 I'm kind of, I'm kind of liking it out here. Good afternoon. I'd like to ask the interpreter currently on the Spanish channel to commence translation of the meeting. For those just joining the meeting, live translation in Spanish is available and members of the public or staff wishing to listen in Spanish can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the Zoom toolbar. It looks like a globe. Once you join the Spanish channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the Spanish translation. Interpreter, will you please restate this in Spanish? For those who just joined the meeting, live interpretation in Spanish is available and members or staff wishing to listen in Spanish can do it by clicking on the interpretation icon that appears in the Zoom toolbar that now looks like a globe. Once you join the Spanish channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the interpretation in Spanish. Welcome everyone to our March 28th, 2023, Santa Rosa City Council meeting. It is now three o'clock and we will be starting our meeting. Welcome Assistant City Manager, Madam City Attorney and fellow council members. Seeing a quorum, Madam City Clerk, can you please call the vote? Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Stapp. Here. Council Member Rogers is absent today. Council Member Okrepke. Here. Council Member Fleming is also absent today. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor McDonald. Here. Mayor Rogers. Present. Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of council member Rogers and council member Fleming. Thank you. We will begin our meeting today with one closed session item, item 2.1, Conference with Legal Council about existing litigation. Madam City Clerk, may you please conduct public comment? Thank you, Mayor. We are now taking public comments on item 2.1. If you are in the chamber and wish to make a comment and have not provided your name to the administrator at the top of the chamber, please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing via telephone, please dial star nine. You will have three minutes for your comment and a countdown timer will alert at the conclusion of that period. Seeing no one in the council chamber wishing to provide public comment and no hands being raised via Zoom. Additionally, we had no prerecorded public comments, Mayor. Thank you so much. We will now recess into closed session. Welcome back, everyone. We will now reconvene our meeting seeing a quorum. Madam City Clerk, may you please call the roll? Certainly, Mayor. Council Member Stapp. Here. Council Member Rogers is absent. Council Member Okrepke. Here. Council Member Fleming is also absent. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor McDonald. Here. And Mayor Rogers. Present. Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of council members Rogers and Fleming. We have no study sessions today, so we will move on to item five, which will be our report on our closed session. Madam City Attorney. Thank you, Madam Mayor. The council met in closed session on item 2.1, which concerns existing litigation, the matter of Lopez versus City of Santa Rosa. The council gave direction to staff and took no final action. Thank you. Thank you. Moving to item 6.1, our proclamation that we have for today, this item will be read by Council Member Okrepke. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have the honor of doing this proclamation for American Red Cross Month, which the Red Cross has a special place in my heart, having been a recipient of some of their services after the fires. This organization has done a great job locally and nationally, of course, and then further. So with that being said, whereas during American Red Cross Month in March, we celebrate the humanitarian spirit of Santa Rosa and reaffirm our commitment to help ensure no one faces a crisis alone, whereas caring for one another is at the heart of our community and exemplified by the people of the City of Santa Rosa, whose simple acts of kindness through the Red Cross provide help and hope in people's most difficult moments, thereby continuing the life-saving legacy of Claire Barton, who founded the organization more than 140 years ago to prevent and alleviate human suffering. Whereas every day, these ordinary individuals lend a helping hand to make an extraordinary difference for neighbors in need, whether by providing emergency shelter, food and comfort for families, displaced by home fires and other disasters, donating life-saving blood for cancer patients, accident victims, and people with sickle cell disease and other life-threatening conditions, supporting military members and veterans, along with their families and caregivers, using and teaching vital skills like first aid and CPR to help others survive medical emergencies, or delivering international humanitarian aid and reconnecting loved ones separated by crises around the world. Whereas their support, volunteerism, and generous donations are critical to our community's resilience, we hereby recognize this month of March in honor of all those who fulfill Claire Barton's noble words, you must never think of anything except the need and how to meet it, and ask everyone to join in this commitment. Now therefore be it resolved that I, Natalie Rogers, mayor of the City of Santa Rosa, on behalf of the entire city council to hereby proclaim March 2023 as Red Cross Month. I encourage all citizens of Santa Rosa to reach out and support the humanitarian mission of the American Red Cross. Thank you, council member Okrepke. I would like to call up the representatives that will be receiving this proclamation to the podium to make a comment, and following their comment, Madam City Clerk, can you please conduct public comment? Proclamation, and thank you to the council for the work that you do. We know that you're not technically volunteers, but the amount of hours that you work on at your job, you might as well be. We do a lot of work in Santa Rosa. Obviously it's the largest city. We have people going out in the dead of night to home fires when fire departments and police call us to support the individuals who've lost their homes and helping them find a place to stay and food to eat, et cetera, et cetera, when they have to leave their homes. We also have responded to both the tubs and Kincaid fires here in Sonoma County, which affected many Santa Rosa residents. This is Miriam Cheng who is on the board of the Red Cross for the chapter that encompasses Marin, Solano, Napa and the Sonoma counties, and I want her to have a chance to say a few words to you. Great, thank you so much to the city of Santa Rosa. It's also my city. I live here. I've been evacuated once with Kincaid, and so I'm just grateful to the Red Cross for the opportunity to be a part of such a wonderful organization. And if anyone can donate their time, their blood or their services, I please briefly accept any opportunities to be able to work with you. Thank you. We're in the process of trying to establish a good working relationship with the Santa Rosa Fire Department. One of our largest activities is called Sound the Alarm and this past weekend, well, two weekends ago actually, we put alarms in the homes of 30 residents at the Rancho Cabeza mobile home park out on Calistoga Road. So we made the lives of 30 people safer than they were because they were homes that did not have smoke alarms. So we're working with the fire department to find neighborhoods that could really use this kind of program to the extent that the fire department wants to put them in themselves. We can provide them with the alarms or if they can give us the addresses and the names, we'll contact those people and put those alarms in. So again, thanks for the partnership with the city of Santa Rosa and the fire department. Thank you, Madam City Clerk. Thank you. We are now taking public comments on item six. If you are in council chamber and wish to make a comment and have not provided your speaker card or name to the administrator at the top of the chamber, please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you are dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine. You will have three minutes for your comments and a countdown timer will alert at the conclusion of that period. Here I see no one approaching the podium and no speaker cards were submitted. Additionally, there are no public comments via Zoom. Thank you. Now we would like to invite you down to accept your proclamation and take a picture with the council if you would like. We have no staff briefings for today so we will move to item eight, which is our city manager and city attorney's report starting with our city manager. Thank you. Thank you, mayor and good evening council. So I have two updates for you today. So we have Spring Fest at Finley Community Parks on Saturday, April the 1st from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. So Spring Fest is presented by the Neighborhood Services Division of the Parks and Recreation Department and it provides free and low-cost recreational opportunities for underserved Santa Rosa children and their families. Neighborhood Services members are invited to join egg hunts, pancakes, crafts and more. This is a free event but registration is required. Information can be found at srcity.org forward slash neighborhood services. We also have springtime fun at Courthouse Square on April the 2nd from 12 to 2 p.m. Our fire and neighborhood, excuse me, our fire and police departments are coordinating with county parks to host this springtime fun. It's an event for kids to get some springtime goodies and meet the Easter Bunny. So sounds like something I wanna go to as well. And good afternoon, Madam Mayor and council members. I do not have anything else to report this afternoon. So thank you. Thank you, Madam City Clerk. Can you please facilitate public comment? Thank you. We are now taking public comment on item eight. If you are in the council chamber and wish to make a comment and have not submitted a speaker card or provided your name to the administrator at the top of the chamber, please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you are dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine. You will have three minutes for your comment and a countdown timer will alert at the conclusion of that period. Mayor, I see no one approaching the podium for public comment in chamber. There are no hands raised via Zoom and no advanced comments raised. Thank you. Moving to item nine, statements of abstention by council members. Are there any abstentions? Seeing none, we will move to item 10, council member and mayor's report. Are there any council members that have reports? We will start with vice mayor McDonald. Thank you, mayor. I have a couple of different updates. First update is actually item 10.1.7 on a zero-waste sonoma. We had a meeting last month where we had a public hearing and approval for the organics disposal fee and the zero-waste sonoma fee increase. Zero-waste sonoma budgeted an increase to the zero-waste sonoma surcharge at 0.65 cents, a ton to stay in line with the scheduled increases. So that's something that will be going forward with the yes votes for that. And we also approved an agreement with Sparkle Reusables to conduct a reusable food where infrastructure and services pilot program in Santa or Spark, pardon me, in Sonoma County. They're really excited to do this, to pilot the program because it's the highest and best used of zero-waste. And it's the direction that we hope to move in to expand the futures, the throwaway for foods and that type of thing to be able to reuse those containers. And then we also held our first violence prevention committee where we discussed next steps for updating our strategic plan as well as we talked about the need to better understand which each of the commission members do so that we can work more collaboratively on how to support our youth and have a better understanding of what each of those committee members brings to the table. And then we also had a deep conversation about the recent events at Montgomery High School and what we can do as partners to support our schools because we know for a fact that they cannot do this work alone. I attended the employee service awards and was able to celebrate our employees who've dedicated so many years to the city as well as those who have gone on and retired. And then just finally at a quick update, we just returned last night actually from the National City Legislative Conference in DC where we met with our legislators as well as many of the federal departments and all meetings were extremely successful with communicating the incredible work that we're doing here in Santa Rosa. And then also the need for ongoing financial support from our federal partners to continue the great work and expand on what we're doing. But I do wanna just highlight a couple meetings that I was able to go to. The first meeting that I was able to go to was from the Department of Housing. We sat down with Director McFadden and she started off by telling us that she had to have a very firm conversation with the previous group because they were really unhappy with how they had worked on their housing plans and the money that was given to them from the federal government was not really being appropriately handled. And then she said, but it doesn't get any better than this from the city of Santa Rosa and that we should be extremely proud of the work that we were doing with the money that we were being given from the federal department and that she really wanted to come to the city of Santa Rosa just to see how great we were doing as far as our work. So Director Basinger and her team should be commended as well as all the departments of how they were collaboratively on making sure that we expand our federal dollars because it makes it easier for us to go on your behalf and ask for those continued appropriations. And then another highlight for me was when we met with the Department of Justice to share what we're doing in our police department, specifically around our action of getting ghost guns off the streets, the action we've taken to stop side shows and the incredible work that we do on our in-response team. Chief Cregan was able to share the work of the department and the exemplary work that our police department does every day to keep our communities safe. So this was consistent over and over every meeting that we went to it was one of those moments for me where it felt like a really proud mom moment to be able to be the vice mayor of this incredible city and really on behalf of all of our employees the work that you're all doing out in the field it was one of those times where it made my life much easier going to ask for money because we could say over and over the great work we're doing. So thank you to our mayor for incredible representation to all the staff that went you could not have been prouder than I was in that room and I can assure you all that we stand out we're very shiny and just to thank you for continuing this great work. Council Member Alvarez. Thank you Madam Mayor. Just want to inform folks that I did attend a Rosa School Board meeting where we welcomed their new superintendent Raul Guerrero. So I'm happy to see that he's come on board and I look forward to working with him here in the near future to improve the lives of our future leaders. Also, I'm very happy to say that I attended the Senator's Service Awards along with many of my fellow colleagues where we really witnessed folks who've been looking after our city for decades, including an Eddie, a fellow Eddie who I believe is one of our eldest employees with the city of Santa Rosa and the man looks young so I expect them to be around for another 20 to 30. Over the weekend, I attended a Subassible Road cleanup with the ladies of the CBI or Community Building Initiative and afterwards there was a lot of food, got an assala and I hope in the next time that we hold a cleanup, I can get some of my colleagues good out there. It was short, I wasn't informed until the last minute or else I would have invited, but I'll let you know the food was really good so I'll let you know that much right now. And here's a beforehand. On April 1st, it's not April Fool's joke, we will have Sheriff Ingram attend a whole day meeting with the residents of Moreland. So if any folks out there wish to ask questions or meet our Sheriff or County Sheriff, he will be over at the Amarosa School Academy there on the 1st just in a couple of days. Thank you very much. Council Member Okrepke. Thank you. I was able, I was invited to take a tour and have lunch at Chopstein Club, which is a great organization to help our youth here in Santa Rosa and keep them involved in productive activities after school. I was also asked to present to Leadership Santa Rosa, which is a effort through the Chamber of Commerce to build leaders for tomorrow, specifically I was asked to speak on how to get involved and build a better community. I was also attended the Employee Service Awards for the city, celebrating the great years of service and retirements of many, many great individuals, including a family friend, Jesse Martinez. And then I was able to attend the Sonoma County Alliance Legislative Reception. It was good to see so many people, so many electeds there and able to have frank and direct conversations with some of our state legislators as well. And I was invited by our Santa Rosa firefighters to attend a hockey game at Snoopy's Ice Arena. The Santa Rosa Growlers took on the New York Fire Department hockey team and they flew across the country to take them off our two games. The first game did not go great for Santa Rosa. The second game, which I was able to take my son to his first hockey game was a lot more, we'll say exciting. For those of you that follow hockey, there was a lot of five minute majors and we scored a go-ahead goal with two minutes and 15 seconds left and then immediately got a penalty so we were on a penalty kill for the last two minutes. If you follow hockey, you know how exciting that is, but it was a great victory for the Santa Rosa Growlers and a great opportunity for our community to host New York's Bravest, which it's really incredible to think of what our firefighters do on a day-to-day basis, especially when a guy gets checked into the boards and you see on his numbers is the names of every single firefighter that perished on September 11th written on their sweater numbers. So it's a great time with a whole lot of gravity behind it and if it ever happens again, I encourage as many people as possible to go. Thank you. And I will wrap it up just stating that I did attend the Employee Service Awards and those were great seeing all the five, 10, 15 and 20. I think we went up to 25 when we had 125. So that was pretty awesome. And I also just returned from DC last night and we have a phenomenal team here at the city of Santa Rosa. It was very nice to listen to our team members represent what we are doing in Santa Rosa and also things that they hope to bring to Santa Rosa and how we hope to do that. So I would like to thank the team that came but also thank the team members that were here still working while we were working in DC. And that will conclude our reports. Madam city clerk, would you like to take public comment? Thank you. We are now providing or hearing public comment on the item 10 mayors and council members report outs. If you're in council chamber and wish to make a comment and have not submitted your speaker card provided your name to the administrator at the top of the chamber, please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please tell star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes for your comment and a countdown timer will alert at the conclusion of that period. Mayor, I see no one approaching the podium for public comment. There is no one raising their hand via zoom and there was no advanced public comment for this item. Thank you. Item number 11 approval of minutes. We have one set of minutes and those are for February 14th, 2023. Council, are there any corrections to the minutes? Seeing none, Madam City Clerk, can you please facilitate public comment on item 11.1? Thank you, Mayor. If you are wishing to make a public comment on item 11.1, please approach the podium. If you have not already provided a speaker card to the administrator at the top of the well, if you are participating via zoom, please raise your hand. If you are dialing via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes for your comment and a countdown timer will alert at the conclusion of that period. Seeing no one approaching the podium and not having submitted any speaker cards, additionally, there are no advanced public comments and no one in zoom for public comment, Mayor. Thank you. Moving to item 12, Madam City Clerk, can you please read the consent calendar? Thank you, Mayor. Item 12.1 resolution, amendment to purchase order 162712A with municipal emergency services for personal protective equipment. Item 12.2 resolution to approve submittal of priority development area grant application and delegation of authority to accept and execute grant documents for South Santa Rosa specific plan and EIR. 12.3 resolution amendment to homeless services center grant agreement with Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Santa Rosa for warming center operations. 12.4 has been continued to a date uncertain. 12.5 resolution transportation development act TDA article three grant application for fiscal year 2023-2024. 12.6 resolution measure M cooperative funding agreement. 12.7 has been continued to the April 11th, 2023 meeting. Bringing it back to council. Are there any questions from council members? Okay, I did have a question on 12.3 which is the homeless services center grant. Madam city manager. Yeah, can you promote the director Bassenger or a member of her team, please? Thank you, we're promoting Megan Bassenger and Sasha Cohen from housing and community services. Hi Sasha, thank you for joining us. Thank you. So I just had a few questions to get some clarification on the warming centers historically who provided warming centers throughout the city. Thank you, Mayor Rogers for the question and I'll answer that one. So the city of Santa Rosa first activated or initiated warming centers in Santa Rosa starting last winter in fiscal year 2021 and 2022. So this is our second year that we've activated warming center in the city. Is there any state or federal funding that can be requested to help support the city with this expenditure seeing the weather pattern changes in unforeseeable circumstances? I'm unaware, we're unaware of any funds that are available specifically for this purpose. However, we are pursuing all funding opportunities for homeless services in the community and we'll be keeping our eye out for any future funding opportunities for warming center. And are there any moneys that are provided so we know that there's no moneys provided to the city? Are there any moneys provided to the county or any other entities for warming centers or such facilities when the weather or cooling centers, I guess we have those too. So I'm not familiar with the funding sources that the county is using for this purpose. That's certainly something that we can look into and get back to the council on. Okay, I would be interested in possibly having an agreement with the county to see if they have funds available to support or assist us with providing services for our unhoused during both very cold seasons and or very cold days and nights and also very warm days and nights. So that would be my only comment with that. And so thank you guys for joining us. That's my only comment. I don't think anyone else has any other questions. Seeing none, Madam City Clerk, can you please conduct public comment on this item? Thank you, Mayor. We are now taking public comment on item 12, the consent calendar. If you are in the chamber and wish to make a comment and have not submitted a speaker card or provided your name to the administrator at the top of the well, please make your way to a podium. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you are dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes for your public comment and a countdown timer will alert at the conclusion of that period. We have received one public comment name. The first person will, providing public comment will be, pardon me, Ken McNabb. Here's council members, Ken McNabb, K-Mac advising, representing property owners in the Todd Creek 2010 area. I'm speaking on a consent item 12.2, the planning grant for the South Santa Rosa specific plan and EIR. First, we just want to thank staff for their efforts in putting the planning grant application together. We see this as a proactive step by the city towards achieving a number of important objectives, including securing future opportunities for housings of all types and for housing of all needs in the community. We see it as an opportunity to bring up disadvantaged underserved communities in the South Santa Rosa Avenue area, and we see it as an opportunity to improve conditions on Santa Rosa Avenue and the Santa Rosa Avenue corridor. As such, we just want to express our appreciation for the city's effort and encourage the council to proceed with the planning grant. Thank you. Seeing no additional public members of the public approaching the podium, we do not have any hands raised via Zoom and we receive no advanced public comment on this item. Thank you. Vice Mayor McDonald, can you please make a motion? Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to move items 12.1 to 12.3 and items 12.5 to 12.6. Second. We have a motion made by Vice Mayor McDonald and a second made by Council Member Okrepke, Madam City Clerk, can you please call the vote? Thank you. Council Member Step. Aye. Council Member Rogers is absent. Council Member Okrepke. Aye. Council Member Fleming is absent. Council Member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. And Mayor Rogers. Aye. Let the record show this consent calendar post with five affirmative votes with Council Members Rogers and Fleming absent. Thank you. We will be skipping over item 13, which is our first public comment on non-agenda matters because it is not yet five o'clock and we will go to item 14.1. Madam City Manager. Item 14.1 is a report, Sonoma County Water Agency, 2023, 24, Water Transmission Budget and Rate Increase. I would like to introduce Budget and Financial Analyst, Nick Harvey. Thank you. And if all the members of the team could introduce themselves for the record. Yes, good evening, Mayor Rogers and fellow Council Members. My name is Nick Harvey, Budget Manager with Santa Rosa Water. I'm here this evening to introduce Jake Spalding and Lynn Razzelli with Sonoma Water who will present the proposed Water Transmission Budget for Fiscal Year 2023, 24. Before they begin, I wanted to quickly review the annual process for approving the proposed whole-sale water budget and rates and explain where we currently stand in the process. After developing the proposed rate, the new rate and budget are discussed by the Budget Subcommittee at the Technical Advisory Committee. A commonly referred to as the TAC in conjunction with staff from Sonoma Water. The TAC's Budget Subcommittee met several times this winter and concluded its review of the water transmission rate and budget on March 6th where a vote was taken. The Subcommittee was unable to formally recommend the rates and budget to the full TAC with two yes votes, several abstentions and a no vote from Santa Rosa Water. On March 6th, the TAC itself took a vote where they did formally recommend the 2023-24 proposed water transmission budget and related rate increase with Jennifer Burke, Santa Rosa Waters Director and TAC representative making the only vote against the recommendation. Santa Rosa Water's current rate structure was developed anticipating maximum whole-sale water rate increases of 6%. After factoring in and assumed 5% increase in water deliveries as well as Sonoma Water's proposed 10.56% increase to the wholesale rate, we estimate our fiscal year 23-24 water purchase budget. We'll exceed our fiscal year 2022-23 numbers by approximately two and a half million dollars. If the proposed rate structure is ultimately approved by the Sonoma Water Board of Directors, Santa Rosa Water plans on absorbing the cost increase utilizing undesignated fund balance. At this point in the process, it's up to each contracting agency to work with their representatives on the Water Advisory Committee also referred to as the WAC to coordinate how their agency will vote for the purposes of WAC's recommendation to the Sonoma Water Board of Directors. For Santa Rosa Water specifically, the process of the recommendation began with reviewing Sonoma Water's proposed water transmission budget with the Board of Public Utilities. At their March 16th meeting, the Board reviewed the information presented by Sonoma Water and formally recommended that our council direct its WAC representative to vote against the proposed rate increase. As a reminder, it's ultimately up to the discretion of the Sonoma Water Board of Directors to make the decision on how they will proceed, including setting the rate increases that will actually be implemented. All votes leading up to that point in the process are simply recommendations. On that note, I will now hand it over to Sonoma Water. Thank you, Nick. Good afternoon, council members. My name is Jake Spalding. I'm the finance manager with Sonoma Water. Today I'm gonna provide you with a brief overview of our fiscal year 23-24 water transmission system budget and our rates. So each year we do develop a budget that allows us to meet the water transmission systems, operations, maintenance, capital, and also regulatory demands. This year, there is a heightened need for infrastructure repairs and upgrades, similar to last year, so that Sonoma Water can continue to operate the system reliably 24-7. So real quick, Sonoma Water operates three main aqueducts. The Santa Rosa aqueduct is shown in purple on here. The others are the Petaluma aqueduct in blue and the Sonoma aqueduct in green. Each one of our water contractors is served primarily off of one of these main aqueducts and they pay a rate, there's a budget and a rate that they pay based on the aqueduct they're served off of. So Nick talked some about the process. So each year we do submit a draft budget to the tax sub, ad hoc budget subcommittee in mid-January and then we work in a collaborative and transparent process with all the water contractors before ultimately taking the budget to our board for approval in April. The restructured agreement for water supply which is what we follow does require that our board adopt the rates by the end of April. Quickly I did just want to say thank you to all the Santa Rosa staff that participated in the process including Nick, Kimberly and Jennifer. So thank you guys. Sonoma Water, we have a pretty complicated system so we do have multiple funds. Each one of the funds has its own budget and rate structure and then they're combined to make a composite rate which is what the contractors pay. So real quick, Sonoma Water is facing some challenges. They're not unique to us in the water industry. Our system is relatively robust. However, we are operating systems that are a system that is roughly 45 to 65 years old. It's expended much of its useful life and currently actually 40% of our infrastructure has only 10 to 20% of its useful life remaining. Not too different than owning an aging car. Maintenance costs do increase with age and while we do implement a preventative maintenance program to help extend the life of everything, corrective maintenance and emergency repairs are starting to happen more frequently on the system and this is an indication of the age. In addition to the effects of age, our system is vulnerable to an array of natural hazards. The primary ones are flood, fire and earthquake. Earthquake is our biggest vulnerability in terms of service disruption and extensive damage to the system. So I'm mentioning all this just to say that the budget we're presenting today does include efforts to address all these challenges. They're not single year challenges that can be solved in any one year, but we're working towards that. So what's in the budget? Well, on the capital side, we are proposing to do several hazard mitigation projects. What you see on the slide here builds off of our efforts this year. In fact, this year we're actually completing or we'll be completing two really important hazard mitigation projects and next year we're proposing to do another 6.34 million in hazard mitigation. I do wanna mention that we do seek offsetting grant revenue whenever possible. We have been able to get more than $10 million from FEMA to implement these hazard mitigation projects and we have every intent of applying for additional funding, not only for the projects on the slide, but also for projects farther out in our long range financial plan. In addition to the hazard mitigation projects, our capital program is proposing to do another 6.... Sorry, another 5.9 million in resiliency projects. You can see some of those on the screen here, including like the Wells project, which was in the papers quite a bit recently. These projects do have $1.1 million in offsetting revenue in fiscal year 23-24. So when you add up these projects with the hazard mitigation projects on the previous slide, we're proposing a total capital budget of roughly $12.3 million. Our budget does include $40.4 million for operations and maintenance projects to protect, improve, and maintain system reliability. You'll see a few of the high priority projects on this slide, including a multi-phase aqueduct cathodic protection program, an $88 million tank recode and maintenance program, which is occurring over 10 years, as well as security improvements and emergency inventory procurement as well as other important projects. On the sub-fund side, we're proposing $9.8 million for the biological opinion, water supply planning, and water conservation. Some quick updates in these, the Dry Creek Habitat Enhancement Project continues to make progress. We're currently working on phases four, five, and six, and we're experiencing significant cost savings on these projects because we do have a cost share agreement with the Army Corps where they pick up 65% of the costs. And this represents a big savings for the water contractors. The budget also includes $150,000 in match contribution towards the Potter Valley Project Russian River Water Forum grant, which we've just submitted to DWR. If this project is funded, the County of Sonoma, County of Mendocino, and Sonoma's Waters Russian River Project funds are all gonna be kicking in match funding as well. And then in addition to implementing a very robust and comprehensive water conservation and education program, we did actually just submit a $3.8 million grant also to DWR. And if awarded, this will help facilitate additional water use efficiency and education programs for all the water contractors. So as you can see on the slide here, we're proposing a budget, total budget of $68.3 million for next fiscal year, of note, that is $3.5 million less than our current budget. And as you can see, actually all of the line items there actually do show reductions except for the operations and maintenance line. The operations and maintenance line is going up by about 4.4%. And that's really an indication of the additional needs of the system that we were discussing earlier. Real quick, just to show you where our costs go, roughly 60% of our costs go towards operation and maintenance followed by capital projects at about 18%. The sub funds taking up about 14 and then debt service at a little less than 10%. So real quick, I did just want to give you a primer on how our rates are calculated. The restructured agreement for water supply dictates how we set our costs. Basically what it says is that we need to take the costs of the operations and maintenance of the system and divide that by the amount of water sold. And the amount of water sold is either the lesser of the last 12 months of actual deliveries or the last three years annual average. We've had significant low deliveries the last couple of years. So as you can see in the slide, we are using the 12 month figure this time, which gives us a average acre foot of about 1,173. This is a very simplified example of how our rates are set, but we wanted to show it to you so you can see our rates are fully volumetric. And that means all else being equal if we're budgeting with lower deliveries, rates are gonna increase in vice versa. In fact, I did just want to mention, so this year compared to next year, this is an 8.5% reduction in budgeted deliveries. And that means that about 90% or more of our rate increase is actually solely attributable to the fact that we're budgeting off of low deliveries. So we understand the impacts of rate increases on our water contractors and their customers. We do have a responsibility to reliably maintain and operate our system. So to address the impacts of these lower deliveries and how they're affecting our rate, we did take a couple of steps. We did identify $2.4 million in lower priority maintenance projects that we could defer a little bit longer. And we took those out of the budgets. We did increase the use of grants, bond proceeds and fund balance this year quite significantly. It's gonna total about 18.15 million. And then the water contractors do also have a discretionary aqueduct capital charge that they can elect to raise or lower. Some of the water contractors did elect to change that this year and some of them elected to keep it the same. The net effect of this is we were able to bring the initial rate increase, which was gonna be higher than 20% down to about 10.56%. So this slide shows you the proposed rates for the three main aqueducts that we serve. As you can see, they range from about 9.42 to 10.56%. Without the use of the additional bonds and fund balance and grants that we didn't program in there, the rate increases would have been even higher. As I mentioned, water contractors do have the discretion to set their discretionary aqueduct charge. Santa Rosa elected to keep theirs the same as next year. It's important to note that this is a rate stabilization tool and so it builds fund balance for capital projects in the future. So that will allow Santa Rosa to fund the projects that are in the long-range financial plan. Once again, because our rate is fully volumetric, about 90% of the rate increase is attributable just to the lower deliveries. The remainder is those increased costs in the O&M fund where we have to address the deferred maintenance that we've been putting off in previous years. And we've done that as that was an active rate reductions in the last couple of years in working with our water contractors as we saw the needs of multiple natural disasters, COVID, pandemics, to try and keep the rates low. That did allow us to keep rates below 5%, both in the last five and 10 years on average. However, we couldn't continue to do that. So rate comparison real quick, our no two systems are exactly alike. So this is not exactly apples to apples, but this slide does compare our wholesale water rates to other water wholesalers in the Bay Area. As you can see, Sonoma water is on the far left-hand side. We do have some of the lowest rates. We have been talking with all these other water contractors or water wholesalers and they are all looking, facing the same pressures that we are. They're looking at rate increases of 5.5 to 15% for next fiscal year. Okay, so real quick, so what does the future hold? We're all long-range financial plan currently has about $273 million in projects going out to 2030 that would affect the rates on the Santa Rosa aqueduct. These projects, they're primarily hazard mitigation, resiliency projects and maintenance projects with a little bit of biological opinion as well. What this means for rates, our current model, and this is a very, very conservative model, shows four years of rate increases higher than they have been in the past between 6.3 and 11.3%. And then going back down, subsequently to that, back down to 4% in the out years. Once again, I just wanna say this is a very conservative model. It's got a lot of assumptions built into it, including future water deliveries. There's no grant funding built into this and Sonoma water has been very successful at securing grant funds for a lot of these projects. And we have every anticipation we would secure more grants in the future. Okay, so moving on to discussing some more specifics in terms of the proposed budgetary impacts that these changes would have. Just for context, Santa Rosa water under our currently adopted rate structure, we have two more years of rate increases locked in, those being 3% effective July 2023 and 4% I believe effective July 2024. I spoke briefly in the introduction about how that rate model has a maximum 6% wholesale water rate increase kind of baked into the model. So to put this into context for you, for example, the 10.56% projected increase would supersede that 6% ceiling on the wholesale water rate by approximately $750,000 in our water purchase budget. And if the 11.3% projected amount comes to fruition, that would climb to $1.8 million unplanned increase. And as I spoke to in the introduction, we're planning on absorbing those differences utilizing our undesignated fund balance. Next slide, please. And in terms of customer specific impacts, because we do have two more years of the rate model locked in, our customers are going to see no direct impact as our funds are going to cover the difference so that they won't see any difference on their water bills from what's already been proposed and adopted through our rate structure. In terms of adjustment to possible future rate cycles, if those 10.56% and the 11% come to fruition in the next two years, we estimate that we would need to increase our overall water rate structure 5% per year for the next two years consecutively, just to cover the water purchase budget and the impacts that those increases have on our rate model. And that's before considering MOUs, COLA's, benefits, utilities, all the ordinary operational expenses that we would expect to escalate year over year. So next steps, this is our last presentation to city councils and water district boards. We will then take it to the water advisory committee on April 3rd. And finally, we will go to Sonoma's Water Board on April 18th. So in summary, I do just wanna say, we understand the impacts these rates have on all the water contractors. We did take all the steps that we could, including lowering our budget by $3.5 million next fiscal year to help offset the impacts of these low deliveries. That being said, we are facing all the same pressures that Nick just mentioned with inflation and increased costs. Some of the measures we did take include locating that $2.4 million in deferred maintenance projects, increasing the use of offsetting revenue, fully utilizing the course cost share of 65% for the Dry Creek project. And one thing I failed to mention earlier, we also are dipping into our reserves. In fact, this year, we're proposing to dip in at least $1.5 million into our reserve in order to cover revenue shortfalls. We're currently estimating revenue shortfalls between four and $6 million. And that could increase with some recent developments in the water world. So while these rate increases are higher than anticipated, they are necessary to fund the critical infrastructure and ensure that we have a reliable system to serve all the community members in both Sonoma and Marin County. Thank you. Thank you for that presentation. Looking to council members to see if there are any questions. Council Member O'Cropkey. Thank you very much. First question. Can you, there's a lot of rate increase this time deferred then up by this, then offset. Can you drill it down for a layman to be it easily digestible? What if this 10, 10.56, is that correct? Yes. We're to pass what that would look like over a period of time for your average customer? I don't have that information currently available, but to reiterate, at least for the next two years, because we have an adopted rate schedule, our customers will see no adverse impacts on their water bills, at least for the next two fiscal years. And I can also state that our revenues are going up or water sales revenues are going up 1%. That's about $560,000 total for the entire budget. And we serve approximately 600,000 customers. So that's just to give you a little bit of context, a little bit of perspective. There has been some indication. We have done some calculations, very rough calculations with various assumptions and estimates that indicate that also on the flip side that it could be $2 to $3 a month for the average consumer. Thank you. I'd like to invite Director Burke. Thank you Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Rogers and council members. So council member O'Crepkey, to answer your question and I don't have dollar figures, but at a minimum, we're gonna have to do, this rate increase goes forward. We have one time money to absorb it, but we will have to do a minimum of a 3% increase to our customers when we come back to you with the next rate setting. If the next increase goes into effect as projected by Sonoma water, we would have to do another 2% on top of that. So we're looking at potentially 5% year over year at a starting point without any increases from our uncontrolled costs, just to make up for these next two rate increases that are planned. If they would have come within what we were anticipating within the rate model projections that we'd originally gotten from Sonoma water, which was the 6%, then we wouldn't be starting out with that for our customers in the next rate setting period. Okay, thank you. Were any of the mentioned capital projects, risk mitigation projects or studies mentioned as justification for these rate increases included in past rate increase discussions? So for this particular budget, we just wanna let you know that the capital program, that entire $12.2 million or $12.3 million is fully funded by fund balance, grants, and bond proceeds. It has no effect on the rate whatsoever. Okay, so all of those things you listed on those multiple slides are just for this rate increase only. They were never a part of a justification for any prior rate increase. We have not redone budget that was in a prior budget. Some of the projects that you see on there are multi-year projects. So they may have had funds in a previous budget year. If any money on that project was not spent, it would be rolled forward and be spent in a future year. So it would only hit the rate one time. That being said, as Lynn said, the capital program is fully funded this year. It's not affecting the rate increase at all. What is affecting the rate increases, the O&M costs that I showed on the one slide, as well as the sub fund costs and debt service. Okay. Are you guys allowed to disclose what your reserves are currently at? So we have to maintain a three-month reserve, operating reserve, and we do that, and it's about nine or $10 million in this next budget coming up. We also have the Santa Rosa Aqueduct Capital Fund. As of the beginning of by July, we anticipate it's gonna have $8.5 million in it that will help fund capital projects on the aqueducts going forward. So it has $8.5 million in it. We also have another prudent reserve that Jake mentioned that we may be dipping into a 1.5 million from that reserve. And I don't have an absolute total, but I mean, we have reserves, but they're for each fund, and I think they're in the packet that we submitted, and those reserves apply to the expenses and the projects that are within that specific fund. And I would just say the prudent reserve, it's currently about $4.1 million. That is something that the WAC would need to authorize increasing, and that would have an effect on the rate if we built up that reserve farther. Okay, and my last question is pointed out earlier. As Nick pointed out earlier, these are all, these votes are recommendations. In recent history, how many times has the water board voted against the recommendation from Sonoma Water? The Water Advisory Committee? No, the Board of Supervisors. Oh, the Board of Supervisors. It has the final vote. How many times have they voted against the recommendation from Sonoma Water? I can think back to, let's see, the past maybe 10 years, they haven't voted against it. So I do know of one year when there was a 19.9% rate increase to the water contractors, the Water Advisory Committee voted no on the rate increase in budget and the Sonoma Water Board of Directors voted to approve it. Thank you, Council Member Step. Thank you for the presentation. Really interesting issue. One fact that stands out to me is the fact that there was some surprise here. I mean, we've known we've been in a drought for a while. We've known that water usage was gonna go down because it was mandated. Why were folks caught off guard by such a large price increase this year? Why wasn't it known ahead of time? So we have three years of extreme drought. We've been, in prior years, we had been building up fund balance when we had higher deliveries and we've been using those reserves over the past three years to bring down the rate and we were able to do that successfully and bring the rate down very far, and well below 5% in a couple of the past years due to fire, as Jake mentioned, fire, COVID, flood, et cetera. We were able to bring down the rate increases, but we've run out of the ability, out of reserves in this third year of the drought and we did not anticipate COVID. We did not anticipate three years of extreme drought. I would just add as well, we are bound by the Restructure Agreement for Water Supply, which says we use either the three-year annual average or the last 12 months. Deviating from that is allowable, but it requires that justification and it requires WAC approval. Had we suggested that in the last couple of years when we were trying to keep rates lower, that would have actually had the effect of increasing rates. So there was some calculation there and the biggest predictor of future use is the weather. We still don't have great models that go out farther than a certain amount of time and so there is some uncertainty there that is always gonna be there. Understood. Is there a way to smooth out the increases coming in the future? A fairly large year over your jumps. I'm sorry, can you- Is there a way to smooth out the increases over a longer range of time in the future? Is there a fairly large year over your jumps? Right, so the goal is to smooth out the rate increases and again, because of COVID and it's a hugely inflationary period, it has created this big bump in expenditures in our long range financial plan and that is pushing up the rate increase as well as operations and maintenance projects that have been deferred for a long time that can no longer be deferred and unfortunately, those projects are hitting in a year when we have very low deliveries but the goal is to try to smooth out those rate increases. We showed you a very, very conservative model. We're hoping that when we go back in and we can maybe make some adjustments in that model, add in some grant funding, maybe look at phasing and scheduling of those projects and the timing of those projects that we could smooth those rates out further on the long range financial plan but it does largely depend on the deliveries because the deliveries, it's a fully volumetric rate and the deliveries, it's very sensitive to deliveries. The $3 million in grant funding that we're putting into that next year's budget brings the rate increase down by 7%. So you can see that, I mean, the deliveries are really, really critical and unfortunately, we're expecting even lower deliveries this year because of circumstances down in North Morin right now with the landslide and that's gonna impact our deliveries even further and that may impact next year's rates. So we do what we can to smooth them out but there are circumstances that make it difficult and challenging to predict. Thank you for that clarification. Additional question, how confident are we that in a few years the rate increases are going to go down to 4%? That struck me as optimistic. That is what our current model is showing. We update the model annually. There may be new projects that come online. We are working on an asset management program. That program is, you know, once it is fully operational, it will certainly be able to provide us with more information about any other projects that need to be added to the long range financial plan. I don't, as of today, I can tell you that the model is showing 4%. Whether after next year and the year after, it will be the same after we look at the projects. I can't guarantee that it will show 4% but it is showing, as of right now, it is showing a 4% rate increase in those out years. Understood, thank you. Vice Mayor McDonald. Thank you, Mayor. I just have some clarification questions. So, and Jennifer, you can help me walk through this if you don't mind as well. My understanding is because we've had a decrease in our water consumption, then we have an increase from Sonoma water because we're not buying enough water from you because we were ordered to actually have less water use. Is that correct? We did have a requirement from the state in response to drought conditions to reduce delivery, reduce, reduce diversions from the Russian River by 20%. And so that was passed on to all the contractors with the requirement to reduce purchases approximately 20% correct. And can you tell me when that reduction was required and where you were at in your budget process for your rate increases from Sonoma water? When was that required? The requirement started in 2021. So it was in place in 2021 and 2022 and we are now no longer in that situation right now. And don't anticipate that we'll have any requirement for reduction in diversions this calendar year. So Sonoma water was aware there'd be a reduction in purchasing in 2021 when you were developing your budgets. Is that correct? We were aware of the requirements. Yes, we were also bound by the requirements of the agreement that we have with all the cities that says that we use these. The restructuring agreement required. What I'm trying to get at is when you were developing your budgets two years ago and we planned our rate increases for our users and put a cap on it, we knew then that we were gonna commit to those specific rates. But you also may have known then that we'd have a reduction in purchasing so you could have projected longer that you may have needed a difference. And then we could have projected differently to our ratepayers to be able to mitigate this big bump is what I'm trying to tie. What we did in the past and now what you'd like us to do now because of your projections that maybe could have been done two years ago. Well, there was a lot of discussion amongst us in the water contractors to keep our rates lower the last several years. We came in well below 5% for a number of years and we did that intentionally to meet the water contractor's demands for lower rate increases. And as a result, because we are bound by the restructured agreement and the water deliveries that are specified by the restructured agreement that we budget for and the fact that we have this aging infrastructure that we can no longer defer maintenance. And despite, I mean, unfortunately the timing is such that that deferred maintenance needs to be done now and the deliveries are low. But we did intentionally keep rate increases much lower and deferred even more projects over the past several years in response to what we heard from the water contractors. But we're at a point now where we have very low deliveries, lower deliveries even than we anticipated after a third year of drought, which we did not anticipate. And then we have COVID on top of that that drove up prices. So it was somewhat of a perfect storm. Thank you for that clarification. Jennifer, do we have any deferred maintenance programs for the city of Santa Rosa water? Yes, we do. We have significant deferred maintenance. Any idea how much those would cost the city of Santa Rosa for us to fix all of our deferred maintenance? Oh, goodness. On the water side, I believe over the next 10 years we're under investing by about 26 million a year. So I believe that is the correct number, year over year. So we all have some deferred maintenance when it comes to water, it sounds like in the county. So that's helpful to know when we go meet with our federal partners that they need to be doing a little bit more to help us out with that. So I think my biggest concern is the projections and as council members job said, that we were unaware of maybe this projection and high increase to the rates. And so I will not be voting in favor of this high event increase. And I think that's probably clear with my questioning that I feel that there needed to be some more planning that needed to be done so that we were not surprised as well as our rates and that we could make sure that we were making good decisions. And so I appreciate the good report. I think it's important for us to know what our partners are dealing with and so that we can work effectively with you, but then also so that we can plan appropriately for our residents and our users. So thank you. Council Member Ocracki. Yeah, just one more follow-up question. Can you remind me how far out do you do your modeling? I don't have a long-range financial plan. Well, we have a five-year capital program, capital projects plan. The model itself goes out longer, but as you go further along on the time scale, there is more uncertainty in terms of the timing of projects and the cost of projects that will occur out further along on that time scale, but we do have projects planned out to 15, 20 years. So for this round of rate discussions, when was the first number determined for the rate increase? So to expand off of Council Member Stapp's question, you said that the next rate increase, your modeling suggests 4%, correct? In next fiscal year, I think it was 10.6% or 11.3%. 11.3. 11.3, it was gonna be several years out before we got down to 4%. But it is, again, a very conservative model, and it has built into it certain assumptions about water deliveries as well as grant funding. There was no grant funding added, and there are capital projects in there that the timing may or may not change out in the future. All right, so it was 11 and you got it down to four. What was the original number for this right round? What was the original number for this? You mean at the time when Santa Rosa did the rate study? Yes. I don't know when they... It was in the 4% to 6% range. So it was in the 4% to 6% range, and now it's 10 and a half. And then the next round is 11.3, but you got it down to four. So that's 150% off both ways each time. Right, and as a way... All right, thank you. I'd just like to ask a few questions. So the initial rate increase that you brought first before we got to the one we're at now was how much? 20%. For this year, it was over 20%. Over 20%. Yes. Okay, big difference. And I wanted to ask about your projects for your infrastructure repairs and upgrades for 2022 to 2023. How many projects did you start and have completed during that time period? I don't know that we have an exact number. I mean, I think on the list right now, we have 45 projects that are on that list. We did an analysis and provided to the budget subcommittee of the technical advisory committee. We provided a spreadsheet that showed exactly how much in terms of actuals plus encumbered agreements that had been spent versus what had been planned. And it aligned very well with the exception of the cathodic protection that had been deferred as well as the tank maintenance program that had been deferred. So we were very much very close on all of the projects with the exception of the couple that had been deferred. And yes, so. And how many projects from 2020, for this budget cycle, how many projects are you anticipating that you're going to start and come to completion? We believe that the majority of projects, depending on various circumstances that, I mean, circumstances occur during the course of the year that can cause our management to make changes to priorities. And if there are emergencies, our management may make certain decisions about, we have to address the emergency so this project can't get done. Instead, we address with them the emergency. But we expect that we will be accomplishing the budget and the projects that are within this budget. On schedule, I would say. I mean, a majority of our projects or a lot of our projects are not single year projects. A lot of them span multiple years. Right. And actually for fiscal year 2223, we're expecting that, again, if you include actual expenditures plus the encumbered agreements that are part of that budget, we were gonna be over or exceed our budget for 2223. Okay. I think I'm more wanting to look at the actual expenditures because we can plan money that we're going to spend but more so the actual expenditures. And then my last question is, if you're very successful at receiving grant funding, why wasn't that being built in to your model? We do intend to go back and build that into the model and we will be able to provide that information in the next cycle. This again is just and to be an example to show you, if there was no grant funding and if all the projects occurred on time, these would be your rate increases. We don't anticipate that that will be what it is going forward. But we also haven't actually gotten that grant funding yet but we would program in what we would expect that we could get for some of those capital projects. And then there would be some decisions made about whether or not those projects can wait until that grant funding is actually awarded to do those projects. But we will be including, in the next cycle, we will be including grant funding for the projects that we believe we would be able to get grant funding for in the next cycle for the next long range financial plan. Thank you. And Director Burke, I am very confused at why the city of Santa Rosa chose to only do a 6% increase and was that being conservative or was that, so can you break it down for me one more time? Sure, so we actually don't have a 6% rate increase. When we lasted our water rates and we are in the middle of a four-year rate cycle, year three will be implemented in July, we had discussions with our rate consultant and looked back at historical expenditures from the water agency and rate increases and discussions with the water agency going forward. And we had noticed that they consistently came in between four and 6% and that was what was projected out in their long range financial plan. So initially our rate consultant had actually recommended that we plug in a 5% wholesale rate increase to arrive and there's many factors that go into our rate increase because it's all the expenditures that we have. I, it was actually my decision to make it a 6% rate increase just in case Sonoma Water was gonna come in on the higher end and so that's what we built in year over year for our last rate schedule. That resulted in, as Nick mentioned, a couple years where we had 2% rate increases for a testament, 3% and then 4%. So we built in what we thought would be the maximum rate increase we would see year over year from Sonoma Water. And that is what's included and that's what arrived at our rate structure. And for this coming fiscal year, as well as next fiscal year, we will do as directed by council and ensure that our budget aligns with what those rate increases are if there are one-time funds that we need to spend out of reserves, we can look at that. But unfortunately this is gonna be an ongoing compounded cost and so we're gonna have to catch up for that in future years. Thank you. Are there any additional questions from council? Saying none. Madam City Clerk, may you please conduct public comment? Thank you. We are now taking public comment on item 14.1. If you are in council chamber, I would like to provide a comment but have not provided a speaker card or your name. Please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand or dial star nine. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the conclusion of that period. Seeing no one making their way to the podiums and no hands being raised via Zoom. Additionally, we had no advanced public comment on this item. Thank you. Are there any comments from council members? All right, council member staff, can you please make? Oh, yes, sir. Just a thanks again for coming and presenting a really difficult topic. I mean, we've raked you over the coals tonight but you knew that was coming. What's clear is that we're gonna have to pay more for water in the coming years. It's just a matter of how we, you know, keep ourselves from getting caught off guard and find a way to fund it. Both the water itself and all the infrastructure. So thanks again for coming in tonight. Council member staff, can you please make a motion? I'd like to make a motion to advise the Water Advisory Committee representative, Mayor Rogers, to support the rate increase as proposed by Sonoma Water. Seeing no second, Madam City Attorney, can you please advise? The council, any council member may make an alternative motion for the council to consider. Thank you. Is there an alternative motion? Can I try again? Yes, sir. All right, take two. I'd like to make a motion to advise the water advisory committee representative, Mayor Rogers, to oppose the rate increase as proposed by Sonoma Water. Second. I have a motion by council member staff and a second by Vice Mayor McDonald. Madam City Clerk, may you please call the vote. Thank you. Council member staff. Aye. Council member Rogers is absent. Council member O'Crepkey. Aye. Council member Fleming is absent. Council member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. Let the record show this motion passes with five affirmative votes. Thank you. We will now move up to item 13, which is our public comment on non-agenda matters. Madam City Clerk, may you please conduct public comment? Thank you, Mayor. We are now taking public comments on non-agenda items. If you are in the council chamber and would like to comment, but have not provided a speaker card or your name, please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand or dial star nine. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the conclusion of that period. We do have one public comment from council chamber thus far. The first speaker will be Barbara Walsh. Having me, I am a member of the County of Sonoma Civil Grand Jury. And I'm just here to let everyone know it's a wonderful group of people. There are 19 of us. We investigate governmental entities in the county in response to citizen complaints. And we are responsible for a lot of positive change in the county. We are a group of volunteers. We commit to 10 to 15 hours a week. And I have met some absolutely wonderful people during my term. It's a year long term. We can meet by Zoom or we meet in person. And I want to let you know that the period for applications is drawing to a close. It's April 17th. So the application can be done online. And I just really urge everyone who has the time to think about it. It's really wonderful for the community and you will meet wonderful people. And it does a lot of good for the community. I do have an informational sheet if anyone is interested in reviewing this. And I just really urge you to consider it. It's been really wonderful for me. Thank you so much. Thank you, seeing no additional public comments from council chamber. Mayor, there are no hands being raised via Zoom and there are no prerecorded voicemail comments for non-agenda matters. Thank you. And if you wanted to leave the information sheet at the top, we'll share. Thank you. We'll be going to item 15.1, which is our first public hearing of the night. Madam city manager. Thank you. Item 15.1 is West Barham Avenue and Barham Avenue rezoning. City planner Suzanne Hartman will lead the discussion. And if you could please introduce your team. Thank you. Good afternoon, mayor and members of the council. My name is Amy Nicholson and I am the supervising planner for current development or current planning. And Suzanne Hartman city planner will be making the presentation. Good evening, mayor and fellow city council members. I am presenting the application number R-E-Z-Z, R-E-Z 22-003 for the proposed rezoning of seven parcels located along the north side of West Barham Avenue and Barham Avenue. So the applicants is requesting that the property located at 11 West Barham Avenue be reclassified from the planned development, which is PD 96-002 zoning district to the light industrial zoning district. And staff also recommended that the rezoned boundary be expanded to include six additional properties for general plan consistency. As you can see on the slide here, this is the rezoned map, which includes the seven parcels all located on the north side of West Barham Avenue and Barham Avenue. The current land use at the property of 11 West Barham Avenue consists of various warehousing facilities and no new development is currently proposed for the site. The subject properties that are surround, the subject properties are surrounded by various residential developments along both West Barham Avenue and Barham Avenue. And there are various warehouse and wholesaling developments to the north and vehicle services to the south. The current land use at 11 West Barham Avenue consists of industrial commercial uses and the other existing uses on the property proposed in this reclassification will be in compliance with the newly proposed light industrial zoning district, which is also consistent with the general plan. So here is the project history, which was submitted last year. Notices were distributed both to surrounding properties as well as the property owners of the selected parcels. On January 12th, the planning commission was, staff and planning commission was able to make findings for this proposed rezoned. And it was recommended that city council introduce the ordinance to reclassify the seven parcels located along the streets from plan development to light industrial. Here are the required findings that must be made and the findings have been outlined further in the resolution that has been presented in front of you. The project has been found to be in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, also known as CEQA pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15183I. The proposed rezoning of the seven selected parcels qualify for a streamlining measure because the proposed rezoning is consistent with the general plan for which an environment impact report was certified by council in 2009. No public comments have been received for this application. And it is therefore recommended by the planning and economic development department and the planning commission that the city council by ordinance approve and adopt the rezoning of seven properties located along West Barham Avenue and Barham Avenue from PD96-002 zoning district to the light industrial zoning district consistent with the general plan. If you have any questions, this is my contact information and I do believe that the applicant is present on Zoom if any questions rise. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions from council? Council member Okrepke. Yeah, should this go through? Will there be any properties that are non-conforming? No, none of the properties will be non-conforming. They will all be consistent and in compliance with the new zone in light industrial. Thank you. Seeing no additional questions. Council member Alvarez. Thank you. In regards to the design review of requirements from the present zoning to the zoning that's being introduced, what's the difference in requirements for these additional properties or lack of requirements? Essentially, I think a main difference of this being turned to light industrial is that instead of some industrial uses that can be permitted in this zone, will no longer have to be always a conditional use permit. It can sometimes be permitted by right or by a minor conditional use permit. The current zoning does allow for some uses in industrial but they all would require a conditional use permit. So the process would be a little bit more lenient depending on the use. Thank you. All right, we will now open our public hearing. Madam City Clerk. Thank you, mayor. We are now taking public comment on item 15.1. If you are in council chamber would like to comment but have not provided a speaker card or your name, please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand or dial star nine. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the conclusion of that period. Mayor, I see no public comments from council chamber. Additionally, I see no hands being raised via Zoom and no advance public comment when received. We will now close the public hearing and we'll bring you back to council for any final comments. Council Member Alvarez. Madam City Attorney, is it proper for me to ask what plan uses the owners have for this property? You may ask but it's not, there is no application for use at this time. But you can ask. Very well. But understand that. We're not holding the applicant to them. And the change could, anything that's in their minds now may change. Very well. I will pose the question to the applicants if they have any intended use at this point for this property. Or why, I guess the proper question is what's motivating them for ask for the change in zoning? As of right now, there is nothing proposed. I assume that because it's a warehousing site that they were probably introducing something on the industrial side and it's, if it is rezoned to light industrial, it is just a, and what would you say, a more lenient process versus conditional? I think one of the benefits of the proposed rezoning is that the light industrial zoning district allows for just a broader range of industrial uses that the plan development does not. So I am not aware of any conversations that have occurred related to the use of this site. I believe the application states that it's for general plan consistency, again to allow a broader range of light industrial type uses. But I do believe the applicant is on Zoom. So perhaps they can raise their hand and maybe can add to that. Thanks. Possibly in Nick Abbott. There's no one on Zoom under that name. The answer will suffice. All right, seeing no additional questions. Council Member Alvarez, can you please make a motion? Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd like to introduce ordinance of the Council of the City of San Rosa and many title 20 of the City of San Rosa, coded by reclassifying seven properties located along West Barham Avenue and Barham Avenue from the plan development 96-002, Zoning District to the light industrial zoned district IL, file number REZ22-003 and waive further reading of the text. Second. We have a motion made by Council Member Alvarez and a second by Council Member Stapp. Is there any discussion from Council seeing none? Madam City Clerk, can you please take the vote? Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Stapp. Aye. Council Member Rogers is absent. Council Member Ocrubke. Aye. Council Member Fleming is absent. Council Member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. And Mayor Rogers. Aye. Let the record show that motion passes with five affirmative votes. Looking to those that are sitting up here, does anyone need a break or can we keep going? Break? Okay, we will take about a 15, 20 minute break and we'll be back at six o'clock. Thank you so much. Seeing a quorum, we will now reconvene our meeting and Madam City Clerk. Thank you, Mayor, for a roll call. Council Member Stapp. Here. Council Member Rogers is absent. Council Member Ocrubke. Here. Council Member Fleming is absent. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor McDonald. Here. And Mayor Rogers. Present. Thank you. Let the record show that all Council Members are present with the exception of Council Members Rogers and Fleming. Thank you. Madam City Manager, can we proceed to 15.2? Yes, thank you. Item 15.2 is a public hearing. Tefra Public Hearing and issuance of bonds by the California Municipal Finance Authority in an aggregate amount not to exceed 30 million for Bennett Valley Apartments 702 and 716 Bennett Valley Road and 921 and 927 Rutledge Avenue. Program Specialist Julie Garan will lead the discussion. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. I'm Nicole Del Pirantino. I'm the Housing and Community Services Manager for the Housing Trust Division. Today we have the Tefra Public Hearing for you for Bennett Valley Apartments at 702 and 716 Bennett Valley Road and 921 and 927 Rutledge Avenue. Julie Garan, Program Specialist, will be presenting. Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council Members. My name is Julie Garan and I'm a Program Specialist for Housing and Community Services. Tonight's Tefra Public Hearing is for Bennett Valley Apartments. Per the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act or TEFRA of 1982 and section 147 F of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, jurisdictions are required to hold a public hearing and receive public comment. Jurisdictions are also required to approve the issuance of bonds prior to an award by the state. The City of Santa Rosa is the approving jurisdiction for this Tefra hearing. Please note this action by the council will have no fiscal impact on the general fund. All financial costs and repayment obligations are the sole responsibility of the developer. The project that we seek approval for today is Bennett Valley Apartments located at 702 and 716 Bennett Valley Road, 921 and 927 Rutledge Avenue. This site is the former Bennett Valley Senior Center. Bennett Valley Apartments is a 62-unit affordable housing development with a 51% set aside for formerly homeless individuals and households. The affordability mix for the project includes 32 units targeted to households with incomes up to 30% of area media income and 29 units at up to 50% AMI and one unrestricted managers unit. The bedroom mix includes 19 studios, 19 one bedrooms, nine two bedrooms and 15 three bedroom units. In June of 2021, the city council approved a disposition and development agreement for low income housing development on a city property. In January of 2022, the council declared the real property owned by the city and located at 702 716 Bennett Valley Road and 921 and 927 Rutledge Avenue as exempt surplus land and exempt from California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA. It is recommended by the Housing and Community Service Department that the council one conduct a public hearing under the requirements of the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as amended and two by resolution approve the issuance of tax exempt multifamily housing revenue bonds by the California Municipal Finance Authority in an aggregate amount not to exceed 30 million to finance and refinance the acquisition, construction, development and equipping of Bennett Valley Apartments, a 62 unit affordable housing project located at 702 and 716 Bennett Valley Road and 921 and 927 Rutledge Avenue within the city of Santa Rosa. Thank you. Thank you for that presentation. Council, do we have any questions? Seeing none, we will now open our public hearing. Madam City Clerk. Thank you, Mayor. We are now taking public comments on item 15.2. If you are in the chamber and would like to make a comment but have not provided a speaker card or your name, please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand or dial star nine. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the conclusion of that period. Mayor, I see no one approaching the podiums for public comment in council chamber. We have no hands raised via Zoom and we receive no advanced public comment on this item. Thank you. We will now close our public hearing. Council, are there any final questions or comments? Seeing none, Council Member Alvarez, if you can please make a motion. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd like to introduce the resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Rosa, approving the issuance of qualified residential rental project bonds in an amount not to exceed $30 million by the California Municipal Finance Authority in accordance with section 147F of the Internal Revenue Code and the Joint Exercise of Powers Agreement relating to said authority and waive further reading of the text. Second. We have a motion by Council Member Alvarez and a second by Council Member O'Crepkey. Seeing no discussion from Council, Madam City Clerk, may you please call the vote. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Stapp. Aye. Council Member Rogers is absent. Council Member O'Crepkey. Aye. Council Member Fleming is absent. Council Member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. And Mayor Rogers. Aye. Let the record show this resolution passes with five affirmative votes. Thank you very much. We'll now move back up to item 14.2, which is our last report item for tonight. Madam City Manager. Item 14.2, a report request for summary vacation of one public sanitary sewer access easement located at 4332 Highway 12 Sonoma Highway, parcel number 032-010-009 and 032-010-043, file number VAC 22-002, City Planner Suzanne Hartman will present. Thank you. Good evening again, Mayor Rogers and members of the Council. I am presenting the summary vacation of public sewer easement located at 4332 Highway 12, application number VAC 22-002. The applicant seeks a summer vacation of a sanitary sewer access easement that has been relocated. Relocating the easement is necessary for the orderly development of the approved storage to projects, and there are no other public facilities located within this easement. This is the location of the easement, as well as the proposed project. The project site is zoned as general commercial and the general plan land use designation is retail and business services. The site is surrounded by various retail and residential uses. The proposed project was reviewed and approved by the zoning administrator in September of 2019 and the design review board in November of 2019. The relocated sanitary sewer access easement was granted by easement deed on April 13th, 2022, and the application was received in October of last year requesting the subject summary vacation of the public sewer easement. This is the sewer easement that is requesting to be vacated, and this is the relocated sanitary sewer access easement again granted of April last year. So pursuant to Streets and Highways Code Section 8333 in parentheses C, the city may summarily vacate a public service easement by relocation, and there are no other public facilities located within the easement. Pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15162, no additional environmental review is required as there have been no major revisions to this project and there is no information showing that the project proposes a substantial increase in the severity of previously identified significant effects. So it is therefore recommended by the Planning and Economic Development Departments that the Council, by resolution, approve a summary vacation of a public sanitary sewer access easement located at 4332 Highway 12 to allow the development of Storage Pro 2, a three-story 30-unit apartment building and a three-story self-storage facility. Any questions? Sorry. It's okay. Thank you for that presentation. Look into Council to see if there are any questions or comments. Then we will now go to public comment. Madam City Clerk. Thank you, Mayor. We are now taking public comment on item 14.2. If you are in the Council chamber, I would like to make a comment but have not provided a speaker card or your name. Please make your way to the podium. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand or dial star nine. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer and we will alert at the conclusion of that period. Mayor, there is no one in Council chamber wishing to provide public comment in person. There are no hands being raised via Zoom and we received no advanced public comments on this item. Thank you. Council Member Ocrepke, can you please make a motion? Sure, I'll move a resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Rosa, approving summary vacation of one public sanitary sewer access easement located at 4332 Highway 12, Sonoma Highway for the Storage Pro 2 project, assesses parcel numbers 032-010-009 and 032-010-043, file number VAC-2202 and wave for the reading of the text. Second. We have a motion made by Council Member Ocrepke and a second by Council Member Stapp. Are there any questions or comments from Council seeing none, Madam City Clerk, can you please call the vote? Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Stapp. Aye. Council Member Rogers is absent. Council Member Ocrepke. Aye. Council Member Fleming is absent. Council Member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. And Mayor Rogers. Aye. Let the record show this resolution passes with five affirmative votes with Mayor or Chris Rogers and Council Member Fleming absent. We will go now down to item 16. We have no written communications. So to 17 will be our second public comment of the night for non-agenda items. Madam City Clerk. Mayor, there is no one in Council Chamber wishing to provide public comment on non-agenda matters. There are also no hands being raised via Zoom on non-agenda matters on item 17. All right. So we will now go to item 19, which is our adjournment. And as we adjourn, I would like to thank a star player on our team, Mr. Scott Alonso, for taking us to DC, getting everything together and making sure that we did what we intended to do. So thank you so much, Scott. And this meeting is now adjourned.