we have such a wonderful department it is my hope that that one day we don't have to use funds from measure O or any other measure to supplement salaries or benefits and that we could use those for things that we need and desire for a department such as equipment or extra things that we need because I really believe that the fire department needs them and deserves them so I just want to thank you guys for what you do with what you have and from my interactions with the people that go out into the community they have been great they have smiles they're always willing to to help the public and just being available even when they get called out for things that maybe aren't things that they would normally be called out for they still respond to the calls and they go out and they're willing to help so with that just thank you for what you do thank you for sticking it you know sticking in there with us and hopefully one day our circumstances will be a lot different and we will be able to give you guys everything that you you need and deserve with funds that come in such as this so thank you council member Fleming yeah you know it's really amazing the other day I saw a fire truck rolling down 4th street with Santa on top of it and then the Wreck and Park department's Rosie had saw Santa inside so you know pretty exciting stuff that you guys get to do and wonderful work I do have a question it's not in any way intended to be combative and I'm going to pose it towards our police department as well when I was preparing for council I noticed a bit of a discrepancy in the administration costs between fire and police and then our the park and rec side and it's 50 percent higher for you guys and 50 percent higher for police to administer these programs then then does the Wreck and Park department and I was just hoping you could speak to what is a pretty significant percentage difference in the administration costs I can take a swing at that it's actually a finance question but I'll tell you what's that's made up of the overhead is really made up of all the shared service departments and that's our share of it things like HR city attorney city manager the city council those expenditures anything to do with the shared services get lumped into a bucket and then we get charged out based on the size of our overall bucket our overall department so that's where you see police and fire taking a rather large hit compared to Wreck and Park because our budgets are so much bigger we've got almost 45 million dollar budget just in fire so I can't really address why those are going up that's more like I said a finance question and we have no control over those costs that just happens every year okay that's helpful and I would be very interested to hear from finance because you would it would be it's kind of counterintuitive when you have a larger budget you would imagine that you know you would be able to be a little bit a smaller a smaller footprint on the administrative side but I'm be interested to hear how I'm incorrect in that assumption I'm Veronica Connor here from finance to help with this question so the split for the administrative costs kind of align with the sales tax split with the sales tax dollars that we get in 40 percent goes to fire 40 percent goes to police and 20 percent goes to violence prevention so you will see a corresponding difference in the overhead costs it just is directly related to the size of the operation in each department if that helps it does not and here's why I do appreciate the I did notice that the each department gets to that point it gets actually 100 percent more than Wreck and Park not 50 percent more Wreck and Park gets 20 percent share of the measure of funding and each of the safety departments get 40 percent so which is twice as much I won't push the point any further but I just you know I do start to wonder if we couldn't be a little bit more nimble on the administration side I do understand you probably get a bill from the city manager's office for all of the services and I can work with him on trying to better understand how that works and I I look forward to understanding the nitty gritty of it better and won't hold up the council any further today and thank you for all your service no other questions at the moment let's go on to police very good afternoon Mayor Rogers council members I'm Pam Lawrence ASO for the police department I'll go over the financial slides and then hand it off to chief Navarra for the operations next slide please so this slide shows you our beginning fund balance of seven hundred and fifty six thousand dollars our revenues of four point two million which were higher than expected and then we had expenditures of about four million dollars leaving us a reserve balance of nine hundred and fifty eight thousand next slide please this shows you a pie chart of where the funds were spent as you can see about ninety three percent were spent on salaries and benefits for our positions that left us with about one hundred and seventy one thousand spent on services and supplies this covers our downtown enforcement team office lease that we have in the mox building as well as maintenance and fuel on several of our vehicles and insurance and then the hundred and sixteen thousand administration costs next slide please this is a graph showing our revenues and expenditures of the program since the inception as you can see our revenue our expenses have been steadily increasing due mostly to increase in salaries this last year they did dip a little bit and that was due to freezing to school resource officer positions I'll hand it off to Chief Navarro and then stay on for any questions thank you Pam good evening council or Mayor Rogers and council members so for fiscal year twenty twenty one I'm sorry if you can go to the next slide please thank you for fiscal year twenty twenty one we have 19 positions in measure row the slide shows where those positions were and really measure row enhances services throughout our department we have a lieutenant who oversees our incident management team and is an integral part of our emergency planning so whether that's special events that are going on or we have fires or any other major significant incident that's going on that lieutenant is overseeing much of the teams and much of the operations and planning for those that lieutenant also oversees our traffic bureau and is a liaison for our homeless services the sergeant that's listed in measure row that sergeant manages our downtown enforcement team and is heavily involved in working with our partners to address homeless issues we've had several of our officers in patrol that are or in the field services division that are assigned to the downtown enforcement team our traffic bureau as motors school resource officers and and then also throughout the patrol teams we also have civilian positions our field evidence technicians and community service officers respond in the field to patrol car calls to free up sworn officers to allow them to go to the more urgent priority one calls that they need to go to and then we have a communication supervisor that is in the in measure row that communication supervisor provides necessary management for a very busy dispatch center they assist with quality control auditing phone calls they also work the work the floor handle emergencies and take calls during staffing shortages they also have been very the managers also been very integral in handling some of the upgrades to our dispatch center next slide please so I have a couple of slides here regarding impacts that measure has measure has had to our community as Pam mentioned we do have funds that go into our services and supplies we have a few vehicles and a few motorcycles that are purchased out of measure row but the the bulk of our measure funds goes to staffing and that staff again provides direct services to address calls for service again the motor officers they're there to enhance traffic safety and they also handle many of the grants that we get through the state to address DUI drivers and and increase traffic safety throughout our city our downtown enforcement team they increase presence in the downtown corridor to help impact the businesses and then they also have been working very hard and closely with our other city departments on some of these homeless issues and then measure row also allows us to spread out the workflow to allow staff to collaborate with partners such as the violence prevention partnership on how to reduce violence and then also engage with the community and so in the past we've had the opportunities to engage with the youth in a positive manner we've had SROs who have provided safety at our schools and also have headed events such as the great program and every 15 minutes measure measure row staff are included in our community engagement team which is vital especially as we are starting to roll hopefully roll out of the the covid era and get back into more community events and measure officers have received over 100 hours of training including both soft skills and technical skills but that includes crisis intervention and communication training throughout the year next slide please the measure row allows us to better respond to emergencies again measure row staff were critically or critical and were involved in our incident management team and this really helped us out when we had to it's when we were experiencing the beginnings of the covid issue they develop policies and protocols for our staff to make sure that we were safe they they made sure that we were purchasing the appropriate equipment and they handled complaints that were coming from the community regarding issues within you know for businesses and other complaints that were coming in many of the measure row positions were involved in the evacuation efforts they were either taking calls or they were actually responding to our evacuation areas including the glass fire to evacuate our community members again our downtown enforcement team they work daily with our host and citywide team to address homelessness and again we are able to free up other staff to do more of the community engagement which actually helps with our general fund staff to allow them to go out and do more engagement in their in their particular beats our measure row staff has been involved in several different opportunities including the community police experience coffee with a cop they have staff booths over at the Cinco de Mayo festivals and they've worked with again our schools to mentor kids and they've been a part of being directly involved in some of our services to the businesses in the downtown area next slide please so we're going to come to the next slide we'll go to the kind of what's going on now this fiscal year for 21-22 we did have to take some take another look at what we were doing with measure row due to some revenue shortages we had to make some significant reductions in the police department last July we reduced measure row by three positions and those are three school resource officers and with that we returned the other two SROs back to patrol to keep up with staffing demands there so with those three reductions we now have 16 measure row staff throughout the department as we move forward we're going to continue to evaluate the most effective ways to utilize measure row funds as we've been working with the finance team we have been able to see some actually some improvements in the revenue from measure row and so we initially we're looking at this year at the possibility of reducing our staff by another officer but we will not have to do that now because of the revenue so fortunately we are not planning any more reductions at this time but we do are we are looking ahead at what measure roll will do and and what we will be needing to do as 25 2025 comes closer so with that I next slide please so both Pam and I are here for any questions if you have any thank you all right thank you so much chief I have a quick question about the SRO program if you could it seemed a little bit confusing just sort of the way that it's played out over the last couple of years did we reassign and eliminate some of those positions just because of budget reasons or have we heard from the schools that now that students are back that they'd like to see those positions reinstated is it a policy decision or is it a budget decision I guess is the answer that's a very good question mayor so it was a there was a policy decision based on the ad hoc committee that was made up through the city of Santa Rosa school board but we had already had to freeze positions and with the decision not to move forward with SROs we knew we had to reduce staff because of the budget and we since we did not have SROs going back to campus that was where we decided to make the make the reductions if that makes sense it does so if we because I get this question all the time from folks if we heard from the school district that they wanted those positions back would we entertain that request we could we we will definitely look at what we can do I can tell you that we do not have the staffing available right now because of the reductions and in order to build an SRO program back up we're probably looking at a year or year to year and a half to get back to a staffing level where we can actually implement a program okay any other questions from council members all right thank you so much chief really appreciate it thank you pan oh go ahead council member Fleming yes two things one is my question that I said that I would ask of you about the administration costs was adequately answered by the fire department so I just wanted to clear that up and then unless you have something that's different that applies to okay I'm getting the negative nod thank you excellent and I just wanted to share about the you know we oftentimes get a lot of complaints about policing and one of the things that I get a positive response about and wanted to share since it was one of the items listed here that's provided as a result of measure oh is I get emails from citizens and residents who notice the the patrol officers for the for traffic safety and they're really grateful for for your service on on that count so thank you for all the work you're doing to keep our streets safe from from speeding motorists thank you all pass that along to staff council member Rogers and my comment is very similar to the one that I gave for fire I am hoping that one day you guys are able to use some of these funds to do other things in the community more with community engagement and not focus so much on supplementing for salary positions and things that are a must the things that you would like to do in the community as far as community engagement goes so thank you very much for you know hanging in there with us and I know chief that this has been really hard and your officers are doing a great job and I gave a shout out to one of them a few meetings ago so we are definitely seeing a a change in just the interactions and things in the community and I really really really love hearing the positive the positive stories coming from the community so community members keep them coming we definitely share them with the with the department and we share them amongst each other and we share them you know with everyone so it really is uplifting to our officers to hear that so thank you so much thank you council member so we'll go ahead go to public comment for item 14.1 if you have a comment on this go ahead approach the podium and I do see a couple of hands on zoom so seeing nobody at the chambers we'll go to zoom more we'll start with Annabelle followed by Gregory Annabelle are you able to unmute uh-huh yes Spanish please and see okay one moment will I move a translator over for assistance Charles is now on the main channel ready to assist you ah si yo mi comentario es que estamos en contra de lo que se va a ser en Rosuland junto a la bien la que era una escuela no estamos de acuerdo con el dispensario porque eso fue un lugar on de estuvieron niños o sea que podemos hacer un centro multicultural podemos hacer un centro comunitario para Roslan que tanta falta nos hace y no tenemos donde trae el consulado mexicano para renovación de pasaporte matricula necesitamos un lugar accesible con internet para que pueda trabajar consulado mexicano entonces si necesitamos que no pongan ese centro ahí porque es más adicción para los jóvenes y si ya tenemos dos o tres lugares que venden no podemos seguir poniendo más lugares así de cannabis la mayoría de la comunidad está en contra de ese lugar porque no es un un lugar sano donde podemos asistir a cosas necesitamos un centro comunitario y que nos apoyen ustedes como de la ciudad y encarregados que son queremos su apoyo de ustedes que lo quiten por necesidad comunitaria y por apoyar a todos los jóvenes que no queremos que haya más adicciones y cuando se está reproduciendo es olor cuando se se hace todo es más adicción a la comunidad no queremos envenenar más la comunidad de roslán siempre ha sido criminalizada y no podemos seguir criminalizando ese lugar por el bien de todos los jóvenes queremos maestros queremos residentes gobernadores policías no queremos puras cosas criminalizando y haciendo que nuestra juventud se pierda por ese cannabis esa es mi humilde opinión en esta junta y por eso estoy aquí yo siempre he estado en roslán apoyando y soy de la junta de cbi y por eso estoy aquí para ser escuchados como miembro de alguna de un programa de una junta haciendo valer nuestra voz que se escuche y que nos apoyen en lo más importante ahorita que es un centro comunitario y no más cannabis en santa rosa o en el comunitario de rosla gracias gracias interpreter would like to clarify this is a comment on the cannabis and here was just the right moment for that yeah no go ahead because we went through it I want to make sure council members have an opportunity to hear it understood we are against what will be done in roslán at what was once a school this dispensary their kids used to go there and instead of what it's going to be we could make it into a multicultural center it or a community center something that we need or we could even bring in a mexican consulate or something else that would help that we could access in the community somewhere maybe with internet access so we do not need the place we do not need that type of building going into that place right there we don't need that around us it's just more addiction for our kids it's basically we already have two or three other locations that sell this kind of thing so we can't be putting more cannabis places around most of the community is against the installation of this right there it's not a healthy place what we need is a community center and we need you to support us as the people that are in charge of this city we want your support to remove it we want to support the youth and we don't want any more sources of addiction and the aroma that it sends out also can cause more addiction it was always criminalized in the past so we need things that support the residents that can support whoever governs the city that support the police but not things that are that were criminalized we don't want to lose our youth to this so it is my humble opinion and that is my humble opinion and that is why I'm here supporting the removal of this I'm a member of the board of CBI and that is why I'm here to be heard as a member of that board and I want to make sure that our voice is heard so I think that a community center is going to be the most important thing here great thank you Charles and we'll go ahead and hold that one for council members for in just a little bit and we'll continue public comment on our item 14.1 measure 0 report we'll go to Gregory followed by Ellen Good evening my name is Gregory Farron one of the slides for the police department one of the early ones showed a huge spike in expenses in 2009-10 I think it was almost a doubling of the total expense I'm sure there's probably an easy answer to that but it just seemed too odd for not to be asked about all right thank you Gregory we'll go ahead we'll get a response to you after the public comment period let's go to Ellen hi can you hear me yep great hi I'm Ellen Bailey and I'm the chair of the citizens oversight committee for measure 0 so I get to hear this report prior to the council getting to hear about it and I'm always so impressed though to hear about the services that each department brings to the city and I'm very aware and I think the public is too but just to reiterate to the public that this measure of funding is due to sunset in 2025 and 2025 may seem a long ways away for some people but it really isn't when it comes to the kind of the need we have to preserve this funding for our community the loss of that funding means the loss of all the services we've just been hearing about the recreation and parks neighborhood services program the choice grantees and the violence prevention partnership provides services to our most vulnerable children and families the school of rec program that Jeff talked about Jeff Stibitz spoke about is one shining example of the creativity and competence of the staff and the flexibility that the measure of funds provided to meet the needs of our community during what we all know is unprecedented fires a pandemic and the tremendous social unrest our country's been going through if we lose measure 0 we'd lose 10 positions at the fire department and those positions allow for improved response times and every one of us knows how important that response time means to each and every person that needs that help and response times for the paramedics who respond to individual emergencies as well as community emergencies we know the fires are going to be a continued part of our lives in California I wish that wasn't true but we all know it's going to be and so we will need to continue to there's a need that I'm not saying this very well we need to continue to have the measure of funding to meet the needs of our community and the police department 19 positions that's a lot of positions but those positions provide emergency planning traffic safety they partner with the homeless issues that we are facing in our community that are huge they provide calls for service to every incident that comes up where police officers needed they provide critical dispatch services and downtown enforcement teams and the important community partnerships and the community engagement that's been critical to deal with the social unrest in our own community so I just want to remind the public that when this comes tax measure if it gets to be put on the ballot to remember that it's not just money we're talking about services essential services that our community needs and that have been very well provided by these departments thank you very much thank you madam chair it's the last hand that I see do we have any voicemails we do not mayor all right I'll bring it back to the council councilmember Schwedhelm I believe this is yep this is your item thank you mr mayor I would move a motion to accept the measure o annual report for fiscal year 2020 and 2021 good so we have a motion from councilmember Schwedhelm and a second from councilmember Sawyer are there any additional comments from council members vice mayor thank you mayor I definitely understand the importance of measure o and what it means to the community especially with public safety and violence prevention very happy to say that the that I feel that the city of san rosa has been using an equity lens and a lens that that invites our community to participate we'd hear here today as we're hearing participants from non-english speaking communities and individuals I will be supporting this but I do hope that in the future and as really as I as I grows as a as a public servant that we fund these programs that do focus on equity more that the word prevention means more than reactive and it is my hopes that what we're seeing today can be translated into what we're funding through the programs of measure o and it is prevention thank you thank you vice mayor madam city clerk we have a motion and a second can you please call the vote yes thank you councilmember tidbits hi councilmember schwedhelm hi councilmember soyer hi councilmember phleming yes councilmember rogers hi vice mayor alvarez hi mayor rogers hi that motion passes with seven eyes great so council we are going to move on to our public hearings for the evening it was brought to my attention by staff that 15.2 we have to do tonight it's a procedural one shouldn't take as long as 15.1 so we're going to do 15.2 first and then we'll come back and do 15.1 after that Mr. City Manager go ahead and take it away Mayor rogers and members of the city council item 15.2 is a public hearing the matter before the public the city council is the fall 2021 general plan amendment package includes a project known as 38 degrees north phase 3 and an addendum to previously approved mitigated negative declaration general plan diagram and text amendments and rezoning the brush creek road general plan amendment that was originally a part of this fall package has been removed and will be considered a future meeting in 2022 adam ross city planner will be presenting the staff report on this item thank you mayor rogers and members of the council and councilmember schwedhelm thank you for that yes thank you my name is adam ross the project planner for the 38 degrees north phase 3 project the site is located at 260 petaluma hill road within the city of santa rosa this is part of the fall fall 2021 general plan amendment package it includes a general plan amendment rezoning application and designer view at a later date with the designer view board next slide please the 38 degrees north phase 3 project includes 30 unit multifamily residential development consisting of 120 unit building and 110 unit building on a 1.29 acre portion of a 10.87 acre parcel known as a 38 degrees north phase 2 site phase 3 is designed to operate with phases 1 and 2 as a single community i'll go over phases 1 and 2 later on in the presentation and if approved the total units for the site will be 322 units total and those are all multifamily next slide please so the general plan the general plan amendment includes a diagram and text amendment the diagram amendment is to change the site's current land use designations which is retail and business service as well as medium density residential which allows 8 to 18 units per acre to medium high density residential which allows 18 to 30 units per acre and it also requests to remove the star symbol from the site's location the star symbol designates the site as a location for community shopping center the text amendment is to remove the reference to the community shopping center on pages 2-12, 2-22 and 2-30 of the general plan text the zoning map amendment what is to request the site be changed from csc commercial shopping center and pd 96-001c zoning districts to r330 which is multifamily residential the project also requires a major designer view for new construction greater than 10,000 square feet and again that's subject to the designer view board review and approval next slide please here's an image on the left it shows the approximate location of this of the project site it's in the southeast quadrant of the city on the right side you see an aerial the yellow border indicates the project boundary on the northern side you see some buildings already done that's phase one that's already built and occupied phase two and phase three are within the kind of undeveloped area of the project site next slide please so here's another aerial view kind of how everything would look so if you're looking the north the north arrow would be to the right of the screen if you're looking at this as it's laid out so on the right side you see 38 degrees north phase one that's the multifamily currently built and occupied phase two is in the middle where that cursor was there's a little section in between which is a 2.5 acre open space preserve again i'll go over that a little bit later in the slides and then the the colored section shows the requested 30 additional units under phase three next slide please so here's a kind of zoomed in photo or picture of the site plan for phase three it would again it would work in kind of a cohesive it would it would work cohesively with it would integrate with phase one and phase two and it would take access off of an approved approved entrance for phase two and you can see both the 10 plex and the 20 plex face face petaluma hill road and farmer's lane next slide please so the date is actually incorrect it should say august 17 2017 instead of 2021 that's when the designer view board approved phase one phase one is a 120 unit multifamily housing development with on-site amenities and a state density bonus on a 5.03 acre site six of those units are dedicated to very low-income residents and 12 of the units are dedicated to low-income residents for the phase one there was a mitigated negative negative declaration adopted next slide please this is a repeat of that previous one so you can skip this slide please in on august 20th it should say 2019 the designer view board approved phase two which is 172 unit multifamily housing development with on-site amenities that is a market rate project it's the total site the total area of phase two is 10.87 acres that does include a 2.54 acre open space preserve and 1.29 acres are preserved were preserved for a 21,000 square foot community shopping center as required by the general plan diagram and text that phase two also included a mitigated negative declaration for which it was adopted and that project for and phase two is currently again it's entitled and it's currently in plan review for public improvement plans and grading plans with the city next slide please so a bit of the project history of phase three in may of this year a neighborhood meeting was held there was a concept design review held with the designer view board earlier this year on july 15th applications were submitted the major designer view is currently being reviewed by staff on october 28th there was a an sb-18 tribal consultation meeting that was held a follow-up meeting was held on december 1st of this year during that meeting a request was made for a for a tribal monitor to be added as a condition of approval and as approved by the by the local tribe the applicant did agree to those conditions of approval and they have already entered into a contract with an approved tribal monitor there are a few sorry there are a few additions to the agenda items that staff's ready to read into the public record at the appropriate time that would be a paragraph identifying that tribal sb-18 tribal consultation meeting in the addendum and that is that addendum is also the exhibit a of the project so that's the same addition of a paragraph there and then just reference to the revised date of december 9th of 2021 which reflects the tribal monitor being added to the addendum and the and the mmrp and so that would also just have clarifying dates on the ordinance and the two resolutions and then on november 18th of 2021 the planning commission approved the recommendation for council to adopt the addendum the general plan amendments and the rezoning application next slide please so the current site's general plan land use designation is both retail and business service and medium density residential the medium density residential allows 18 eight to 18 units per acre and the star symbol which you can see there indicates a community shopping center location two shopping center to be located at this site next slide please so here's a general plan the the existing and proposed which is provided in the agenda packet and part of the staff report as you can see that on the left side there's the star symbol the phase one and phase two border and then on the right is what the site would look like on the general plan diagram should the should the council approve the project so just be one medium high density residential land use designation next slide please so the tax amendment is required to kind of continue the removal of the star symbol so that would remove the reference to a community shopping center at the site on page 2-12 of the general plan it would remove the reference to community shopping center in table 2-4 on page c-2-20 under general plan policy LULE1 remove the reference to a community shopping center at Pedaluma Hill Road at Yolande Avenue on page 2-22 policy number uh policy LULG1 and remove reference to the Community Shopping Center on page 2-30, policies LULW and LULW1. And on the right side, it kind of is just identified as strike-throughs of where that would be removed. So it would just, it's stricken through, but they would be removed from the actual text. Next slide, please. As part of the request, there was a market study completed with this project, analyzing the feasibility of a Community Shopping Center at this site. You see one mile, two mile, and three mile radius diagrams. The project is within half a mile to the Santa Rosa Marketplace, which does include anchor tenants such as Target, Costco, and there's also Trader Joe's there, that provide grocery store items. And it's within three quarters of a mile of smart and final extra, another grocery store type retail establishment. What's also not shown here is that within half a mile to the north of the site on Petaluma Hill Road is Lula's Market, which is a small grocery store. And next slide, please. And so just to reiterate, the market analysis was by Zonda. It's a market research and consulting firm specializing in the real estate industry. And within that study, which is where that image came from, it concluded that the 38 degrees north side does not support any anchor retail uses, nor does it, and does not support a grocery store anchor in particular. Next slide, please. In addition to that, the current big commercial vacancy rates in Sonoma County and Santa Rosa are as shown here so you have 7.7% or 289,000 square feet of commercial vacancy rates in Sonoma County. This is based off of a quarter vacancy rates provided by Keegan and Copen, a commercial real estate firm. And within Santa Rosa specifically, you have an 8.4% vacancy rate or 672,301 square feet. And within the Santa Rosa marketplace, you have 6.1% or 34,294 square feet. And again, that's half a mile from the 38 degrees north side. Next slide, please. In addition to that, one of the benefits the city receives is 30 additional units. It is 1.17% of the housing action plan goal by providing 2550 units by 2022. So that's just in addition to bringing that into the findings for a general plan amendment. Next slide, please. So here are some of the policies for that the proposal would implements which father fosters a compact rather than scattered development pattern in order to reduce travel energy land and materials consumption while promoting greenhouse gas emissions reduction citywide. And it does not allow development at less than the minimum density, and it requires it be at the medium, midpoint or higher for medium and medium high density residential categories. And it meets the housing needs of all Santa Rosa residents. Next slide please. So within that, and I just wanted to reiterate that this request to remove the commercial shopping center. From the site does not preclude in the future any community shopping centers, they are allowed within commercial zoning districts. And so if the market ever changed in the future, someone else can propose a community shopping center and therefore put in a grocery store in this area. Moving on to the zoning map amendment requests. So the project site as shown in the image is currently zoned as CSC, which is community shopping center. That's in response to the general plan location of the community shopping center on the diagram and PD 96 dash 001 C, which is PD zoning district. The request would change those to our 330, which is the multifamily residential zoning district. Next slide please. Here's some proposed elevations for reference. Again, the design would be completed approved by the designer reward. The top image shows kind of like the looking northeast from across Petaluma Hill Road, and the bottom image looks like it's looking west from Petaluma Hill Road, looking east to the, to the proposed site. Next slide please. The secret under secret guidelines section 15164 provides that an addendum to an approved EIR is appropriate when only minor technical changes or additions are made but none of the conditions described in section 15162 has occurred. Moving on to the 38 degrees north phase two mitigated negative declaration concluded that the proposed project would not cause a new significant environmental that would not cause any new significant environmental impacts or substantial increases in the severity of significant effects beyond those previously identified as part of the city's environmental review process. And none of the circumstances under secret guidelines section 15162 were triggered. And therefore no additional analysis is required. So that's why staff identified an addendum to the previously approved MND be appropriate for the project. And within that nothing found that there were any additional or greater impacts and then what was previously analyzed on the site. Next slide please. Some of the comments were received early on during the mostly during the neighborhood meeting and then later on when the in response to the planning commission public hearing notice. That was a concern about removing the community shopping center designation from the site. And then there were concerns about construction impacts to the surrounding area from fugitive dust and noise. So in response to the first concern. Again, you know the market study shows that the commercial zoning district is sorry the grocery store use is over served in the area and couldn't support now or in the future. It's a community shopping center at the site. And again, that doesn't preclude one from being put in in the in the area at a future date should the market change at some point in time. And the project is is required to comply with standard construction impacts for noise and fugitive dust noises subject to the noise ordinance within city code. And the fugitive dust that is a requirement, such as, you know, daily twice watering down dirt and dust areas sweeping keeping it clean. Those are standard conditions. And the applicant is obviously more than willing to comply with those conditions of approval, which is found within the addendum. Next slide please. I was recommended by the planning commission and the economic development department that the city council by two resolutions, adopt an addendum to the MND for the 30 years north phase two site. Sorry, adopt an addendum for the for the 30 years north phase three project to the 30 years north phase to MND. That's a resolution. To approve a general plan diagram and text amendment. That's another resolution to change the land use designations to medium high density residential, remove the star symbol designated a future community shopping center, remove reference to community shopping center in the southeast portion of the city and table to dashboard on page to dash 20 under general plan policy. And then move reference to community shopping center at Petaluma Hill Road and Yolanda Avenue on page to dash 22 policy LULG one and remove reference to the community shopping center on page to dash 30 policies LULW and LULW one. I was recommended by the planning commission and the planning and economic development department that the council introduce an ordinance to adopt a rezoning ordinance to amend the zoning map for the property. Located at 2660 Petaluma Hill Road to R330. Next slide please. My name is Adam Ross and I am ready to answer any questions you may have the applicant does not have a presentation but is here and will speak on the matter and answer any questions that the council may have as well. Thank you. All right, thank you so much Adam. Let's go ahead and start and see if we have any questions from council members. I'm saying none. So we'll go ahead and open the public hearing. I'm going to go ahead and comment on this public hearing going to hit the raise hand feature on zoom or approach the podium. Again, this is for item 15.2. I see one hand we'll go to Dave. Dave, are you able to unmute. Yes, I'm sorry. Can you hear me. Yes, we can go ahead. Good evening, Mayor Rogers and council members. I'm Dave, the applicant speaking on behalf of Kennedy Wilson. I don't know if you can see me on zoom but if you can pardon my casual mode of dress I'm here in Hawaii and Hawaiian shirt is the business as I are here so I'd like to express our appreciation to staff for their very competent presentation and report and their guidance along the way as we've gone here. And since the rationale we've set forth in our application is quite clearly distilled for you in the staff report and was unanimously embraced by the planning commission. I'll just be very brief with a few points of emphasis. The company Adam referred to that is a nationally recognized market research firm has conducted many, many market studies like this over the decades, and has revealed in this study as he told you that in the foreseeable future there's no commercially viable potential for a commercial land use here. So, Zana concluded concluded notably that the, since the general plan was adopted, you have three new grocery stores and outlets in the area. Their demand model and findings further further illustrate that any anchor retail use and in particular grocery store anchor is not supportable. So supply and demand clearly that's been mentioned for every nearly almost every nearly every retail category. Local brokers that were interviewed concur with these conclusions and traffic levels at the site are insufficient to support commercials so I think that when we went when we came to the property and started looking at possibly a retail side of the business here, which in addition to apartments and looked at this opportunity we just convinced that it was not a suitable site for a commercial shopping center. To us the most telling thing was the property owner that sold it to us when co foods, who is a grocery developer and operator sold the property because the company no longer considered there to be a demand for a grocery store at this location. You know, so that's the course we took and decided to file for the general plan amendment and zone change to hopefully permit a residential component to be added here to the site and round out the total block if you will to 322 units. So we're hopeful for approval tonight. We're pretty confident that the site preparation and development for phase two, which is just being started and can overlap. That way we'll avoid likely construction impacts created by removing construction equipment off phase two and only to have it bring back for phase three so I know as I'm out of time here so I just wanted to state that we concur with the staff's findings. Appreciate the planning commissions that they found the proposal merited their support and urge your approval and I'm here to answer questions. Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to come back. I'm going to bring it back to the council to see if there's any additional questions and or comments. Okay, so we have two resolutions and an ordinance. I'm going to come to council member Rogers. For resolution number one. for resolution number one I would like to make a motion to adopt a resolution of the council of the city of Santa Rosa adopting an addendum to the approved 38 degrees north phase two initial study mitigative negative declaration including a mitigation monitoring and reporting program state clearing house number two zero two zero zero six zero two four seven for a general plan amendment stoning map amendment and development of 38 degrees north phase three 830 unit multifamily development located at two six six zero Petaluma Hill Rose and Rosa APNS 044-370-002 and 044-370-010 and 044-051-073 and 044-051-055 and file number PRJ 21-011 and wait for the reading of the text I'll second that we have a motion from councilmember Rodgers and a second from the vice mayor Adam you have an issue not an issue I just said there I just want to read into the public record the additions to the addendum identifying the cultural resource I'm sorry the tribal monitor and the dates in the ordinance and resolutions to reflect the amended date of that addendum yep please go ahead great okay so the first one there's six total the first one is update the update the date on the first page to December of 2021 of the initial study of the addendum and the add an additional paragraph that identifies a tribal monitor be added on pages 20 through 21 which reads though cultural resources do not require additional analysis it should be noted that as part of the tribal notification and consultation process carried out by the city consistent with SB 18 which is triggered when a project is proposing a general plan amendment representatives from the federated Indians of great Rancheria requested that a tribal monitor be required during ground-disturbing activities to reflect the request made during the consultation process the cultural resource monitoring plan originally prepared by Evans and Dishazo on August 19 2019 has been updated to include a provision that a Federation of Indians of great Rancheria approved tribal monitor beyond site during ground-disturbing activities mitigation measure CL1 CLU-1 which requires compliance with all monitoring protocols and procedures identified in the cultural resource monitoring plan has been updated to reference the CRMP revision date of December 6 2021 and also includes a requirement for an FIGR approved monitor on site consistent with the request made during the consultation process this addition does not constitute a new or more significant impact and as such no further discussion of cultural resources is warranted and ongoing to add a to the to add to the second sentence in the next paragraph on page 21 to read an updated version of the phase 2 MMRP is included in appendix E here to and shows proposed changes including changes to CL1-1 as discussed above and striped through indicating deleted text and underline indicating new text second portion the exhibit A is the is also the addendum that is to be attached to the resolution for the addendum so that same change applies to pages 20 through 21 number three the staff report reflects the initial study sorry the addendum to the initial study in MND's modified date on page 14 under the environmental section as follows which would read an addendum to the adopted 2020 MND was prepared on October 22nd 2021 and revised on December 9 2021 and reviewed by city staff item 4 add the following words and revised on December 9 2021 to the first sentence of the second paragraph of section 4 so that section reads an addendum to the adopted 2020 MND was prepared on October 22nd 2021 and revised on December 9 2021 and reviewed by city staff item 5 changes the date of the reference exhibit A at the end of page 4 of resolution 1 adopting the addendum to read exhibit A addendum and mitigation monitoring and reporting program dated December 2021 final item item 6 add the following words and revised on December 9 2021 to the first sentence of the second paragraph of finding D so that section reads an addendum to the adopted 2020 MND was prepared on October 20th 2021 and revised on December 9 2021 and reviewed by city staff that concludes the minor changes to the item to the agenda items I appreciate that councilmember do you accept those so moved and the second I will say I will keep my second perfect let's go ahead and call the vote councilmember Tibbets aye councilmember Shwedhelm aye councilmember Sawyer aye councilmember Fleming yes councilmember Rogers aye vice mayor alvarez aye mayor Rogers aye that motion passes with seven eyes okay let's go on to resolution 2 I would like to make a motion to adopt resolution of the council of the city of Santa Rosa amending the general plan diagram and text for the 38 degrees north phase 3 project from retail and business services and medium density residential to medium-high density residential and remove the star symbol at the project site amend the general plan text to remove reference to the community shopping center on pages 2-12 and 2-20 and 2-4 for the property at 2660 Petaluma Hill Road Santa Rosa 044-370-002 and 044-370-1 excuse me 010 and 044-051-073 and 044-051-055 and file number PRJ21-011 and waive for the reading of the text second we'll clarify at the end of the resolution as well the GP a m2 1-001 yes that and waive for the reading of the text all right we have a motion from councilmember Rogers and a second from councilmember Tibbets it's called the vote councilmember Tibbets aye council member Shwedhelm aye councilmember Sawyer aye councilmember Fleming yes councilmember Rogers aye vice mayor alvarez aye mayor Rogers aye that motion passes with seven eyes and finally the ordinance I would like to make a motion to adopt ordinance of the council of the city of Santa Rosa rezoning the property located at 2660 Petaluma Hill Road also identified as assessors parcel members 044-370-002 and 044-370-010 and 044-051-073 and 044-051-055 from the CSC community shopping center in PD 96-001 C to the R3-30 multi-family residential district zoning file number PRJ21-011 also REZ 21-002 and waive for the reading of the text second motion from councilmember Rogers and a second from councilmember Tibbets let's call that vote okay mayor I'd like to clarify that this this ordinance is not being adopted it's being introduced yes okay thank you I'm sorry who was the second uh Tibbets thank you councilmember Tibbets aye councilmember Shwedhelm aye councilmember Sawyer aye councilmember Fleming yes councilmember Rogers aye vice mayor alvarez aye mayor Rogers aye that motion passes with seven eyes okay adam and sue that's all we need for item 15.2 correct uh yes that's correct right uh council I know we've been at it for a long time now so I apologize folks we're going to take a quick dinner break and we will be back at seven o'clock good evening let's um continue with our meeting as madam clerk can you roll call the roll please yes thank you councilmember Tibbets here councilmember Shwedhelm here councilmember Sawyer here councilmember Fleming here councilmember Rogers president and vice mayor alvarez will be abstaining from the item as well as mayor Rogers will also be abstaining from the item thank you madam clerk so the first thing we need to do is just check with the council any exparte communications you would like to divulge hello remember Shwedhelm thank you yes I've been inside the site toward the site and I've recently spoken to my planning commissioner and this morning I spoke with the chair of the planning commission and did not learn any new information that's not contained in the public record thank you councilmember Fleming I received a call from agent with 421 group last week had a brief conversation learned no new information thank you councilmember Rogers and councilmember Tibbets no communications that I can recall about this project okay thank you I didn't speak with my planning commissioner and received a couple of calls from the applicant but no conversations and no conversations with the with the appellant so moving on I'd like to ask if the if the council has any questions for staff at this point and what the what staff will be looking for this evening and maybe the best way to do that would be that to have our staff presentation Ms. Tumien's report in is she here on Zoom yes councilmember Sawyer the the matter before the council tonight is the think you're on are you muted I don't believe so shouldn't be okay the matter before the council tonight is the public hearing of the appeal of the old school cannabis project conditional use permit located at 100 sabassable road c up 21-027 christinae Tumien's our senior planner will be presenting the staff report on this public hearing this evening thank you welcome thank you councilmember Rogers and members of the city council my name is christinae Tumien senior planner and I'd like to present the old school cannabis appeal um looking at 100 sabassable road next slide please so the project involves a proposed cannabis retail cultivation distribution and manufacturing facility it will host all four uses in a 20,840 square foot building and the proposed retail hours are from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week the next slide please it's located in southwest Santa Rosa in roseland off of sabassable road next slide please and here's an aerial shot of the project site it's a vacant former charter school that's the applicant proposes to operate a cannabis business you can see that the property is bounded by sabassable road timothy road and smart rail next slide please and here are some street view images of the vacant site at the moment next slide please and here is a thousand foot radius um showing the um distance between the current proposed cannabis retail location and another proposed another approved cannabis location known as a phenotopia at the shopping center at the corner of Dunn and sabassable so this just demonstrates that um there the proposed project um meets the over concentration requirement um required by city ordinance next slide please and this is the um zone general plan and zoning for the project site so the front third um as a general plan designation of medium residential and the two-thirds southern portion of the property is as a general plan designation of general industry or sorry light industry and the entire property is owned light industrial the building sits on the industrial portion of the industrial zone portion of the site and the requested uses are allowed in the light industrial zoning district next slide please so here's a site plan showing the existing conditions so we have an entrance off sabassable road and one off of timothy next slide please this is the applicant's proposal it would have a a block wall along timothy road with a gate and a see-through wrought iron fence along sabassable road with gates that would be open during um operating hours um the parking lot would serve um the cannabis use as well as that um vacant corner store on the on sabassable timothy and um there's an interior court uh interior courtyard of the parking lot that would be fenced to allow for secure deliveries um in and out of the uh business next slide please um the on-site consumption portion which is part of the retail delivery use is located in the red circle and it's proposed as a um survey gated outdoor lounge screened from public view next slide please and the red lines that you see outline a system of gates that are proposed um that would allow for a security around the manufacturing portion that would occur in that red rectangle in the center of your screen and the overall gates um and fences along the what you see on the red lines would allow for secure transport of product in and out of the facility um and the retail portion would still be accessible to the public um when those operations take place next slide please and so this is the um the parking situation at the property they are required to have 28 spaces given the four different uses proposed and there are 60 spaces available total on the site so they have more than enough parking um to meet their needs and next slide please this is the proposed floor plan the red um rectangle indicates where the volatile manufacturing would occur it's a um specially designed um it's building that it would be reviewed by um our building and fire departments and be required to have um annual inspections um as well um all part all um outlined in the cannabis ordinance for a volatile manufacturing as you can see the the light gray towards the top of your screen that portion would be the retail um cannabis retail portion and the outdoor lounge is indicated just north of that next slide please and here we have the proposed um elevation the the applicant proposes um some light renovations to the building the addition of that outdoor lounge next slide please here's a perspective of the proposed entry the entry would be visible from um Sevastopol road which is a requirement of the cannabis ordinance next slide please and here are current and are existing and proposed um elevation uh existing street view and proposed renderings um of the project site so the applicant proposes a see-through broad iron fence along Sevastopol road next slide please and here it would be the view along Timothy where they propose a um block wall and gate next slide please um actually if we could skip to appellate two which is um actually I'll just continue um my understanding is appellant oh sorry appellant number one would like to move to be appellant number two in the order that you hear them tonight I'll just discuss appellant number one's concerns um he states that environmental justice and social equity discrimination by Santa Rosa against Rosalind residents and the Santa Rosa general plan 2035 states that Santa Rosa will be safe and a little community community he also states currently three homicides in Santa Rosa during 2021 all in disadvantage over burden community of Rosalind another drug dealer in area decreases safety and livability and just to address those um staff provided responses in the staff report but I just to give you a summary um the in December of 2017 the city council unanimously adopted the city's comprehensive cannabis ordinance and the regulations address locational operational requirements for commercial cannabis related businesses and the ordinance allows the city to direct these land uses to appropriate areas of the city and also establishes a public review process for permits and it includes um requirements of the applicants that address uh land use compatibility odor security safety health lighting parking and noise and the applicant has demonstrated compliance with the cannabis ordinance um as far as mitigating for odor security lighting parking and noise so and staff is unaware of any homicides related to legal cannabis retail dispensaries or legal cannabis related uses within the city limits um and the zoning code requires cannabis businesses to provide adequate security ensure public safety a safety of persons in the facility to protect the business premises from theft um and the applicants are required to provide a security plan that includes lighting alarms secure storage and waste procedures for safe transport of products and currency controlled business building access like alarms and emergency access and they are required to have um high quality cameras um installed the applicant is also proposing to replace the existing chain link fence around the perimeter of the property um with a new as I stated a wrought iron security fence and uh with two gates along sabbatical road and the gates would be secured at the close of business and then there would be a block wall on timothy um with a gate as well next slide please so this just summarizes my um staff responses to you about number one this um slide shows the cannabis retail applications um as of may 15th 2021 um I have a better slide to show you towards the end of my presentation but this was the the map that I had when I prepared for this meeting the um city planning uh division uh prepared a interactive map that's available on the cannabis website um this one shows where the um existing proposed approved and pending cannabis locations are in the city and they're indicated by a triangle shape and they're distributed throughout the city and um they don't appear to be concentrated in the rosin area next slide please another issue is the term drug dealer refers to an illegal activity that does not accurately describe the proposed project next slide please next slide next slide clean and this just describes the security measures that the applicant um will implement as part of the project which includes the the fencing and gates um and as stated before the distribution activities will occur behind a secondary gate which would act similar to a sally port next slide please so for um appellate number two she states a proper notification of the public notice to the community in the surrounding area during the september 23rd 2021 meeting many people that live on timothy stated they did not receive the notice in the mail and the notification on the gate was in english there was a halt on the meeting on september ninth 2021 which only allowed the community two weeks to come forward to participate in the meeting santa rosa did not did make changes to the process to continue with the approval on september 23rd the process should have been restarted and the community given the proper time to comply with the process to speak to neighbors that did not receive the notice so next slide please um just to address the first issue at appellate number two raise um on august 27 flying staff mailed a notice for application to notify surrounding property owners within 600 feet of the project site of the proposed project the item was scheduled for the september ninth planning commission but on the the day before um staff received a request for translation services from english to spanish um after receiving that request um staff postponed the um the the uh continued the planning commission meeting to september 23rd which would which allowed for staff to secure um professional translation services from um english to spanish there um the appellants uh next issue was um there are children that live directly across the street from this facility having a consumption area and patrons leaving the facility puts the community at risk with possible dui in close proximity to families that live on either side of the dispensary also the use of type 7 manufacturers which allow the use of volatile solvents for extraction or post-processing refinement of cannabis extract the risk of explosion in a highly populated area once again puts families at risk of harm this area have high cases of asthma heart disease diabetes and a lower life expectancy due to high levels of exhaust from the highway um the 101 freeway the 12 highway and diesel diesel trucks that are up and down the sabbatical corridor so city's responses um the can the city's cannabis ordinance requires that cannabis retail facilities be located at least 600 feet from a k-12 school but there's no prohibition of cannabis retail facilities from residential areas or areas where children are living the applicant does propose to operate a cannabis retail dispensary with on-site consumption and that as stated before the perimeter would be secured with fences and gates and the applicant has a robust security plan and as far as the on-site consumption the code requires that neither patients or customers be permitted to consume cannabis on this on the site unless they have a use permit that allows that specifically allows on-site consumption and those the requirements in the code for on-site consumption include um that the applicant um have a specific area designated for that that doesn't allow anyone under 21 to enter and that it be um appropriately labeled and the city has an even stricter ordinance that does not permit any smoking so any um cannabis consumption that is consumed on site cannot include smoking or vaping next next slide please next slide please and then just to address the um the concern with volatile um cannabis manufacturing the city code requires that the applicant use a closed loop system and that it be listed or certified by an approved third-party testing agency or licensed by a professional engineer and it has to be approved for the intended use by the city's building official and fire official and the city requires that the licensed professional engineer annually sort of recertify the extraction equipment um and um volatile manufacturing is not limited to just cannabis um oil extraction it it has also been used in um for example food additive and perfume industry um just as an example of where it's also used next slide please and this this project qualifies for a number of exemptions given that um it involves very minor modifications to the structure and site and um no expansion to the use um it's also an infill project and it's also consistent with the city's general plan and the rosin areas sabasable roads specific plan for which EIRs are prepared and certified and if I could skip the next slide and just show the newer maps that we have available on the city's website so this is a um a global map of uh the operating improvement and cannabis retail applications under review and I just wanted to show how many um the city currently has um per quadrant just to show that um they're fairly evenly distributed along major corridors through the city that pass you know north south um east and west next slide please and I have it um broken down by quadrant and you can see um where they're dotted around um and spread out throughout the city the blue hatch marks that you're seeing are um K through 12 schools and that that would prevent a applicant from locating a cannabis retail facility within that thousand feet proximity next slide please so this is the northwest next slide please and here's the southeast so we have five approved into operating and the next slide would be the rosin area so we have four approved one operating one pending and the current one that's appeal and with that um it is recommended by the planning and economic development and the planning commission that the council by resolution deny the appeals of the planning commission's decision to approve a conditional use permit um to allow a 2350 square foot of retail dispensary with delivery and onsite consumption 17120 square feet of commercial cultivation 870 square feet of just for distribution and 500 square feet of manufacturing level two volatile at 100 sabastical road staff is available for comments and questions thank you miss chumian um council questions of staff at this point council member schwedem thank you council member sorry and this just may be a clarification on the project narrative when i was reading it specifically i had that interest in the closed loop system on page six attachment four it says the um it won't be used until inspected by the sabastical city building official and fire chief i'm making the assumption that should be santa rosa and we have the training in yes so that that's an area it would be santa rosa and we have approved other volatile cannabis manufacturing facilities elsewhere in the city so this is not a um a new use that's proposed or novel use that's great so does that language for whatever happens today does that need to be changed by motion of the council or is i'm not sure how um with the project narrative it has any legal requirements maybe this would be for the city attorney uh yes it would be helpful to have that clarified uh in the motion great thank you um i had a few questions um the first is i'm not sure if you can answer this or if the chief is on but has cannabis locations increased crime in any of the quadrants throughout the city or additional calls for service chief navarroa is no longer viewable via zoom that's not going to get answered um and um um are there other locations uh cannabis locations uh near uh it seems to be a lot of residential units surrounding this one in the industrial light light industrial is light kind of in the middle but around um um is just residential so is this uh just specific to this area or we have other areas where residential um abuts industrial areas and where they there are cannabis um various cannabis operations um but the most uh notable that comes to mind is yolanda avenue there are several um cannabis related uses including um approved retail locations and directly behind um uh those industrial um campuses uh there are residential uses another one that comes to mind would be piner road so there are mobile home parks behind um um the various residential uses directly behind the uses behind the cannabis uses because i'm not familiar and if you don't know you can just say you don't know um do you happen to know the the types of residential housing that is near those cannabis facilities are they single family homes that are um are they low income housing what what type of housing um is located i can answer specifically for the example on yolanda avenue but um they are single family residences but um share a rear yard with the industrial campus that house the cannabis uses okay um and then lastly uh the site that we're we're looking at tonight um will this site have a permit for onsite consumption yes that's part of the project description and um that's what they're requesting it would be a component of their retail operation okay i just wanted to clarify um because i believe it was a appellant two uh made a point to say that there were children nearby and the response was um multiple things but one was only if there was a permit for use which there will be a permit for use so there is a reason to be concerned for appellant two so i just wanted to make sure that we were clear on that one okay thank you thank you councilmember do we have a representative from the um srpd to respond to the questions regarding calls for service i believe the chief is going to be promoted here in just a second excellent thank you yes he's online now welcome chief hello um so we don't have the i don't have the data right now we don't have anything that would um anything significant that would show that there's a significant increase in crime we do have crimes from time to time but uh no no major spikes that that uh i can report out at this time but we can't get some further data at a later date thank you does that answer your question councilmember rogers yes i mean i think that there's enough locations that if we were going to see a a spike that we would we would see it thank you chief good point thank you councilmember tidbits thank you john um the question that i have is i think during the last appeal we had on cannabis dispensary i asked the question can we form the cannabis subcommittee and reevaluate that one thousand foot buffer the i think it was called the the density aspect i'm forgetting the proper term but the density of cannabis did that ever transpire i know we've had a lot going on but was that ever subsequently discussed because at the last appeal i did voice some concern for the amount of density that we're starting to see in the city i'm not aware um that that committee uh has uh reformed and and taken any action i don't know if uh claire or someone else from ped might um might be aware but i'm not aware of any action we have been we have had a lot of other things going on right now sure thanks well if claire is available um i'd love to to hear it but i'm gonna i'm just gonna you know politely assume that's no just given the the plate of things that we've had good evening if i may can you hear me so this is claire hartman interim assistant city manager and i'd like to respond to your question councilmember tibbetz um we did hear the comment the interest in um reforming the cannabis subcommittee um however i think that it's something that we'll need to address when we revisit the city council goals um when we evaluate the uh the work plan for the year um and i believe that that the council goals will be revisited in february but in terms of the current work plan that we're working on that was out of the scope um and uh in fact that subcommittees not currently meeting but should there be interest to reform it that would be the proper time to set it up and then we can we can staff it we can move forward with um that type of amendment and i'm sure there'll be other amendments of interest to the by the community and other council members okay thank you assistant city manager thank you miss harbin customer fleming yeah i wanted to just clarify it's my understanding i believe staff said this but i just want to be crystal clear about it that the consumption on site will not be in the form of smoking or vaping it will be in the form of like oral consumption like drinking teas or sodas or eating gummies or the like is that correct yes that's correct the city has a ordinance that heavily restricts smoking of any kind and it includes both tobacco and cannabis so the on site consumption would be limited to edibles for instance okay and can you speak to the plan for dealing with environmental toxins that might potentially be generated by the production on this um at this project i would defer to the applicant for that question i guess what i'm asking um and it's okay if you don't have the answer um but if staff analyzed or there's a standard um plan or there's some governing body that deals with manufacturing i can't imagine that there isn't um i i'm interested to hear from the applicant later but this to me seems like one that i i'd like to hear from a governmental representative i'm not familiar with any specific requirements from the planning for instance um okay understood um but so they will be using these chemicals that you said are fairly common but do we know if uh there's going to be any and perhaps it's fine if you don't know but i'm just wondering how these things are are managed i i don't know the specifics on the manufacturer the manufacturing process i just know a just have a general understanding of what a closed loop system is but i think so that that's that that sounds like what you're going getting warm there so a closed loop system can you tell us about that yes so um in order for in order to allow for safe manufacturing um with a volatile compound it's required to be in a closed loop system so that the um the volatile compound is not exposed to the air so um butane for instance um is used um quite often in volatile manufacturing to extract oils from cannabis plants plant and plant materials and um it's used in a controlled device and in this case the applicants proposing it in a specially designed room for um um extras uh extra safety and um additional caution thank you and i do appreciate your your caution in answering a technical question but but you you did it really well so thank you for your help council member phleming if i may the fire department is the department that administers the hazardous materials function within the city does the inspections and reviews the applicant or the operator's plans for hazardous materials handling and disposal yeah i i know i just wanted to confirm for the for the listening public that that those these types of safety precautions are in place and that it is the santa rosa police department that will be conducting these inspections and approvals thank you so much santa rosa fire department right right that the police department will come if there's a problem all right council member tidbits thank you council member soyer i apologize i forgot to ask previously when i had the floor uh to the best of my knowledge there have not been any developments or approved use or mechanisms to test if somebody is driving under the influence am i correct in that assumption or has technology evolved where we can now pull somebody over and detect that they're under the influence for the chief i assume if he's not here that's all right council member there is nothing at this point that can be used for the evaluate driving under the influence with a presumptive test our officers are trained to do field sobriety tests and there are there are private companies that are working on a presumptive test uh so similar to what they do with alcohol but there's nothing at this time that's approved i'll make a quick comment uh and i'll still listen to public comment but i remember we had one of these proposals with an on-site consumption come up before us in the past and i remember at that time i was uh against having on-site consumption as a result of not having a way to enforce it because to me that was tantamount to opening up opening bars when you didn't have a way to determine if somebody is shouldn't be driving a vehicle um so i i just i guess i just add that comment i'll delve more into it in the comment section thank you thank you council member any other questions council at this point so this one will introduce planning commissioner chair planning commission chair karen weeks for a presentation welcome chair weeks thank you council member acting mayor soyer as a council member soyer said my name is karen weeks and i am the chair of this planning commission and i'm here today to provide you a brief overview of our actions as it relates to this item before you tonight as miss tumian said the project was originally scheduled for us on the september ninth 2021 meeting however the day before staff received a request for a spanish translation and due to that short time frame uh of the request staff requested of the commission that the item be continued to the september 23rd meeting that continuation information was translated into spanish at that uh september ninth meeting and then on the 23rd when we did hear the item um there were of the seven members of the planning commission six of us were present the meeting was translated into spanish in real time using the zoom spanish channel and um the great zoom in spanish interpreters that the city uses an extra time was allowed for the public commenters due to that translation as you know the planning commission is charged with carrying out california planning and zoning laws within the city of san aroza which includes the implementation of local ordinances and policies relating to land use matters we've been reviewing cannabis conditional use permits for a number of years now and as always uh in items such as this we review this conditional use permit applications in accordance with the applicable zoning code and city policies our role as commissioners to follow those applicable codes and policies laid out by the council council as well as state regulations as you're well aware it's been the council's direction to treat the now legal cannabis business as any other legal business the submitted application for this privately owned property was consistent with all the policies laid out for cannabis business within the city of san aroza during the meeting we heard from 34 members of the public 26 were opposed and eight supporting commissioners asked a variety of questions regarding issues such as odor mitigation the question of on-site consumption and on-site management the commissioners did approve the c up with a six to zero vote as i indicated with one member absent and if you have any questions about our action at that in that time i'd be happy to answer them at this thank you council questions for our planning commission chair thanks again madam chair and if we have further questions um i'm sure you'll be available i will thank you very much next we'll be hearing from the applicant um do we have mr longman on our zoom yes he's being promoted now thank you hello can you hear me yes mr longman you have 10 minutes please thank you hi uh actually uh our owner naily revera uh we'll be giving the presentation can mr vera raise her hand so i can enable her speaking permissions can you hear me yes thank you awesome good evening council members and staff thank you for your time today and for giving me the chance to talk about our project at 100 sabastopol road my name is naily revera and i am one of the owners of the 100 sabastopol road project we are seeking to open and operate a new state of the art commercial cannabis facility at 100 sabastopol road we previously received unanimous approval from the planning commission for cultivation manufacturing distribution and retail uses we are here today to address the appeals made against our project it is our hope that the appeals will be denied and that we are able to commence operations in the near future next slide please next slide please myself and satie hunter are partners in this business i've known satie for many years she was born and raised in northern california like myself she is the general manager of canadale a cannabis dispensary near canadale park in santa rosa she has been in cannabis for a long time and is a strong advocate for cannabis patient rights and policy reform next slide please a little bit about me i was born and raised right here in sonoma county my father and mother immigrated to sonoma county in the mid 1970s i am a first generation mexican-american woman my father has worked in the latino community for over 30 years he worked in immigration services and has done a lot of outreach in the roseland area as well as sonoma county as a whole at an early age he would bring me to work and i began assisting him with immigration services i have seen roseland develop over the years and i support the culture and the community the early work i did in roseland with my father created a passion and need to be of service to my community after graduating high school i continued to work as an interpreter i worked with the sonoma county office of education as well as the deaf and hard of hearing community my family also owns a farm labor contracting company out of napa i begin working with my family in the in the late 2000s this sparked my passion for business and entrepreneurial pursuits next slide please as you can tell this project is a proud woman owned and led business it is of utmost importance for us that we use our platform to not only uplift women in the cannabis industry but women in all businesses i feel very honored and grateful to be given this opportunity to form this business and connect back with my roots as well as work in an industry i am extremely passionate about next slide please this project will be a vertically integrated company meaning it will follow the lifecycle of the plant to the shelf the quality of product that we intend to produce will rival other companies and put roseland on the map as one of the best cultivators in the state i think it is important that our community sees this operation as not just the business but an opportunity to educate and bring more knowledge and support to the cannabis industry while highlighting the positive effects it can have on the local economy next slide please volunteering and community community development are close to my heart when Sadie and i made the decision to move forward with this project we knew we both wanted our new business but i'm sure to do good and illicit change for the betterment of roseland we created the community benefits plan which directly outlines how we plan to be of service to our community first we will implement year-round food drive events through the non-profit organization fish in order to feed the hungry in our community second we intend to hire locally and tap into the diverse talent pool in the roseland community we will advertise career opportunities through Sonoma sponsored job development programs craigslist and the Spanish speaking site taco lists in order to ensure our workforce is representative of our community once our business is operational and cash flow positive we plan to not only make monetary donations but encourage volunteering of our staff we've identified social advocates for youth the living room the vital blood donations as organizations we intend to support next slide please the team at that 100 roads 100 sabbatical road project wants to be at the forefront of supporting the health and livelihood of the community we operate within during the september 23 planning commission meeting and at the city council meetings since we've heard numerous comments from public speakers expressing a desire for this facility to be utilized as a public library or community center in an effort to better understand the likelihood of the city pursuing such a use we reached out to eddie alvarez the council member representing the district where this property is located during our conversation with council member alvarez we asked if the city was still interested in pursuing a library at this location after our initial conversation council member alvarez told us that he had inquired with the sonoma county public library regarding their interests in the proposed facility he was told by staff that they are exploring many potential sites for the library and that they were taking another look at the proposed property should it become available but are not committed to any particular site as of yet during our discussion discussion council member alvarez also mentioned that while looking into the issue he learned from city staff that the city had considered purchasing the property over a year ago but ultimately made a decision not to move forward for those calling for more infrastructure inequitable justice for the rosin community we want you to know that we support you we feel that equitable justice for rosin means providing places where people can work and make a living with competitive wages our combined retail distribution manufacturing and cultivation uses will bring over 50 new career opportunities to the area we are upholding the essence of the affordable housing and anti-displacement strategies supplement of the rosin area specific plan of 2016 by providing careers for the local community the rosin specific plan outlined strategies developed in other cities that quote include policies aimed at supporting existing and new businesses that reflect the changing nature of industry creating the types of jobs most beneficial to the local economy and preparing the workforce to compete for these jobs by 2022 the recreational cannabis market in california is projected to reach five billion the california cannabis industry's total economic impact could be nearly 10 billion to deny the benefits of this booming industry to rosin would be a disservice to the community our project will generate over a half million dollars in yearly tax revenue for the city it is our hope that the city of santa rosa will allocate necessary funds from that tax revenue to make sure that rosin residents have the proper infrastructure to succeed among these infrastructure needs include a community cultural center in an expanded library we want to be part of the solution to the social equity concerns that face rosin and to be a leader as it moves into the future next slide please we know that safety and security are always a top concern for any community and we share that concern the presence of a dispensary could be enough to deter criminal activities the results of one particular study published in the journal of regional science and urban economics in 2019 imply that an additional dispensary in a neighborhood leads to a reduction of 17 crimes per month for 10 000 residents which corresponds to roughly a 19 decline relative to the average crime rate over the sample period our comprehensive security plan will help to improve safety in the area our staff will be thoroughly trained on measures to keep the facility secure and safe and will be trained to de-escalation protocols for issues that may potentially arise we will also maintain clear communication with local law enforcement to ensure our safety practices are in line with their guidance next slide please sharing with the planning commission there were requests for changes to the project that made it a better fit for rosin we appreciated the feedback and implemented those considerations immediately first we elected to rename our operation to the 100th sabastable road project after we heard that some members of the community were offended by our original name choice by that were offended by our original name choice we never meant any offense and we were happy to change it second at the request of the commissioner holton we further developed our comprehensive policy regarding the practices at our on-site consumption lounge we reached out to active consumption lounges throughout the state to gather insight into their practices excuse me mr verbera yeah i'm going to need you to wrap up pretty quickly here okay using what we learned we drafted a state consumption policy to outline our methods for prioritizing safety at our launch i have made sure that each council member has a copy of this policy for review tonight um i think i think so yeah okay thank thank you very much for your presentation council thank you thank you any questions for the applicant at this point seeing none we'll move to the appellant um we have two appellants making presentations this evening each will have 10 minutes for their presentation um mr dewitt thank you miss ms minor miss minors permissions to speak have been enabled thank you and thank you everyone i just like to say a few words um i'm a little um ill prepared because of the time frame i wasn't notified about this and um until december night to have my presentation ready so some of the things i want to just touch upon is uh in relation to the asthma um that we have in our area and the numbers that we have we continue to have a lot of disparities in that capacity i'm part of the library system and they did reach out to the um the business that place of business in july of 2020 they had a visitation in regards to that because they was inquiring about that and then they also revisited that same facility in january of february of 2021 also as as the populations of san rosa continue to shift and change the city government needs to shift and change with that the process was very difficult finding out how to do the appeals and it wasn't very clear and it wasn't and the technical support was not fully in place the direction of the process was difficult to navigate and and then also the website was difficult to navigate there are high fees that is in relation to appeals process in this area there are low income um people that wanted to also do appeal but couldn't afford afford it so there's issues in that language equity was not there when the postings were done originally and there are so many other things so those are a few of the things that was not in my um slide so you can go to the next slide please this is the ordinance that um is in the city of san rosa and i just want to highlight the area where it says will not be detrimental to public interest health safety convenience of or welfare of the city and that is actually from the city's ordinance next slide please again uh there's a lot of information and i just wanted to have the overview of everything so i highlighted a few things and again this is from the city ordinance things that will not adversely affect the health piece or safety of persons living and working in the surrounding areas the city have done many listening sessions in regards to feeling safe in san rosa and for myself uh being a first generation here in america this is an issue for me not feeling safe here in uh in my community and those are questions that was done through our listening sessions done through um a budget and done in many capacity and that question holds dear to my heart do i feel safe in my community and with such a magnitude of a facility coming in i don't feel safe since the inception of rosen coming in um november 1st 2017 there have been many disadvantages that have happened in rosas prior to them coming into the city there are a lot of effective changes that are going on but there's still lack of cultural sensitivities and lack of technology used from the people from the community that makes it difficult for them in this process so next slide please again this is the census track and where the location is the first posting um was all in english and the information that was sent out to the surrounding area was all in english and as you can see from the census track the percentage of latin hispanic latino and hispanic is 66.7 percent just for that census track next slide please again here's the english posting that was posted so next slide please this was sent out to the surrounding areas it is all in english and the person that gave this to me she speaks spanish and so again the diversity in the language um barrier was there and so to have something posted and sent out to the um the public on august 27th to people that only speak english that is a problem next slide next slide please again the slide showing that it was all in english and it was sent to a spanish speaker next slide thank you for the diversity equity and inclusion this was a sign recently posted for this meeting today and as you can see changes were made but so many years here in rosin from other previous meetings that we have they have done it in english and we had the same issue the same inequities going on in rosin and finally now we are beginning to see a shift next slide please here is the health um health density these are these are numbers that is coming from data that is available i have included the websites for that and this is the healthy places index as you can see here the um quartile we're in quartile one what is the least healthy as community conditions these numbers some of these numbers are updated we have new numbers that is coming out in the in the in the january of 2022 so but again our disparities our californ healthy play index you can check it out at that website next slide i just want to highlight the measure of america project which is our our portrait of Sonoma county that the new numbers are out will be out again in january and there are still a lot of disparities that is in this area i want to highlight again the american human index development index that tells the story of how ordinary americans are fair and empowers community health education and income and indicators and racial and economic groups next slide again some more data if when you look at this particular slide the human development index is 5.58 out of 10 we have life expectancy of 80.9 years education index is 5.12 of 10 and the median personal earning is 37,320 again disparities health issues so we all talked about having a community center a larger library system and all of that would help in the process of rosalie and improving that area as the new numbers come out in january for the portrait of Sonoma county you will begin to see the disparities that we're still facing in that area next slide again more information in regards to some of the data in rosalie we can go ahead and go to the next slide again additional data showing about that census tract and three additional census tract that's in that same area i hope that you guys had an opportunity to read all of that go ahead and go to the next slide again additional data again so these numbers are based in 2014 but our portrait of Sonoma i've had an opportunity to look at some of that data that's coming out and it still holds true there are slow slow movement in the data and so i wish we had this meeting was going to be done in january when we can have the portrait of Sonoma and additional information data points that was coming from the city with the scorecard from the violence prevention that will be out as well which also supports what is seen in the portrait of Sonoma next slide next slide again on our city website is stated the environmental review process added the information in in red which says this includes land air minimums plant life animal life noise traffic i included human life growth development health and health disparities because we deal with a lot here in rosin i live in rosin i i work play and eat in roseline and we have a lot of issues here and this facility coming in will bring some maybe some help but unless they're going to have a security guard walking up and down the corridor i don't see how it will affect the the change in crime levels that we have in rosin because it's all up and down that some vegetable corridor next slide most shocking things we have in rosin is the brown fields there's so many brown fields up and down that corridor and this project is going to contribute even though there's closed system and there's all this additional stuff the kids of this area again has asthma so if you see here if anybody's interested this is not my data this is the data that's coming from various entities you can go and look at all the different brown fields that we have here in rosin that they're still waiting for it to clear up so that they can build additional housing and so we need to do also look at policies and rezoning in ordinances we need to change these things in rosin so that it can be beneficial to the people of rosin and which will bring forward things like the library things like job maybe a job court type thing that's what the public is speaking of next slide again in Santa Rosa general plan this is an area of interest rosin is and it talks about provide new social and cultural services and amenities to the needs of rosin area sebastian rose rose specific plant area and the larger community we are still waiting for a civic or community building next slide thank you city council for the recent talks about the community center in the rosin library we still in need of that and that's what we would want to have in rosin and again that building was a building that we were looking at and how do i know i was a part of those conversations i was also out there advocating for the public library and that was one of the sites we was looking at and the public library the Sonoma county public library that was also the site they was looking at they did yes excuse me i need you to wrap up okay can we go to the slide the map and here is the map off of the city website once again and as you can see some of these approve is is going into the school city zone and from my understanding that is not supposed to happen and then as you can see the two circles there's a concentration over concentration buffer so that is what's happening so this is on the city website once again i hope this information was helpful there was much more that i have and i hope that you guys had an opportunity to read read through the information that i submitted thank you thank you miss minor mr. DeWitt mr. DeWitt we will give you a three minute warning and a one minute warning but we do not have a visual timer available for the 10 minute allotment hello it's time to ground truth injustice right here and now in santa rosa my name is dewayne deWitt i'm from roseland roseland action was formed in 1993 as an environmental justice and social equity group formed by roseland residents and supporters because we had a goal of empowering a marginalized area the goal is to speak up for equity and fairness and i agree with the previous speaker though i never worked with her at all on this project and didn't even know about this meeting until yesterday at four o'clock when i got the agenda from the office the city planner with this project never informed me and i'm an appellant anyway let's get down to the specifics we in the community wanted to have a resilient sustainable nature oriented resource district within santa rosa we basically wanted to make sure we were defining the services the structures and the support we wanted our neighborhoods federal regulations still consider marijuana a drug so i'm going to talk the way i like to feel these are drug dealers and drug abusers drug addicts and drug dealers are not a good thing for any neighborhood anywhere the citizens and residents of disadvantaged underserved overburdened places such as roseland do not need this old school drug dealership if located in roseland this drug dealership will be detrimental to public health safety and welfare of roseland residents it will adversely affect the health peace and safety of roseland residents nearby roseland residents have disproportionately been impacted by environmental harms and policies the city of santa rosa has foisted upon us for decades roseland residents should be able to keep detrimental businesses out of our neighborhoods professional healthcare workers living in roseland were founders of roseland action they recognized a need to lower the amount of alcohol and drug abuse by people in roseland long ago margo picci nini worked with southwest area citizens group to challenge liquor sales permits and lower the amount of bars and liquor sales in roseland she succeeded it will be a disservice to her memory and all of roseland to open a drug den in our neighborhood are midst right now stoned walkers drivers and bicyclists will increase there'll be loaties out in the public space since santa rosa closed down homeless hill dozens and dozens of drunken and drug-addled vagrants now roam the area near 100 sabbaspal road day and night a woman was murdered nearby on roberts avenue recently people on boyd street timothy road and goodman avenue no longer feel safe in their neighborhoods putting a drug den in this spot will be an attractive public nuisance which will make life worse for local law-abiding neighbors roseland recently endured a police killing of a man who may have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs we don't want this to happen again to anyone lowering the amount of drug abuse by people in roseland is more important than this business moving in here now local citizens are not clamoring for this 30 years ago at the first national people of color environmental leadership summit in washington dc definitions of 17 principles of environmental justice were drafted and adopted principle seven states environmental justice demands the right to participate as equal partners at every level of decision-making including needs assessment planning implementation enforcement and evaluation this has not happened for this drug project this drug project is being shoved down the throats of roseland residents those living near this drug dealing site will be directly affected by this in their daily lives nothing good will come from this business being forced upon residents such a drug dealing business will mark the neighborhood in the past the city has really redlined roseland residents before the turn of the century the city in sonoma county declared a red zone i have a map of it here which i would show you if the overhead was working it was on hues avenue and sunset avenue housing tract due to groundwater pollution contamination and it forever marginalized these residents and the value of their homes stigmatizing their neighborhood forever the old school cannabis drug project will stigmatize the timothy road neighborhood and marginalize the area this will worsen the current situation for sabastopol road area affected by contamination and polluted land it was mentioned their brownfields contaminated land has stigmatized the area brownfields have caused disinvestment in the area while causing marginalization of residents having served on the roseland area sabastopol road specific plan citizens advisory committee i know this type of project was never discussed for this site people on the committee were seeking to lift up the sabastopol road corridor this type of project will not be a community friendly business rather it will be a site requiring armed guards with high level of security on site this is not a welcoming picture for where luxury meets downtown according to the village station housing project being built next door to the project it has been stated 26 speakers at the planning commission opposed the project while eight speakers supported it three times the amount opponents will show the city this is not the place for this business this business can be operated in an industrial or business park instead of here business promises often do not actually materialize often a community suffers while a business profits the addition of an attractive nuisance into a disadvantaged underserved and overburdened community often makes things worse roseland's been struggling and what we need now is for folks to take a look at this and say you know what these business people might have a good idea but take it somewhere else we've already got enough drug dealers in our area both legal and illegal this isn't going to make roseland better i don't care who is telling you it's going to get better we know from living there on the streets and seeing what's happening to our community it has not improved since annexation it's actually worse on sabastopol road now we actually need you folks now our elected officials to say we can take a break and ask these business people to go elsewhere they don't own the site they're just going to be renting the site this is a perfect building for another use what enhances the community let us put our library there and our community youth center we don't need to build a new building that would cost 10 million dollars according to what you folks have said with 10 million dollars worth of planning let's use this building here and now for what the community needs and let these business people find a different site somewhere else their business will go wherever it needs to we in the community don't have anywhere else in which we can actually house a community youth center a library this big building can do that it did it when it was roseland collegiate prep high school so let's step up let's work together with the community be on equal terms with us don't come from the top down on us and overpower us and tell us it's our way not roseland's way we're coming here tonight we're sitting through these hearings because we believe our community can be improved but not by this drug dealership you're at one moment one minute I thank you for giving me this time limit I thank you here tonight for informing me of this meeting I asked you for a continuance you didn't want to do that I really feel that staff did a disservice to myself and the other applicant the appellant by not even giving us the information we needed by not even informing me even though I'd paid the five hundred and fifty six dollars to say I don't believe you're treating us fairly that's that's an amazing amount of money for ten minutes fifty dollars a minute to tell you that this is not the right thing to have in my community and I've lived there all my life and you guys are going to come in here and tell me oh we'll make it better you know it's never worked out you folks have never made it better yet so please don't tell me tonight you're going to approve this and we'll all be better off in the future that's a crock all the best yeah thanks mr. DeWitt council any questions for either one of the appellants at this time council member fleming yes um oh excuse me no I have a question for the applicant not the appellant my mistake any questions for the appellants okay thank you Ms. Rivera um you have five minutes to respond to the appellants if you so choose yes thank you first off I want to thank the appellants for pursuing what they think is best for rosin we are doing the same we hope that the dialogue initiated in this public process is just the beginning of a continued open conversation about how we can work together for the betterment of this community the first appellant discussed a lack of proper public notice of our initial planning commission hearing in particular there was a complaint that notices in Spanish were not posted and that the nearby neighbors were not notified properly this is brought to the attention of the planning commission a day before the initial hearing on September 9th because of this the planning director and staff postponed the hearing until September 23rd we stand by the city's open government principles that prioritize diversity equity and inclusion we remain grateful that the city postponed our initial hearing so that the members of our Spanish speaking community could participate could participate fully in the public process additionally we were active in our bilingual outreach to the neighborhood and have clearly made our goals and intentions known for our neighbors the appellant also addressed our facilities presence in a residential area and felt that having a consumption lounge as well as conducting type 7 manufacturing was a risk to their residents as I mentioned in my previous presentation our team has conducted exhausted research regarding the safety practices of consumption lounges across the state using the information we gather we've designed a safe consumption policy that we believe is unraveling the state our type 7 manufacturing process is designed with a close loop vacuum system this method is not exclusive to cannabis manufacturing and is often used to produce perfume food additives and beauty products the risks outlined by the appellant are negligible to non-existent our lab will be inspected by the city's building and fire code officials and rated a c1d1 lab it would also meet the requirements for the federal food drug and cosmetic acts and peer reviews for best practices down to the last bolt we canvass our surrounding neighborhood on multiple occasions to connect with the neighbors of the project along the way we pass that information about our project and those Spanish and English in our outreach efforts we knock on doors of 120 residences directly adjacent to the property spanning from Timothy Road, Sebastopol Road, Briar Bush Way, Blithwood Place, Deep Roads Place and Howarth Way resulting in over 60 conversations and 43 neighbors signing our petition in support of our project some of the neighbors refer to the bacon building at 100 Sebastopol Road as a blight in the neighborhood and they are excited to see a business finally move into the space a few neighbors even reached out to me after the fact to ask about possible employment opportunities once we open on top of that we have a petition circulating around the greater Santa Rosa community that has garnered 563 signatures of support in September we also hosted a community meeting at the facility to give our neighbors a chance to walk through and ask questions also something to note during our outreach we received numerous comments wishing there was no space for cultural events and educational functions in the rosin area and we are hopeful that we're able to host a number of events in our facility and want to create a safe space for community engagement the second appellant describes our project as being a drug dealer which is refuted in the staff report provided earlier by mrs. two means as the term drug dealer refers to the legal activity and does not accurately describe our proposed project 57% of Californians voted to legalize cannabis in the proposition 64 vote of 2016 to talk about legal and regulated cannabis operations as being criminal activities is unfair to us and especially unfair to the comprehensive cannabis ordinance that the city council and staff have worked for years as a top priority to develop the fact of the matter is that our project will be a neighborhood serving use as described by the planning commissioners themselves i do not feel it is appropriate for us to address the appellant's claim any further thank you thank you mr. vera council any questions for the applicant at this time it's flaming i i have a question about something that might seem out of left field um has not been raised by anybody here but one of the things that concerned me about your project rendering was the amount of hardscape around the project and how much hardscape we have in our downtown core which includes rosin i'm just curious to know if the applicant would be willing to have more permeable land cover as opposed to all the concrete that i see in in the renderings can you hear me mr. vera did you hear the question i did hear the question can you hear can you guys hear me yes now yes awesome yeah we are open to all possibilities i think the rendering is um you know not anything that we've set in stone so we are definitely open to um suggestions or you know hearing the community as to how to make that space more presentable um me being a mexican-american woman and growing up in roseland and being around culture and art i would like to incorporate that and possibly you know bring that down into that area that's more industrialized at this point okay thank you i do appreciate it um having um compressed granite or some other form of ground covering would definitely help reach some of our environmental goals as a community so thank you for considering that i don't have any further questions thank you councilmember any other questions council for the applicant seeing none will move to public comment um anyone in the chamber care to address the council at this time if you could line up at the podium don't remember sir can you open the public hearing thank you thank you we'll open the public hearing thank you madam clerk and so just line up at the podium and you will have three minutes to address the council please go ahead and state your name for the public record if you choose to do so okay hello my name is janice sebert and i'm the president of the roseland school district board of trustees for uh 2020 and 2021 and i'm here to convey that the board is not in favor of this project in fact no one we're major stakeholders in the community and no one from this project or the city even reached out to us to let us know this was happening and you've heard from many of our parents and more are here and our children as well to speak to you so i'm going to let them talk about uh what what they um need to um let's see but i'm at i'm just urging you to listen to them you know they're not the the big business they're the we're the people who live in roseland and um so we're the important voices just a couple of things i'd like to point out to you that in this discussion tonight and at the planning commission meeting um they keep just talking about this uh saying candidate dispensaries are being distributed equitably throughout the city uh but we're not talking about a small storefront dispensary we're talking about a massive industrial enterprise of over 20 000 square feet um have you talked about your uh to your measure oh people about the effect of this uh and what they think about the prospect of this also please consider the baudine asphalt facility which was built mostly before residences grew up around it now uh san rosa has been unable to prevent that business from um expanding their hours heavy truck traffic noise and other negative impacts to the now residential neighborhood that surrounds us for this cannabis facility to be built you would have to be authorizing the construction in the middle of already existing residences in an area designed to be designated to be built out to high density transit hub so you have this measure oh prevent uh violence presential present the prevention partnership that just uh council 71,782 people served in the roseland district west sabastopol road et cetera this is exactly the area that does not need the old cannabis um facility to be built there council members rather than approving a high security fortress to keep people out it is this is the perfect location to be integrated into the community near homes businesses train station this is a great opportunity for santa rosa to take a step forward in community assets that will provide wonderful things for all of its residences an opportunity to blend roseland into the greater city area instead of further comp compartmentalizing it thank you thank you hola buenas noches mi nombre es concepción domínguez uh estamos aquí hoy buscando apoyo para nuestra comunidad para parar el proceso del lugar que quieren poner de cannabis en rosland yo como como comunidad les digo que por traer esto a rosland es muy malo este tipo de negocios no es bueno aquí porque tenemos muchas familias jóvenes escuelas y todo y no nos ayudaría mucho a nuestra comunidad y por eso mismo les pido de que hagan cambios y por favor no aprueben esto porque la verdad es un negocio muy malo para nosotros y la verdad nuestros jóvenes echarían un poco más a perder de lo que están entonces sería mejor un lugar comunitario algo para nuestra comunidad algo para para cuando haya un incendio algo tengamos un lugar a donde llegar por una emergencia o algo para poder ayudar a nuestra comunidad o un centro cultural o la librería alguna otra cosa porque en realidad esto sería como una bomba de tiempo si hacen algo de de producto ahí de cannabis y todo eso sería muy malo para nuestra comunidad ahí hay escuelas hay residencias hay todo y en realidad no no nos beneficie nada la verdad y quisiera que escuchara nuestra petición y por favor no aprueben esto porque en realidad no hay ningún beneficio para nosotros y por favor les pongo un capien que entienda nuestras peticiones porque en verdad no nos favorece esto quisiera algo positivo más para mi comunidad que haga deportes haga una clase de música o algo más mejor para nosotros entonces no entiendo por qué quieren poner algo así como cannabis venta de drogas todo eso no no beneficia nada la comunidad yo creo que más bien es por dinero por negocio yo que sé pero en realidad deberían de hacer algo mejor para nuestra comunidad se los pido por favor y escuchen nos nuestra petición porque estamos aquí todos unidos roslan está aquí y queremos que nos escuchen gracias hablo can you please restate that in english thank you good evening my name is concepción do wingas and i'm here in support of the community to stop for you guys from bringing this this is something bad here in this area we have families we have youth we have schools it's just not something good you know make a change don't approve this i think the kids in the youth here have a lot more to lose and to gain from this here in the community you know why don't you make something for the community why don't you make something a shelter in case there's a there's a fire a place where we can all gather maybe a multicultural center i think this is just a time bomb waiting to happen with the production of cannabis products here it would just be bad for our community it's just not something beneficial so i ask you to please hear our petition this is not to benefit any of us that's so again i'm just asking that you listen to our petition you know why don't you put something to do with sports or music in this place something that's better for all of us i think the steal of selling cannabis and drugs i don't know if it's just business or if it's for the money just i ask that you please listen to us here we're in rosen and we're here united thank you thank you hello everyone my name is ricarda suarez a current senior at rosen university prep as you may remember me from last week i am here again today to emphasize the importance for you to uphold the appeal uh the development of the old school cannabis dispensary that would be located at the former rup campus located in the heart of rosen let's keep in mind this is not a dispensary this would be a factory and it is not necessary it is not something we have asked for as previously mentioned out of the 34 comments done during the september 23rd meeting 26 of those opposing to the proposal with eight approval with only commissioner carter listening to the community's demand i again show up like i did on that september meeting and ask um and as i did last week as well uh as a student resident and young adult urge you to uphold this appeal as you are aware the community as a whole is against this we did not ask for this we were not properly informed and most importantly our needs for resources such as a permanent location for the rosen library a multicultural center a child care center or resiliency hub have not yet been met this location once brought those who those young adults who were expected to fail at life to college they got there because of this institution because of rosen university prep rosen was not given the opportunity to choose the proposal for this um to develop something at this location rosen has been asking for a place like such mentioned above like a resiliency hub a rosen library or a permanent location for it um and more for years youth youth well-being will be heavily impacted by the approval of this proposal our health and safety should be prioritized students who will find themselves walking in front of this place will be unsafe this will no longer be a place we can call home this will not improve our community as a resident of this marginalized community i will state it again i am here to demand for the location to be used for resources that we students parents and children need to improve our livelihood health safety and education rosen has repeatedly demonstrated a strong contradiction to this proposal to which as our representatives i urge you to uphold the appeal before i end my comment as a predominant linux community rosen as a whole expects each and every single one of you to care us to see us and to uphold this appeal thank you thank you oh my name is christina avalar and i would like to ask the city council to heed the voice of the roseland community and not approve the cannabis dispensary at 100 sabasapal road approving this dispensary would only amplify existing health disparities between roseland and the rest of the city given that the proposed dispensary does not include a safe way of removing and managing the toxic waste a dispensary of this nature produces the mere existence of this dispensary poses an immediate health risk to all those living in the surrounding area there are already multiple dispensaries located along sabasapal road the hyper concentration of cannabis dispensaries in low-income communities as in roseland is evidence of environmental racism in action we do not need to fill this vacant lot with something that not only does not fulfill a community need but that will be a detriment to public health resistance to this project persists because we know this dispensary will only do harm to the surrounding population regardless of what benefits the applicants claim to bring to roseland the people living in roseland want no part of this dispensary regardless of what it is called i urge the council to not approve the construction of this dispensary thank you thank you thank you uh good evening council my name is mani morales i'm here speaking on behalf of the land next student congress students community members and families were present last week on tuesday when we're here at city council chambers to submit over 900 physical signatures that we have been collecting over the past month and a half in an effort to get this dispensary rejected by the planning commission and the appeal upheld by the city council tonight again we we have to remember that this center this location that's being proposed was the former home and center for learning for young people in roseland that's the one thing that we have to maintain in mind the idea that we want to repurpose it into something different it should come as a result of considering the youth first considering the community considering the well-being considering the health of of roseland i'm here today to reassert our stance against a business that presents more injustices to an already neglected community the proposed business as you have heard in the appeal presentation will add to the disparities already affecting the health and well-being of residents in roseland like the disproportionate disproportionate rate of asthma we're concerned with the initial miscommunication not miscommunication lack of communication from the city of san rosa to be transparent in the the plans for this location the lack of translation services during the initial planning commission meeting is evidence of violations of the open government ordinance to tonight we we saw um uh commissioner uh a member of the planning commission present the this proposed plan and what i noticed was a lot of skimming over the information that should have been talked about should have been discussed again tonight i'll be submitting 200 more signatures physical signatures that we collected over this weekend one day alone one one hour two hours actually of collecting signatures over 200 signatures that we have collected i'll be submitting them to add to the 900 to the over 900 that we had initially submitted um and just so that you also know a petition online on change.org is going to come your way with over 500 more that is um going against the 60 that were claimed to have been um gotten by this by this company that's proposing this business thank you for your time thank you sir this man is could you inform the community how to communicate via zoom and facilitate the remaining public comment will do for those members of the public wishing to make comment via zoom please raise your hand if you are participating by telephone please dial star nine via zoom we do have one more member of the public wishing to speak live in council chamber and we will move to that speaker first before moving to zoom and good evening everybody it's been a minute since i've been here i used to come over on a regular basis to talk to the members of the city council about issues of gangs i have a lot of experience on that issue and that is one of the issues that roseland has to deal with on a daily basis and now the proposed new all schools soon to possibly be named it sounds like the members of the um proposal group the owners of the business are willing to negotiate for a moment which is a very nice move because once they open they're going to make so much money in this facility that you know you can give it whatever name you want as long as they continue to make their money so my name is rafael vasquez i am here today as the advisor of mecha of santa rosa junior college located at santa rosa junior college and one of the things that this council has done over the last few years is to propose something that is called the open government ordinance which states that the purpose of that ordinance is to create public trust to engage the community and to create a system of transparency public participation and collaboration and just by stating that i'm letting you know that this council and this city has violated that ordinance by not providing the information to the community in a language that they could understand to the meetings happen while the roseland community members are working low income community members often work until six seven or eight at night and therefore you are excluding their participation when you don't allow them to be present at these meetings even the most recent meeting that this council had uh in regards to the 10 million dollars that you're wanting to put out there in roseland you had that meeting at one in the afternoon and we went out there and we asked the parents of roseland that he said it is obvious that the city council does not want the community of roseland to participate thereby violating uh this government open ordinance so we want to point that out because at some point you may be looking at litigation by violating the rights of the community that elected you here and just a couple of things in order to consider this proposed location you have to look at the detrimental whether or not there's any detriment to the public interest of the city and again unless you're going to exclude the opinions and the lives of the residents of roseland by providing an opportunity for this business to come in you are also in violation of that part of that ordinance and we can go on and talk about the environment as well but again most importantly it is important that you listen to the voices of the people of roseland thank you for your time thank you sir see no additional members of the public wishing to speak from council and chamber we will move to the zoom participants the first public commenter will be sierra followed by dalo sierra please go ahead hello can you hear me yes hi hi mayor and council members um my name is sierra lewitter and i am here tonight to uplift the voices of the youth and community of roseland to uphold the appeal tonight uh this is not a fight against the cannabis industry this is about a historically marginalized and underserved community having agency over their community this is a land use issue this is valuable land that can provide many beneficial resources other than cannabis as your maps show and california reports show there is plenty of cannabis being produced the market is flooded this is also an environmental racism issue with the volatile extraction process there are plenty of examples of marginalized communities being affected by quote unquote safe processes and their health being affected this is not just a simple gross site or a small dispensary let's move away from this harmful extractive economy mindset to a community building one i have talked to many community members of roseland and they do not want this in their community they have been asking for multicultural center resiliency hub daycare library and many more community-oriented options i'm asking you please to listen to the roseland community as was pointed out by nanny there are there is a petition against the dispensary with over a thousand signatures throughout santa rosa compared to the 43 and 500 or whatever throughout the rose the santa rosa community that was presented um by the applicants um yes i just urge you to listen to the actual members of the community i know that there are some good intentions i appreciate the updates and improvements and safety precautions but you're not listening to the community and that is the priority here um thank you so much thank you the next public comment will be from delo followed by joe bell okay buenas tardes mi nombre es daisy mi comentario es sobre la importancia de detener la construcción del dispensario en roseland ya que estamos en una comunidad que ha sido siempre marginada y más es sabemos que esto no se ha hecho con la claridad que la ley como lo esa el idioma en el que fue presentado también este dispensario va a traer más problemas de salud a nuestros hijos que son perjudiciales pues no podemos permitir el de tío el de tío de tío de periodo de nuestra salud de nuestra comunidad no sabemos hacía Aciencia cierta las componentes y como se labora tal vez hay a riesgo de explosiones en áreas cercanas donde hay áreas de familias. Estamos cansados que nuestra comunidades sean blancos para este tipo de negocios que perjudican a nuestros jóvenes queremos un roslan limpio sin este tipo de negocios. Es impresionante escuchar o presenta en este proyecto lo hacen en una forma de crecimiento de roslan hablan de equidad. Cuando en realidad sabemos que están jugando con nuestras mentes las mentes de nuestra gente que no estamos oficientemente informados con nuestras necesidades de crecer y sabemos que no esta no es la forma de crecer. Como queremos crecer y como y hablan mas de equidad sin sevar realmente que necesita nuestra comunidad cannabis no es sinónimo de equidad. Seamos inteligentes ningún dueño de un negocio nos dirá qué consecuencias traerá su producto. Por qué no llevar este proyecto a áreas más sofisticadas con más dinero no tenemos dinero para vivir sabemos que no vamos a tener dinero para consumir esto. Entonces esto será que personas ajenas a nuestra área será las que vendrán a consumir esta este producto. Preguntaron si esto ha sido motivo de delitos los locales de cannabis. Claro que van a responder que no por qué porque sabemos que hay intereses hay intereses en estos negocios. Am estos negocios generan altas ganancias y son suficientes razones para buscar que se justifique y que se lleve a cabo estamos jugando dinero contra salud y seguridad. Pongan pongan ustedes sabrán cuál es el interés que quieren. Pónganse a pensar si esto fuera en su comunidad si esto fuera un lado de su casta ustedes que harían qué decidirían apelar o seguir apoyando esto no va a ser perjudicado para ustedes es para nuestra comunidad. Cuarenta y tres firmas sobre mil es algo de pensarse nuestra comunidad y la voz de Roslín no quiere un dispensario en esa área queremos educación queremos. Thank you Pablo can you please restate that in English. Good evening my name is Daisy and I'm here you know speak in regards to holding off on the construction of this dispensary. You know this whole project hasn't been done with the clarity that it should have been done and not presented to us like it was presented to the other the rest of the community. This is something that's going to harm our youth and we can simply just not allow this to come to our community. We're in an area where our health is deteriorating and we don't want this. You speak of how Rosen is supposed to be cleaning up well this isn't helping the situation. It's amazing how this has been presented and how you speak about this. When when really you're not addressing the actual community that lives here. We don't want cannabis in our area. This is something that hasn't been done with fairness. Why not take this to an area where there's money. I mean we don't have the money to afford any of this and it's going to be be bringing people to this community that maybe shouldn't shouldn't be here. We know that there is a lot of interest in this business and this business generates a lot of money and you're basically playing with the safety and our health. Over money. Now imagine if this was in your community or near your homes. Now you're talking about 43 signatures over 100 or excuse me over 1000 signatures. We simply don't want this in our community and if interpreter can make a comment please. Just in regards to a reminder that we asked participants tonight to speak slowly so allow the interpreter to express their comments effectively. Then I want to say as a reminder that I want to ask the public to speak slowly so allow the interpreter to express their comments effectively. Thank you Pablo. The next public comment will be from Joe Bell followed by Patricia. Hi. My name is Jolie and I'm calling in support of this project. I understand that people would prefer community center or a library. But my concern is that this building has been vacant for a long time and that it hasn't the city has chosen not to you know use this as a public space and they haven't made any headway in making this into a public project or Roseland. I you know the decision is at hand is whether you're going to allow this a local local people to bring a local business to Roseland and yes it is a big cannabis business but it is also will be locally operated owned and I believe that they will bring back to the community and put back and give jobs to people in the Roseland community. And I think that you know the potential employment and community and the economic growth for the community to be really good. Also you know I believe in the decriminalization of marijuana which I believe also leads to decriminalization in the streets and to less crime when things are legalized and treated as such. And I also agree that I hope a portion of the tax money that is raised from this project will go directly be allocated directly back to Roseland I think that that's important especially if businesses are going to be thriving there. That they do have a relationship with the community in the city also has a relationship with that community in order to give back. And you know and I think people I think it will benefit Roseland in other ways if you're if you have a one of a kind dispensary that is bringing people from other parts of Sonoma County or even out of the area to visit this place they're going to be visiting other businesses and restaurants in the Roseland district which will help with the economy there as well. So I just wanted to call in support of that. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Patricia followed by Elizabeth. Patricia looks like you are using an older version of zoom and you will need to update your zoom app in order to be able to speak at the meeting. If you can do that and then re raise your hand will be happy to call on you. Once you've done your zoom update. We'll move on to Elizabeth. Hello city council and fellow community members. My name is Elizabeth Avila. I'm a community organizer in Sonoma County. And I'm here to urge the council today to uphold the appeal on the dispensary. I will confess to you that I've only lived in Santa Rosa for a few months now that I know one thing for sure from the five months that I've lived in the city and that from the work that I do with the community. And that one thing is that there is a large and wonderful and loving community in this city in Roseland in Santa Rosa. Whether it be among farm workers tenants immigrants youth students or other groups of people. These people these communities they need spaces to learn to be empowered to thrive to receive resources or services and essentially really just to be in community with one another. The people of Roseland and the youth from the Latino Student Congress are rejecting this proposition for fun. They're not taking time out of their day to collect hundreds of signatures and gain support for fun. This is an issue that they feel strongly about enough to put a huge amount of time and their energy into advocating for things that they really want to see in their community. I strongly believe that you should defer to these people that you're hearing from to know what is best for them to have in their community. And if they're saying that a dispensary is not that then it should not be there. I strongly believe that by upholding the appeal and utilizing the space for a community purposes, you are in turn investing in the community and that will bring more benefits than distance but then this dispensary could. I'd also like to say that I personally don't have anything against cannabis use what I do take issue with is prioritizing capital and merchandise over the interest and well being of communities are directly impacted by your decisions. I take issue with choosing profits over people. And I take issue with building metaphorical and as it seems literal walls that divide people rather than unite them. Businesses come and go businesses undergo leadership changes they undergo policy and they're simply not reliable so as much as the applicant says that they are interested in benefiting the community. They should not have to rely on businesses. They should be able to rely on each other and then able to do that they need a space to cultivate those relationships that are filled with other members of the community of equal stature and people just like. So with that being said I respectfully urge that you listen to the people and that you uphold the appeal. Thank you. Thank you the next public comment will be from Woody followed by Veronica. Okay, can you hear me. Yes. Good. Good evening. My name is Woody Hastings. I live in unincorporated Sonoma County. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm here tonight to stand in solidarity with the Roseland residents who oppose this campus facility. I strongly agree with the community members calling for a true community serving facility. True community serving facility that meets community needs that brings resources, education, health, you know the things that have been talked about like a library or daycare things like that. I have nothing against cannabis or the cannabis industry. In fact, I use cannabis medicinally to treat my arthritis. And the reality is for me that there is absolutely. There's already an abundance of cannabis dispensaries in Sonoma County. I have absolutely no problem obtaining cannabis. There's really, I don't think there is a need for a facility like this. So I joined with the Roseland community members, urging you to reject the proposal. Thank you. Thank you, Patricia. I'm going to give you a shot. One more time just to see if you've been able to do your zoom update. Looks like you still need to do your zoom update interpreter. Pablo, can you please restate that in order to participate? She needs to do a zoom update and then can rejoin the region and raise your hand. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Veronica followed by Mike. Hello, my name is Veronica. Just as last week's meeting I was here, urging you guys to uphold the appeal. Similar like what Manny said about collecting signatures. I was one of the many students in the club I'm in. Going around the neighborhood, walking around asking people for signatures. Being in Bay of Farm while it was mid raining asking for signatures because our education matters to us. And wanting this to continue education because the Squire, Rosalind University, the old side, we wanted it to continue to be a place where we could have a place to continue educating, continue learning. Prioritories are youth health and safety such as a multicultural center or even a library center because we're still here talking because our needs have been met. And we're going to continue until needs have been met. I urge you to think about the voices we heard and the signatures that we collected upholding the appeal, which was over 1000 contrary to the other side, which was around 30. That's all. Thank you for your time. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Mike followed by Mia. Hi, can everyone hear me. Yes. My name is Michael Balderanos and I've been a Santa Rosa resident for all my life's 33 years. I just wanted to call in and give my overwhelming support for this project. I can't think of anything more that this area needs than a thriving business coming in run by thoughtful. And respectful members of this community to help bring over 50 plus jobs, I believe, to the community. In turn, bringing people from all over Santa Rosa into Rosalind supporting the local businesses in the local economy. All boats rise with the tide comes to mind in this instance. I think it's an overwhelming positive for the area and for Santa Rosa as a whole. So, thank you for the opportunity to speak today and have a good night. Thank you, Mike. The next public comment will be from Mia. Followed by resident with the telephone number ending in 3128. Mia, please unmute yourself and proceed with your comment. Hi, can you hear me? Hi, my name is Mia Valencia and I'm part of the Roseland community for more than 20 years. And what I wanted to say is that I do want to test this project to give us a lot of opportunities for us to work. And more importantly, to learn about cannabis and educate us more and not be so blind with this either. If we already have a cannabis store, four minutes where we want this project, what's the difference if they want to give us more opportunity to work? As Ms. Rivera says, 50 plus jobs. That's... Can you hear me? Yes. That is another opportunity for us to be able to work and learn more about this. I don't understand why they say that violence and all that. Yes, that has nothing to do with this. This is something medicinal for us. And more importantly, to be able to learn about this. That's all. Thank you, Pablo. Can you please restate the speaker's comment? My name is Mia Valencia and I belong to the Roseland community for over 20 years now. And I'm calling to say that you should approve this. And this is really something that's going to give us an opportunity to learn about what cannabis is and to give us employment. If we already live within four minutes away of another dispensary, what's the difference of having one here? If anything, it's given us more of an opportunity to learn about what this is and more employment. I think the lady said 50 jobs. I mean, that's a lot. And I don't know why the issue of violence is being brought up. If anything, this is just a great opportunity. And that's all. Thank you, resident with phone number ending in 3128 is the next public comment, followed by Isabel. Hello, everyone here. Yes. Hello, my name is for and I've lived in Santa Rosa since I was a child. I entered the cannabis industry in 2018 and was pleased to see that it's filled with dedicated and hardworking citizens, upstanding citizens that you see every single day. It made me feel comfortable and I was able to thrive in this workforce ever since cannabis is something I am very passionate about. It fills me with happiness and I love waking up every day knowing I'm helping my fellow locals with medical needs, meditative needs and recreational wants. It also gives me the ability to provide for myself and to provide for my family. I hear people saying that they're looking for a library or school, but I know that there are libraries in multiple schools within five mile radiuses of it. I've had nothing good or nothing but good experiences since I've been working as a cannabis consultant and I wish nothing more than others to be able to have the same experiences and opportunities that I have had. Having another local dispensary will not only bring more jobs to our community, but more happiness, health and wellness as well. Thank you very much for your time. All right, the next public comment will be from Isabel followed by Ashley. Hello, I'm Isabel Lopez, Executive Director of the Arts and Cultural Nonprofit called Raices Collective who's worked in Roseland area. I'm here to urge the city council to uphold the appeal at 100 Sebastopol Road. I am here to support the youth and the community of Roseland who has spoken out against having a dispensary in Roseland. What I do support and have supported is their outspoken need for a community center and a permanent library. From my experience working in Roseland, the people of Roseland have yet to have a safe community space and a permanent library. I've seen a couple of libraries that are not yet permanent. Based on the portrait of Sonoma County, Roseland does have one of the lowest life expectancies in the county. And it is concerning that there is the lack of an analysis of an environmental impact on the land and on the health of the residents of Roseland. This alone should be a red flag to the council, the way in which the city planning commission notified Roseland residents about this project, posted some serious equity issues. The approval of it is even more concerning, especially since there were 26 residents of Roseland who are posted versus the eight at the meeting where it was approved. I ask the council to reconsider this dispensary in Roseland and support the appeal. I urge you to listen to the Roseland residents and work with them to bring about projects that they do want and have wanted for a really long time. I think it's enough with the environmental racism racism in Roseland. Thank you. Thank you. A comment will be from Ashley, followed by Jesus. Hello, my name is Ashley Oldham. I'd like to thank the city council for taking the time to hear us today. I'm calling today in support of this project as both a woman in the cannabis industry, as well as a mother of school-aged children. As a woman in the industry, I'm offended to hear people continue to refer to dispensary owners as drug dealers. As a mother, I feel that, sorry, I was having some computer trouble here. As a mother, I feel that Roseland Prep School, in my understanding, is that it moved over two years ago, and it did not move because a cannabis business was coming. It moved for its own reasons. I understand the feelings of the kids that used to go to school there. However, I don't feel like it should be substantiated considering that the two projects have nothing to do with each other. It's also my understanding that the city had a chance to buy this property and hasn't done it yet. I believe that this project will bring a lot of jobs into the community, good paying jobs, and lots of tax money. I am in support of this project and I hope that you all can consider it. Thank you. The next public comment is from Jesus followed by Ryan. Hello, my name is Jesus Perez and I am a current senior at Rosalina University Prep. I am also here on behalf of my magic club. I am opposed to this project simply for the matter that I believe it is wrong that our voices here are not being taken into consideration at all. As previously stated before, the lack of communication that was given to us is honestly baffling as we were only informed of a project like this mere days before it was said to happen. The fact that we had to scramble around to gather as much information as possible and investigate in our own rather than be given to it. We haven't been given to us by the city that we trust to listen to us and inform us of what's been going on in our city is honestly a bit disheartening. I believe that us, Rosen have a better use for a community center or a library as we have been requesting for years. And the fact that our voices keep getting ignored and our request being denied in support of businesses that we have not been asking for is ridiculous to me. I request to you the Center for City Council that you uphold the appeal because our voices matters just as much as everyone else's and the fact that there are more people who are in favor of us at opening up a library or a community center in that location should be plenty for you. We the city. We the city slash community trust you. We do not want to see you break our trust as you have over the past few years. Here's a chance for you to do what is right for us a community and listen to us. Thank you for your time. Next public comment will be Ryan followed by Anna. Ryan go ahead. Sorry I had to unmute myself there. Thank you. Go ahead. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you city council for listening to me and all the local residents this evening. I have heard some outlandish and generalized statements. So I'm just going to keep it to what I know and that's you know construction and I am in construction and cinema County and been a residents here off of Sebastal Road for a number of years now and I've just never seen Roslyn improve and knowing construction and knowing how much things actually cost. You know this is not an opportunity to just put some paint on this building and call it a library or a children's center. It's not going to be something long term or sustainable or inspiring to the youth that it's meant to be. So here's a chance to bring in an architecturally designed new building $10 million of new construction technology and cleaning up nearly a block of Roslyn that is in dire need of repair. You know putting cameras and you know well let area is not an area that breeds illegal activity such as all the side shows or all of the actual drug deal and it's already happening on the streets all around Roslyn already. So you know I just support this just from a hey we're going to bring in some new construction here. It is going to rise with the tides. I think it's going to attract more developers and attract the community to actually stay there, stay local to that area and that would obviously be more appealing then to build a children's center and a library and other new construction around the area. I think just would be a chance to give it a facelift in an area that really needs it. Thank you. Thank you. The next comment will be from Anna, followed by Michelle. Anna, go ahead. Okay, we will come back to Anna. It looks like she might be having some technical difficulties. We will try her again momentarily. Michelle. Please don't meet yourself and proceed with your comment. Hi, Mike. Can everybody hear me? Yes. My name is Michelle Saxon and I am a female member of the cannabis community. I have repeatedly heard people say go somewhere else with this. I feel there's a lack of information. There's dispensaries all over California from Hollywood to Palm Springs. And I feel like there's a hypothetical fear of cannabis based on a lack of experience and knowledge. If this was a winery or a brewery, would people be opposed to it? And I'm just wondering how people think that the city will be able to have cultural centers and libraries without allowing tax-paying businesses to be a part of the community. The cannabis tax is 27%. You know, that's higher than any other. And I also heard somebody else say that there was 43 signatures of people in support of this. And it was 563 from what I heard. So I just wanted to offer my support. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from resident with a phone number ending in 2722 followed by Ryan. Resident 2722, please unmute your mic and proceed with your comment. Okay, we'll move along to Ryan resident 2722. We'll circle back. Ryan, please proceed with your comment. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, my name is Ryan and I'm a resident of Santa Rosa. I was involved with the efforts that canvassed the neighborhoods directly adjacent to the proposed property. And it is correct. We received 563 signatures in support of the project. But 43 of those were from neighbors that live directly adjacent to the proposed property and the ones that would be most directly impacted by this project going in or remaining vacant. During those conversations, I spoke with over 60 people. The majority supported the project close to 70% of the people that we spoke to were willing to sign the petition and include their address, showing that they lived right there near the area. Some of the concerns that they mentioned and why they do support this project is that the building has remained vacant for two years. It's poorly lit. It's safe walking by that area. There has been issues with people having their packages stolen off of the property. The neighbors actually referenced that there was a homeless issue due to that property being vacant and people taking up residents around there and having their packages stolen, cars broken into, and so they were actually excited to talk to me and learn about the project, learn that a business was coming in there that would be having security. They would be improving the lighting in the area, bringing more people to the area, spending money, bringing more jobs into the area. Several people you can ask, you know, when we'll be opening up, if we'll be hiring. I was actually extremely surprised by the overall support that I got while camps in that area. And so I think if you go and talk to the neighbors that live right there, the ones that are going to be most impacted by this project, or by remaining vacant as it's been for the last two years. You'll see that they are excited to have a business come in and begin using that space and be a positive contributor to the local community. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Ross, followed by Virginia. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, so my name is Ross. I've lived here for two thirds of my life and I would just like to say that I'm in support of this project. It actually will provide more security to the community area it is in. It will also provide jobs as mentioned, you know, basically repeating what's been said before, but so security jobs. That's really my biggest focus. I don't want to take too much time. So I'll just leave it at that. Thank you. If you are participating by telephone and wish to make a comment, please dial star nine to raise your hand when we'd call on you. If you need to unmute yourself via telephone, please dial star six upon prompting. The next public comment will be from Virginia, followed by in pain. Muy buenas tardes. Al consiglio le suplico les pido por favor que rechazen la propuesta del dispensario de marihuana. Yo soy Virginia lasso soy un padre voluntario que ha participado trabajando y ayudando en las escuelas de Roslin. Yo he ofrecido mi trabajo voluntario en shepherd and rams. En Roslín. Ascelet ascelerada. Middle school. In RUP. Roslín Universidad preparatoria. Mi comunidad no necesita un dispensario de marihuana. Somos una comunidad que nos gusta educarnos. Y no queremos que nuestra comunidad esté expuesta a drogas. Y esto es incluye la marihuana. En mi experiencia en mi experiencia ayudando en las escuelas de Roslín. El uso de la marihuana u otras drogas por los estudiantes los expone gravemente a algo verdad que ellos. Empiezan digamos tratándolo o queriéndolo conocer. Una vez que estas drogas los atrapan de verdad es tan difícil. Para los padres para los mismos estudiantes que ven como sus compañeros se hunden en las drogas. Difícilmente un estudiante que está atrapado por las drogas. Incluyendo la marihuana. Regresa las escuelas. Esto lleva sufrimiento no solamente de los padres toda la familia. Toda la familia se hunde con este problema. Una cosa es que las drogas ahora la marihuana sea legal. Pero eso no quiere decir que no representa un peligro es un peligro muy grande y es un peligro para nuestros jóvenes. No queremos un dispensario de marihuana. Queremos otras cosas bibliotecas escuelas de música. Si se trata de negocios por favor pongan otro tipo de negocios pero no drogas por favor. No queremos un dispensario de marihuana que hunda nuestros jóvenes ya nuestra comunidad de Roslín. Gracias. Thank you Pablo can you please restate that speakers comments in English. Good evening to fellow council members. I'm here to beg you and to ask you that you please reject this proposal and uphold. My name is Virginia lasso and I'm a voluntary. Excuse interpreter. I'm a volunteer and I help out at the different schools here in Rosin at Shepherd Rams. We're in a community where we like to educate ourselves. We don't want exposure to drugs, including marijuana. You know this exposes students who get into wanting to try this out or they become curious about it. And it's an entrapment. They can become trapped in it. And it becomes difficult not only for the students themselves to stop but also for their student colleagues and for the parents. It's something that traps the students and the families drown in this use. Now that marijuana is legal, you know, not to say that it's not dangerous. But we want other things in our community like a library or a school. Put something else. Not this dispensary. Thank you. The next public comment will be from in pain followed by max. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Thank you. Oh, great. Hi, my name is Mark pain. I'm 63 years old and I've been in Sonoma County 60 years of my life. And I'm hearing all these different comments and so forth and feeling that in that location and being by several times and looking at it. It's a probably an ideal location for dispensary. You started thinking about all the dispensaries that are in Sonoma County and there's going to be more that are being popping up all over Sonoma County. What's better than to have a private facility with security. Education. A place where you go for that particular reason rather than going into a shopping center. And walking by all these children, they're going to all these other stores. And then they walk by a dispensary would not be an educated of what dispensary really is and what it's for. I think this location being private. Cleaning up the whole area. The place has been vacant for two years. There was a school at one time. It was proposed to the city for whatever reason, a library school. And no one has came up. There's a lot of other locations in the Roseland area. That would be ideal also. So I don't think punishing the landowner for what somebody would like. We'd all like to have certain things, but it's also what it is to, to keep working and keep building in the community. I know that that would be a great asset to the area because it will bring up the area. People are concerned about safety. What would be safer than to walk by a area that's let that has security. Or is it better to walk by a dark, dingy, homeless, vacant old building that I would be scared to walk by. I really think this is something that should be really looked at carefully. And I think by looking at it carefully, the right decision is to approve this project. And going, I was at the last meeting with the planning commission. And when the planning commission went through all the criteria for where this property is in location, it was approved by six zero vote. One person was missing. I understand that. But who's to say if it wouldn't have been a seven. In favor of this project. So looking at anything else, but. The scope of what we have here would be. I don't know how would you say just not right. So I really feel that this thing should be approved. I think that's a good idea. I don't know how would you say just not right. So I really feel that this thing should be approved. I think it will help the whole community. And again, children. Guess what? This is a great location for maybe some of the parents that don't really know what cannabis is about or what the benefits of cannabis are. Or how a lot of people don't go to the doctors because they don't know, but this is a facility that can be used for everybody and an educational facility. So by all means, I surely hope that we get a. A vote of approval by every city council member. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next public comment will be from max, followed by June. Good evening, city council hope you're doing well and staying awake. My name is Max Bell helper. I'm the executive director of North Bay jobs with justice. So glad that we're getting to have this conversation and thank you everybody for your patience and sticking with it to hear all the public comments. So for folks who may not know, North Bay jobs with justice is a coalition of over 30 organizations based here in Santa Rosa. We represent labor and community organizations. So teachers and healthcare workers, immigrant rights organizations, climate activists, you know, a real, a real wide range of people in our community. And, you know, me personally, I strongly support cannabis, but today we're here as an organization to in an opposition to this project and in solidarity with the youth and parents of Roseland. You know, there's, there are lots of dispensaries in, in our community. This is probably, you know, some of the most opposition that you've heard to dispensary not so much because of cannabis, but because of the real desires and wishes of the community here to make sure that there, that there is a place, a real community center in, in a part of the city that has long been neglected and has not been given the same opportunities. And so we think it's, it's important to really listen, listen to the people most impacted, which are the students, are the parents, are the residents of Roseland who have clearly said this is not what their wish is. In addition, from, from our perspective at jobs with justice, you know, we, we, we think it's important to look at, not just are their jobs being created, but are they good jobs? And the reality is that there are dispensaries in Sonoma County that are, that are union dispensaries that mean that people have healthcare and they have good paying jobs and they have job security. And I have not heard anything from the, the proponent of this dispensary that they have, that they are entering into an agreement with, with a union to make sure that these are good jobs. And we in, in San Rosa and Sonoma County, we should do better than just creating jobs, but making sure that they're good jobs that can really support the community. In addition, there's also the jobs of construction. And you know, it's not just enough to do the construction, it matters are those jobs that, that local trained workers who are union members can do. And so from, from our perspective, we're asking you as city council to really listen to the residents of Rosalind and to hold a higher standard of what it means to create a business in our community to make sure that they're actually good for the community and good jobs. Thank you very much and hope you have a good night. Thank you. The next public comment will be from June, followed by Dennis. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay. My name is June for shares and I'm a volunteer with NBOP climate justice task force. And it wasn't exploring the, in the community what community interest there might be and potentially developing a resiliency hub that I became aware of this project and listening to the community. We started hearing from a lot in the Rosalind who were very opposed to this project at the site, the cannabis business for the site. And I'm very here to ask you to also listen to those community members. I'm very concerned that there's been an ongoing lack of equity on who's being listened to who's really paid attention to when they speak up. And there's ongoing structural inequities and how those voices are brought forward, even in the packet tonight. And in this whole process, I don't think we'd be where we were. If there weren't some of those voices that were in opposition that we're not paid attention to fully to the level they should be. And I looked in the packet and I couldn't find the petitions that have been referenced. And so I'm concerned about that. I'm wondering where those are. I know last week, we saw during public comment. I think that was the over 900 signatures and opposition submitted, but I don't see those in the updated packet. But I did want to point out that this is for. The project is a conditional use permit, meaning it's discretionary for the city council, whether you approve this or not. There's no entitlement for a full for profit business to be permitted for the site. It's conditional meaning they have to meet extra hurdles. And meet those, including being in the public interest, which I would say they do not meet here a lot from the public that they're not in the interest of the community. And even for those who argue, they meet the hurdles. It's still discretionary. I think it's inappropriate for the council to make a special exception for a conditional use when there's so much of the community that's opposed. This has not got the consensus of the community. I'm not against cannabis. I purchased cannabis, but that's there's plenty of cannabis business in the area. We don't have in the areas, the community says enough of the educational resources and. Approving this at this unique site will make it harder to obtain the community goals to get a educational multicultural center. The long promise facilities that are do this community. So we need to hit the pause button and not roll over the voices that have a stake and shaping their own future in Roseland. So I ask you to please listen to the full community and not support just the slice of folks that want to benefit, but listen to the full community. The next public comment is from Dennis, followed by Chris. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Please go ahead. Alright, thank you. My name is Dennis Hunter and thank you city council for listening to this appeal. I really wanted to talk about, you know, I understand the desire of the community to have a cultural center and our library and I totally understand that. But I think it's really important to understand that this, this building was vacant in the city looked at it and decided not to move forward and purchase it. And, and then it was state vacant and then a new person came in to, to, you know, to build a business here. And, and when the city said they didn't want it at that time, they were looking at other properties. And so I think it's important also that the city has not said that they want this property right now. So what you're really looking at is the proposal of a project that's going to create, you know, over 50 jobs and that's not counting the construction jobs and the money being spent in the community to actually build out this facility. That's what's on the table right now. There, there's not a community center on the table. That is that the city is not coming out and saying, we want this facility there. It's the community saying they want a facility either like this or another. They want to help cultural center and they're asking the city for that. But I think it's really unfair of the property owner and the applicant to to act as what you get if the city doesn't move forward. And so if you deny it because that for a library, and they don't go forward with a library or community center, you're back to a vacant building in sitting here with the flight that's happening now. And that's not fair to that community. It's not fair to the applicant, not fair to anybody. And so I don't think this is a decision. It's not fair to the community center or this project because there's only one, one thing that's actually in front of us right now, and that is a project. And so I just think it's important to look at that. I think there was another comment about it being kind of surrounded by residential and on three sides of it, it's industrial. And on the fourth side, it's the railroad tracks, and then, and then a big barrier wall, and then some apartments. And it's not surrounded by residential as well. I think it is a perfect place for a dispensary. And I hope that the city council will look at all the things that checked every box. It's an applicant did its job to do every piece of that in the planning commission seen that so I hope the city council does as well. Thank you guys for your time. Okay, the next comment will be from Chris followed by Camille. I'd first like to thank the council for taking their time and listening to the community's concerns. My name is Chris Dolly. I'm a snowman County resident for many years now, worn out in sabbatical currently residing in an incorporated snowman County. I would just really like to emphasize the potential economic benefits of opening this dispensary. You know, as mentioned before, 50 plus jobs. A lot of potential tax revenue that could really benefit the community and be put towards those public spaces. Those, you know, libraries, the community centers, the schools. There's just a lot of potential economic benefits that could just bring prosperity to that area. So I just like to again reiterate thank you for taking your time and listening to the community concerns. I'm in support of this project. Again, I think it will will provide an overall positive benefit to the resident community. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment is from Camille followed by Andrew. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Please proceed. Thank you. First, I'd like to thank the council for listening to our comments. And I would like to say that I'm definitely in favor of this project. I'm a lifetime resident of Santa Rosa. I'm also a mother of two children ages 22 and five. I'm part of the cannabis industry as well. So is my partner and my oldest child. I want to say that not only will this project bring jobs to the community, not just for the people who work there, but for the construction workers that come and all the benefits that come with that. There's also a huge amount of taxes as I know from working in this industry. We talk about safety in the community and I've never felt safer at a place of work than in the cannabis industry. I allow myself, my partner, like I said before, and my child to go to work in this industry. And I think safety is of the utmost importance. I also am a very big advocate of local business owners. I think this is one of the most important things that we could advocate for in our community. Again, there has been nothing in this location for several years. And I don't see anything coming there in the future, except for this project. I just want to say thank you for listening to our comments. And again, I hope that you approve this project and have a wonderful night. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Andrew followed by Sylvia Andrew go ahead and unmute your microphone. Okay, I think I just did can hear me. Yes, thank you. Okay, beautiful. Hi, my name is Andrew Kramer. I've been a resident of Rosalind for the last four or five years or so. You know, I've been over the site before I've been over there at night. Yeah, a little sketchy over there. The actuality I feel like Rosalind is kind of like having like a cool like Renaissance and like with like me thought they food park and you know like all the things that we have gone on the community and realistically I think it's very fantastic to have a business coming in it's going to be employing people and you know like from local people for local people. I mean, that's really, really important. And, you know, there's realistically if this was a liquor store or it was a wine bar there, you know, wouldn't even be public hearings. But the fact that you know it's a canvas business and suddenly there's so much scrutiny and it's kind of kind of ridiculous. And you know for this building to sit there vacant for years, and it's not like the city has done anything with it it's been sitting there. So to have somebody who's willing to come in and invest in the community, hire people from the community do things for the community. I think it's incredibly important. So, you know, I would really hope for y'all to kind of consider this and you know like take it all into account because like, you know, like, I've been out here and we need jobs. And we need good jobs and you know from what I've seen the canvas industry typically, you know, pays people pretty well as good benefits and, you know, I really take care of the community. And, you know, like we're still wine-centric area and it's, you know, it's interesting but like, and on actuality, I would just really like to see this project go forward because you know the county hasn't done, you know, anything with it. You know, something needs to be done. And let's not let it become like a vagrant hangout where it's super unsafe for the neighborhood. You know, I've never seen an dispenser that hasn't had cameras, hasn't had security, hasn't had lighting. Hasn't actually been a much safer place than, you know, block down the street. So, very much in favor of this as a local resident and just, you know, really wanted to kind of voice my opinion. So thank you very much for hearing. Appreciate you. A beautiful night. Public comment will be from Sylvia, followed by Alicio. Hello. My name is Sylvia Langa. Dear City Council members, thank you for listening. I urge you to uphold the appeal because of the serious violation of the open ordinance. I am in full opposition of having a cannabis dispensary in the former school location in Sebastopol Road. There are many reasons for you to reconsider this decision. First of all, I have had the opportunity to speak with more than 100 Rosalind community members, and the majority of them, including the people who live next to the old school were not aware that there was an interest in having a dispensary in that location. Days before the dispensary approval, only a few Rosalind community members were informed of what was inspiring. The commission's ignorance of the lack of information distributed to the public must be acknowledged. This is a serious violation of the proper information that the public should have. And it's a clear exclusion of community or color from decision making that affects the health, their health and well-being. Earlier in today's presentation, I heard that one of the positive steps to prevent violence is to support the community's needs. The Rosalind community has expressed on numerous occasions that they are in need of a community center. Rosalind is one of the neighborhoods that lacks adequate recreational space and social environments. We have fewer parks and services than other places in Santa Rosa. We are not listening to our needs that you are excluding Rosalind racial minorities from this discussion. Please listen, listen into the Rosalind community listen, especially listen to the youth and the request as they are vital to our community stability. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Alicia followed by Maria. Okay, great. Hello, everyone. My name is Alicia. I am a student in our UP and I wrote down a bunch of random notes. So if this is a bit out of the like random, then please excuse me about that. Anyway, I'm against the dispensary for multiple reasons. So first things first, if our economic crisis was easy as having more jobs available. We wouldn't be seeing record high unemployment and business closures. The jobs exists everywhere. I could walk into an in and out target, you know, I could walk into any store basically ask for a job and I would be granted an application. So what we really have to worry about is, you know, incentive benefits, cheaper cost of living, which is a whole different story, but making more jobs doesn't solve that issue. I'd also like to talk about the idea of trickle down economics, because a lot of what we're seeing right now is helping a business grow, you know, we want to give this lot to a marijuana company. So let's take a look at our history in the US. You will notice that whenever we help businesses grow. We see that they only grow and we get for, because when we look at, for example, think it was 2008 2013. I was 10 years old. So, excuse me for not getting the dates right. But we build out government banks. Sorry, we build up banks when our economy is failing. And people only lost their jobs. You know, we, we, the people only got poor while CEOs and people, you know, massive landlords only got richer. And yeah, we shouldn't be placing the responsibility of making a better community to businesses, because we live in a capitalist society. So the role of companies is profit. Their whole motivation is that profit margin. And the whole idea of a government is to represent the people. And I'm sad that we're forgetting this because when we take a look at the main idea of what everyone here wants is a better community. People want the like a marijuana company to exist here. Not because they want, you know, like this company to thrive. They don't want this business to thrive. What they want is a better, you know, more taxes to help the people. They want less crime around the area. They want the decriminalization of marijuana. And these aren't the things that this company is responsible for. These are things that you, the city council, as well as the government as a whole are responsible for. This business has no incentive whatsoever to give back to the community. I'm sure that they probably are trying their very hardest to make as many profits as they can. So what you, what we all really need to analyze today is whether we just want another business to exist, or if we want a community center and something for the people. Because that is all. Thank you. Thank you. Next public comment will be from Maria, followed by Marlene. Good evening. Good evening. Look, I'm listening to all the comments during these last two or three hours. And precisely we live here in La Rosla for more than 10 years. So right now we have a group of friends who live in the same street. And not everything they're saying is true. In this community, we need work, we need progress, we need to teach our children the importance of what is good and what is bad. What is bad, what they are hiding, what they are buying, things with people that in reality sell other things that are not good. We need to teach them that marijuana is not exactly a drug. This helps a lot of people, right? And here I am with a group of friends. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. So I'm going to let you talk a little bit about them. Good evening. My name is Joaquin Torres. I am totally in agreement with the creation of the new dispensary, since this dispensary will generate jobs for our community. It is a source of progress for La Rosla. A large part of the problem that has been handled is the issue of education for parents and children. The dispensary will only help to generate employment and progress for our community. Good evening. My name is Victoria Cortez. I am in favor of the construction of the dispensary, since as my friends have commented, it is a source of income for the community. And with the necessary education, I don't think it is a source of danger for the community. Good evening. My name is Carlos. I also have been living here for many years. And in particular, I consume, under medical prescription, dispensary products. I hope that the dispensary is carried out. I have a family of employees who are happy that there will be jobs. And I am in favor. My vote is that the dispensary is carried out. Thank you. My name is Carlos. My name is Carlos. My name is Carlos. My name is Carlos. Can you restate those comments in English, please? Of course. Good evening. I have been listening to all of the comments that have been said in the last two or three hours. I have lived here in Roseland for approximately ten years now. We have gathered here with a few of our friends to make some comments. This is going to provide employment and I think a lot of the negative things that are being said is just due to lack of information and and understanding. We want to teach our youth that they don't have to go to the corner dealer and get something unknown, you know, we want to teach them the right way and want to teach them the appropriate things. Like I said, I have many of my friends here are also going to be giving a comment as well. So I'll let the next one go. Good evening. My name is Jackie Torres. And I agree with having this dispensary here. I think it's something that's going to provide employment and progression. And again, I think the great majority of the problem is just comes from the lack of information. Again, I think this is going to help with employment and with progression in our community. It's a great income fountain that is going to be built here. And I don't think it's something dangerous for our community. The next commenter stated my name is Carlos, I have been living here in the community for many, many years. And I do want to say that I do consume medical cannabis to help with my elements. This is something I think that I think my family is happy to hear that this is coming here it's going to provide some employment for them. And yeah, we all in approval of this. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Marlene, followed by Anna. Marlene, go ahead. Marlene, can you unmute your microphone? Okay, I'll circle back to Marlene after Anna. Anna, please unmute your microphone. And as a member of the community, I've seen how several families have been affected by this product that is being promoted. And planning there, right? And some of the young people are starting to smoke this product. And it has put them in a path of problems before the law. And the problem is not to educate ourselves, to educate ourselves. The problem is that, for example, the people who don't have documents, the fact that they have some kind of a crime, whether it's for use or for consumption, or for bringing it with them, because you know the repercussions are great. And that has stigmatized this in our community. Because several parents have unfortunately been led by these problems, given that, as I tell you, young people are curious. And if this is out there, they're going to use it, right? And you know, there have been calls from schools because kids have taken this to their schools, because they have smoked it. So that's the kind of stigma that grows around us, the parents, that we say, okay, this is not good for them. So, as they are already in a record, and even when they are adults, they sell it in another way. But while one has another status, one is always seeing it as a possible risk. So with this, I want to tell you that we return the dignity, the security, and respect to Roslan. Because if you look at it in several places, there are always areas that are more problematic and more hot. And among them is Roslan. So what are we going to put, as the saying goes, another ray of the tiger, right? Entonces, yo quiero unirme a toda esa comunidad que estamos viendo por el bien y el progreso de Roslan, pero con con buenas cosas como un centro comunitario, una biblioteca, algo que les ayude a los jóvenes a construir mejores este mejor su futuro y no ponerlos en un camino donde siempre van a tener problemas y van a tener una etiqueta. Muchas gracias. Buenas noches. Good evening. Good evening to all the council members. I've been living here in the Roslan area for about 16 years now. I'm a homeowner. And I'm here to support the appeal of this dispensary. I think as a community member, I've lived here and I've seen so many people that have been affected by the use of marijuana and others. You know, the youth, they start consuming the product which creates a problem later on with the law. And I don't think it's necessarily about educating us. I think it's creating an issue. This is creating an issue with consumption. This is something that has been stigmatized within our community for many years. Kids get curious about the use. If it's around, they'll want to try it. And I think as many of you know, there have been calls from the schools in regards to kids using in school and smoking. And I think it's something that's very difficult to understand as a child, because you don't really have a record, but once you're older, this is something that's going to stick with you. People maybe without the status. So let's return the dignity and good health to the area of Rosalind. And why, you know, as the saying says, it's hard to translate. Why add a stripe to the tiger. As a direct translation. You know, we want progress in our community. So why don't you bring good things to community center or a club, something that's going to better the future of our youth and cannot be given labels. Thank you, Pablo. The next public comment will be from Anna, followed by Rosa. Anna, can you unmute your microphone? Acabo de hablar? Sí. Lo siento. Rosa. Followed by resident Indian in 5695. Rosa, go ahead. Buenas noches. Rosa López. Y tengo en la comunidad de Rosland por más de 10 años. Y yo estoy de acuerdo y también mi familia. Y queremos que aprueben con este proyecto de Rosland. Este lugar donde quieren el Proyector ya tiene meses solo. La señorita Rivera va a darnos oportunidades para trabajo y aprender sobre la marihuana medicinal. Si la comunidad quisiera y les importábamos tanto porque hace tiempo no pusieron algo ahí para darnos a nosotros oportunidades y la comunidad y más empleo. Que no tenemos una tienda de cannabis hace una mía. La diferencia, cuál es la diferencia si aprueban con este lugar si ya tenemos uno en en la comunidad. La comunidad no sabe nada sobre cannabis y nosotros necesitamos que nos eduquen más sobre esto porque solamente muchos pensamos que es algo malo. Y al contrario no lo es es algo medicinal. Los beneficios del cannabis van mucho más allá de relajarse ya que se pueden utilizar para varios tratamientos y varias enfermedades. Soy yo y mi familia estamos de acuerdo y queremos que aprueben con este proyecto es todo. Good evening. My name is Rosa Lopez and I've lived in the Rosan community for over 10 years now with my family. I would like you to approve this project. I think we agree. This area has been vacant for many years now. And I think miss Rivera is going to provide us with the education that we need to understand and also employ us. And you know what is the difference we have a dispensary about a mile away from here already. So what's the difference to having another one here. And I think a lot of it has to do with us not being educated too much on this product. It's not really something dangerous it is something medicinal. It can be used to treat many illnesses. So me and my family we approve this. Thank you. Thank you the next public commenter will be resident ending in the telephone number ending in 5695 followed by Victoria. Thank you. Good afternoon. Can you hear me. Yes, go ahead. Hi, my name is Juan Manuel Rivera. I'm a resident of Rosalind. I've owned my home here for 15 years. I am first generation Mexican American. I come from immigrant family from each one. And I'd like to voice my support to the project in Rosalind. First of all, my name is Juan Manuel Rivera. I'm a resident of Rosalind. I've been living in this community for 15 years. My parents are immigrants from Michoacán. And I want to give my support for the project that they want to put here in Rosalind. First of all, I'd like to say that I think that people in the community are a little confused. Thinking that putting a business of cannabis is something that is trying to put it here in our community. Because it is a Hispanic and poor community. But the truth is that these types of businesses are in all communities. There are almost 36 of these clubs approved in Santa Rosa. They will be in all places in Santa Rosa. There are many statistics that have proven that these types of businesses are very good for the community. And it is very important that we understand that these types of businesses are very necessary. Because if there are not these types of businesses, people will get these products illegally. And when they are illegally obtained, these types of products are not regulated by the State. They do not have any kind of ability in the State to enforce that the product is clean, that the product is a healthy product. And it is very important for the people who want to get these medicinal products, that they can do it in a place that they are confident about the product. If not, the products will be obtained on the street. This medicine has been used for many years. I know that my grandmother and my great-grandmother have always used medicinal cannabis. Maybe they did not consume it in one way or another. But this medicine has always been used. This medicine has spent a lot of time using this medicine in Latin American countries. And it is very important to know that this program, or this project in particular, in the city has already had... You've had your three minutes. Can you please complete your comment? Yes, thank you. So, to conclude, I would like people to open their minds a little bit and know that this is going to be done very carefully. The children cannot get these products there. It is very difficult, you cannot enter. There is security. Thank you, sir. Complete your comment. You've exceeded your three minutes. Pablo, can you please restate in Spanish or in English? Thank you. Of course. So, he did state his first comments in English and then restated in Spanish and continued. So, firstly, I'd like to say that people here in the community might be a little bit confused in thinking that placing a cannabis in our community is because it's maybe poor or low income. But there are dispensaries all over the place. There are over 33 dispensaries in Santa Rosa alone. And there are plenty of statistics that demonstrate that the type of business like this is good for our community. They can be beneficial. Because if not, people will obtain it illegally. It's an item that wouldn't be able to be monitored by the state or not be enforced and make sure that it's a clean product. But if it's safe for people that consume the product, they need to have the confidence that what they're getting is safe and it will serve their medicinal purpose. This medicine has been used for many, many years around the world. In fact, my grandmother and my great grandmother, I know use marijuana medicinally, maybe not in the way that may some people use it now, but it's definitely used in our cultures in Central America. So to conclude, I do want to say that we receive this with open minds. And this is a place that will be safe kids will not be able to come in on their own, you know, they will be checking IDs. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Marcella followed by Marlene Marcella you are using an older version of zoom. Can you please do a zoom update and then reconnect to the meeting and we'll be sure to call on you. Pablo, can you restate the instructions on reconnecting once you've done a zoom update. Of course, and then Marcella parece que está usando una versión de zoom. Massa antigua, entonces se le recomienda que actualice la aplicación y luego ingresen nuevamente a la reunión y levanten la mano nuevamente para poder dar su comentario. Thank you Pablo. The next public comment will be from Marlene. Hello. Hi Marlene go ahead. Hi, my name is Marlene. I've resided in Sonoma County my entire life for 42 years. And I've worked in the foster care system and in the schools and community organizations nonprofits in our in our county for the last 22 years. And I'm also Latina, Mexican American Mexican born. And I just want to say to the parents that are calling in. I want to address this because I think that there's like a lack of accountability that happens in our community a lot. And just a general kind of resistance to educating ourselves rather than passing judgment. I think judgment is a really heavy. Have you present in our culture, and it definitely has an impact on on the youth. And I think that a lot of the community problems that our kids face have to do with the lack of communication communication machismo and a lot of other direct hits to our youth come from just our family environment. And so when substances are brought into our homes and our kids are not educated because our parents are not educated. It's like a trickle down impact that it has. Overall, and I think that this is a really good opportunity for for parents and kids alike to gain some education that could help our community and really education is the key for most things. And I think that's what is missing here is that we just need more education to our families. I think that this project can really bring that to our community where we're lacking. We need more education on cannabis on drugs on how to communicate with our kids. I think that that's like really, really the whole problem in our community. And something that could definitely benefit our community is just educating ourselves more and I think that this project really can help with that. So I hope that we can find that support from the community that's still this engaged by educating them and bringing more more programs like this that can help with that. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Please proceed with your comment. Thank you for doing your zoom update. Um, was that, I think that was nice. The name fell off and I clicked on the wrong speaker. My apologies. The next public comment will be from April. April, please unmute your microphone. Okay, hello everyone. Thank you for your patience. I'm sorry. It's kind of hard to do this from my phone. I just want to kind of. Just thank you guys. It's 1018 and we've heard from a lot of people. So just thank you. For being here and being willing to hear everyone's input. I want to say, you know, Rosalind equity, a good saying is nothing for us without us. And in this case, a lot of people have been talking about the property and the city has backed off from purchasing property. But now, thankfully with ARPA funds, the city has the opportunity to purchase this property and to use it with the intention that the Rosalind community has for it. And since 2016, the city of Santa Rosa has conducted public studies that identify these hardworking people of Rosalind's top needs to be a child care center. It's a multicultural center or a center that can support parents by providing a safe and empowering environment for them. And after school programs for their, their kids and the community as a whole. I just want to address legality when we speak about legality. We need to ask legal for who so we know that possession of marijuana is currently a federal offense for undocumented and mixed documented folks. And the community in Rosalind, we need to take into consideration what that would mean for the people and the families that live in that area. Many of them. Many people who currently work in the cannabis industry are currently undocumented are currently being exploited as they are in the wine industry. This is known for the youth of Rosalind. There is currently, as we know, an oversaturation of retail of this product in Sonoma County as it is. This would only contribute to that oversaturation, which will contribute to the existing health issues that contribute to teenage consumption on campus. So in 2018 and 19 vape pens were being confiscated confiscated at a rate of 800 per month per month from middle schools and high schools in Sonoma County. And this has been reported by the Sonoma County prevention partnership, which I highly ask the city council to address and to refer to before making their decision. I want to also echo the callers who say that is it is very important to note this. She said the people of Rosalind. Barely have funds to to live right now. The cost of living is hefty on them, let alone to afford to even purchase what is what this dispensary offers. So when you understand that this project is not intended to benefit the people of Rosalind, but rather the license holders, the investors, the people who are calling in from Mendocino at the moment, people who will be direct directly benefiting from these contracts. So this means that it will turn away are undocumented. It will turn away our youth. It will turn away our children who make up a large proportion of the Rosalind community and it is these exact people that we work so hard to uplift with so many programs. And it is these people that we need to be listening to if we are talking about making equitable decisions and my respects to the women trying to make their move in the cannabis industry at the moment. But what I want the callers and everyone to hear the city council members to hear is what about the hundreds of women of color of Rosalind who have been urging city council for years to listen to their voice. What about those women. And that is why we're here. So the essential workers who have been working to survive this comment you've exceeded your three minutes. Thank you. But the, the, the essential workers who have been trying to survive these stressors are of the pandemic are the ones who we need to be listening to at the moment. And just as I know, every Robin is the next public comment. Hi, good evening. My name is Robin. I'm a mother of three school aged children. And I was born and raised here in Santa Rosa. I'm here this evening in support of the old school cannabis project. I've listened tonight to all of the voices, both of concern and of support. And I understand the voices of concern. This is a very innovative project. There's really nothing like it of its kind in our area. But yes it's unknown. And it's natural for people to fear the unknown, right, especially when it's in your own backyard. However, the upside of this project far outweighs the perceived risks. And some of these risks tonight that I've been listening to, I do believe are perceived prior speakers have spoken to the lack of education. And I do believe that's driving a lot of the perceived risks. If you've ever visited a cannabis dispensary, you'll notice right away the increased levels of security. It's quite shocking the first time you go, at least it was for me. It's far above any standard business or bar or retail establishment. The consumers, I really want to mention visiting old school cannabis will uplift all of the surrounding businesses, whether it's gas stations, restaurants, retail stores, just simply by driving revenue. It's organic uplift, and I'll have a huge, huge upside for Rosalind. And as mentioned, old school cannabis will bring jobs, these will bring local jobs. And it's a true community investment. You know, there's a lot of energy opposing this project, you know, imagine if that energy was focused on partnering with the city to request what everyone in this meeting already knows, regardless of your view on the appeal. Rosalind needs a financial investment from the city above and beyond historical run rates. So why not use this business as a catalyst to drive what the community is asking for. Whether it be a new community center, a new library, a safe haven. Use it, ask the city to designate a set amount of tax revenue driven directly by old school cannabis to fund the projects that have been mentioned this evening. The council is all ears and they're listening. Take advantage of the opportunity. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Marcella, followed by Moreno. Marcella, please unmute your microphone. Go ahead. Hola, buenas noches. Si me pueden escuchar. Si. Okay. Mire, estoy yo aquí este para mostrar mi nombre es Marcella y vivo por esta calle donde se quiere abrir el dispensario y estoy aquí para mostrar mi desacuerdo un desacuerdo este que cuenta de más más vecinos de aquí que que en realidad yo estuve hablando con ellos y así como ha habido ahorita opiniones que que han dicho que están ahí en grupo. Si nosotros nos pudiéramos reunirlos de esta calle y poder expresar este igual de igual manera. Estamos en total desacuerdo. Este dispensario no nos favorecería en nada así como están diciendo no favorecería. Este dispensario aquí en Roslin solamente para para mí en mi opinión es un riesgo puede existir un riesgo de explosión porque porque las maquinarias que se pueden usar ahí es un peligro. Es un peligro de mi mente. Aparte, la sobreconcentración de dispensarios en este vecindario de bajos recursos es evidencia de racismo ambiental. Porque esto nos trae. Quieran que no nos trae contaminación. Nos contamina y nos trae enfermedades. Yo estoy aquí para pedirles que no no se no voten a favor de que se habla que escuchen esta. Es pues esto que estamos nosotros en contra este vecindario totalmente en contra. Y eso sería todo. Y pues ojalá y este así como muchos han dicho ojalá y se abra y yo digo ojalá y no sea porque no nos favorece en nada. Hablan de educación. Hablan de economía. Pero no hablan no resaltan los riesgos de salud. No están tomando más en cuenta los riesgos de salud para los que vivimos aquí alrededor. Otra cosa más también es este el. También me han callado diciendo que no diga que el aroma y que el aroma el aroma es muy desagradable. Es muy desagradable y. Hasta la cabeza que lo van a estar usando ahí es muy desagradable. Ya no vamos a poder caminar ni por la calle donde nosotros vivimos ni por el lado de las vías donde salimos a caminar todas las tardes. Ya no nos vamos a sentir confortables con ese aroma tan desagradable y eso es todo. Muchas gracias. Hello, good evening. My name is Marcella, and I live near the street, or I live on the street near where this dispensary is going to be built, and I am a disagreement. And that counts for a lot of my neighbors as well that are here. And the same way others have gathered in group to give their comments today. I wish that we could have done that as well. I am a disagreement. This is not something favorable for us. A dispensary in my opinion is a risk in my mind it's there's a risk of explosion with chemicals. And you're bringing these the dispensary to an area with low resources and I think a lot of the time has been marginalized, and this is an example of environmental racism. So I hope that today you hear us, and you don't vote for this to go through, especially not in this neighborhood, we do not agree for it. So, so many people here, as it appears, don't agree, you know, and you speak about the economy you speak about. But you don't, excuse me, you speak about the economy and how it's going to help but you don't speak about the health concerns that this could cause us. People have tried to shut me up about though don't speak about the aroma or the scent. But why not. It's something that's irritating to me. It honestly gives me a headache. I don't think I will feel safe walking around at night, taking my walks and and smelling that in this environment. I just won't feel safe. And that's all. Thank you. Next public comment will be from Moreno. Moreno, please unmute your mic. Buenas noches mi nombre es Patricia Moreno y yo vivo en la ciudad de Santa Rosa y hoy estoy aquí para pedir a los miembros del concilio de la ciudad que revoke en el permiso que se otorgo para la por el comité de planeación para instalar este proyecto en el número 100 de la Sebasta por road por dos razones. La primera es que este el proceso de informar a la comunidad sobre este proyecto no fue justo ya que no garantizó realmente que la comunidad se diera cuenta de manera clara y oportuna de este proyecto. La justicia lingüística estuvo ausente en todo momento ya que se utilizaron palabras inclusive para el negocio como por asociación al momento de que ponen es cool. Yo por ejemplo yo yo pensé que era una escuela luego dicen es un dispensario no no es un dispensario es una factoría es una fábrica que va a manejar productos volátiles. Que representan un riesgo al momento de que no se de que no se cumplan las reglas de seguridad y y este y que dicen que no hay casi viviendas alrededor. Pues no están ahí es una zona altamente poblada y que en el futuro en los planes esto pueden cambiar. Además por favor es importante que seamos sinceros en una conversación sincera y no seamos hipócritas. Se ha hablado solo se ha dicho que la marihuana es de uso medicinal medicinal si es verdad. Pero también es de uso recreational y combinado con otras sustancias y con el alcohol es combinaciones explosivas. Así es que por favor no manipulemos la conversación y decir que es de solo de uso medicinal también es de uso recreational. Además este es importante que escuchemos a la comunidad. No podemos estar llenando nuestros vecindarios y estar con con el pretexto de que va a generar este desarrollo en nuestras comunidades. Escuchemos al área de Roslan por favor. Esto no es un simple dispensario el proceso de informar a la comunidad. No fue justo. No fue correcto. No fue claro. Así es de que por favor estoy en contra de este proyecto. Gracias y que tenga buena noche. Good evening my name is Patricia Moreno and I lived in Santa Rosa. I live in Santa Rosa and I'm here that you. I'm here to ask that you hopefully revoke this approval. That was done by the planning commission at 100 Sebastopol Road. In the manner in which it was presented to the community it wasn't just or equitable. And linguistically we were not aware of what was being proposed here. You speaking about justice and the words that are being used. For example, for someone who can understand or see a word, they'll see school. And at initially I felt a school. But upon further inspection it says a dispensary, but let's be let's be real. This is a factory. It's not just a dispensary. And let's be sincere and not hypocrites about the subject here. And sure, it can be used for medicinal purposes, but it's also recreational. And to be real about it. This is an explosive combination if consumed with alcohol and who knows what else. So, yes, it's medicinal, but also recreational. And let's listen to the community here in Rosalind. It's not just a simple dispensary as the way in which this was presented was not clear or equitable for the community. And we don't want this year. Council member Sawyer, I don't see any additional hands being raised in zoom. And no additional public comments from the council chamber. I believe that concludes public comment as we have no written, or I'm sorry, no voice message public comments on the item either. Thank you, Madam host. I will close the public hearing bring it back to the council. Any, any questions for either the applicant or the appellant or staff at this point now that you've heard public testimony. Ms Fleming. Yes, thank you, council member Sawyer. I've got two questions. The first is a follow up on what this for the city manager might have been before you came on but or the city attorney. What discussions if any happened about the city purchasing this parcel and can you walk us through how the decision was made to to not follow through on that. Nope, no takers. Well, why don't you see if you can get somebody who was here at that time maybe and I'll go on to the next question. This question is for the city attorney which is a number of collars brought up an issue around a violation of the principles around the open government task force. I'm not a subject matter expert in that area. Can you address those concerns for us. Sure, council member. Thank you. I heard the comments on a potential inconsistency with the open government ordinance. A couple of responses. The open government ordinance, the terms of that ordinance in terms of translation services noticing hearing procedures and so forth at this point apply only to the council and not to the planning commission or other subordinate boards or commissions. I'd also note that the ordinance isn't quite yet in effect it will be in effect on January 1. But we are abiding by it nevertheless and have been for the last approximately nine months. But again at the council level and not it is not applicable at this point to the planning commission. And to that point about it not being fully implemented I know that you and your staff have been working really hard to follow the spirit of it prior to its legal implementation date of January 1. If it had been implemented during this process would anything have been done differently? No. Again all of those procedures at this point the way that the ordinance is written it applies to the council hearings. That being said I also want to emphasize that throughout departments throughout the city are making an effort to provide translation services when possible. To provide noticing in Spanish when possible. And again I do understand that the initial noticing that went out to the community was in English only that's what I'm hearing from the community members. And perhaps the I don't know if Claire or Jessica Jones want to address the issue but I do understand that there was then an effort to re-notice at least in the large notifications to re-notice in Spanish to be able to reach those communities. Again I know planning and economic development and other city departments have begun to really make an effort to do that even though they are not required to under the open government ordinance. Thank you that's very clarifying and one small follow-up to that is the appellants claim that they got short notice was the notice that they got consistent with how we normally do things in our open government policies or were there any inconsistencies in that regard? No and I would once I make a couple of comments I would ask Christian Nade to comment or one of the other planners to comment on what was done to clarify the noticing that was provided to both of the applicants. The there is no formal at the council level there is no formal requirement for early notification of the applicants in fact the departments always make an effort to coordinate with the applicants and the appellants I'm sorry in this case to ensure that hearing dates are suitable and that they have adequate time to prepare and I might ask if you're willing to hear from from the planners exactly what they did in an effort to notify both of the two applicants. Yes anything that we can do to clarify what happened is welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Christina to me and senior planner. So, one of the appellants. Did not provide an email address so the only form of communication was either via phone or a box. When the council date was set up back in believe mid October or maybe. Towards the tail end of October. The appellants were notified one by email. And one by voicemail. As we got closer to the hearing dates. I inquired if one appellant by email if they had a presentation they would like to. Upload a PowerPoint presentation. And a voicemail was left for the other appellant wondering if they had a PowerPoint or. Anything that additional information they'd like to. Upload for the council. And I'm imagining that you have documentation at least email documentation for emails. And some sort of phone recorded documentation so that. You know, if given a reason to need to check that we could demonstrate that reasonable efforts were made to contact people. Yes, and I just want to add that I also added both. Appellants and the applicant to. I just wanted to make sure that we had all the information that we needed to be noticing that went out. So the dual language postcard that was mailed. To everyone within 600 feet. And they were also manually added because. I don't believe they were in the noticing radius either one. Okay. I'd also like to give you the opportunity if you heard anything here today about the specific process of noticing. Is there anything that you would like to clarify? Yes. So, so the first, the first main issue occurred. For during planning commission notice was sent out only in English. And on site signage was only in English. And the day before the 1st planning commission meeting. There was a request for translation service. And. Following that staff recommended a continuance. We posted the slides for the continuance in both English and Spanish. And we had a staff member who was fluent in Spanish. Let everyone know that the item will be continued to allow for professional translation service. And for the. Subsequent continue planning commission hearing. We had professional translators. At the meeting and I to the best of my ability translated the slides in both English and Spanish. For tonight's meeting, the notice went out both in English and Spanish on one postcard. I was able to fit the information on in both languages. And the applicant posted on site sign in. That included English and Spanish as well. Thank you for your clarifications. I don't have any further questions at this time. If I may a council member added just a couple of things and it looks like the city manager would also like to add. The agendas are also published on both the preliminary agenda and the final agenda are published in both English and Spanish and posted. I also had just had a message from a golly. The board of directors. From community engagement. Indicating that they are working. They have received funds for translation. And they are looking at developing a policy to equitably distribute that money. And that it may potentially include the boards and commissions for. For translation and she indicates that she is available if you have questions. Council member Fleming and members of the city council. Jason nut our assistant city manager. Is available to be promoted. I believe he was here during the initial discussions of the. Former Roseland University prep. Campus as a surplus property. And may be able to provide some background. About what occurred at that time. Thank you. Good evening council members. Council member Fleming. I was involved in that process as the property came on to. The market as a lease. Opportunity. I worked directly with Jill Scott our real property. Our real property manager. As well as Dave Gwine. Our housing and community service director. At the time. To evaluate whether or not that particular property might provide some level of benefit. Toward part of our homeless. Approach. Recognizing that at that particular point in time. Council was expressing interest. In supporting the. Location of a permanent Roseland library. We did begin to reach out to the Roseland library. Or to the library district. We were able to. Discuss with them the possible opportunity at that particular site. Council had not designated any funds at that point in time. And we were contemplating. Creating an opportunity where it would be used. While the library was currently in temporary locations. As a temporary. Housing or a homeless services site. Something akin to a safe parking location. We were not able to identify a particular funding source for that opportunity as well. And the property needed to move on. And continue their interest in looking for a tenant. For that site. We made a decision. Working with the former city manager to decline. Further opportunity at that property. While we. While we continue to understand what we needed to do further with. Our homeless services program as well as. Whether council was going to show a financial investment opportunity. With the library. By the time council had indicated their interest in. Pursuing financial opportunity. The property was under contract. And was no longer available for us to. Discuss a potential lease with the property owner. We did look at. Or did have a number of conversations with that property owner. They were very interested in working with the city at that time. But once they had another lease. In the works. There was. We were we were no longer able to. Work into that process. And we began working with the library on alternative sites. And again, I'm happy to go into more detail if there's additional information that you would like me to. The only question I want to know is what was the timeline of when the property came. To into your awareness and when that decision was made. To not pursue this property. We looked into this for between six and nine months. We conducted two site tours. One with the housing community services. And one with the library district. The property itself. Would have suffice for a temporary library operation and for short term. But the long-term library approach. We were ultimately going to find a way of. Denoing and rebuilding on that property. So the timeline was about six to nine months before we made the decision to no longer pursue that, that opportunity. That opportunity. My question is actually when specifically not how long. You're asking dates. I don't need an exact date, but like spring of 2018 or fall of 2019, that's kind of what I was getting. I want to say, I want to say we were. 2019. When we, when we decided to no longer pursue that opportunity. Okay. Thank you for the information. Yeah. You're welcome. Thank you. Council member flowing. Council member Tibbets. Would you like a motion? No more questions. Council member Rogers. This question is for the city manager. At this time, does the city have any intention of using the proposed site and if. Well, yeah. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear the question. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. At this time, does the city have any intentions of using the proposed. Site. Our understanding is that the site is under a contract for lease and not being offered. For alternative uses. Okay. And then I was going to ask the planner when she was on it. I'm not sure if she's still, if she's still on. Okay. We have a question. I'm sorry. If an item needs to be a permit if an item needs to be noticed in languages other than English. I know we don't have to. But if. If we know that. The surrounding. Language is 60. I think I saw a percentage of 66. 66.7%. Whether we have to do something or not. To me, that's the ultimate fail. fail and that's not communicating with the community that you're wanting to notice. If you don't notice in the language in which the people speak that you're attempting to communicate with. Under our current policy as the city attorney explained our noticing requirements for languages other than English only apply to city council. In cases where we receive requests as was demonstrated in this case for Spanish translation we try to accommodate that. This is also a long-term resource issue for the city to consider as we move forward and begin to more fully implement our open government policy. It increases the cost of publishing our notices publishing our agendas and staffing our public meeting process as you can see tonight and those are all new expenses that we have to address in the budget process. Understood. I don't know how we would meet that criteria or make the criteria of understanding what is different. What item would be different from another item or who would be interested in an item and who wouldn't be interested in an item or what items would be more controversial than another. But I do think that if we're asking for input and we're saying that we want diversity, equity and inclusion you can't want those things and not speak or provide notice in a language that people speak or read. That's not providing DEI. But that's something that we need to figure out internally. I think we've allocated some one-time funds for additional translation services about $500,000 worth that will allow us to begin to test the implementation of broader translation in multiple language capabilities and the timing of producing agendas in multiple languages at various levels of boards and commissions within the city. And that will provide us with some valuable experience and data to evaluate how broadly we want to apply the translation services in multiple languages. And if I may, I do have additional clarification from Penn, and that is that translation has been done, excuse me, for the long-range projects, for example, in the general plan update, meetings have been held in Spanish, materials have been translated into Spanish. But in specific project review matters that are before the various boards or commissions, it has been on a request basis so that if someone requests translation then it will be provided. But again, as City Manager indicated, now that there have been some funds allocated we'll be looking at those policies, and as planning staff also indicated, we'll be looking at that policy again. And I'll note that as you heard earlier, it was, you know, once the request was made in this project, the meeting was continued and translation was provided. And once that was understood, the subsequent notices and the notice for this meeting tonight were translated into Spanish as well. Yeah, that leads to my next question. Is how much time do we like to provide the community so that we can educate? So I've heard the word education and to educate being thrown out a lot, right? And that maybe people have a, they feel a certain way because they're not being educated on the type of business it is and how it can benefit the business and or maybe not benefit the business, I mean the community, right? So how much time do we, and this probably the planners know, how much time do they send out the notices versus when do they have the actual, when does it go to the Planning Commission? What is a time frame or is there an exact time frame that they have to send out the notices? And what is that time frame given with the two week extension? There are statutory notice requirements and I believe that for this type of a hearing it's a 10 day notice that needs to be sent out. But they are defined by statute and by our code as well. So it was provided with the two weeks? Yes, okay. And in addition, I wanted to ask the chief because I also heard during public comment about calls, not necessarily calls for service, but that with the building being vacant and I haven't heard that the city is planning on using the building and that is a concern is that if this project does not go through, that the building is going to stay vacant. And so have there been additional calls for service to the site or nearby that we can assume is because the building is vacant or no? We haven't received any extraordinary calls for service in the area. You know, we vacant buildings are always a concern, but we're not, we have not received any calls for service there. And I did check with my lieutenant for the area and they haven't heard anything. OK, thank you, chief. And then to the appellant either one or two, do they have an alternate alternate use for the site and funding for the site so that the building does not say stay vacant if this project does not go through? Right, I can ask questions to. Pellant, you can ask a question of the appellant, the whichever appellant answers must we must restrict their answer to the question. OK, so that is my question. Do you have alternative uses for the site and funding already secured so that the building does not stay vacant or is it just please don't approve this project, but we don't have a use for this tomorrow if you don't approve this project. Yes, this is this is a bad and at the moment we have the 11 million dollars secured, we would have to have a further discussion into that. But we have an 11 million dollars secured in that capacity. And as far as the property, it was looked at in July of 2020. And so some of the information that has been stated is incorrect. We we don't have the people here tonight to speak on behalf of that. And so but that property was looked at in July of 2020. Thank you, Miss Minor. Thank you. And then just one more note. As far as the notification for me to present tonight, I do have my emails in in regards to when I was notified. Thank you, Mr. Tibbets, could we get a motion on the floor? Yes, thank you. And then I have a point of clarification relating to the most recent question. OK, for discussion purposes, I move a resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Rosa denying two separate appeals and upholding the decision of the Planning Commission, approving a conditional use permit for old school cannabis to allow 2,350 square feet of retail dispensary with delivery and onsite consumption, 17,120 square feet for commercial cultivation, 5,001 square feet or greater, 870 square feet for distribution, 500 square feet of manufacturing, level two, volatile within an extension building located at 100 Sabastopol Road, Assessor's Parcel Number 125-1A1-023, File Number CUP21-027 and wait for the reading of the text. Second. And if I may ask the question, Sue, this is a point of order question. So we have an applicant and an appellant, an applicant who is in lease contract on this property. Tonight, when we make a decision, are we allowed to take into consideration and factor a potential future use that the city could be engaged in, or are we to limit our deliberations to the question before us and the uses and the ordinances pertaining to this property? Thank you for the question, Council Member. You are, what's before you today is the applicant. Is the application from the old school cannabis and the two appeals. So what is before you is to address the issues raised in that application and in those appeals. You can, you are not limited to the grounds of the appeal. You can discuss the application as a whole, but the matter is not noticed for discussion of alternative uses of the property, whether by the city or by another private party. So if, for example, we were to discuss a rationale to vote no on this project being that we would like to see a future use be a library, community center or some other thing, would we be opening up the city to potential litigation? Right, you in evaluating this application, you would be evaluating it on its own merits and under the findings that are set forth in the required findings, they're set forth in the staff report. It is not a valid basis for denying a project that the council might prefer a different project. Different projects are not before you this evening. So thanks. Thanks, Council Member Schlauer. Thank you, Council Member Tibbets and for the council's information and for the community for further clarification, whichever direction this vote goes will require four votes. Just to be clear. We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Council, I'll raise my concern with the project just to comment on it. I'm going to be voting no on this project tonight. And the reason is I stated it is not having to do with a library or community or future use. I was always taught that you have to, as our city attorney said, evaluate the merits of the proposal in front of us. I'm voting no on the grounds that I think a year or two ago, I either denied a cannabis project or sought its pretty radical amendment because I did not believe we should be allowing on-site consumption without a mechanism to enforce what is safe use and to be able to operate a vehicle safely. So I'm going to be voting no on those grounds this evening. It just doesn't make sense to me to allow that sort of thing if we don't have a way to determine what is safe and what is not. Council Member Rogers. I just like to say for point of clarification, I asked the question because I didn't want it to be assumed that if the project did not go forward, that the city had the intention of using the site and or the property because that is what I heard. And so that is why I asked the question, not for us to make the decision that we were going to use it, but just to say that that was not on the table. That is not what we were talking about. We were actually talking about the the proposal at hand, not that we were going to use the site. That is why I asked the question. Council Member Tibbets. And if I may, Acting Mayor, I do appreciate that clarification. And yes, I understood when you were asking those questions and when Assistant City Manager was responding that, yes, that's part of your conversation in terms of the background. But again, so that was a very legitimate question, but I also appreciated Council Member Tibbets question in terms of the scope of actually your decision. And then I just wanted to clarify, this is a vote on the appeal. And so we'll be careful when we actually cast the actual votes. An aye vote would be to uphold the appeal, which would deny that, which would reverse the Planning Commission's decision. Council Member Schrethel, could you just clarify? I want to make sure I heard that correctly, because I heard the motion was to deny the appeal. So an aye vote would be yes. Yes, you are correct. And thank you for correcting me. It's been a long day. So yes, the motion is to deny the appeal. So the yes vote would deny the appeal and uphold the Planning Commission decision. OK, thank you for that, Claire, for guessing. Yes, it's been four hours. So, you know, I just want to make some general comments because it has been four hours of comment. We've been getting a lot of information. And one thing because I heard a lot of the speakers say that saying their voices are not being taken into consideration. You're not hearing me. And just from my perspective, I'm listening to all the information that's been shared here. I've heard this on other times. And unfortunately, someone's going to think you're not hearing me because I didn't agree with you or I didn't vote the way you wanted me to vote. But I'm just 100 percent committed to listening to everyone. And that's what I've done since day one on this dais. So I just want to get that out. And so for me, this kind of voyage a journey with the legalization of marijuana has helped me make the decisions that I'll be making today. And so I'll just go back to Prop 64 in 2016. I wasn't supportive of it. But, you know, the state of California, 57 percent of the voters said yes. And in Sonoma County, 59 percent of the voters said yes. And so when we talk about the numbers, so if you took and I have no idea what 41 percent of the voters in 2016, given the numbers, it's thousands of people. So I could have a petition with thousands of signatures saying you're not listening to me. But the other side could have had 59 percent. Those are the folks that voted for it. So again, for me, I've been listening. OK, why are the people majority of people in Sonoma County and in Santa Rosa supportive of it? Same thing with some of the safety concerns that I've heard. We've heard this. So I've been on council when cannabis was not legal for the recreational pre 64 and post. I wasn't on the cannabis ad hoc, but I listened to what they had to say and the decisions that some of the members still on this body were part about how we crafted this, what I consider to be a model program here in Santa Rosa. And it's been modified because we've been listening, but we've been having dialogue. And I think a lot of members in the community have pointed to Santa Rosa. They're actually getting it right because it's tough. It's not a black and white issue. Specifically with the safety coming from the law enforcement background, a lot of people had used examples. And we heard that on some of the appeals of other dispensaries that it brings crime. That hasn't been our experience. And I was thankful for staff where they brought the actual districts. You know, my district, District Six, Northwest Santa Rosa, we've got 14 either approved or already operating. I've got three or four walking distance and I'm in a residential area. We have not seen an increase in crime. It hasn't had the impact I've heard other people predict. And on the closed loop system, I remember when we had, I think the first one was the one on Yolanda. There's that same concern. This does not belong in the neighborhood, but there's been no evidence that that's a danger to the neighborhood for folks either they're working there or in the neighborhood. And I remember one person said when I engaged in the conversation, I'm listening to what they had to say. Well, just because one of those mechanisms hasn't exploded, doesn't mean it never will. Well, you got me there. You're absolutely right. It's just the information that I've been listening to doesn't support that. That's a danger to the community of the neighborhood, especially given our fire safety officials are signing off on it. Also, some of the disproportionate, you know, this council has worked, I think our tails off, supporting the entire community, especially Roseland. I mean, I don't know what speaks louder than the $10 million investment from PG&E funds to the library. I guess we could have invested that rather than give them to the library, but this property, but we chose not to. We chose to partner with someone. And I know some of us on the council and staff, we are working on a community. Cindy, if you heard last week's meeting, we're working on that. We're not thrown to deaf ear, and we don't own this property. That's the bottom line. As Ms. Cullen mentioned, they're in conversations now with this contract with what's before us. So process wise, I started looking through, OK, here's this whole process. It went through the planning commission and unanimously supported. Right. And again, I know not everyone's going to like it, but during the process, I think this project, they've done everything that the city has asked for and followed the process that we asked for. And specifically, one thing in reading all the documents that were provided, they talked about the ban the box, which is something that helps disadvantage communities from the violence prevention perspective in other words, some people may not know what that is, but if you check the box, have you ever been convicted of a crime? A lot of times you don't get an interview. So a lot of us in the violence prevention efforts are saying, yeah, ban the box. They talked about it. That's the first time I've heard anyone say, yes, we support the letter in the spirit of the law. So for all those reasons, I'm supportive of this motion and I will be supporting the motion as is on the floor. Thanks. Thank you, Council Member, Council Member Fleming. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity to comment on this. This is a really difficult topic because it's very clear that some people don't want it and some people do want it. And there's no way to make everybody happy. This is one where we know we're going to walk away having made one group of people really, really unhappy. And I think Council Member Schwedhelm got it right when he said that, you know, we listen to everybody and we hear you and we hear your concerns. Most of the concerns I heard around were around safety. And what I've seen and experienced in my time on Council is that there's a correlation of safety and legal cannabis dispensaries because what it does is it removes illegal activity, promotes legal consumption and also the the presence of cameras and security guards also creates safety. There's also an increased risk of illegal activity associated with an unoccupied buildings and blight associated with it. So an economic disinvestment in areas leads to economic or leads to crime. So there's a lot of reason to believe that this project will will be a benefit. Now, do I think that this is the highest and best use of this property? I do not. I think that it was a mistake that we did not acquire this property and we should have and I would have supported that. However, we owe it to our residents and our prospective business owners to lay out a clear and understandable plan of how we do business and to tell people that if you do this and this and this and this and then some because people don't like it, we're not going to follow through on it. I don't think that that's fair. And to the people out there who will think that this is unjust or racial discrimination, I'd like to refer you to all of the votes that I've taken to put cannabis dispensaries and other associated facilities all over the city in predominantly white neighborhoods and told people that that I don't really much appreciate their uninformed views on on legal cannabis use. And so today I will be staying consistent, if unpopular in supporting the applicant and denying the appeals. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Rogers. I just want to say this has been definitely a very hard hard decision, especially since that the council member that represents the district is not here. So I can't really look to see how he would represent the district or what he would say for his district. But I think that there are a lot of ways in times where we can say that votes are being cast or things are being said. And it is because there is a disparity or because it is of color. I think that in this case, there are certain things that businesses have to do in order to get a permit and or a license. And if they do those, then they get that permit and or the license, whether they are in Fountain Grove, Bennett Valley or or in Roseland. And I think as far as this council is concerned and I can and I can say this wholeheartedly, I think that we fight for Roseland. And I think we fight hard. And I think that whatever we bring forth, I think this council has not has not doubted or said anything about giving to Roseland. And I'm sorry, Sue, if I'm going like on my but I think that we do give and I think that we know that Roseland deserves. And I think as far as the community center, as far as the library, as far as we know, we hear we're coming, it's going to take a minute. We're working on it. It's not going to happen tomorrow, but we are working on it. And we hear you. We hear you loud and clear. Your voices are heard. They are not unheard. But with this, for me, I will be agreeing with the project. And that is because I also know in order to support the things that I want to do in the community, the things that this council wants to do in the community, we have to have business. It's a full circle. We need businesses because we need the money to support the programs that we want in the community. So it's all connected. So I will be supporting I will be supporting giving the permit to the business. And it is not for a lack of supporting supporting the community of Roseland. It is because I think that we do need to educate more. There's a lot of people of color that have gone to prison for distribution of cannabis. There are now schools where you can learn how to cultivate. You can learn how to sell. It is a very profitable industry. And I'm hoping that more people embrace and learn how to get involved and learn about it and take advantage of it in a different way and not be scared of it. So these are just hopes that I have. Even the JC I believe is looking at having where they bring it into the school where people can learn how to get involved in the industry. So I'm just hoping that people start to educate themselves a little bit more. And also I think that the chief is on the line and we know that there are concerns. And so we will be very mindful of those concerns moving forward. So your voices are heard. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Well, I'll be voting to deny the appeal this evening. The Planning Commission, respect of the ordinance that was developed by the city, a model ordinance that is not perfect, but is duplicated and used in many areas throughout the state because it is so comprehensive. And the way in which we developed that ordinance was through major amounts of public engagement. So the applicants have complied with our ordinance and having done that deserve the right to receive my vote to move forward with their project. And that's why I'll be denying the appeal. And Madam Clerk, would you take the role, please? Point of order one more time, if I may, Acting Mayor, can you remind us what yes means and what no means in this situation? Did you want to, Madam Secretary? Yes, and thank you again, Council Member Shredhelm for catching me on that. The motion is to deny the appeal, which will affirm the decision of the Planning Commission and grant the use permits. So a yes vote will approve the project, a no vote will deny the project. Thank you. Okay, are we ready? We are. Council Member Tibbets. Nay. Council Member Shredhelm. Aye. Council Member Sawyer. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Council Member Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with four ayes, with Council Member Tibbets voting no, Council Member Alvarez and Mayor Rogers abstaining from the vote. Thank you, Madam City Clerk. We'll take a 10-minute recess. Let's call the roll. Yes, Council Member Tibbets. Here. Council Member Shredhelm. Here. Council Member Sawyer. Council Member Fleming. Here. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Thank you. I'm sorry, Vice Mayor Alvarez. Still present. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Rogers. Present. Mayor Rogers. Here. Council Member Sawyer, have you joined us? Yes. Thank you. Let the record show that all Council Members are present. Thank you, Council. I'll let you know that the Vice Mayor and I are fully refreshed and ready to proceed with Item 14.2, Mr. City Manager. Mayor Rogers and Members of the City Council, Item 14.2 is a report item. The matter before the Council is approval of a shared scooter system pilot program. And Nancy Adams has been waiting eagerly to present this item to the Council this evening. And Nancy is our transportation planner and our transportation and public works department. Thank you, Jeff. And I am just happy to be here, Mayor and Council Members. And I tell you, my scooter's outside my office, so I'm gonna scoot through this presentation because I know it's been a long evening tonight. So next slide, please. So just really quickly, I'm gonna run through these slides because I know the Council's had a really long evening. So on this one, I just wanna kind of pull out the fact that the Council back in November a year ago gave direction to develop a one-year pilot program. Next slide. And so I wanna say appreciate the Council last year just deciding to create a new position with the active transportation planner. He's joined my team and he's really made us get through this last year. As you can see, we've been very busy throughout the year working with our city departments, working and talking with some of the California cities who have scooters and operations. So the year of 2021 has been very busy for us just trying to call out information to put together the draft permit conditions that are before you tonight. Next slide, please. So just really highlight, we're anticipating one operator and a fleet size within the permit conditions would be around a hundred. And our service areas would be the downtown, Redwood Square, the Roseland area and the junior college area. Next slide. Now I'm not gonna go through all the information that you think what I'd like to do is just highlight that the permit conditions will address parking requirements and where the devices can be parked. Essentially, they're going to be responsible to be parked on either a bike rack or a fixed object such as a street sign. And all in the thoughts of keeping our clear path of travels on the sidewalks and the curb ranks. Next slide, please. And then in terms of operation, so we really wanna make sure that the devices, they provide safe riding experience. And that means following the California vehicle code where they are not allowed in the sidewalks and they're not allowed on streets with 25 mile per hour speed limit unless they're using a bike lane. So these are all consistent with our California vehicle code. Next slide, please. And then of course we wanna make sure that the operator will be responsible for educating the users and making sure that all the community members are aware of this program. So we wanna make sure that as part of their permit conditions that they have a pretty solid engagement process for deployment of the devices. And then lastly, next slide, please. I wanna just talk about just the accessibility of these devices and making sure that all members of our community have access to use these devices. And I would note that we actually had a demonstration last Monday and one of the questions that I think was asked of the vendor who did the demonstration was, for example, how much of a ride would it be in Santa Rosa and what's the length of the trip? And so it was about a mile and a half as a typical ride. And then the price of that would be about $6. And if it would be subsidized at a 50% reduction, so it would be about $3. So next slide, please. And lastly, we wanna make sure that we're able to access all the data that will be gathered as part of this pilot program. I think one of the main questions that we have is what's our market and will these be successful in Santa Rosa? So we will be requiring the operator to provide us with the data that they've gathered and of course, following all the privacy rules. And lastly, next slide. So, oops, next slide, please. Yeah, there we go. So this is, I had a road show you'll see on the slide. I've gone to the Downtown Action Organization, Railroad Square and our Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Board. The Downtown subcommittee this month was actually canceled. So I wasn't able to share the information with the subcommittee before the council meeting. So generally all the groups are supportive of deploying these devices. They did talk about the use of the devices on the sidewalk. And so, we heard that and parking the devices and keeping the clutter. So I think we structured the permit conditions to address many of the thoughts and feedbacks that we heard from the different community groups. So next slide, please, which I think is the recommendation. So, it says a lot, but essentially we're asking the council to approve the scooter share pilot program and authorized assistant city manager or our director of transportation and public works to either modify conditions, issue or revoke the permits and or suspend the operations of the scooter share system. So I went through this very quickly but I am happy to answer questions if there are any from the council members. Thank you so much, Nancy. Let's go ahead and ask council members. Any questions? Council member Rogers. Can we get to ride all of us together? Sure, well, I think you can. And once the council decides tonight to launch this program, they'll be out there in the street. So let's do it. But like how many bikes will be in one area, Nancy? So the way this works is we're asking the operator to, they have to lock a device. So if you say you wanted to go take a scooter out somewhere, you'd find a scooter either hooked up to a bike rack and you have to, it's all based on an application on your smartphone, right? So you'd go get your, take your phone and check out the scooter and you get charged on your account and then you'd be able to unlock that scooter and go wherever you want to and then lock it somewhere, right? Wherever you're, I don't know, say you wanted to go to the mall, I don't know. So then you just leave it there. And the way it works is you're charged on the amount of time you have the scooter. So you may not have the scooter when you come out of the mall that they're likely you would. So hopefully that answers your question. And how does someone, is there like a pass or something where they qualify for the discounted rate? Yes, they have anything that it's like the snap. So if you, that's one program that the vendors have mentioned to us and a lot of the assistance programs where the low income folks have access to those programs they also would have, that would be their eligibility for getting the discounted rate. So they would do that on their smart, I'm asking like how would they do it? They would do that on their smartphone? They would and actually this was something that our bike and headboard brought up about some folks don't have a smartphone or they don't have credit cards. So we're asking the vendor to provide as much as possible opportunities for folks that don't have a smartphone or a credit card to actually use the devices. So that will be something that will ask the vendor to share with us what mechanisms they can use to help reach the broader community for Santa Rosa. Thank you. Council Member Sawyer. Thank you Mayor and thank you Nancy. I'm supportive of the project of the pilot but I do have a couple of concerns. Is a week really long enough for the pilot operator to be here and then cut us loose? So that's a great question. I think what we're gonna have, I think we're gonna see how that looks Council Member and if we need them to be here more, I think we can certainly ask them to be here more. Yes. They're just in looking at the presentation and looking at the other documents or there are a lot of responsibilities that they're taking on as far as reporting and that's just one piece of it. And I'm concerned about hidden costs. Who's gonna take care of these scooters when they get thrown in the creek? Is the time that our staff is going to take in dealing with this pilot program? Have they budgeted that into their time constraints? It just, I mean, I don't wanna be a wet blanket but it just sounds like there are a lot of details and I can't imagine that they're going to be able to be comfortable dropping us off in a week. I don't see that as being realistic. So I'm sure a conversation will be had with the pilot operator but there are a lot of unknowns in looking at this and that's why it's a pilot and I understand that. I'm skeptical but I'm willing to give it a shot because it sounds like a good direction to move but that's what pilots are all about, right? Is to find out where the gaps are and then fill them. So I'm ready to go with it but I do have my concerns. So I'll really quickly respond. So during the pilot, we're not actually doing a full cost recovery and we would think that if the council wants to make this as a permanent program that we would definitely integrate that into the permit process and really get a full cost recovery. But what we are doing for the pilot is and I work with Gabe Osborn to, as part of the encroachment permit, we're going to have them make a cash deposit which we can draw down on as necessary during the pilot. So we will have a little bit of a resource to cover some of the city staff time but not a full cost recovery. So hopefully that helps answer your question. Thank you. And council member Sawyer if I could just add and just as Nancy mentioned in one of the earlier slides staff has spent a substantial amount of time reviewing other cities and their programs. And so we're, we are in a good position to have learned from their mistakes. And I believe the program, the way Ms. Adams has put forward, we've tried to incorporate some of the challenges other cities have seen early on in their process. So we hope that we won't have some of those same difficulties that they did. Thanks, Mr. Knapp. I appreciate that. That's where Shweta. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Nancy, first of all, I want to thank you for offering that to council for that presentation. I think that was last week. And during that presentation and demonstration they talked about there'll be the actual operators will contract with some local folks who will actually be monitoring all of the scooters. So there will be someone in the city to recharge batteries and whatnot. Am I correct in that assumption? Can I hear that right? Yes, that's correct. And they want to, and you know, again to Jason's point, you know the cities that we've worked with and talked with about their experiences they have been with working with the scooters for a few years. So lessons learned and you know I think the vendor that came here it wasn't that they originally were working with local folks and now they are. And I think that really helps to solidify their commitment to the community as they deploy these devices. So yes, you're correct. Okay, and also just for my colleagues he also, I think I asked or someone asked the question if you did it city wide how many would a city our size how many scooters would be needed? And he said the word 800 which really surprised us in the Nancy corrected but this pilot program is only 50 to 100. But again, if it's successful and the technology is fascinating what they can do now with it. It's I was really impressed but the two questions I asked them and I want to ask again it sounds like we're doing a permit process for this versus a franchise agreement can you explain why we're going that route versus a franchise for this type of opportunity? Right, and so I think just as a pilot we want to see what the market is and you know working with our planning and economic development department GABE was really helpful in trying to sort out what's the best mechanism and you know the permit process and the encroachment process seem to work the best for the pilot and we can certainly reevaluate that as if a pilot program translates into a permit program in the future but I think the start through the pilot as an encroachment and a permit condition is probably a better approach. Okay and then even for this pilot program what are we doing to mitigate the call for service to police or code enforcement? So that that question came up and then some of the officers were there at that demonstration and and you know we I think we'll have a commitment from the the vendor to be responsive we've got conditions in the permit that they have a certain number I think a couple of hours to respond to any issues each device will have an identifier and a contact information number so that if you see a scooter that's you know mis-parked or you know not blocking the sidewalk or whatever you can contact the vendor directly and if we don't hear you know if we don't get a response from the vendor you know we can make sure that we follow up with them to ensure that that doesn't happen again so we've got some things in place I think will be will be good and I think the other part of our approach is that these devices will be locked to you know either bike racks or street signs and that really helps mitigate the clutter Oakland had a didn't have a lock-to system and they experienced a lot of clutter but they converted to a lock-to system and really reduced the number of devices that were not were freestanding so I think how we're asking them to deploy their parking structure with the devices and then just being responsive back to issues with within you know mis-park devices great so I would just ask that not only city departments and I'm thinking mainly code enforcement police but also the business community that they're involved in the the implementation of this so if I could just see some businesses I've got three of these scooters parked in front of me they've been here and if they're being unresponsive that there are some consequences for this and that everyone understands roles and responsibilities but I am supportive of this and I really like to make this a win-win for everyone thanks Vice Mayor thank you Mayor in regards to to revenue generation what opportunities are there for our local business owners in regards to either housing parking stations for the scooters is that a possibility so that's an interesting question we haven't I haven't really thought about that but I I've heard about just parking bike racks in the downtown and Red Bull Square and the the planner who you know is is helping me on this he actually went out last couple days and was looking at the supply and inventory of parking for bikes and and so I think to your question you know if if there's an opportunity for a business in the downtown that wants to you know we want to see what that would look like if if you know I know having having scooters maybe you know access their business is a good thing for them so I think I think those are questions that we need to you know once we get the vendor online and and really see the the feedback that we get from business communities I think that would be a great question to maybe check in with them on as as needed yeah well I think it might really help with with the cluttering possibility or fear of watching scooters strewn about opposed to having different businesses within the city that another user could either grab the scooter from or the same user that dropped it off who knows where they left the scooter at and pick it up from the same destination the following question they had for you was job opportunities I heard I believe it's operator is how that he or she is being referred to how many scooters can each operator handle or are responsible for right so so the pilot program we're we're going to have one operator and we're going to max the number of scooters that they deploy in the city by a hundred so they can bring in up to a hundred scooters within the city as part of the pilot okay are they are they contracted out or are as as a subcontractor are they employee of the company so the vendor is is so for example we had the I'll just give you the the the vendor that came to do the demo it was bird so they would be the the operator or vendor and then the to councilmember sweat home had brought up the local folks that they would hire and those would be the subcontractors those would be the folks that would come out change the batteries out because they all have batteries just you know look at the maintenance of the devices if there's any issues so those would be local folks and they typically come hire people from our bike shops to support them so are they usually on an hourly basis or contracted out I'm not sure how the vendor would do that that would be up to them to very well yeah yeah and another question they had for you was the cost of the city from what I read it's no cost to our general fund is there a difference between one and one thousand in terms of the devices of the cost that that would that would that the city would incur whether we order one scooter or one thousand scooters no I think I think what we're just trying to do councilmember is just find out what the market is and I think you know the 100 is seems a a reasonable cap you know it's I mean obviously if there's more scooters it would may possibly mean more more of a cost for the city you know as a staffing resource question but I think at this point you know having 100 vehicles or devices as a cap and then we can figure out you know if a if a if it goes to a permanent we may expand that and then back to my point if we do a permanent program where there are more devices I think you're right councilmember Svettel mentioned that a thousand vehicles could be the market then we we'd want to have a full cost recovery to handle you know all the staff time to put in to support the project very well because I'm definitely comparing that the size of for example Windsor that I believe has 80 to 120 scooters if not mistaken in their population is much smaller than the city of san rosa and I'm also looking at other cities that scooters have been implemented whether it's Eugene Oregon with 600 read on Nevada with a thousand and a couple other numbers that are larger including Santa Clara with 2000 scooters and we're looking at if this possibility if this pilot program can be successful and what I'm looking at is if we want the program to be successful it's because it's dependable it's easily available and if we have 100 scooters divided in four areas or 25 scooters per area that seems that we're setting up the pilot program to be a frustrating form of transportation for those that would depend on it especially with us moving towards increasing the uses of smart and transportation and we speak about the last mile I could definitely see how that could be a very frustrating situation for for the constituent and thank you for for answering the questions you're welcome House Member Fleming yes thank you Nancy and I'm looking forward to finding out more information and so my questions are going to be directed at compliance one is around the non-cell phone non-credit card payment you said we'll try to ask them to do something and I'm going to quote Yoda and say it's a do or do not there is no try we want to make sure we are I will say I it is a priority for me and it is a demand that this is accessible to to all residents and so before we get into contract it's my it's my request my demand I don't know if I'll get three other people on council to say so but that that we actually have an answer not a oh we'll think about it or we'll do our best because we know what happens when when people say that they do their best and their best is often not enough to meet what what you're asking so that to me is is really essential and the other is a question about what type of data you're going to be getting is it data all access to all data that they have in regard to their program and any additional data that you request or that the council request or is it going to be just the data that the company wants us to see so that's a great question I think I would say it's what we want right so they're going to have to provide us with you know the metrics that you know for me I mean I think one thing was very would be very important is who's using that where are they going just you know just some some motivation behind why you're choosing to to to write a scooter right and where you're going so I think to your question and on both of your questions I think it's absolutely correct to say that we we need to have that information and we require that information from from whoever we select to operate within the city because where I'm going with this is that the council's going to have a lot of questions there's going to be you know people who are for this there's going to be people who are against this I think if this wasn't at 11 at night we'd have a whole bunch of people with a whole bunch of opinions here telling us things about this and I can only imagine when this comes back after the trial period and I want us to be able to answer their questions sincerely and in a way that can say well in this in this municipality they this this company has done this deployed x amount of scooters with x amount of population and here's the delta between our city and theirs and some companies will give that to you and some won't and so I just would make sure that you're very explicit at the outset about all the types of data sets that you could imagine us wanting I know we we can get down in the weeds and ask unpredictable questions so the broader the net is probably better for this one thanks any other questions from council Nancy I had a question about the locks so who provides the locks for the scooter so I I'm going to I'm going to go out there maybe Jason so when the when they did the demonstration they actually have the locks on the devices so when when bird came there was a like a coiled block that they had on their devices and I you know I so they it would be on the device right and your little app unlocks the they unlocks the lock right and then you lock it back up the same way so it's my understanding the like I said the one that we had the demonstration it's actually on this on the scooter okay I can appreciate that where I've used them before there were no locks that were on it so that was the biggest question that I had and just going back to the vice mayor's comments about dependability I'm looking at our policy construct to make sure that we don't have arbitrary barriers for use from folks so I understand the importance of the locks in terms of preventing the clutter but I'd like to just make sure that we have that clarified in the contract that they are locks that are provided on the scooter so that that way and excuse me there's you know an individual who doesn't have a lock but needs to use one of these still has the ability to do so I just want to make sure we clarify that okay and and mayor I will say in my experience in different cities scooter companies operate similar to bike share where you have both free roaming and freestanding tools as well as docked equipment and so there there for example in San Francisco I've seen both where you've got your scooter in a docking station that would be how you would lock the piece of equipment others the scooter did come with a lock and that lock was how you secured it to as Nancy said some post or bike rack at the destination where you finished it so certainly things that we can incorporate into the discussion with the selected vendor yeah and to that point and I appreciate that Jason like I said I don't want any arbitrary barriers to making this program work or for the pilot program for us to see if it's useful so when we talk about what it needs to be locked to I'm hoping that we will be mindful of areas in our community that may not have what we're asking for whether it's a bike rack and that's obviously an infrastructure issue we've talked a lot about is having bike racks or when we talk about the 25 mile an hour speed limit unless you're in a bike lane there are segments of our community that are probably less likely to use the scooters that are more likely to have a bike lane than some of our other target areas right and so I'm just concerned as we do the policy construct that we're not putting up arbitrary roadblocks for people to be able to utilize them or to make them useful for folks and Mayor just to add on to that companies like bird do sell their specific product on the open market and I see them on the city's streets of Santa Rosa already those particular vehicles don't have speed restrictors on them so they look like the products that we may get into contract with that do have speed regulators but we just need to make sure recognize that there are private devices out there that look exactly like the ones that we'll be working with through contract that don't have the same type of regulations okay and I did hear Nancy and I just want to clarify that the no riding on roads that are above 25 miles per hour that don't have a bike lane that that's state law that that's not yes an arbitrary thing that we're putting in right right right so yeah go yes correct okay and then I did also want to echo the vice mayor's concerns about not having enough in the pilot for it to become dependable and for us to figure out if it's going to be useful for the community particularly when if you had as few as 50 you're down to 10 to 12 in an area which if you're trying to catch the smart train and you can't find one I can understand how how frustrated that would be so I'd probably be in favor of raising that cap from 50 to 100 to say 200 or some other number that I think gives us a an appropriate level of saturation particularly if we are going to have the locking component to try to prevent clutter or the scooters being in different areas I think that might be something that I'd I'd ask the council to consider ultimately House Member Sawyer thank you Mayor Nancy what is I don't mean we're reading it the helmet requirement oh that you have to wear a helmet yes so so I'm downtown and I want to get a scooter and I don't have a helmet so I can't get a scooter so if I have a helmet I'm walking around all day along with a helmet or I'm go to my business or whatever wherever I might be going so is that is that really realistic to think that people are going to walk around with helmets just in case they want to ride a scooter that's a great question I guess the question is how much of a deterrent is the necessity to have a helmet going to be to the program you know I don't know if that if it will be a deterrent so that's a great question John and I think we'll that will kind of play out I have pretty limited experience with the scooter itself but you know maybe Jason could weigh in but I think those are the things that we're going to see you know as this highlight moves forward you know what what is that an issue right and I honestly don't I don't know so I don't know Jason if you have any thoughts on that or not you know I think Council Member Sawyer I again being in other cities that have these programs some scooters have helmets that are attached to them and folks are encouraged to leave them with the scooter I seem to recall watching our mayor scoot down the streets of Santa Sacramento he had a helmet on and so there was obviously that product I did not Jason I was trying to help you out mayor but but there are there are definitely some there are definitely some organizations that require helmets there they attempt to keep them with the scooters they tend to lock with the locks that are provided but I would say majority of the scooters that I've seen do not have helmets specifically available and it's a matter of whether they're enforced or not okay I appreciate that and I would assume that every helmet would come with lye spray so just just just in case I mean just just thinking while I appreciate the assist Mr. Assistant City Manager I can tell you I just like the feeling of the hair flowing in the wind too much to wear the helmet in Sacramento any other questions Council Vice Mayor COVID helmets sharing helmets COVID I definitely see an issue with that and and not even speaking on the deterrent of that but just for safety issues I mean I definitely do see that as being a deterrent yeah and that actually council member that actually came up and talking with one of the operators just just that very point so yeah all right I'm not seeing any other questions let's go to public comment on this item if you are interested in providing a comment go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on zoom or if you are here to give comment go ahead and approach the podium all right seeing none do we have any voicemails we do this is eris weaver Executive Director of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition of the public comment on agenda item 14.2 I'm very excited to see how this scooter pilot program works out anything that gets people out of cars and into alternate transportation is a great idea and it does look as well a lot of care went into putting policies in place to avoid conflict between scooters and pedestrians such as forbidding riding on the sidewalk I do notice that the policy does not explicitly mention the multi-use path like the print screenway are scooters allowed on those or not it would be a good idea to specify that because people are going to ask and want to know I do have two comments about potential conflicts between scooters and cyclists along with the clear signage in education informing the scooter users that they need to stay off the sidewalk it would also be a good idea to include a reminder that they're in a bike lane or in the road that they should ride on the right side of the road I do occasionally have close head-on encounters with cyclists riding on the left side and I would really hate for cyclists to have to start also playing chicken with scooter riders riding the wrong way the biggest issue in my mind though concerns parking secure correctly placed bike racks are already in really short supply in town and adding 50 to 100 scooters to the mix is not going to be pretty the city really needs to get more racks added near all the popular destinations in order to facilitate all of that thank you that concludes recorded public comments on the side of mayor all right council member Fleming can you put a motion on the table for discussion yes indeed a resolution of the council of the city of Santa Rosa have proven the shared scooter system pilot program and authorizing the assistant city manager director of transportation and public works or designee to modify permit conditions issue and revoke permits and limit or suspend operation of a shared scooter system and way further reading of the text second so motion from council member Fleming and a second from council member tidbits Mr. Assistant City Manager did you have something to add you know mayor I did as Nancy mentioned we've got a fantastic alternative transportation planner on board who happens to be watching even though he's not on video text that is to remind both Nancy and I that helmets are only required for users that are 18 and under and so that's why you don't see them and it it sparked memory of mine a couple years ago I took my younger son under 18 to San Francisco he desperately wanted to write it and actually the algorithm and process that use to rent a unit will not rent to anyone under the age of 18 if a helmet isn't being provided for the piece of equipment so I just wanted to follow up and try to respond to your helmet question a little bit further all right thank you Mr. Assistant sin manager I I did have one other question that I forgot so I hope you'll indulge me but there is the question of the providing proof of a driver's license is that state law that to use a an electric scooter like this that you have to have a driver's license as well that's a great question I'm not sure if it's state law Jason do you know I apologize I don't recall for scooters um so we would have to get back to you on that there okay um and part of that is if we're trying to provide multimodal transportation for folks who may not want to drive a car that perhaps they don't have a driver's license and again just looking for unnecessary barriers for the folks who might use this as a pilot program so I'm actually gonna ask the motioner like council member Fleming for a couple of changes one is to change the limit number from a hundred 50 to 100 scooters to 200 scooters in those between those four zones one is to eliminate the requirement for a driver's license one is to eliminate the requirement for the helmet that council member Sawyer I think adequately explained the issues with and then one is to clarify that the locks will be provided by the operator if it pleases the mayor have a couple of questions before accepting those amendments um one is does um are there any operational challenges or issues with getting 200 scooters and stuff because there was a range 50 to 100 so if we say 200 can that can that happen through the mayor do you want me to answer that question yeah please do yeah I think council member I think we can set that max and there's no magic you know whether it's 100 or 200 I think it's fine to increase that to 200 without any problem and is there any challenge with removing the driver's license requirement will the company I mean is there a representative from the company who can say whether or not they'll they'll enter in a contract with us if we don't require people that to present driver's licenses yeah and I actually I'm looking at the slide where I where I listed the operational regulations and it does say that it's it's the California vehicle code where they're citing that that's why the license is required so I think we need to check into that before I would embrace that elimination of that requirement so yeah it seems like an awfully high barrier to require driver's license but I also understand the rationale for putting it in there so what I could say is like you know on that one give direction to do everything within our power to eliminate the driver's license requirement but I'm not sure that we want to tank this based on a driver's license it may be some ID or something I mean I'd love to have us have nothing but if it's the state law we can't supersede that and I'd say then if it's just silent in the contract state law I mean state law is going to supersede either way right right I think that and that's about that's where I was going to go with the helmet is that you know I think that we're taking on liability by by getting into it when we're another but I think we could stay silent on it have a contract not say anything and then I so I accept the the 200 I accept the locks provided by the operator and I recommend and see if the mayor accepts it the contract stays silent on the driver's license of the helmet okay I accept those challenges what about my seconder you get a council member tidbits with that okay council member Schwedel could I have a question maybe it'd be for the city attorney I'd be comfortable with language on driver's license helmet consistent with state law whatever we do is consistent with state law but spell those two things out that would make me far more comfortable I was going to to ask to to be able to mention that when there are liability issues and risks issued risk issues with both eliminating the requirement for driver's license and eliminating the requirement for helmets again as the assistant city manager pointed out the policy just provides for helmets under 18 so I think for most of those I like the suggestion from council member Schwedhelm if we just say consistent with state law I'm good with that if that works for that also satisfies my concerns around the liability it's a fine line between barriers and and being cautious so I think we're on the same page there okay council member tidbits I'm sorry to beleaguered I'm a little bit confused though so are we requiring driver's license no this is we're just saying we're going to follow state law as it pertains to the scooters for action same with helmets yep all right thank you all right any other questions comments or amendments vice mayor before I ask my question as the recipient of a of a motorcycle license it's required 150 cc's or above to require a driver's license and this would not fall into that category but I'm sure we'll do our research with just a little experience that I had in regards to the question in regards to metrics actually is there a way that we can receive information in regards to return customers or frequency of use so yeah I think that will be one of the metrics for sure that we'd want to garner from you know the use throughout the year and I think what we'll do is we'll check in with some of the other cities and see you know I know our staff has already thought of things that we'd like to see back from the vendor in terms of their operations within within the year pilot so that could definitely be something that I'm quite interested in just like I said what are the users and what's the market and are we addressing the needs and the market with these devices so yeah is there any city with our comparable size that we can actually see their metrics or their frequency of use you know we that's a great question we did and I can't remember what city it was but one of the vendors did have some it was out of state it wasn't a California city but we will follow up with that and and that that will be a good you know some good information we can compare with with Santa Rosa so great great thought very thank you very much and I'm very interested to see those numbers just to see what we could expect and really measure our success or need for more scooters thank you Mr. City Manager so the the resolution before the council does cite the vehicle code section that relates to the operation of scooters and that section does require a valid driver's license or instruction permit to operate the scooter it also has some provisions in it related to which roadways can be used to operate the scooters and there is a provision in there that allows a local jurisdiction to authorize them in a class two or class four bikeway on a highway with a speed limit of up to 35 miles an hour so there's there's some variations here but I think as long as you incorporate in compliance or conformance with state law we're we're fine with that Ms. Madam City Clerk can you please call the vote thank you Council Member Tibbetz aye Council Member Schwedhelm aye Council Member Sawyer aye Council Member Fleming yes Council Member Rogers aye Vice Mayor Alvarez aye Mayor Rogers aye that motion passes with seven aye's okay let's do item 14.3 and in Council not try to rush folks but we do I believe lose our translator at 1230 Mayor Rogers and members of the City Council item 14.3 is a report item the matter before the Council is the extension of the COVID-19 related temporary parking user fee reductions through June 30th of 2022 Alan Alton our Interim Chief Financial Officer will present the staff report morning Mayor Rogers and members of the Council I think in the interest of time I can let's just move to the next slide and the next one after that we have parking fee waivers since actually since April 2020 the Council has taken a number of actions in response to the pandemic relative to parking fees this included the waiving all hourly garage fees and parking meter fees early during the pandemic to the current fee waivers that I'll go into a little bit more detail in the next slide we received a request from the downtown action organization or DAO to extend the current parking fee waivers for an additional two years however based on the finances of the fund which I'll also discuss in the next couple of slides staff is recommending only a six-month extension of the fee waivers next slide please so currently and expiring on December 31st are the following fee waivers so we we have free parking at all five garages from Monday through Friday from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. free parking at all five garages on Saturday and Sunday except the Fifth Street and D Street garages which are free on Sunday we first free hour or yeah the first hour free at the Third Street and Fifth Street and D Street garages one free metered parking session using the passport mobile payment application and waive the meter reservation fees for temporary parklets the estimated impact total impact of this action over the next six months would be about $430,000 today the parking enterprise has lost over $700,000 in revenue due to the fee waivers however this is just a small part of the revenue lost by the enterprise over the last two years that it has it also felt the impacts of the pandemic the year over year total revenue decline 25% in fiscal year 20 so from fiscal year 19 to fiscal year 20 total revenue declined by 25% and then it declined by another 35% in fiscal year 21 so we went from a high revenue amount of $7 million including revenues and transfers in at the end of fiscal year 19 to an ending revenue amount of $3.3 million this past year fiscal year 20 and fiscal year 21 ended with total fund deficit of approximately $700,000 and $3.4 million respectively next slide please so these losses and revenue have impacted the funds reserves the parking enterprise reserves for contingency which are the reserves from which you can appropriate budget is declined by rather steadily since fiscal year 2016 starting at $10.9 million to its current level of $7.6 million there is over also over $11 million of deferred maintenance for the parking assets in the enterprise with approximately $7.7 million of structural deferred maintenance in the barrages and then approximately $4 million of deferred maintenance in the locks so with all that that is why we're taking a six-month recommendation of waiving the existing fee so extending the current fee waivers for only six months and not two years and then obviously we will be evaluating this periodically at least quarterly if not monthly but there it is at a point where we need to really sound alarm over to the health of that enterprise so with that the recommendation on the next slide is that it's recommended by the finance department that the council by resolution authorize an extension through June 30th 2022 of one the first hour free at the third street fifth street D street garages the first hour is already free at the first and seventh street garages two free parking in all five garages Monday through Friday for 5 p.m. to 6 a.m. Noting that parking is already free from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. three free parking in all five garages on Saturday and Sunday noting that the D street and fifth street garages already have free parking on Sunday four one free meter parking session using the passport mobile payment application up to three dollars and fifteen cents value to a maximum of thirty one thousand five hundred dollars since since its inception on July one 2020 and five the waiver of meter reservation fees for temporary parklets outdoor seating and retail to expand business footprints to meet physical distancing requirements related to the COVID-19 order and with that I'm available to answer any questions you have all right thank you so much Alan Councilmember Fleming thank you Alan for your presentation and for its brevity my I'm sorry to do this to Council but I do have a couple of questions you may have mentioned earlier and I'm wondering if you could say it here how effective has this been at getting people in the garages so what we we have not seen this these reduced fees actually bring people into the garages as we had anticipated we are still below our our pre-COVID levels but and I'm trying to remember the percentages but I believe it was roughly 63 percent of parking is on the street and with about 20 to 22 percent in the garages okay I personally love this program for my personal use however given the the state of disrepair of the garages and the lack of use of the program and the fact that it's always easy for me to find a place to park on the street I don't feel like this is financially prudent I know I should hold my my comments but it is late and that's what I think Councilmember Tibbetz sorry guys I'm having a hard time walking away I gotta ask more Mr. Alton can you show on the graph where there's a spike in the reserve fund in 2019 yeah I I believe that was uh there was a there was a brief period when we expanded the hours of on-street meter parking and then and then that was we rescinded that soon after that and I'm sorry I'm a little fuzzy at night but that that's I had the same question and uh that was just a very brief period where that where that happened those are very popular evening metered parking program the progressive parking I think it was yeah something thank you I'll I have a comment about that but I'll hold it for comments thank you any other questions let's go to public comment on this if you're interested in providing comment hit the raise hand feature on zoom seeing none do we have any voicemails we do not all right we will go ahead and bring this back council member Sawyer can you put a motion on the table your mayor introduce the resolution of the council of the city center Rosa authorizing the extension of a temporary reduction and waiver of certain parking fees through June 30th 2022 and wait for the reading of the text second motion by council member Sawyer second from tidbits you had comments I do have a couple of comments um I you know I think that uh we discussed this actually briefly at our downtown action subcommittee when this kind of filtered through us first and I just want to share my comments that I made there with the council recognizing that I won't be here anymore but I think it's it's important and I shared these same thoughts and concerns with Peter Rumble at the metro chamber right now I think this is an important gesture during COVID-19 to continue this but I believe I agree with what Victoria said about the question pertaining to how is this actually affected use if there is a proposal or a desire to keep this going indefinitely you know my suggestion is to look at increasing the prices of on-street parking at the businesses and working with the businesses to figure that out because obviously the funds have to come from somewhere so those are just my comments about it God knows we are going to have free parking in the city for a long time that's member Fleming I'd like to amend my uh or add to my comment and say you know Park I know progressive parking was not particularly popular but you know we do I concur with Mr. Tibbetts we we got to figure out a way to pay for it and I'll just add this to his comment you know it is an important gesture during COVID-19 but then there was COVID-20 and COVID-21 and in a couple of weeks we're going to be in COVID-22 so at what point do we say COVID is going to be with us five, ten, fifteen years you know in different forms and I think it's really difficult to accept that this is not a real temporary problem so we need long-term solutions to long-term problems and we can't keep giving things away with the hope that it's going to solve things I know our local retailers are struggling but you know in many other ways retail is thriving and so but our our parking district is not and I think we've got to figure out a way and so I'm not in favor of extending this I would be in favor of hearing staff return with a much more paired back version something that's revenue neutral and breaks even and and collaborates with our downtown districts in order to get their input but one that that doesn't continue to deplete the city's coffers and erode our infrastructure that's a really serious disrepair I thank you councilmember Madam city clerk could you please call the vote councilmember tibetz aye councilmember schwaetham aye councilmember soyer aye councilmember fleming no councilmember rogers no vice mayor alvarez aye mayor rogers aye that motion passes with five ayes with councilmember rogers and councilmember fleming voting no okay let's go to our public comment for non-agenda items if you're here to provide a comment for something that wasn't on the agenda tonight go ahead approach the podium or hit the raise hand feature I see none do we have any voicemails no okay we have no written communications I did really fast want to again extend my appreciation to our interim city manager Mr. Jeff colon for your service to the community I want to again thank councilmember tibetz for his contributions over the last five years both of you will be incredibly missed around city hall and then as I mentioned before we are adjourning tonight in the memory of Marie Durkin and want to extend our condolences to director Burke and her family and hope they're doing well with that we will adjourn