 Well, good morning, everybody. Welcome to our 10 30 a.m. Public portion of the closed session of the August 27th 2019 meeting of the City Council and this part of the meeting the council will receive public testimony Thereafter the council member members will move to the courtyard conference room for a closed session I'd like to ask our clerk to thank you mayor Count the members crone lover present Myers you're Brown here Matthews Currently vice mayor Cummings and mayor Watkins Are there any members of the public who would like to see any of the items on closed session agenda? Me seeing none. We'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting to our courtyard conference room where the council will go into its closed session We're ready Okay, well good afternoon everybody and welcome to our 12 15 now 12 25 p.m. Session of the August 25th 2019 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. I'd like to ask our clerk to please call the roll. Thank you council members crone Your lover present Myers your brown here Matthews your vice mayor Cummings here and mayor Watkins here And ask our clerk to please lead us in the pleasure So we'll go ahead and have an opportunity now to have some introductions of new employees and We'll go ahead and start with our interim assistant city manager and director of IT Laurel Laura Schmidt who will introduce Ralph thank you very much Mayor vice mayor and council members Laura Schmidt the interim assistant city manager I'd like to introduce Ralph de Maricott. He is our new principal management analyst in the city manager's office Ralph received his bachelor of arts and Asian studies and a master's in public administration from San Diego State University His professional experience includes surveys as a serving as a community representative and communications Advisor for a few assembly members and state senators as well as director of communications Senior policy advisor and most recently the deputy chief of staff to the city of San Diego's city council president He moved to Santa Cruz three months ago. Welcome with his dog Mars and They are having a great time settling into their new apartment and see bright as well as going to our local Dog parks and taking advantage of all the different things to do in Santa Cruz. Please welcome Ralph Welcome Ralph. Thanks for jumping right in Okay, we'll go ahead and next invite up our director for the library Susan Thank You mayor, I'm so excited to be able to introduce Philip Garcia We were lucky enough to steal him from the Salinas public schools He's working for our library IT department as a library IT specialist one He lives in Salinas with his wife and is interested in cars amongst many other things I just have to say one of the reasons we hired him is because we heard you won employee of the month a lot Please welcome Philip Welcome Philip I'll go ahead and now see if our director for economic development Bonnie Lipscomb wants to come up and introduce her new Good afternoon mayor members of the council. It is my pleasure to introduce Ali Cameron Ali first joined the city as a temporary worker last December and has recently been hired full-time as Economic Development Coordinator and we're really excited to have her here permanently Ali is responsible for managing our trolley program facade improvement and signage programs and she's actually actually just Just went through a whole streamlining process, which has been great and working with about 12 to 15 awardees about She helps manage our communication strategy with our ed team including social media and is a grant writing guru Some of you have already had the opportunity to work with Ali on some grant opportunities Ali comes to us from CSUMB She was a program officer for grant development supporting faculty and staff and their submissions process budgeting all RFPs And she's recently working on several grants here at the city including with the Economic Development Administration for our local sports industry cluster study and through the National League of Cities on the Innovation Ecosystem Grant opportunity She was born in Minnesota and went to went to school there and went to graduate school at Monterey Institute And she's I've definitely worked on peace building in the environment lived abroad done a variety of really interesting things She loves nature and dance you can actually attend one of her yoga or Zumba classes and she teaches at 24-hour Fitness And she has a zoom valley. Did I pronounce that right? Okay zoom valley Channel on YouTube so it has quite a following She also these are just so interesting. I had to share it. She also raises savannahs And is looking for foster families a savannah is a cross between a serval and a tabby cat They're amazingly Exciting and beautiful cats and very personable. She's lived in Santa Cruz for a year and a half and she lives downtown Our favorite thing about Santa Cruz is entrepreneurial spirit people here make things happen Favorite natural spot is nearly lagoon. It's always like to say what's your favorite park? Working at the city. She loves a variety of work and has been really inspired since she's been here working with the local business owners Innovators and entrepreneurs, so welcome join me in welcoming Ali So we'll go ahead and now ask our director of public works mr. Mark Dettel to come up and introduce Afternoon Mark Dettel director of public works. It's my pleasure to introduce Robert Domingo Robert is our new environmental microbiologist 3 and Robert started with us at the wastewater treatment facility as a temporary worker and and we're happy to have him on as a full-time position What what Robert focuses on is testing the plant process water and local and local waterways for Microbiology presence and effect on living organisms, so it's important to check our wastewater and make sure that we're getting correct treatment Raro's born in Redwood City and is raised in San Mateo currently lives in midtown and He is his parents and siblings still live in the Bay Area his past work experience recently he was doing pre-lance Electroplating which is kind of interesting and he received a BS in Euro science from UCSC When he's not working he likes he spends time doing music production and playing disc golf at the La Viega and Any other fun facts he says he can ride his bike without using the handlebars But we kind of had a had a discussion about not doing that so So anyway, please join me and welcoming Robert I'll like to now invite up director of water and we have Rosemary Menard Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. It's my pleasure I'm here to introduce today Liz duster She's a new water quality technician and the theme song of today's introductions is somebody starts the temp And then we hire them full-time. So Liz came to us as a temp She had a great experience working for the San Clara Valley water district where she really discovered her passion for Freshwater ecology and field sampling sampling techniques, which is what she sort of focused on with their UCSC Science and ecology and evolutionary biology. That's her degree. So she has some things in common with some folks up there. I'm sure she is She did work at Berkeley College before moving to UCSC and she's worked in the hospitality and legal industries like I said, she moved to She did some work as an intern at Santa Clara Valley Water District and that really gave her a trajectory to work with us She is living in Felton and when she's not working. She loves to kayak garden and go on road trips So please welcome Liz welcome Liz Nice group of new hires. So welcome all to the city Okay, so we'll go ahead and now move on to our presentation portion of today's meeting and I Have a couple of proclamations and then we'll have a presentation from our water director so we'll go ahead and start with Declaring and having the first presentation on Muslim appreciation month I know that some of the folks need to leave so we'll go ahead and start with your Presentation and then proclamation. So please come forward Hello mayor and counsel. Thank you so much for honoring the state's designation of August being Muslim appreciation and awareness month So this is actually the fourth year that this proclamation Or that this designation has occurred with the state of California. And so we appreciate that Santa Cruz has Is presenting this proclamation again, I know that your city did so last year. So we truly appreciate it Especially important So it's especially important, you know, given kind of the state of affairs that we're right now I think it's a conspiracy We're gonna try with this one So, I mean, I think these does these proclamations are especially important especially given You know, the the current climate that we're in right now with the device of rhetoric from, you know The highest office all the way down and to have our local level our city councils our counties Recognize the Muslim community as part and parcel of our greater community. It truly means a lot You know Muslims have Built this country Since even before this country even existed. We've been part of this Of the founding of this country. We are your doctors your lawyers your, you know, we have your civil rights advocates your Chefs your taxi drivers. We are what makes this country or we what are helping make this country run And so to again to have the city of Santa Cruz Recognize the this Muslim appreciation awareness month. We truly appreciate it. So thank you so much and we're gonna have somebody a representative from the Islamic Center of Santa Cruz Hi, good afternoon mayor vice mayor council members and city of Santa Cruz. We're really appreciative of this recognition So, thank you I'd like to bring to your attention and to our kind of collective awareness in this gathering What I and my Muslim community have been feeling which is the impact of Islamophobia on our community here in Santa Cruz and the Bay Area's whole Muslim women myself included how aware their religion on their heads and can feel intimidated walking the streets even in this liberal bubble That is the Bay Area Sometimes it can be an unfriendly stare in a shopping mall a racist comment or even an intimidating approach while at the streets Mall or a hospital a new study released by care shows that 53% of all Muslim students have faced bullying at school And which what is must much worse is that 38% of those students have actually experienced bullying at the hands of their teachers or professors Also many employees have filed in one lawsuits against their employers based on religious discrimination We ask of you as our representatives to speak up when you hear the rhetoric that will add more confusion and conflict to our city We ask of our civic leaders to encourage the community to stop being distracted by headlines to call out What happens to a mosque as a hate crime instead of simply a dispute and to have the courage instead of waiting for others to take action And again on behalf of the Santa Cruz Muslim community. Thank you for this recognition. Thanks Thank you for being here and for your presentations and for so articulate articulately phrasing Exactly the importance of these actions on behalf of our local government to make a difference So I have the honor of having a proclamation. I'll read a few of the where as is and then I'll come down and hand it to you So where as freedom of religion holds Distinction as a cherished right and a fundamental value upon which the law and ethics of the United States are based and whereas in 1996 the Islamic Center of Santa Cruz was set was established and serves the spiritual and cultural needs of the Muslim community in Santa Cruz Hosting Islamic activities seminars and workshops and encouraging civic participation and responsibility And whereas the city of Santa Cruz seeks to further embrace its diverse community and afford all residents the opportunity to better understand Recognize and appreciate the rich history and shared principles principles of American Muslims Now therefore I martin Watkins mayor of the city of Santa Cruz do hereby proclaim the month of August 2019 as American Muslim appreciation and awareness month in the city of Santa Cruz We'll go back to the other presentation we have today, which is a presentation declaring September as childhood cancer awareness month, and I believe we have Sue from creative director from Jacobs heart here. Is that yes? Good afternoon mayor vice mayor and council members. I'm here today from Jacobs heart And super happy to announce again the proclamation of September cancer awareness month For those of you who don't know about Jacobs heart. I'd like to share just a little bit about it Jacobs heart cancer children's cancer support services exist to improve the quality of life for children with cancer and To support their families and the challenges they face Every caring person can appreciate the physical and emotional devastation and occurs when a child is diagnosed with cancer or dies After a long treatment Community support make sure local children with cancer and their whole family has arrived to treatment a house to live in food to eat counseling support and love Jacobs heart services and programs are offered in Spanish and English They're provided at no cost and are generously funded from our local community So 21 years ago Laurie Butterworth founded Jacobs heart when there was a need a friend of hers son Jacob was diagnosed with cancer and one of the things that we Like to share is a quote of angel Jacobs mother when Jacob was first diagnosed I remember someone saying that God never gives you more than you can handle. I Never thought I could ever believe that again What I've learned is you can handle anything if you don't have to handle it alone So thank you again Santa Cruz City Council for supporting Jacobs heart Making sure no family goes through childhood cancer alone and We do have an event coming up in September. It's at Watsonville City Plaza. It's called kid rages It's the 21st annual annual event honoring the Kids with cancer and the memory of kids with cancer It's a day of family fun. There's music dance Games arts and crafts and great food. So we welcome you to join us there Thank you again Thank you very much for your presentation But more importantly, thank you for your work for the families that are needing your service in our community So I too have a proclamation for you So whereas the character of our community is revealed in how we treat our most vulnerable and whereas each year one in 285 children in our community are diagnosed with cancer And whereas Jacob's hearts children's cancer support services hold holds the memories and honors the legacies of hundreds of children From our local community who have been lost to cancer Ensuring that their precious memories will never be forgotten And whereas it is important for all Santa Cruz residents to recognize the impact of childhood cancer on families within our community and Honor the lives of children in our community whose lives have been cut short by cancer So now therefore I Martin Watkins mayor of the city of Santa Cruz do hereby proclaim the month of September 2019 as childhood cancer awareness month in the city of Santa Cruz and I encourage all citizens to join me in Honoring Jacob's heart children's cancer support services for its 21 years about Standing support to our community and acknowledging its contributions to childhood cancer awareness month Honoring children with cancer in our community. So thank you very much Thank you, Sue, and it's always a tough one and it's a pleasure to be able to bring awareness to it Welcome great job and thank you for your work Well, I'll go ahead now and switch over to our presentation on the mid-county ground water agency ground water sustainability plan And we have Rose Mary Menard here. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council I'm here really today to give you a very brief overview of a lot of really great work that's been going on in dealing with ground water sustainability and So I'm gonna that's gonna be very short and sweet But I think we have a lot to celebrate about the collaborative process that has generated the work that you're gonna hear very briefly about So the sustainable ground water management act is a state law It was required that we establish a ground water sustainability agents there agency There are two in the north mid northern part of the county One is the mid County ground water base and we're gonna hear about today The other ones in the Santa Margarita basin and that we prepare a ground water sustainability plan for the mid County basin by 2020 because it's a basin that's been in critical overdraft the sustainability plan has to lay out a plan to Bring the basin into sustainability by 2040 and to maintain it for 50 years after that in sustainability So for the mid County basin the main issues have been Maintain the ground water elevations prevent seawater intrusion and protect ground water dependent ecosystems So that's what you're going to sort of hear a little bit more about This is the basin boundary this sort of this blue line that goes around here is the Hydrogen geologic basin boundary you could see that parts of the city limits are in this boundary But the vast majority of the city is not in the boundary Live oak so Cal Capitola parts of Aptos are in the bat the boundary down here to La Selva beach and the uplands areas as well This is a chart that just shows how ground water is used and who's using how much you can see that the so-called creek water district Which is the ground water agency and all of its water has come from ground water? Historically is using about you know, 60% of the total water Santa Cruz uses about 9% the central water district about 7% The 9% that Santa Cruz uses is about 5% of our total supply So that's an from the belt system that you've probably heard us talk about private well-owned or small water systems Institutional that's mainly a real college And then some agricultural use so this is the sort of characteristics of the ground water use in the basin This is a pretty wordy slide and I'm not going to go through all the details But this is a history of the ground water management planning that's been going on really even before this is Planning but the sustainable ground water management act gave local agencies of Some new tools and some new requirements to work with that have been really important and thinking about How we're going to implement and how we're going to regulate ground water use in the future So that's a major issue. We're talking about in both the Santa Margarita basin and in the mid County basin The draft of the plan which is required to be submitted to the state at the end of January of 2020 for the mid County basin was published in July of 2019 it's open for public comment right now and It is going to be the subject of a hearing at the ground water management agency Microphones Bonnie do we have support here? Do we want to take a pause here for a moment and we'll get a little bit of Audio support here before we move forward Sound good Okay, sorry You can stare at the list here of the chapter Sparker Okay, yeah, okay. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you Okay, sorry for the pause here great job for Identifying the problem. Sorry about that. We'll go ahead and hand it back over to Rose. Very good The ground water sustainability plan has a very explicitly described and regulated table of contents This is the high-level overview of it I think the main things that we're going to that you want to know about is chapter three Which is the sustainable management criteria? We're going to talk a little bit more about that in the next slide I think and then projects and management actions have to be identified at plan implementation and Including the finances for how it's going to get done. So the plan includes all of these elements The there are six sustainability Indicators that have to be addressed in a ground water management plan and for this particular base in the mid-county basin The land subsidence is not an issue. It's not an issue in the Santa Margarita Basin either We don't have the hydrogeology here that's similar to say in the central valley where land subsidence is a big issue But the big issue in this basin has been seawater intrusion and the threat of seawater intrusion One of the major ways that we're dealing with this is to think about How to maintain protective ground water elevations at the coast? So you can see that this map sort of gives some indications of places where seawater intrusion is an issue There's quite a lot of detail in this map, and I'm not going to go all the way through it But there are typically monitoring wells all along the coastline here And there are some places where we know that seawater intrusion has historically come on shore By measuring water quality parameters including chloride levels of the in these monitoring wells And in the Selva Beach area there's been quite a bit of Overpumping there and the geology there I think has really resulted in seawater intrusion coming on shore there But the general strategy is to establish and maintain protective Groundwater elevations along the coast and all the monitoring wells and also be monitoring Carefully for chloride levels so that we have action plans that put in place When and if we see chloride coming on shore from seawater intrusion Fundamentally the projects and management actions group includes some baseline things that we've been doing this includes water conservation is quite a lot of Really strong conservation ethic and this basin and actually in the whole Parts of Santa Cruz County that I'm familiar with anyway so that's a major element of maintaining the sort of demand on the groundwater resources to be kind of stable and declining over time on a per capita basis and then for the sort of projects We need to implement in order to ensure sustainability for sure that the pure water soquel project is on that list as well As water transfers and exchanges and awkward storage and recovery by the city would be another item using Sort of sort surface water from our San Lorenzo sources We do have another list and you can see it in the plan if you're interested of Additional measures that could be taken in the event that we don't reach sustainability and the measures that are have been identified I just want to give you this one example this is a result from a groundwater modeling and so I'm going to get quick give you a Sort of a baseline. This is the baseline in the current well. This is a deep aquifer under the sort of one of the deepest ones This is a particular monitoring location the current groundwater elevations of that locations here the minimum threshold that we've established for that Particular site is these dotted lines of this dash line here the measurable objective is here And what you can see is with the pure water soquel project that Base level comes up and with a combination of the pure water soquel and the city's aquifer storage and recovery process That comes up even more So these are the strategies and the very specific tools that we've been using to Establish what the measures need to look like and kind of how we need to operate them over time and The couple of things just for you to know There's a there's a public meeting tomorrow at the Simpkins family swim center starts at 7 p.m It's a Q&A session that the staff will be there available to talk to folks who have questions I mentioned the September 19th public hearing comment period closes and it's not a sequel like comment period It's just some more of a general comment period and then the plan is for the amended plan as as a result of the public comments and other feedback to come in come back to the groundwater agency on November 21st and then be submitted in advance of the end of January deadline The city has two members on the groundwater sustainability board council members Matthews is a member and has been involved in the group since the kind of the beginning of that of the Santa Cruz Soquel Aptos Groundwater Management Committee that sort of created the groundwater sustainability agency and then Water Commissioner David Vaskin says that and that does the second member and with that if you have any questions You can answer them Many of the council members have questions for Rosemary. Hey seeing none. Thank you very much for the update and for all the good work that you do Okay, so we'll go ahead now and move on to the Announcements portion of the meeting so I have a few announcements and then we'll get to our regular meeting So today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 And it's streaming on the city's website at city of Santa Cruz comm All city council members can be emailed at city council at city of Santa Cruz comm If you would like to communicate with us about an agenda item We'd like to receive your email by Monday at 5 p.m. Before our council meeting This provides us an opportunity to review the email and include it with the rest of our agenda packet Please bear in mind that all items of correspondence with the city and city council Constitute public records and are generally subject to disclosure upon requests by any member of the public Accordingly if you have sensitive or private information that you do not wish to have been made public You should not include that information in your correspondence Our rules of decorum are on the window alleged to my left It's my job to keep the meeting running without disruption and we ask that you respect your fellow citizens When you're inside and outside of our council chambers I'd like to now ask if there are any council members who have statements of disqualification today Okay seeing none I'll go ahead and see if our city clerk has any additions or deletions I don't So I have a brief announcement about oral communications Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on the agenda Oral communications will occur at or around 7 p.m. This evening I'll go ahead and look to our city attorney to now report on closed session Yes, thank you mayor Watkins members of the city council City council convened in closed session this morning at 10 30 a.m. To consider the following items Item a was liability claims, which are the claims of Ronald E. Chinnitz Allison sales Jocelyn sales Robert sales Emery Doyle school field and Ray Arthur weeks those Are also listed today as item 8 on your consent agenda. There was no action taken in closed session Council also met with and gave instructions to its real property negotiator Concerning the properties at 700 River Street Five five fifty to five eighty River Street and six hundred to six fifty River Street Council gave instructions to its negotiator. There was no reportable action Council received a status report and gave direction to the city attorney on item C Pending litigation. That's the matter of hatch pomerance versus hatch and pomerance versus the city of Santa Cruz Council also met with labor negotiators including the groups supervisors oe3 executives police management association fire and police officers association the supervisors and police management association Matters are also listed on your consent agenda as items 10 and 11 Lastly, but there was no other reportable action taken Lastly the council conducted a performance evaluation of the city attorney and of the city manager. There was no reportable action I'll go ahead and now ask if our city manager Martin Bernal has any updates he'd like to provide it. Yeah, just very briefly I wanted to just give you an update on two items that and that is the golf course operations plan in the Harvey West pool Plan those are items that the council asked that we bring back to you during budget deliberations The original plan was to bring it back today because however because of the number of items on the agenda and also to provide the opportunity to have the Parks and Recreation Commission to review those items They'll be before you on September 24th, and they'll be before the Parks and Recreation Commission on September 9th So I just want to let you know about those items Thank you for the update Okay, we'll go ahead and now see if our city clerk has any updates to the calendar for our upcoming meetings I do not Bear I would make a motion that we Move the calendar to the end of this of the afternoon agenda second There's a motion in a second to move the item to the afternoon to the end of the afternoon agenda Any further discussion any public comment? Okay, see none All those in favor, please say aye opposed no Okay, that fails with councilmember crone Glover and Brown voting in support Matthews vice mayor Cummings Myers and myself voting against Okay, so we have no updates to the calendar at this time So we'll go ahead and move on to our consent agenda And those are items three through twenty three on our agenda today And they'll be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a councilmember for further discussion Are there any council members who would like to pull an item council member brown? Yes, thank you mayor and this I just want to say this is I'd like to pull item 14 this is in response to our request from a member of the public and Concerns addressed to the entire council which we received Kind of late in the game, but I did want to make sure that we address them Okay, vice mayor comment on item number 12, okay Any other items to be pulled from consent Same same thing comment on item number 12 so comment on item number 12 Nine just a question Okay, so at this time we have only item number 14 pulled from our consent agenda. Is that correct? Number five, I thought the vice mayor you weren't gonna talk about number five. He had a comment, but he didn't pull it. Oh Are you pulling iron item number five? I'll pull it then, okay, okay? We'll go ahead and Then go ahead and look for the comments on items that are on our consent agenda other than items number five and 14 Is there a comment on any items other than five and 14 from council members? Councilmember Glover. Yeah, it's more just a question with regards to the tree services. There was some Curiosity just within the public as to what our average Tree service use is and why it's so high Around 200,000. I believe it's our average so anyone here that can speak to that from staff Are you speaking to item number 12 on our consent agenda nine? I believe Yeah under nines for Ward contracts for city purchases Yeah, the tree services Good afternoon mayor vice mayor and council members I'm here to discuss the the high Cost of community tree service and Lewis tree service. These are the two firms that Our parks department has specified Are the best value for the types of services that they provide in different terrain Our parks department and our arborist authorized tree work at different times of the year sometimes to To mediate fire hazards and also natural disasters as well So we employ these two companies to work on all around the city So we've gone out to bid for these services in the past and these two Um serves these two companies have provided the greatest value to the city and are able to Act in a swift manner in emergency situations Thank you any other Any other questions from the council on this item? Thank you for being here and answering the questions And there was another comment or question for item number 12 For item number 12, um regarding the rfp announcements. I was just It's not really clear when these go out oftentimes for city council members And I was just going to just make the common potentially the recommendation that That when rfps go out if there's a Is if there's a possibility for city council members to receive emails so they can share it with the broader public in case there's Agencies or institutions companies that we may know of that we may want to forward these on to and members of the community as well I Yeah, alex I think you'd answer that you might be receiving a lot of emails so Back again So our rfps are always posted on our external website and are available to the public They're never Not available to the public at any time So all all rfps and ifs are posted on our website and we post all denda on the on the same pages And they're available for anyone to participate on we don't prohibit competition So there it's maximum participation is encouraged Okay, thank you And is there any other questions or comments on our consent agenda items aside from items 5 and 14 which have been polled 12 um A question about um when you're using the gis technology to look at the tree canopy How much human? Interaction with that goes into it. Like are are there many humans out there also Counting trees to their areas where they put people to count trees Do a question I guess around clarification around how How many people are involved in the tree counting process? Is that I think I might be able to clarify it whether or not there's a ground true thing going on In addition to the gis mapping Afternoon council members and tiffani wise was sustainability and climate action manager So you're talking about the ucsc study on tree canopy Or well about the one we're about to do so I wasn't sure how much um, that's all done in the field That's all done They go out they actually take measurements and count Okay, that was my question. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you Okay, unless there's any other questions We'll go ahead and see if there's any members of the community who want to address the council On our consent agenda other than items 5 or 14, which have been full pulled Please come forward come forward and you'll have No, you're welcome to come forward This would be your opportunity and you'll have up to two minutes to address the council I could present to you at um 11 o'clock, but I guess that was changed to 10 30 So I've been hanging around my car was towed on january 19th. It was for the women's march I'd worked eight of nine days before that. I am a permit holder in the red church lot right over here So two days after that I walked around, you know, it cost me $500 It was pretty expensive. I walked around in the lot across the street There were approximately one sign for every space all the way down Lincoln avenue and pacific avenue There were two signs on every single meter in our lot according to the police officer There were six signs for about a hundred Spots so one sign for 16 spots Yeah, I just didn't know that there was a mint going on there. I'd been out of town working like I said and so It seems like so I went through a whole process. I called the police. They found out that was rossy tying I picked it up cost me $500 to get towed two miles for 22 hours pretty expensive The police officer finally got back to me He wouldn't let me look at the pictures because he said there were evidence Apparently there were six signs. I only saw three two days later, but all the other signs were up And so yeah, it was just a very expensive thing There's no Recourse or there's no information at the window the ladies who try to be very helpful They don't have any information about what to do in a case of towing. This was a third party event I talked to took me nine days to get a call back from the Public works director of public works. He was very helpful and I talked to I think her name is heather soire parking services And apparently what happens when a third party Takes over lots like that. They are in control of signage And so it was raining an awful lot this winter had been raining all nine of those days before many days before that I don't know if a rain squall came up I don't know if they ran out of supplies, but it just seems like Not only was I not protected by adequate signage, but um also the follow-up. It took me nine days I got a letter in the mail six days later I just happened to see that that was there and so I sort of it seemed like you're not connecting permit holders My permit was displayed. It was still displayed Thank you. Your time is up Okay So at this point, um, we'll go ahead and see if there's any other members of the community who wanted to address us Okay, seeing none. We'll go ahead and look to see if there's a motion on I'll move the consent agenda. Okay. Okay. We have a motion by councilmember meyers seconded by vice mayor Cummings All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed Okay, that passes unanimously We'll go ahead and return and in order and we'll start with item number five, which was pulled by councilmember crone Yeah, thanks, mayor. Um, I have a bunch of questions about this and I think just to expedite this whole thing I would make a motion that uh, we get the Public safety committee to look at this item and then get it back to the council second Okay, we have a motion by councilmember crone Seconded by vice mayor Cummings to have the public safety committee look at this item. I'll go ahead and Look to our city attorney to see his insights or response to that at this time I just spoke with councilmember crone just a couple of minutes ago And I'm happy to speak to the public safety committee. There's no burning urgency that we get it done this meeting Okay, so the motion is to Have this return to the council after the public safety committee looks at this Right, and I understood that that meeting was scheduled for I believe september 9th. So it'll come back in september Okay, councilmember mathews. Just a quick question. Um Basically what we had here was, um, additions to gaps in the, uh, bail schedule Um, I largely I think that's what it was So since 2016 the council has made a number of amendments to the municipal code and when we do that we Have to adopt a bail schedule to inform the court not How much people will pay in bail? Because nobody's taken into custody for general municipal code violations But it it informs the court about an appropriate fine most of the time the fines are specified by the municipal code So our task is very easy Others where it's just defined as an infraction or a misdemeanor We try to base it our recommendations at any rate on what, uh, similar Types of code violations already contained in there In in the bail schedule. So, um, so that's when we bring it to the council to up to date It's just really to inform the courts But I'm happy to speak to the public safety committee about that and bring it back at an appropriate time right, I understood that that the The charges highlighted in yellow were the the changes to the existing schedule And some deletions as well to reflect amendments to the municipal right right and So my question if this is referred to public safety, it's just a question Is the intent to look only at those new things or at the entire Bail schedule Maybe that would be the question. Well, that that's why that's why I'm asking that's pardon the motion maker, right? That's a that's a question There's a lot here and that's why I was I was I was sending it to the public safety because I think we could spend an hour or two And I it would even like to be a council meeting agenda item But instead short of that I was trying to Expedite the meeting and move us along and get the public safety committee To possibly take some have some questions for the city attorney understand what a bail schedule is because the word even bail is Not is actually fungible here. It's not actually a bail. It has to do with fines Maybe that's in the word bail. Maybe that's part of it too But I know there's a great debate right now across the united states on cash bail for example And it'd just be really great to get some clarification On a lot of these things that are here and who they're targeted and what the reason why we're necessarily you know finding various And I and I a conversation with the city attorney and he was was fine with coming to the public safety and I've talked to him offline a bit too For the question council member Matthew no the only point was to ask the question It's not just the highlighted yellow and strikeouts. It's the whole package I just wanted to have a clarification for the public actually our public safety committee is scheduled for September 23rd Sorry about that I guess I just have a question. I'm not quite sure if my understanding is some of these changes are Necessary to kind of to fix and update. It's how much discretion with the public safety tool that we use to ensure that the Municipal code that the city council amendments that the city council adopts can be effectively implemented and enforced Right. That's that's essentially what it is Vice mayor Cummings then council member browning council rich My understanding was that the concern around this was that Other council members wanted to have a long discussion and rather than having that discussion here and you know Rather than having that discussion here at this time to allow that it to go to the city council meeting for further Or the public safety committee meeting I my understanding of this is this is just updating the schedule And so I think that if they want to have a broader Discussion with the community around what that means since it might be it might some people might not understand What it means that to allow that to happen at the public safety committee meeting and then it can come back to us And hopefully go back on the consent agenda item council member brown. Yeah, I think vice mayor Cummings covered it. Thanks council member mires Uh, I'll pass That's okay Okay Members of the community you'll have up to two minutes. You're welcome to come speak Hey, my name's surge. Sorry And I'm not speaking for the catch. I'm just a member on the catch and two things one Of the new bails the first one on there thousand dollars for Sleeping in a condemned building If that's a safety concern, I understand that but that sort of applies to the homeless perhaps having more conversation about what a Uh response other than money that they'll never be able to pay you would be And if you're going to have more conversation, I get it public safety But perhaps the catch might have be interested in getting a presentation to about some of the other ones Not necessarily this list other than that one, but the broader scale of tickets and stuff. Thanks Next speaker Gotcha, okay. We'll go ahead and then return it back to the council We have a motion by council member crone seconded by vice mayor Cummings. This will go to the next public safety committee meeting to have Further conversation with the community at that time and then return back to the council at a future date City city attorney. Tony condadi will work with the committee on that all those in favor. Please say aye Any opposed? Okay. That passes unanimously We'll go ahead and now move on to item number 14, which was pulled from our consent agenda. I believe by No, that would be me councilor brown Thank you So the request to Consider this item further It was not specifically about the contract The award of a contract to this particular vendor. It was about the um the practices Of the work that's been done in the past and the potential for this to occur in the future and its relationship to What is required under our? River management plan So I believe the member of the public is here I'd like to hear maybe from the public and then have a discussion and try to get our questions answered Before we proceed You'd like to you would like to reserve your opportunity for questions for staff Until after the member of the community speaks. Is that what you're requesting? Okay, well, I mean other people if you other people want to ask questions right now, that's fine I mean I can ask questions. There may be I just there may be more afterwards So I'm trying to streamline again and move through no I think maybe if you have your questions, we'll go ahead and follow that process And then if there's additional questions that are raised from members of the community We can have our staff respond and then just to stay consistent with process. Okay. We have people sure Um So it's my understanding that the The vegetation management prescription that Is in the sandler sirens or liver river and lagoon management plan Has been Violated that they're a 10 foot swath of wildlife habitat from highway 1 to water street Um primarily trees Willow and alder trees And then a five foot buffer along the the wetted edge of the channel have been removed and that that is That is contrary to what Members of the public understood to be an arrangement that had been made With the city And so I'm trying to get an understanding of Um, I don't need to know about all the reasons why that may have happened But how it is that we ensure that doesn't happen in the future Can we get that as a prescription or you know a condition in the official addendum? That added to that that language that Protects those areas So I I've just been I wasn't around for the and I those were informal Conversations and negotiations. I've never seen anything come to the council that we voted on But it's been raised here. And so I'd like to resolve it I'll try to do that my copper public works operations manager Uh, a little background public works is charged with Maintenance of the San Lorenzo river has been since it was completed the project was completed by the core of engineers Uh, we do that for a couple of reasons One is flood control And the prescriptions have to do Through some engineering jargon with flood control and maximizing conveyance of water down the river The other reason we do it is that If we don't do it FEMA considers flood insurance rates as if the project doesn't exist Which can double or triple flood insurance rates We have Several permits that govern our activities down there as well as the San Lorenzo urban river plan We Are required by permit to maintain a five foot buffer along the wedded channel to provide shade for Fish and and habitat for other wildlife We are allowed to maintain a 10 foot wide swath at the base of the levee So to find that location, that's where the slope of the levee meets the level part of the river channel As a practical matter That's not really doable Because we have to get equipment down in the river. We have to get people down in the river It doesn't it's not safe for them to have to navigate a 10 foot wide swath to get to their work We would have to cross that swath to Do the other part of the work that's prescribed which wasn't included in the correspondence from the member of the public which is To loosen sediment in the channel to encourage sediment transport To keep the depth of the river at a level that maximizes conveyance so Rather than eliminate the 10 foot wide swath at the base of the levee We moved that up against the five foot swath along the wedded channel both sides In areas where there was no existing vegetation along the wedded channel, which occurs occasionally We guaranteed a 30 foot wide swath total So if there was only five feet On one side we would make it 25 feet on the other before we Execute the work we go down And mark with flagging where that 15 foot barrier would be or wider if necessary We also Pull out non-native species We also try to preserve Individual isolated trees that are of a size below what we're required to take out Regardless of where they are in the channel So another can I ask one follow-up question? So in terms of the Again, I was not involved in any of the conversations about this with members of the public so if If was this what your your understanding of what You all had kind of come up with and agreed to was going to happen I'm just confused. I just want to make sure I'm clear about why the misunderstanding and sure. Well For one thing it's a dynamic environment down there every year. It's different the channel takes a different path The vegetation pops up in different areas We do a survey before we start we go down there with our contractor We file a plan with the department of fish and wildlife And then when it comes time to actually do the work We train we have a training session with our staff our biologists We have a consulting biologist that doesn't pass through the area looks for nesting birds and other endangered or threatened species Then we have training for the staff and then we go ahead with the work And at that point We always have members of the public that are present We try to engage in a dialogue with them. I don't I've never refused to speak to anybody down there In other parts of the river we have ongoing Dialogue with coastal watershed council and other Groups that are interested in the river We try to make it so that it works for everybody, but it primarily Has to be consistent with our goal of flood control I'm sorry councilman friends that cover your questions for now. I may have more depending on what I hear Okay councilmember mayers Um, I just have a yeah a couple of questions. I think one one item I know mr. Hopper is um, I know we've We've struggled with sort of maintaining vegetation around also around potential campsites and and especially understanding if people are there Because of the heavy equipment use of chainsaws, etc. So I think one One thing that I mean I think overall, you know The vegetation maintenance, but I do think there's some clarification that would be helpful, you know seasonally as we as we move forward and So I guess my question is to see if there's a way to either update our protocol I guess I'm maybe not asking a question But I'd I'd be interested in understanding a little bit more about how we may be able to do that Including other requested treatments in the in the channel, which is where I think some of our vegetation disappears over time So I'd like to see some of those things rectified Thanks I had a quick just a question on the I guess the letter writer said that um that the Materials list was violated. Is that just that's the discretion of the Of the city to do what they think needs to be done or was there actually something submitted to? You know fishing game or I don't know the various agencies that said this is what we're going to do All the public works doesn't really get involved in restoration We have informally worked with coastal watershed council another groups in the community along with the parks department But there's a list of Species that are allowed down in the river as being more appropriate for that environment I've just thinking about violation is it That's too strong a word because we have the city public works has discretion over that area So it's not that we're violating something in violation of of an agreement or We go to quite a bit of trouble not to violate our permit requirements and to be consistent with the river plan. Thank you I think I think we have a follow-up question from council member brown. Yeah, well, I'll just say yeah, I'd um appreciate council member mires Comments and would agree that it would be nice to find a way to to make sure that we update our protocol that we do What we can to ensure that? protocols aren't violated And I just when you mentioned the training and I forgot to ask um, it was that true also for contractors such as the contractor here Kenny Robinson construction or do they go if they're going to be engaged in this river vegetation management work? They are trained as city staff are Also engaged in this work would be trained. Yes. That's the reason we have the training and that's one of the requirements of our permit clarifying So we may have more questions But I think at this time we'll go ahead and see if there's members of the community who want to address us on this item Please come forward and you'll have up to two minutes It's a reminder we're on item number 14 of our consent in the council members I'm the person from the public who's raised this issue um, historically in 2015 and 2016 when I first began watching the vegetation or the flood control work um They were as far as I could tell not observing the requirement that the 10 foot strip of um vegetation be left along the toe of the levee that was basically being removed the five foot buffer was being left So the total was only five feet instead of the required 15 feet strip In 2014 and 15 we just tore out our hair those of us who were concerned in 2017 Actually, there was an informal we met with mr. Dettel blues man Allen and I met with mr. Dettel and talked about some of these things and then in 2017 I went out on the levee and um talk to randy who was the head of the crew and um It was a very casual training. It was not a training with a biologist at that point in time Um And and then the following year I think we finally got clear About the fact that it was that 10 feet that we wanted to protect And so we talked about it with the public works department. I want to thank the public works department They made the adjustment. They added the 10 feet Two of the five feet. So now technically it needs to be 15 feet on either side or 30 combined and everything that Mr. Hopper said is absolutely correct in terms of what's happening now It's just that it wasn't happening before the community began to talk to public works And ask them questions about this and then they finally did add that 10 Feet extra in the last two years and there even have been tagging The native plants there and saving some of them. So there's been real improvement. We're really grateful What i'm asking is that what um Council member meyer said is that we clarify the protocol because it's not the same as what you got in your packet Okay, additional members of the community. You'll have two minutes. Is there anybody else? Who would like to address the council on this item? Seeing then you'll be our last speaker. Good afternoon. I'm scott ram my real concern here is the fish and I remember back in the mid 70s Along the levee during salmon season The fishermen were shoulder to shoulder. I mean there was like no room for anybody They were just like It was unbelievable watching how many fish they were pulling out and how you know How many fishermen were actually there? and Now we're at the point where Counting fish in the river, you know, maybe there are like 15 or 30 a year or something and I realized that it's not just the Part of the river that's in the city that's been degraded But we have to do everything we can to keep the part that is in the city So it can sustain fish habitat um I read in the report that there's supposed to be a biologist On site during this whole restoration project. So I hope that that actually takes place. Thank you Thank you Okay, seeing no other members of the community wanting to address us on this item We'll return it back to the council for action and deliberation councilmember matthews and then councilmember brown Or yeah, you're for just an observation Uh, it seems to me the item at hand here is awarding the contract and that the history on this the gold Obviously the goal is flood control The conditions do change annually It it appears that there's been Real benefit from the conversation and that the practices have Improved in recent years and I agree that it seems like it's probably a matter of updating the protocol Rather than holding up the contract Absolutely councilmember brown Yeah, I agree and I so I wanted to make the motion that we award the contract for the um With kenny robinson construction in the amount of 209 thousand dollars and request that staff Provide do provide the council with an update to that protocol to reflect The agreement made in the current practices second Sure, we have a motion by councilmember brown seconded by vice mayor comings. Go ahead Um, philippina. Can you put those pictures up? I think it's really important to remember it is a flood control project and in 1998 The county of monterey and santa cruz got sued for not maintaining their flood control project cost them 30 million dollars Because they couldn't get a fishing game permit So they they didn't were able to get their maintenance done I appreciate that you're awarding this contract the other the other one that shows the the flows That's what it looks like Right now, but go ahead and show the high high water flows We get a lot of water through here and it's really important that we maintain the capacity Because the area that will flood is the el río Mobile home park is where it's going to break out That's my concern the public safety of this project So we need to have the capacity to get in and get our maintenance done So that we maintain the capacity this flood control channel So we're happy to work on protocols, but we got to maintain be able to do our maintenance Okay, councilmember brown councilmember crone Councilmember meyers Sure, so I I appreciate the follow-up comment And I so I guess I'm just saying that I made the motion with the understanding that based on mr. Hopper's comments and And public that This was would this is a practice that is Not prevented by the army corps of engineers and so we're not actually in I understand the need to be nimble with the practices depending on what happens seasonally Or different various seasons, but in terms of this just having this as our baseline for this is what we Say we're doing and we're going to do it is I don't my understanding is that's not a problem is that I just want to clarify that for me mr. Duttall you made me a little more happy to continue the dialogue with members of the public. Okay, great. It's it's a very flexible arrangement I mean my my goal is to Reconcile our flood control responsibilities with a vibrant habitat Councilmember crone councilmember meyers And then we have maybe just answers it on december 2005. Is that all the pictures were from december 2005? We've had more water since then right I mean stronger Floods and 17. This is the high water mark of 2017 right now. There's about 10 cubic feet per second going down the river On this on february 7th of this date. We had nearly 23,000 cubic feet per second going down the river Thank you, and I appreciate getting a rereading of the motion before we vote councilmember mayors Yeah, and I just wanted to clarify I certainly am really familiar with the protocol And understand the need especially with the freeing of the sediment so that we actually get the scour action too So I think just I think my intent was really just to I know we have the table here But maybe just additional just some additional wording on our on our protocol if it's available especially as you mentioned mr. Hopper the you know every season is different and Just to be able to kind of so there's some clarity I think it just helps for the public to understand I've had people say they're cutting all the trees down in the river And then when I explain really what what we're do down there They really people people have a lot of respect for the way we're managing the system. So I think just My intent is not to try to create, you know an impasse or issues with the with the flood control maintenance, but Sometimes it's just helpful for people to understand kind of how you're choosing how we choose to do the work in the areas we do and I also just want to publicly just recognize that The contractor is that is part of this Contract which is very well qualified and has been working in the river for a long time So I really appreciate the city's efforts at maintaining and hiring a really qualified Contractor that works in the area and is very familiar with the protocols. So I'm just I'm just Trying to see if there's a way we can kind of kind of just add additional a little bit additional language to to clarify Okay, councilmember brown and maybe you could be restate the motion before I Restate it. Could I ask council member mires? If you might be willing to be involved in that Conversation with our public works department. I think that you probably are most qualified and you've seemed to have an interest in just Following through on those up on whatever updates are possible and you guys a minimal to your perspective. Okay. Thanks. Okay, sure So, um, so then it's a then I'll restate the motion With that addition. Um, so the motion is to award a contract for the San Lorenzo river flood control maintenance with kenny robinson construction As recommended by staff in the amount of two hundred and nine thousand dollars and to direct public work staff to provide council with proposed updates to The management San Lorenzo Lorenzo river and lagoon management plan language updating the protocols to reflect Current practices with council member mires providing some input to staff Is that okay? Yeah Okay, that was a motion that was seconded originally by vice mayor Cummings any further discussion Matthews and we just add understanding the Essential objective of flood control Absolutely So to now incorporate that The fundamental need for flood control within the motion. Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously So that concludes our consent agenda. We'll go ahead and move on to our general business items and next is Item number 19 And that's the ordinance amending chapter 14 dogs and other domesticated animals of title eight animals of the santa cruz municipal code And the order will be a presentation of the item by staff For the council members who brought the item forward they would present but um, we have staff here, mr. Kandadi and then we'll go ahead and have questions from the council public comment return for action and deliberation Similar to all order Yes, thank you This is really a housekeeping matter And if you if you take a look at the red line A draft of the ordinance that's presented here Existing definition of a A service animal Is limited to service dogs and And the criterion under which they're considered service animals is Specifically defined what this ordinance does it would it would broaden the definition to basically adopt the standards for service animals as Contained in the regulations implementing the americans with disabilities act. So it's and it was and it's being brought forward After a member of the public pointed out The issue so it's really a housekeeping item and i'm happy to respond to any other questions that council members have about it Do any councillors have questions about this change Just so we can be clear we're we're updating this ordinance Because i've heard from people's fears that it is um, you know targeting A certain population that we needed enforcement mechanism for but that doesn't sound What this is about Yes, that's that's right that has nothing to do with it It's it's not a change in policy at all. It's really just to make our code consistent with federal regulations Okay, thank you Any questions other questions from the council at this time? Bless you Any members of the community would um wanting to address us on this item? This is item number 19 on our general business portion of the meeting okay, seeing none Council member mires and then council member matthews. I'll make a motion to move the item and I'll introduce for publication and and and ordinance amending section 8.14.201 Exceptions to prohibition of chapter 14 dogs and other domesticated animals of tidal eight animals of the santa cruz municipal code Concerning the definition of service animals Okay, i'll second that for the discussion council member crown. Did you anybody from the public want to nobody wanted to Oh, okay, excuse me. Yeah Council member matthews just for those who are watching on tv Um this simply brings us into conformance with federal and state law It actually broadens the definition of service animal and in fact Includes now some flexibility as state and federal Definitions change that we will be in conformance without having to come back Thank you for the clarification Okay, so we have a motion by council member mires seconded by myself all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously Um, we'll maybe take a short two minute break before we move on to item number 20, which is our revised six month work plan Okay, we're on item number 20 of our general business agenda portion And we have a revised six month work plan. Um, and our presentation is from sarah flaming Thank you mayor council members. Good afternoon. My name is sarah flaming and i'm principal planner here with the um planning and community development department's advanced planning team And I have before you a some updates uh to the citywide and advanced planning six month work plans at the august 13th meeting Both of these were presented and council had some changes that they directed staff to make We have made all of those changes and um, I'm happy to If there are any questions on those changes point people to Where we could find them in the documents and otherwise all of the changes have been made So there's your short and sweet presentation. Thank you Okay, um, are there any questions in regards to the updated work plan at this time? Okay seem none. I you have a question. I have a question. Yeah Um Okay, I stared at the chart attachment to yes, um, and just I'm trying to make sure I'm understanding how We should be reading it. So the the chart with the yellow and the green on the top. Yes Those are what are regarded as I guess I'm trying to understand the bottom of the chart in the orange versus the bottom the top of the chart I understand the project manager definition Or But I'm trying to understand is this whole thing The six month plan. Yes for the advanced planning division. And so I've split it into two planners You have your yellow planner who's in the yellow and white above and then the orange planner in the orange and white below. Okay. Thank you Any other questions Okay, seeing none We'll go ahead and see if there's any members of the community who want to address the council on this item Please come forward and you'll have up to two minutes Is there any other members of the community that like to address this on this item? Good afternoon. I'm scott ram The issue that I'm Concerned with is the ad use updates and I would hope that you would Ask the planning department not to close down any non permitted ad use until you update the ad you requirements and possibly Uh, or hopefully grandfather and all existing ad use that are currently Unpermitted and that are safe and not a fire risk Um So hopefully you can do that Get the planning department not to shut down Any non permitted ad use until you get this update happens. Thank you Let's be careful Madam mayor and council members. My name is gary patten I am one of the co-chairs of save santa cruz and as I hope you know we sent you a letter Relating to this item. We are hoping that the council as you Take final I think hopefully final action on getting the priorities set for the time ahead That you will deal with the quarter's plan by number one Making absolutely clear that the former ideas Should be terminated in other words stop that old quarter's plan And then reinitiate an effort which we don't think will take very long actually at least in planning years To make certain that our zoning code and general plan can form As to the developments along quarters and related areas So that the neighborhood protection business protection portions of the general plan are treated appropriately As development on the quarters occurs the quarters are a real opportunity for more affordable housing And I think safe santa cruz is very supportive of that We do want the developments when they come to be respectful of neighborhoods and local business Is there any other member of the community who wants to address this on this item? Okay, seeing them we'll go ahead and return back to the council for action and deliberation I think I said with the council member mires and then council member brown Yeah, I'd like to go ahead and make a motion unless there's are we going to have questions for staff at all We already had the opportunity for staff. So if you want you're welcome to make the motion Um I'd like to make a motion to remove the quarters rezoning effort from the planning department work plan indefinitely And I'd like to direct the planning department to prioritize the housing blueprint recommendations and building electrification per our climate change program Um and and with the building department and um, I just want to so I'm going to put that out as a motion I'll second the motion Did you want to further explain your I just a couple of comments? I I appreciate um The letter from safe santa cruz, and I certainly think that Um, I'm really focused on this six month period and we have a lot on the plate I'm very um interested in making sure that we can move things forward And I appreciate the need for our community to restart this conversation Uh on what future development looks like for the city of santa cruz I do believe that the ad use and especially the housing blueprint recommendations should be moved forward And we also towards the goals of our climate change program and and taking advantage of some of the Potential electrification options coming. I think we want to be ready for that I'm very interested in seeing these conversations though restarted as early as possible into the beginning of the new year But I do think um, we have six months and we have a lot of work And I'd like to to see if we can focus on that and then acknowledge that we do need to initiate some kind of conversation with our community community down the line around the The rectification of our general plan and our zoning ordinance. Thank you So I have a few comments, but I know councilmember brown had her hand up Yeah, so I um I appreciate councilmembers your your comments and um, I I agree about the priorities And the concern about workload However, um, I I think that the community Has been waiting a long time to have this conversation and We have not Responded to that and I think that um, or we've we've really kind of Only nominally responded to it. I guess and so I really feel like Initiating this now and beginning to have that conversation Is really important and so I do have an alternative motion that I have prepared that I'll give everyone a copy of Which I can make now or wait till some further discussion But I um, I will be making this motion as an alternative and you have it Okay, but I there's a separate copy so you can I think um, I'll just sort of make a few comments and then we can hear your alternative motion. I um support the Proposed motion on the floor. I think essentially If you were to ask any of the council up here in terms of making the quarter's plan a priority to implement I'd say we're all in agreement that that's not the direction we want to go in so to remove it And definitely feels consistent. I think with the original message But honestly, I think I left our meeting feeling Last time that you know, we have a situation where Santa Cruz is still internationally compared as The least affordable and we have a series of recommendations that came from a very robust process That was actually awarded By the northern california association of planners. I think if I'm saying it, right That set forth a some priority Areas to move the needle on housing it for our community. It was vetted significantly through the community and to me it feels You know, frankly like a disservice to not be able to move forward with critical housing policy at this time knowing that This is a conversation that I think now framed this way can still get to what I believe is the intention around the original recommendation but ultimately freeing up our advanced planning team To really get moving the needle on supporting housing in our community. So for me, I had A little bit of disappointment and feeling that if we're going to go backwards. How are we serving our community moving forward? So I Personally will support the first motion. I'm not quite sure what the second motion is. Maybe I won't if after I hear this one but I also Want to acknowledge the sort of the latter part of that motion in terms of the electrification electrification is it's huge It's there's so much potential with what that policy is for the future of our sustainability of our climate and building practices and there's a lot of potential work that we can do in that area And would be Who of us if our advanced planning team was working on that because my understanding is that there will be some resources That'll be forthcoming in the in the upcoming months to help us in that regard So for me, this also seems aligned with our Our principles around climate Climate change and sustainability and mitigation and best practices in that area So I support the motion on the floor Happy to return back to council member brown to state her Alternative motion if she's wanting to do that at this time or if we want to continue conversation before doing so I'll look to you if you want Yeah, maybe it would be helpful for me to to do that now then because I don't think that there's that this is an alternative motion In contrast to the motion that's been made and I think it actually lays out a little bit more about an interest in pursuing affordable housing In along the corridors. So so if I could just and you I'll have it in front of you I'm going to go ahead and just read it out So this motion would be to direct staff to terminate the corridors plan and do no further work on this project To direct planning staff to initiate a project to resolve the existing inconsistencies between the corridor related general plan policies and the zoning ordinance by making General plan and zoning ordinance changes as necessary to meet the following objectives Hmm a preserve and protect residential neighborhood areas and existing city businesses as the city's highest level policy priority B encourage appropriate new residential and mixed use development specifically including enhanced affordable housing opportunities at appropriate locations along the city's main transportation corridors Three direct the planning director as a first step in carrying out the council's direction on this matter to meet promptly with representatives of safe Santa Cruz and other Neighborhood and community groups that so community groups that have previously commented on the now terminated corridors plan To seek agreement on possible changes to the general plan and zoning ordinance that can achieve broad community support And that will allow the council to achieve its objectives For direct the city manager and planning director to report at the council's second meeting in october 2019 with the results of community meetings proposed policy changes consistent with the council's objectives And a schedule for accomplishing the planning project specified in these directions Five direct the city manager to provide the council with a monthly progress report on this matter placed on the council's regular meeting agenda Each council report shall request any further action or direction by the council that the city manager Deems necessary to allow the council to achieve the objective of adopting zoning code and general plan changes as outlined In this set of recommendations no later than november of 2020 second So we have a substitute motion from council member brown seconded by vice mayor comings Sorry If it would be helpful to take these Um and vote on them one by one. I'm okay with that. I'd like to just try to Move us through. I this is the motion. I want to make And I'd like to move through it my understanding is we have to make uh take a vote on whether to accept the substitute motion Okay, that's right in assuming that the council does vote to accept the substitute motion Then I think it could be broken down as suggested by council member brown into separate items Before we take that Vote I'd like to hear from our city planning team on this potential motion. Is that appropriate? Certainly, okay I'd like to hear your thoughts on this for me. This feels um like it's taking our city backwards to go forward but very um Divergent from what I think ultimately is moving the needle on housing in our community. So that's my instinct I think elements of it feel appropriate others don't but I'd like to hear our staff's opinions on this I have another related question. Okay. We'll go ahead. We'll go ahead and have that question Then we'll go vice mayor Cummings. It's it's related to what you just asked. Okay. Um, and that is this seems to me extremely ambitious and so I'm wondering um, I think it would supplant more than one item here. So That's what I'd like to hear. Okay. And then do you have a related question as well? No, I just okay. Okay. We have a related question. And if you could also comment, um Just regards this with uh, some of the upcoming I think legislation around housing that we anticipate probably will be signed any day now So if we could kind of put it in the context of where the state might be going and how that sort of relates Tall to to this. Thank you. Absolutely. Yes. So I had two points One for each So the the first point is the impact on workload If we were to follow this if council were to choose to move forward with this motion as written That would essentially be one full-time staff person Through the six month period. I think it's a very Assertive a potentially aggressive timeline. I appreciate the importance of the Need for speed However, if if council does want to move forward at this clip Then the yellow planner who is the expert on this would not really have capacity to do much of anything else The other thing I would like to raise is that currently moving through the assembly is sp3 30 that would essentially If signed by the governor would Disallow us from making any sort of down zoning type changes And so that very well we could start down this path and then should that pass which As council member meyer said at any any day now could be signed That would essentially prevent us from doing Very much what this motion is asking us to do So just be mindful of that as well in terms of What the state very well may mandate us to do Thank you Good afternoon, mayor and council members Leave out there on the planning director and I would just add that Being very blunt the timeline of november of 2020 is not possible when you start looking at everything that's needed for this including the seeker review Including revisiting our housing element and getting that making sure that that is not that the Certification of that is not compromised with the state department of housing community development and as Sarah mentioned with sp3 30 the the date for that item goes back to January 1st of 2018 so any provisions that we have in place as of january 1st of 2018 could not be Modified to reduce housing capacity should that bill ultimately be signed and as we know the state is Moving in that direction on many fronts with many bills And so if that doesn't pass this year, we still stand the risk of next year a similar bill Coming forward that has that same retro activity clause built into it And so there is a very significant concern on staff's part that if we embark on an effort such as this The state will come along and say thank you and all of that work is nullified We have some other items here that we believe can Make a big difference their community generated ideas and that is why we have the the work plan proposed in front of you and If it is council's desire for us to do that Absolutely, we will get that moving as quickly as possible I do just want to be upfront about that timeline of a november 2020 not being realistic when you start taking into account everything that goes into modifying the Zoning as as directed here including the general plan modifications as well as looking at hcd certification of housing element Seeker review that's associated with that a year timeline Even if we dedicated a full-time planner to that right now isn't realistic. Yeah, and if I might add as well The ambag is getting ready to release new Um Thank you rena numbers alphabet soup over here And so that could also completely change what we're required to do and just quickly I want to read for the edification of the council the language that's currently in the sp3 30 which is Skinner's housing crisis act of 2019 Changing the general plan land use designation specific plan land use designation or zoning of a parcel or parcels of property to a less intensive use Or reducing the intensity of land use within an existing general plan land use designation Specific plan land use designation or zoning district below what was allowed under the land use designation and zoning ordinances Of the effective county or affected city as applicable As an effect on january 1st 2018 would be prohibited It basically says an effective city shall not enact a development policy standard or condition that would have any of the following effects Okay, thank you. Um, I'll we have just uh vice mayor Cummings meyers brown Matthews and I'll just say I won't be supporting the substitute motion I think it would be irresponsible of us as a council to move in this direction at this time personally Hey councilor meyers I just have a quick question. Um Again, I think that I think that this conversation needs to happen. I think there's a lot of moving pieces to this Um, and I think um, you know preserving our neighborhood quality and also our businesses and the the way that people Um, not only You know currently but also in the future really understand how and what their neighborhoods will be like is really important And so I don't I don't disagree with Sort of the need to restart the conversation. Um at all I do My main thing is really understanding um sort of the ramifications of where the state is moving and um, again, I'm just going to state again I think ad use are incredibly um In a sense low hanging fruit. Um, they can produce housing now We've um finished almost all of our code um changes And I have a question. Uh, if you if you have the number, I don't know if you do But I would be curious as to how many uh ad you applications we have we have currently sort of sitting Um until we sort of figure out and finish up our ordinance changes is on that So how many have been issued this year? And then do we have a sense of how many ad you permits maybe are in the hopper right now? We've generally been issuing between 30 to 45 ad you permits. We were actually down a little bit last year and we put that um to the The fact that we were making so many updates that we were that people were likely anticipating Those changes that would save them money allow them more flexibility in how they Build their ad use and so they were sort of sitting on the sidelines and waiting knowing that it would be easier in the In the coming months. Um, so we were a little bit down Last year. I don't know the specific number that we have waiting in the wings We we turn them around really quickly when they do come into our building division Um, and so there usually isn't a uh a large sort of pipeline. It's just when they come in we We work on them quickly and and try to get them issued But I think that people have been waiting in the wings knowing that We are making it easier. We are reducing fees And uh, we're adding flexibility in terms of what they can do and the council's actions earlier this year We're a testament to that in terms of all of those factors and and Making it easier to build ad use here and we've got a list of other things that Can also Achieve those same goals. Thank you Okay, council member brown and then council member methods So a couple of comments and a question so um, I guess In response to and I absolutely understand the workload challenges and your concerns and All of the work that you've been doing. I don't want to discount any of that at all And so that I want to I have a question about in a moment, but in terms of the the concern about This uh potential prohibition on down zoning nothing in this motion suggests The intention is to down zone the intention here. I believe is to open up the conversation with the community To get our zoning and general plan in Conformance with each other. So that doesn't necessarily there's nothing prescriptive about down zoning here It's just about having that conversation and and I think another point that is important is that Having some updates to the council about how it's going will allow us to adjust timelines Expectations accordingly and so, you know how having this is a goal Does I mean not the sky isn't going to fall if On a certain date it hasn't happened the point is to have this as a goal The expectation is that we'd like to meet those timelines to the extent possible and hear from staff To the extent they are not possible. What's happening? So I I think that that Is built in in order to kind of to try to address those concerns I understand that's not going to completely take care of it for you all But that's my intention and then the question I have with respect to The the discussion we had a lively discussion about the Potential Delay of work around ad use and affordability And then I just heard director Butler say that People are waiting with the expectation that these are just around the corner. So if that's almost completed When would might that be completed and how might we adjust this time? You know these dates to meet that but still get moving Rather than saying well, we're just going to talk about it again next year because I that i'm not interested in in doing We'll see what others think. Sure. So um to your first point I hear what you're saying and I appreciate that the motion does not include down zoning Where my question comes in is that the general plan already in the corridors areas in those mixed-use areas for Most of those locations is a higher intensity use to some degree than what our zoning would be so Opening it back up for a conversation to potentially change anything If the state law were to go through as written Then we wouldn't be allowed to take it to anything less than what's currently in the general plan now Additionally in terms of the timeline. I think a lot of my concern comes from When we did our general plan process It was a seven-year process that had over a hundred community meetings very very intense and robust and We're going to be starting a similar process to update our current general plan I'd say probably in about five or six years And I I just am given that there was we have such a very wonderfully active community I just don't see any way that we can have that similar conversation In in your time frame proposed and I I do not in any way Mean to be negative I'm just trying to be as realistic as possible because I want to be able to meet your expectations And I want our team to be able to do that and when I when I look at this time frame I just Very realistically to echo the words of director butler Just don't see that being feasible and I'm not sure what changes would come out of it If this sp3 30 were to move forward as written And was there another question? Oh on the adu timing So can you repeat that? I'm it fell out of my head. So the we had a conversation about the the potential delay in the adu recommendations coming back to council If this were to be included in the six month work plan at our last meeting And then I just in response to director butler's point that there are people who maybe have plans and intentions to Build adus and go through the permitting process who are waiting and it's just around the corner So I'm just wondering You know, how much time is that? anticipated to take when were you in planning to bring those back to us and Could we adjust the timeline in my my proposed motion to take that into account? But not just put it off and say we're going to talk about it again next year Sure. Um, could the city clerk bring up the attachment to again. Are you able to see that? I'm going to zoom into the yellow planners workload here So you can see here for the adu items. So the mandated legislative updates Have a implementation time frame of january 1 29 2020 So they don't give us a lot of time to turn around The the changes and this legislative session actually has been extended By about two weeks and so normally the governor has to sign or veto the bills by the september 30th This legislative session for whatever reason it's been pushed out For signatures as late as I believe october 13th And so that also pushes us back just a couple more weeks and while it might sound like it's a couple of weeks Those are precious weeks when you start to talk about community outreach Bringing things forward to planning commission then council if any changes are needed if There's just a series of processes that that just pushes back further And when you consider that there's only one meeting in december and the holidays I mean, these are the things we have to weigh so Right now the proposal is to Have everything ready by the end of the year both the mandated legislative updates as well as The affordability review that is outstanding from earlier this year And um have them ideally go on the same track and be before you In uh december they'd have to be to meet that timeline They'd have to be at planning commission in october And so if we're not getting our verification from the governor Until mid october of what's going to happen that already starts to crunch this timeline And so if we're adding I believe in here Item four on your motion indicates that we would come back having done our community outreach by october 2019 That really it's it it almost needs to be one or the other I don't see a way Given the resources especially with planner one also being on the rental housing data collection effort And working as the staff liaison to that ad hoc subcommittee How she's going to be able to do all of those things it definitely becomes more than a full-time job A quick follow-up question. It sounds like october if the deadline for uh legislative Uh for signatures from the governor is now mid october It sounds like october would be a more difficult month to have any community Uh conversations and then september would be so I'm just Trying to see about All that sound I mean At least to initiate that process to have a meeting with save santa cruise to um I don't believe that the I mean again the proposal the motion is not prescriptive about the extent of you know publicity about that meeting it's to meet with community groups that have been actively involved and concerned and asking for some response For quite a while now So I'm sure how much time that would take Very fair point. My only concern with that would be um, I want to be really sensitive to the community's needs And I don't want to pick something back up again Get everybody excited that we're going to have the conversation and then have to put that on hold yet again in order to address The adu items and get those things through before the end of the year Once we start that conversation with the community I really want to be able to do that be focused on that have an individual and a staffer Who is dedicated to that and is ready to move forward with that and given these other Items that are in here, especially the mandated stuff and whatever the subcommittee wants to do with the rental housing data collection effort I just want to be very transparent that that is going to be A real real strain on the resources and um, I just don't want to get the community Excited again and then not be able to stay on top of that process I would hate to meet with them in september and then not be able to come back until january or february Thank you for that. I do have one more comment, but I'll let if other people have comments. I'll Okay, so we have um, I think a Question then we'll go ahead and maybe take the vote on the substitute motion Maybe have that motion restated or my guess we have a question and a comment Donnie you mentioned the electrification Issue and that doesn't appear in the work plan at all here does it? No, that is not currently included as a part of this work plan A comment on that let's throw some else in there. I'd love to comment on that. Um, so, um Every three years our building and fire codes are updated and 2019 is a year when they are in the process of being updated and that'll take effect on january 1st of 2020 We will be before you in october for the first reading of the new building and fire codes and with that um, I have talked with our building official and asked that He coordinate with our sustainability manager tiffani wise west as well as our green building manager curt hurley and our Building division to be prepared to answer questions of the council in terms of what that would take What some other communities are doing the timeline of when that could be implemented and so forth And so when that comes to you in october, we will be prepared to answer questions We do not anticipate having an ordinance at that time but we do expect that the council is very interested in that and Even prior to this conversation and i'm seeing lots of nodding heads Even prior to the conversation today, we were expecting that Those questions may arise and so we want to be prepared to Do some research and have some of those answers for you when we come back in october in terms of how quickly We would be able to get something on the ground We also want to do some initial some initial outreach To the development community to just hear their comments on it so that we'll have that for you when we come back in october as well following up on that so Given that you're already Thinking along these lines doing some preliminary work. Is that something that you anticipate although it doesn't appear on the work plan that Is is going to be moved forward? We would anticipate that is something that the council requests And that's why we're doing that initial research to give you a realistic Timeline and understanding of what that would take the reason why it's not on this work plan Is it would focus this is advanced planning and that would focus more on our building division? And so that's why they're not seeing it there Um while i'll just say briefly um i'll vote against the substitute motion I feel really strongly that we should be going ahead with those items that were identified As priorities in the housing blueprint with a great deal of community input and thought That that to some extent Presents opportunities for relatively soon results for low-hanging fruit The whole package of adu considerations, you know not personally that I would support for everything that's been thrown out as a possibility, but I think just giving some clarity on on what our Guidelines are for the adu's is just super important Both for those who want to come and build new ones or legalize unpermitted ones. So I think what we should be focusing on For the adu's I mean people talk about neighborhood Compatibility and character and for both the adu's and corridors really looking at Design standards and conditions of approval So that they they are They they do integrate well with our neighborhoods So those are the the main reasons. Um, those are my priorities going forward Nice meetings I think one thing that would be helpful and which is my second of this motion is and Before I start I just wanted to say I appreciate all the information you all provided to us today with regards to workload and you know The different items that might be coming out of the state I think that if we begin these discussions with the community groups and organizations One of the things I think that that's that'll be a great opportunity For city staff to get a sense of you know, the urgency that the communities are wanting to see And then the city staff being able to communicate, you know, the realistic timeline that they're able to work under given What we are intending to pass today And I think that by having that conversation which is a part of this that if there can be a way for The city staff and some of these neighborhood groups to Begin to find some like grounds for consensus I think that that could help because if if the anticipation is that the timeline should be extended Then that that's something that could be brought back to us and and FYI and we can consider extending that timeline So that staff is able to meet the demands of the workload So I just wanted to you know put that out there as to why i'm supporting this today and I think that We are you know Based on what could come out of those meetings. I think that there would be You know an ability for us to work to see if there's some consensus around Extending dates and timelines to make sure that there's flexibility in this But I just wanted to make sure that it's clear that If there are you know If there are new bills being passed at the state level if there's concerns around timelines after having Conversations with community members think they're bringing it back to us or just having a conversation with us would be Helpful in having us better understand how we can make this work So i'll just make a few comments before we maybe take the vote on the substitute motion I I think you know, I feel our community is Looking to us to lead in the area of trying to support housing affordability At this time where it's becoming increasingly difficult for people to live here and I Support terminating the corridors plan and I support having conversations with save santa crews But at the cost of us being able to in the next six months carry out Affordable housing recommendations that were community vetted through a housing blueprint subcommittee process that had statewide recognition for our best practice Is it's truly Irresponsible of us as a council and that I mean that's my opinion and I don't think we have to be one or the other I think Absolutely, we can have conversations about the corridors plan There is healing that needs to be done there and there's conversations that need to be done there But to have it at the cost of us being able to do other things in the next six months As well as to logistically try to plan for that for me as also the person who's trying to manage the meetings In addition to the other things that this council wants to accomplish Is very difficult so I I can meet halfway on the first, you know item or the first second and third potentially item but to To to go in this direction at this time at the cost When I think our community needs us to lead in a different direction in a way that we've already kind of done the work for Feels disheartening personally, so I'll just I'll just say that so I won't be supporting the motion on the floor We can vote on the substitute motion and if that passes, we'll go ahead and take that motion Okay So all those in favor of the substitute motion, please say I Opposed no. No. Okay. So that passes with councilmember crone, glever, brown and vice mayor comings Do you have any modifications to the elements of the motion given the information you've received from staff? Not at this time. I am looking forward to hearing back to You know to think through realistically what and also After I do want to see an initial community meeting with community members who again have been requesting this for a long time Take place and if there are recommended adjustments in the timeline out of that I'm I'd be Absolutely open to having that conversation And I'm just gonna say When I disagree with my colleagues, I don't call them irresponsible And so I feel a little disheartened Because I feel like I'm being very responsive to Big subset of the community that's that's been Again quite patient and So I'll just leave it at that, but I don't have any changes at this time I'll just I'll clarify because I was the one that made that statement. I I don't necessarily that's not pointed at an individual I think We have choices as a council in terms of our responsibility to govern in a way that I think meets the needs So for me, I can't support it because I feel that doesn't fit in alignment with my values and how I want to Lead in this way, but for others that might not be the case. So Um It's not intended to be pointed to any individual It's not in alignment with my personal integrity and values on how I want to lead in addressing the housing issues in our community and But if it's the will of the majority of the council that that's the will of the majority of the council I just wanted to say that with respect to the issue of workload That you know will be very open and clear with you about whatever issues we encountered there Because as you heard that that is a major concern and so we want to be realistic and honest about that So as we move forward with with this well, we'll just have to update and keep you informed just to again to be clear about that I just had a really clarification of one of the members of the public asked about ad use And um, are we currently closing down ad use or are we waiting until the updates of the ad ordinance happen? So, um, I'll I'll speak at a high level to this and then director butler may be able to fill in the holes that I don't necessarily know the details of because that doesn't fall to my team We typically work with Any illegal dwelling units be it an ad u garage conversion? What have you to as long as there's not an imminent life health safety issue? We typically are not shutting people down as I understand it We are actually working with them to try to find a way to legalize and keep those units On the market and I think last year it was maybe a total of 15 or less that were closed I'm I I could be speaking out of turn. So I'll let the let the director clarify that because again It doesn't sit in my team. So sure that number was over approximately two years and those were direct Direct removals from the market and we'll report back with some more recent statistics But um sarah's correct. We do and in fact We do always try to keep people in the units in addition to Trying to legalize them and in fact when we have provisions that are potentially in the queue or that are coming down through the state that may help a Property legalize We let them know and we say hey, you know, we're going to set you aside for a little bit and Let's talk in six months and you can keep those individuals. We go out. We do an inspection We make sure that there are no obvious life health safety issues Obviously, we don't want to put anyone in danger But if we do not find any of those then we put them in the queue of projects that we want to legalize And we work with them including looking at future provisions that may help them So that you know the last thing that we want is someone making a bunch of investments and then three six months later We say oh now you could have done that but you had to go in and spend all this money So we we try to look ahead and help people to the greatest extent that we can Yeah, thank you, uh customer crone for following over that question. Um, also, uh, I want to appreciate customer brown for Bringing up the use of that language I just encourage my colleagues knowing that there is a very clear ideological Divide on this council to avoid making those kinds of value statements Uh and stick to i statements, uh because if the majority of the council does decide to move forward with this language Then uh individuals who might have made that statement will be calling the majority irresponsible in a public setting So I would just really encourage us to be conscious of the way that we interact with each other on dais. Thank you Okay, um, so we'll go ahead and maybe take the vote and I'll just for the record state that I support the first Part of the motion to direct staff to terminate the corridors plan I also support elements of Conversating and working with save santa crews and other community groups to have those types of conversations in regards to next steps Moving forward. It's the detailed description of how that moves forward. I don't support So I won't be sporting the motion, but for the record. I do support those elements Okay, councilor con I will be supporting the motion, but I also want to say for the record that um we have a representative government And I think the last couple elections we heard from the people on the east side and they voted They wanted the corridors plan not to happen and It happened over a long period of time. I mean, uh, and finally I feel like this day has been long and coming and I'm, uh Pleased that you brought this forward. Thank you councilor brown and I look forward to the vote Myers and then vice-mayor Yeah, I mean as evidenced in my motion. I certainly support and for the record. I'd just like to support the intent to recognize the community's discomfort with the corridors plan and to Direct that there's no further work on the project and I certainly support as I've said The need for our planning planning department to begin to talk to safe Santa Cruz and other community groups So I can't support the full motion, but I just want to go from on the record on that Vice-mayor I just wanted to say that you know during the past election campaign that there was a lot of A lot of folks from the from the east side who were concerned with the corridors plan I think one of the big things was that not that they just wanted to kill the plan But that they wanted to be included in the conversation more and have more of a say and be listened to because they felt like They weren't being listened to when the corridors plan was being developed And so I just want to make it clear that it's not that we're trying to stop affordable housing It's not that we're trying to stop any kind of development from happening within the corridors What's happening is that um the people from those communities have reached out to us because they felt like they weren't Included as much in the conversation and we're just hoping that through this their voices can be heard more And we can move forward with the corridors plan including the recommendations coming from those neighborhoods So I just want to make that clear that we're not trying to just kill this whole project As a resident of the east side I uh agree that the corridors plan was something that wasn't supported by the residents of the east side So I agree with that that it is appropriate to not move forward with that at this time And I also agree with the um elements around Reigniting a conversation around How to engage that area and save Santa Cruz and other interested in community groups. I guess you know For the for the record. It's the challenge with that And how to reconcile that policy decision With at the cost of some of the other policy policy options That we aren't able to move forward with at this time. So here here to that and um Um, um, we'll figure out how to move forward and hopefully Make a difference in housing in our community. Okay So with that all those in favor, please say I am opposed. No, okay So that passes with council member brown vice-mayor Cummings council member crone and glever voting in support Matthews meyers and myself voting against council member vice-mayor Cummings I don't think we actually voted on the other items within the work plan. So right you want to make a move to Accept the other items proposed in the modified city-wide and advanced plan in the six month work plan Okay, I heard a motion by vice-mayor Cummings seconded by council member brown first I believe council member Matthews well understanding that much of yellow planners Work will be different Right, right. So understanding the much of the yellow planner including potentially their work on the rental data collection Effort since that's within the yellow planners Did you want to state that in your motion? Yes. Yes with the consideration that um that planner one or whatever they're being called I was trying that to number them one and two yellow and orange Because they're both equally talented that the yellow planners timeline might be affected And that the court the previous motion on corridors plan replaced the The calendar proposed item by staff Great, and then does that capture The other items that are not ap that are in your attachment one city-wide work plan as well. Yes, okay Any further discussion? Yeah, I well I as I said at the last meeting. I don't know that I'm necessarily comfortable with saying explicitly those are not going to happen because Um to the extent that these are items that everybody knows we want to take care of and certainly planning staff wants to take care of I don't want to preclude that from happening. So I think we all understand it. I don't know that stating it is Necessary or productive I think I maybe if I will I'm hearing something different I'm hearing that there is sort of a opportunity cost and so it will come at a cost of some of these other items Correct that is correct The reality is um as much as we can work on everything we would love to but given the very assertive timeline in the motion The reality is is that many of the yellow planning planners items Will have to be put to the wayside and the ones that she will be able to do in combination with this I the way I would prefer to prioritize it And I think legally we need to is to get the mandated adu items through as well And then anything else really would have to fall by the wayside And do you feel that it's important to have that stated that we are Putting those by the wayside as a council I can't make that decision But I do want to make it very transparent that To manage expectations on our end because we always want to be accountable to council and make sure that we're meeting your expectations That the reality is is that much of these things? If we do if council does choose stick to stick to this timeline as we come forward with report for you That they will have to Not be done in the six month time period If my colleagues feel that is critical to be said in a motion I won't stop it. I just don't understand it. Thank you On some record Would you rescind that language about the um stating it in the motion? Can explain Well what councilor rounds alluding to do we need to say that and be explicit in the motion about it? I've accepted it. It's I I think well if I could just to for a clarification I think it's just the reality that if we're accepting this as our six month work plan But we're making modifications that are going to influence whether or not We can actually do this work at the opportunity cost of moving forward with the original direction. That's just the reality I mean stated or not. I think so we are accepting this, but we know that elements might not get done I thought I both of you were on the um rental data collection uh subcommittee. How are you? I think what do you think about that? Accounts member I mean vice mayor Cummings I just add that we are actually having a well I've already met with some members of staff and we are going to meet tomorrow morning to discuss timeline About the rental data collection effort So just to put that out there and I think that something that would be beneficial is that as this work plan is being implemented That we receive report backs to better understand, you know, which items need to be pushed off Which items will you know May need to get extended so that that way we can make sure that we're managing the staff's priorities And their ability to get all these items done. Thank you Okay All right, any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. I oppose Can I get the second? Yeah Motion by vice mayor coming to have a reread of it for the sake of the minute says More sure final so the motion if you want to reread it was to accept the remainder of the Six month work plan program and and Recognize that elements within that May not get accomplished Due to the other actions. I think those are the timelines may need to be adjusted Um to accommodate the workloads associated with the new adoption of the corridors plan Sure, so except the staff recommendation Of the proposed modified citywide An advanced planning division six month work plans recognizing that The timeline for completion of the items By the staff member in yellow May need to be adjusted um It's taken to account The motion made the previous motion made on the corridors plan Okay, so that will then conclude item number 20 of our general business item, okay So let me scratch So the next item is item number 21 And that is the historic preservation commission recommendation on the water street bridge plaque And we have ryan bayne senior planner who will be presenting on this item welcome Good afternoon ryan bayne senior planner Back in may the city council made a request for the historic preservation commission to make a recommendation regarding the interpretive display or plaque We took the um the item to our june historic preservation commission meeting where the commission established a subcommittee To formulate a recommendation that that recommendation was brought back to our july hpc meeting Open to the public and discussed and ultimately resulted in the recommendation that's attached to your staff report So i'm available for any questions as well as joe mccollect our hpc chair is here if you have any questions regarding the recommendation Do any of the council members have questions for staff at this time on this item For staff and or commission members and on um if and or commission members if appropriate Okay, no wonderful. Thank you. I'm sorry just to clarify. There was a commission member here Yes, joe mccollect our our chair of the hbc is here Excellent. Thank you so much. Um, thank you all for doing the the work and uh looking into the issue and then coming together with the subcommittee and then the recommendation That's always nice to see. Um, I appreciate that the Uh commission supports the placement of Something on the bridge. Um, I'm uh, which curious it says in the bottom that uh, there would be a representative that would be working with Eleanor Mendoza, and I believe that she was present at the At the historic preservation commission meeting. Um, I have Has she been has this been communicated to her and what is her thoughts on The process has any any feedback from that? I personally have not communicated with her, but you're correct She was at the hbc meetings and spoke at both of those. Um, I think as part of the recommendation My understanding of reading it is that you know based on The council's direction and if this moves forward that that would that communication would happen with her I see. Thank you. Um, and then I noticed uh when they're talking about the site locations The physical site poses a number of problems that would need to be addressed before designing a sign or a panel. So I'm just a little confused because I thought it was a plaque But in the recommendation, it's a sign or panel and then this suggests that it would be Three dimensional or something to where it would potentially block a walkway But for all plaques that I've seen that have been commemorating historic or Um notable locations. They have been embedded in the actual Wall or cement, but then also there are couplets I believe what they're or the the little curved spaces along the bridge where people look out over the river And so I'm just curious If those were taken into consideration when thinking about the proposed the potential locations of that and If that was thought of before this was written in here that it would pose access problems might have Joe who kind of worked on that recommendation together. You might might be able to answer those a little more Okay, thanks. Thanks, Ryan. Uh, Joe Mike like chair of the Stork Preservation Commission. Thank you for Taking this up. Uh, I might point out that Ellen Mendoza and her petition of 120 people Started this process and it's it's kind of remarkable from standpoint of how democracy works how process takes place and How it goes on and on but to address your issue We looked at the site at river and water street. It's problematic from the standpoint that It's very busy. There's a right now. There's a big sign there relative to Construction work that's taking place. It's really not visible for people And we also thought that putting on the bridge Is may also present a problem in that who walks across the bridge very few people So I think it needs a more prominent place if we're serious about it And you could put it on by the river On by river and Where Wells Fargo bank is there's a space there or you could put it over by the courthouse Which might in fact be a more logical place We initially thought that mission plaza would be appropriate since the jail was located at the mission and mission plaza represents a lot of historical antecedents for people So that's what why we consider that and we thought that The sign needs to be more interpretive rather than putting 40 50 words on a plaque It is not meaningful. You need to put it in an historic context And that context is very complex a lot was going on at the time in 1877 People look back on it now Primarily because sources are more readily available Much more information is now accessible on the internet local newspapers Historical records from from a government are available There are two recent books that have been published oxford university press published forgotten Dead which has a picture of the hanging and lynching in Santa Cruz on the cover It's an iconic photo that's been Some people estimate it's the only one available From that time period one of the earliest indicating lynchings And subsequently has been used as a model for if you're going to do a lynching This is how you do it get the people behind the picture of the people killed You know you make a statement about it in terms of A legal representation for people that make it out of line So there's a lot of history there and we thought that It needs more explanation it needs a bigger context You know you can slap something up and put it on the bridge nobody's going to see it I think it needs much more context And you know others can speak to that but that's that's our point of view And we thought that that the museum is the logical place to begin this because they have a they have an exhibit That was mounted in 2013 did a very good job of uh talking about the lynching at the bridge and it's very subtle but very sophisticated And it does not take necessarily take a political position There's also the legal history of santa cruz county that was published by Museum art and history in 2006 that has a portion of that one of the chapters devoted to the lynching They talked about it as Lawlessness and racial strife that was endemic in santa cruz at the time And what else do I have to say? And the museum is a source of community engagement. They just had a Chinatown bridge discussion there. So to me, it's a focal point. They have an archive historical archive They know the people that put together that exhibit. So I think That for us is starting point the commission itself We are focused on the secretary interior standards. We're focused on the ordinance We're focused on dealing with the 703 historic buildings around the historic building survey We're not necessarily trained historians and I think that makes a difference in terms of putting this in the appropriate context That's why we recommended the museum And you know, they know the people that In the community that can help put this together Right. Well, thank you for that. Anyway that long-winded statement. That's perfect. No, it's great It provides me with your perspective the thought that went into it The different angles that you're thinking of when you're approaching the issue of history. So really appreciate that response There I agree with you on many points, especially the need that it to place it in a larger context To understand the history of the community and make it something that's a point of conversation and make it so it's as Seen as possible. So whatever that may be and whether whether that's next to the river or on the bridge I there were two things that caught my ear when you were talking the display at the museum Is subtle and there was another word you use subtle and Sophisticated, thank you. So subtle and sophisticated, which is good. Could you explain what you mean by subtle and then also doesn't take a political position? Could you just expand on that a little bit? You know, and you look at the exhibit that's in the museum. I hope everyone here had a chance to do that They don't put the hanging image out in front of your face. It's behind a fence There's a little hole and some people miss it, you know, you read the text from the local newspapers And what's interesting about that? There's an item from the the courier item newspaper whereas two months Earlier in this context They wanted to hang a white man and they said what a terrible thing to do. This is awful a couple of months later We're going to take out those californios And they were on the rampage about yes, let's do that and get rid of these undesirable people So there's there's some kind of dichotomy there between the the attitudes of people expressed through the newspaper And it's it's uh, you you have to read the text. It's it's relatively A fact It's basically factual you read it and you say this was what happened Okay, but then you start to think you go look at the 1877 newspaper accounts And it was an extensive coverage in the local papers And you know, nobody seems to know who did it. Yeah. Well, I don't believe that. Okay The 40 people involved in that sheriff had to know who did it And there are other elements of it, but you you know, you can't go back and interview people You know 140 years ago, but the the other element is there's denial of due process And and due process did exist at the time as far as I can tell And nobody prosecuted the people who did the lynching and it was sort of a the icon photo Uh Became a flash point for people in the community And they used it as a an object lesson for people This could happen to you if you're not careful, you know, I'm just hypothesizing that Absolutely cut up pieces of rope and sold them as souvenirs So there has to be an element here that could be examined in a larger context right and then hopefully the the inclusion of the Rest of the history of sand increase especially around, you know, white supremacy and the cluka clan, which was in 1922 So we'll we can talk about that at another time, but um Thank you for your answers and for your perspective with regards to this now I'll wait until we hear from the public before I make any motion, but that's amazing Is there any other questions before we open it up to public comment? Okay, seeing them We'll go ahead and see if members of the community would like to address us on this item And you'll have up to two minutes I would say false narratives of oppression or crisis enable some of the most devastating events in human history Examples are weapons of mass destruction as Saddam Hussein or potentially the green new deal that we're dealing with today This is an example this plaque of a false connection between racism And ultra violence by using a far distant past event with no real evidence such connection existed The original counsel direction given on this bridge plaque matter was to ascribe it to an act of racial terrorism That the false narrative language was taken out for today doesn't change the message much We don't need reminders of ultra violence itself I think the press has that covered on a daily basis every day It attempts to connect a narrative about the history of discrimination of california's instead of sticking to the For all we know scant unrelated facts of the actual lynching My understanding as accounts vary the actual vigilantes are unknown We don't know their motives except if anything it was because they thought them in hang were robber murderers That weren't getting just as muted out soon enough those hanged and those unknown unknown vigilantes Certainly were neither worthy of martyrdom or memorializing. I don't know the definition of a california But as a second generation native i'm thinking i'm one These events were regrettable But very rare in santa cruz occurred before the time of police the current justice system Before the concept of innocent before proven guilty was even a firm idea that came about a few decades later To me it is more of the progressive leftist politic of blaming regrettable events on racism And a rewriting of history to serve that purpose in the time of today It is an unnecessary incendiary Unusual purpose but in my opinion an example of a very destructive political purpose that's dividing our nation I don't really care what happened on the water street bridge 142 years ago But I do care what happens regarding revisionist history in the here and now It may come as a real revelation to some on the council But people treat each other better or more generous and the reduction of human suffering more likely When they are unified in common beliefs. Thank you any other members of the community want to address the council I think you'll be our last speaker Good afternoon scott graham To Think that there was no racism back then it's kind of absurd because we still have racism in santa cruz now Even though this is supposedly this liberal little community Um, there's abundant racism and I you know I I know that it exists and I'm sure it existed back then so To me the best place for this plaque would be on the bridge And in one of those little couplets where you can look out over the the river And if they want to have a permanent display in the lobby Of the museum That would also be good and that could be put on the plaque that you know to see for more information go to the museum And there's a permanent display And I would suggest putting it in the lobby because that way people wouldn't have to pay to go into the museum To see that display Thank you Seeing no other members of the community wanting to address us We'll go ahead and bring it back to the council for action and vice mayor comings So I think that Many of us acknowledge the Past that has led to the current united states. There was a lot of violence racism discrimination and a lot of injustices occurred and I think that a lot of that is evident in The events that happened on the state in 1887 However in our town, I think that we also need to acknowledge that a lot of progress has been made over time um Santa Cruz strives to increase diversity And inclusion within our community And I think that what we need to really focus on is continuing to promote diversity equity inclusion And justice with within our community so that we come together and we're able to push away negative forces such as ice that comes in and tries to um Really disturb our latino communities and other such forces that really try to um break down our you know Attempts to try to make our community one that's loving whole diverse and inclusive And so I'm going to make the motion that we accept the recommendation of the historic preservation commission With the appreciation for their thorough and thoughtful consideration of an interpretive plaque or panel regarding the 1877 lynching on the water street bridge And direct the mayor to appoint an ad hoc committee of individuals With demonstrated historical expertise in this field To develop a recommendation for an interpretive plaque or panel Acknowledging this incident in the context of early california history Returning to the council on or before The november 26 2019 meeting with their recommendation as to format text and location second uh Need a motion by vice mayor coming seconded by um Councilmember Glover. Thank you, and then um, yes, please. I'd also like to just uh, maybe talk briefly With that motion on the floor about a potentially a friendly amendment. Um, so it was mentioned Uh here with regards to the ma and incorporating them, which is great since that's their recommendation However, do we want to set a timeline associated with it? Just so that you know, because it's an open-ended date in all reality with the issue of this plaque and the commemoration of this Date there has been work for the last decade trying to get some kind of commemoration on that bridge with regards to the Lynching that took place there. So can we add into the motion some kind of Expectation of date and then also the incorporation of community conversation I just want to say that I did include a date the date is november 26 2019 that this should come back to us With the recommendation as to format text and location. I didn't hear the date and it's on or before So if they finish this before november 26 2019, then it can actually come before us then great Yeah, i'm good. Thank you. So you're comfortable with the um motion that you seconded. Yeah, I just didn't hear the date aspect Okay, um councilor crone and then uh councilor matthews. Thanks. I just had a statement I wanted to read from historian. Uh, jeffrey dunne who could not be here today because of a scheduling issue um Dunne says I have spent roughly 40 years researching and writing about this event And I feel strongly that it deserves to be acknowledged and reflected upon by the community A plaque is one way of displaying such earnest reflection This was a significant event in our history and we cannot let this moment of commemorating it slip by I thank councilmember glover and the rest of the council for moving this forward Thank you for sharing Yeah, um appreciate the Thoughtfulness on everyone's part that's gone into this and to the commission. I did speak with most of the commissioners extensively with jeff as well And I know his history on this And uh, I um, I think the direction of um designating a small ad hoc committee to work on this And they certainly have the latitude to involve resources from the mall from the community, etc And I think that that will come up with a it gives a good structure for coming up with a productive recommendation And I also do want to appreciate councilmember Cummings Approach to In some way and I leave it to to this group Including our contemporary aspirations to do better. Let's put it that way Uh And I know that at least one of the hpc members who works With california state park suggested perhaps bringing in some consulting for someone who specializes in Interpretive work. Um, that's certainly a possibility, but I think just um Uh designating a small committee of people really familiar with this field is a good way to go forward Thank you all Okay, council. Sorry. Councilor brown and then back to councilmember clever Yeah, I would agree with my colleagues about the importance of um using this opportunity to um to really reflect on the our The present day as well. And so and I I really appreciate the uh work that the historic preservation commission Um put in to to understand and bring us this recommendation This to me is an example of why we have commissions We have all of this amazing energy in our community and people who are really interested in Helping this council work through issues. And so I just want to you know to really celebrate that as well as the opportunity to memorialize Reflect upon the the substance of the event Thank you. We'll go councilmember clever in the back to councilor matt. Thanks. Um, I know in the motion It says to instruct the mayor to form the ad hoc committee just curious what would go into that selection process. Uh, and how would because oh because You know, uh as much as I would like to believe that there would be a super diverse and intricate process of uh, selecting the individuals that are involved in the ad hoc committee It I'm a little troubled with putting it all in the hands of one person Yeah, so we've had back and speak to this. Um, so we've began conversations with um With jeff redon who has a lot of extensive who's done a lot of extensive work on the subject already um, we've also had communications with uh professor ameritas Pedro castillo Who also is interested working on this or a number of historians have already reached out to us about wanting to work on this And I would actually, you know, um I would actually recommend that if other members of the city council have other historians that they would like to You know recommend to the mayor that they may be sent her an email with names that they would like to be considered for this ad hoc committee Okay You'll have to excuse my hesitant hesitation. Um, the majority of my requests do not get fulfilled. So, uh, when I send them in so, um Just a little Little pause there with concern with regards to making sure that if there was a recommendation that I made that it would actually be taken to consideration and then moved on as opposed to just disappearing into a an email black hole so It's great to know Pedro Castillo and uh, jeff done that you mentioned before when you say they reached out to us Who is us? Myself and in council member matthews had a conversation with jeff redon over the weekend I hadn't formally met him And um, so we had an opportunity to meet over the weekend to discuss this item. Oh great great great Yeah, I didn't get a chance to meet with him this weekend. Okay, wonderful. Well, uh, thank you council member matthews a couple quick comments, um It was acknowledged what a great service our hpc does historic preservation commission This was really out of their wheelhouse. Oh, they mostly deal with historic preservation of structures So I think it took a special amount of effort And research on the part of the subcommittee and thought on the part of the whole commission So I really commend you for something. It was not standard work in trade. You don't need to comment But I just wanted to give you thank you for that Briefly Elemendoza is an important element of this I think she should be considered if she's willing and able to do it to be on the committee That's just my thought. Okay, great. Thank you Thank you Just one more thing. Yeah, so thank you for saying that uh, I do just want to give a big shout out to Eleanor Mendoza Who worked with the different students and uh, educators in the area to bring the Data packet forward to me which allowed and also which allowed for me to craft and create the Gender report which was submitted with the supporting information and thanks to my colleagues for co-sponsoring The agenda item. So a great example of how a young student with a diligent focus on making an impact in the community can Make some impact and change but then also um, I don't know if I guess we wouldn't want to necessarily incorporate an emotion to prioritize Eleanor if she's interested on the on the Subcommittee or whether we should just go through a recommended email I think that the mayor has heard loud and clear. Okay. I mean you'll just have to excuse my expect skepticism But absolutely, so we can move forward Okay, well, okay. Thank you for the motion. We have a motion by vice mayor vice mayor coming seconded by councilmember Gleaver Thank you for the work on this and to The commissioner who is here today to help uh answer some questions as well as staff So all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously Okay, we'll go ahead and move on to our next agenda item, which is item number 22 And that's the role of the planning commission subcommittee at community outreach meetings and associated update to the department Of planning and community development community outreach policy for planning projects And it looks like we have uh Catherine here uh and sarah back I'm back and welcome Good evening Members of the council. I'm catherine donovan senior planner in our advanced planning division And I am bringing to you today A draft guidance for our planning commission subcommittee Just some background on this on august 28th The city council approved the community outreach policy for our planning projects And the policy was based on recommendations from the santa cruz voices how in housing the fall 2017 community engagement report And in that report the public and the planning commission had expressed a need for more involvement in all projects at earlier stages So that meaningful input could be provided Before projects are virtually completed The development completed And so in response to those concerns The policy included the planning commission subcommittee The subcommittee consists of up to three planning commissioners and they are volunteers who work on a six month rotation Um, they attend all community meetings for large or significant projects And we the reports from our early community meetings Included that there was some confusion and uncertainty as to the subcommittee's role We also had an issue of some planning commissioners who spoke out in support of projects at the meetings, which is not appropriate um, and so at their march 7th and 21st 2019 meetings the planning commission Discussed the issues at length and talked about the pros and cons of the subcommittee And whether whether it needed to be disbanded disbanded or if there just needed to be More input on on the protocols and the conduct of the subcommittee at these community meetings um And the issues that came up the pros included how informative these meetings were for the planning commission Like the council normally you get two or three minutes of testimony from each individual Member of the public And and that's not always enough discussion And so the planning commission found that being able to attend these meetings and listening to Really prolonged discussion From a variety of people help them in their understanding of How the community felt about projects and it also gave them a chance to listen to the developer feedback and then to see How developers had responded to the community and whether they had actually made meaningful changes to the projects or not um, it also allows the planning commission to to weigh in early to um be able to Make comments to the developer on a project early on when the developer can easily make changes rather than waiting till the project is Practically completed And it's also a chance for trust building and community outreach by the by the planning commission And the cons that came up were the confusion Um amongst the public as to the role And also potential brown act violations At least in the eyes of the the public there were there were Multiple comments from the public about whether or not this was a brown act violation um, and also about the possible perception of somehow following Recommendations or comments by the planning commission, whether that would give the developers a a Pre-approval or whether they were were required to to follow those comments Ultimately after extensive discussion on this the planning commissioners Indicated that they wanted to continue with the subcommittee But they wanted to have Some established rules of decorum Um, and they voted to have staff bring this back to the city council to ask for direction And given that staff had received This extensive conversation with the planning commission We went ahead and prepared some draft guidelines for you That addressed the both the planning commission and the public's concerns And we have included those draft guidelines In your packet and we would be happy if you had adjustments you wanted us to make To include those in the draft guidelines and either just make them and and have that be approved or come back with a Depending on how extensive those changes were And That's it Do you have any questions we'd be happy to answer Are there any questions for staff at this time comes from Matthew just a trivial one I like the general direction of this so the guidelines are simply a refinement clarification on the existing program which will continue I see the format is that Volunteers on a volunteer basis the commissioners Are appointed for a six month period for the subcommittee. My only thought was maybe at some point there's a Personal schedule conflict. They can't make a public meeting could an alternate be Appointed so three planning commissioners could still attend But they wouldn't be on the subcommittee. It's just right. What we found is that They don't always have three attending sometimes. It's only two Depending on as you say conflicts and schedules But I don't see any problem with adding that in there that there could be an alternative Makes other questions councillor yeah, thanks for the presentation. Um, what in your opinion, what would we be missing? If we didn't have this committee at all the What I personally see as the most important piece of this is the Allowing the planning commission on these more complicated projects to have the more in-depth public input because All those members of the public do reach out to individual planning commissioners Being able to be at a meeting where there's an in-depth discussion And a lot of give and take and listening to the developer respond to the community Is very very different than the formal meeting format and I think that the commissioners get A lot out of that and it it really improves the process It helps inform them as to the community's concerns and as I said before it lets them see How sensitive the developer has been to those concerns In just one more question. It's like what are the rules that govern like the planning commissioners interactions with Developers that people who have projects before them or applications Yet They would like to speak to that Good afternoon, mayor and council members. Yes, and there are distinctions between legislative and quasi-judicial actions for the planning commission And that's why I wanted to to speak to it is because For the quasi-judicial actions the bylaws that are adopted by the council for the guide the planning commissioners actions preclude the conversations between the planning commissioners and the general public and As katheryn mentioned in those instances the planning commission is able to then hear from the community as a large as a whole everyone who's attending those meetings at least and Have a a better understanding of the dialogue that occurs between those community members and The developers who are presenting that those same provisions are not As much of a requirement for legislative actions however We still invite the planning commissioners to those Legislative policy issues that our advanced planning team brings forward. So again, they have more of an opportunity to hear the dialogue Between community members about the pros and cons of different options much more so than you get at a meeting Very much very similar to these where people get up and they they say they're two minutes and there isn't a back and forth and a conversation And I'll just maybe and then I'll go to vice mayor coming to the council You know I being part of the housing blueprint subcommittee. We really talked about how we are Being really transparent and engaging the community early on and doing the best we can to avoid any conflicts Later down the line. So the intention I just want to really acknowledge behind this is to get misconceptions and awareness out there so that we can have more thorough and efficient really process to move To move items or or not. So Council and vice mayor coming to the council question. So can planning our planning commissioners allow to speak with developers Before the project comes before them No the bylaws state that Planning commissioners are not to communicate with either the public or developers for quasi judicial actions So if there is a project a development proposal that would be a quasi judicial action that is going before the planning commission The bylaws state that planning commissioners should not be having conversations with either the public or The developers in advance So the the community meeting serves as an opportunity for the commission to hear from the community and from the developers presentation and then convey that information back and Admittedly we've we've had some hiccups as Catherine alluded to during the first year of implementation and We're learning from those and I think that this Set of guidelines is a good first step and I think If the council has suggestions on how that can be strengthened You know we're we're open to those and I think that the planning commission would be as well they want also to have A clear understanding of the role and expectations that they have Just to follow I asked that question because I was at a meeting regarding development and The planning commission subcommittee committee spoke to the entire audience about the project and so Um, maybe that's one of the hiccups that occurred early on But I just wanted to that's why I brought this question up because that was concerning to me since I've been in a meeting where I've seen the subcommittee speak about a development that is still kind of in the process of of You know them applying for the application so and that's one of the things that we would appreciate any council Comments or or questions on there are pros and cons to the planning commissioner speaking Certainly is speaking in a manner that Would advocate for or against a project I would not see as something that we would expect from a planning commissioner. However I'm expressing questions about a project or Identifying issues that may be of a concern early one of the advantages that we saw of the planning commissioners early involvement is at at one Community meeting for example a planning commissioner spoke In front of the group and said that they had concerns about the the corner element and Uh, the presentation of that You know, whether it's materials or placement and that can be looked at in a number of ways If it's interpreted as oh, well if they address that You know if it's interpreted by the public I should say as well if they address that then they're going to get the account the that planning commissioner support That could be viewed negatively However, if it's viewed as well That could help improve the project and it's something that early on there is an a larger opportunity To make those modifications Whereas the project hasn't been finalized that could be viewed in a positive manner And so setting that framework up front That was one of the things that we tried to do with the guidelines Is put that framework in place so that those expectations are clear for the community and for the commissioners And that they're stated at those meetings So if it's the first time someone's attended a meeting and they see a planning commissioner speak up and have a question about You know, I'm not really Comfortable with the way that the building is addressing the street. Can you speak to? How your approach was in In designing the pedestrian realm there and then That upfront conversation and that upfront setting the stage for the community can help to Keep that as a neutral statement and one that doesn't come with Expectations of well if you address the pedestrian environment then that commissioner is going to support your project So I think it is a balancing act And I think that there are positives and negatives and those I tried to articulate how you know They could be perceived in the community and to the extent we can set that stage Then hopefully we're addressing those Community concerns while also providing a valuable opportunity for the planning commissioners If they choose to do so we've also had Planning commissioners say they weren't comfortable speaking And I think that that's fine as well If they want to just Absorb what they get from the community and report that back to the planning commission because that's an important part is Reporting their observations back to the full commission so that the commission gets a better flavor for how those community meetings went Thank you I just Oh, sorry. Okay. Okay Councilmember brown So my question is Also for director butler Is there Is there anything that precludes planning commissioners from attending these public meetings as members? I understand they can't meet individually behind closed doors, but is there anything that prohibits that there isn't anything that expressly precludes it certainly we want to be careful about brown act issues and so any time we've got For planning commissioners for more planning commissioners at a public meeting then it raises potential brown act concerns and so There are ways in which that can be addressed in terms of setting the the Expectations for them. However, I personally advise sort of a cautious cautious approach to that and Say, you know, it's best if four commissioners aren't present at one just to avoid the perception Of brown act issues even if they are following the regulations in terms of not having individual conversations with one another about the the project Just the community perception is one that we also want to be cognizant of Do you have any other questions? Sorry, director butler I'm just curious if Are other communities doing this similar kind of process is this sort of becoming the norm with regards to i'm just curious about You know and just curious if this is happening in other communities at all and I mean it does place a lot of pressure. I feel like on the commissioners because They're being really asked to participate in a way that's Not completely clear. So i'm just curious if if this is starting to become more more You know more common with communities Sure different communities do it in different ways and Some better than others I had a I've seen a community where for example two of the commissioners actually Is sit on a decision making a lower decision making body the the two planning commissioners sit on a lower decision making body Along with a council member and that raises concerns about due process and future Items getting appealed and so I would not recommend that approach however, I think that there is certainly a Push to involve the community earlier in the process and Many cities are looking at ways in which they can do that and so I think different cities do it in different ways but certainly the Earlier we can get folks involved The the better opportunities that they have to to shape the future development applications Any other questions for staff before we open it up to public comment Please see none. We'll go ahead and see if members of the community want to address us on this item You'll have up to two minutes. Please come forward Good afternoon scott-gram I think there's a perception among the public that a lot of these developments come forward completely fleshed out and that the Outreach to the community is basically just a dog and pony show and that the Planning commission is just basically rubber stamping everything that comes along so personally I would like to see the public involved at the earliest point possible to add input into developments so that it doesn't become the developer just Foisting something on to the community, but there's actual community involvement in what's being done here Thank you Through any other members of the community Okay, seeing them we'll return back to council for action deliberation And I think I'll just go ahead and sort of restate what I think you know is is evident here Which is that we do want compatibility with neighborhoods and community involvement early on and so as we're starting to learn the best approach to that I appreciate This potential process So with that I'll go ahead and look at council member crone councilor matthews council member brown Thank you mayor My concern is doing the public's business in public and I was at the same meeting that the vice mayor was at. I was at two other meetings Where this you know you had strong advocacy Uh On the part it seemed to me by by commissioners. I would like to make the following motion In the interest of fairness and the removed taint or bias by city officials From the review of land use development projects the provisions in the develop in the department of planning and community development community outreach public policy for planning projects for a planning commission subcommittee tasks With attending community meetings shall be deleted Second The motion by council member crone seconded by council member brown. I believe it was council member matthews than council member brown Um I'm actually kind of Agnostic on that. I see the the value of the subcommittee. Um, I I certainly support the direction that has been taken to um, have a graduated Matrix of expectations of public outreach and involvement and it's certainly valuable for particularly on the higher profile or larger projects to Um, have these kind of earlier Outreach efforts meetings with the public and encourage planning missionaries to come Whether or not they should be required to come. I think that's a different issue. I should also say Regarding whether four of them might want to attend Um, I don't see I don't think there should be a prohibition against that. I don't think you quite Suggested that but there again it is there is a different dynamic at a public meeting So it can be quite useful if you anticipate that this is the early stage of something that's going to have a lot of community visibility to go and observe and I think The important part of the guidelines here Um, it should be almost whether or not There's a subcommittee that if you go to one of these meetings It's kind of like when we meet with labor representatives. You are listening You're not you're not uh Projecting conclusions in advance. So I think that's the value you go you get the dynamics There may be the opportunity to ask a non leading question How are you handling such and such? And get an answer. So I think there's a value in in In the early outreach efforts and in Encouraging planning commissioners to go but but being clear on the guidelines. So I think that's the bottom line is the attack I tend to agree with council member Matthews about this and um, so You know, I really believe that As council member crone has suggested that Having planning commissioners attend these meetings in an official capacity Has caused us problems and I'm not sure that written guidelines are going to prevent that I really appreciate staff's attempts to To to do that to help clarify and I think that they are useful and ought to be Used as guidelines for planning commissioners in general and so I'm wondering if the maker of the motion would Agree to include that in the direction What's the exact wording that to to use the proposed guidelines for the subcommittee or the proposed protocol Whatever the terminal attachment three. Thank you That those would be adopted as guidelines for planning commissioners in their participation at public meetings Should they do so? What is it 22 15 sorry, I don't have page numbers And if I could Those would have to be modified because they refer to a subcommittee structure So if you just strip out that and just say Should planning commissioners attend an outreach meeting? These are the guidelines and expectations I as you were speaking. I was totally agreeing with you. I I do go back to when you said they ask leading questions. I would um Rather have As many planning commissioners who want to go to public meetings just like council members But not but to observe and not necessarily participate because as you know A lot of our actions can be perceived by different ways in the community and I'm totally in favor of four or five Planning commissioners going to a meeting To observe and to see what the community debates about but I would prefer if we could maybe send this I don't know how you put it in the resolution, but if we could they could not like necessarily ask questions or you know applaud or Um, I I don't know by some air coming to you want to respond. Okay. Go ahead. Well, I mean, yeah Yeah, I mean, I I am sort of operating under the assumption that um as council members are expected to do We that that is the responsibility of planning commissioners to Act accordingly. Um, I so if the goal is to say Planning commissioners can't ask questions at public meetings should they attend and include that as an additional guideline Is that what you're Suggesting I'm not I will take that one ask questions and provide input related to city's land use of design policies I would I would take that out But the others I like learn about the project listen to public discussion Report back to the planning commission and I think that it's it's really good for us to make clear just like we should make it Clear to ourselves that more than three of us can attend meetings It's just that we cannot communicate with one another and the sense of it looks like we're making a decision And I would expect planning commissioners to do the same Vice mayor Cummings and then council member matthews I'm just gonna um speak to my support of this just because of the fact that um I think that it's really important that planning commissioners want to go to meetings and what's been reiterated that they should be able to go I do think that it's problematic if they're going in an official capacity And so I just want to um voice my support for the motion and also that um under the guidelines that have also been included around You know the intention of them attending these meetings is to learn about the project Listen to the public discussion and then also report back to the commission. I think those are all Valid things we would want our, you know, planning commissioners doing at these meetings And I think that the time for them to weigh in is when these items come to public hearings And so I think that um, I just want to say that i'm in support of motion A question of staff um when these meetings are held. Is there always a staff member who attends? Yes, so really that kind of alleviates the need for um the Oh now I've lost it the function of providing input on city procedures or something. I mean if some member of the Public says well, I don't know how xyz is going to be handled. You'd turn to staff and staff answers that so We're not losing anything on that. Yes And then I just also wanted to comment um Sometimes on these Developments of various sizes. There's a lot of public interest Curiosity opposition Whatever support And a lot of emotion And in fact the project meets the district requirements. So there's not necessarily as much latitude or You know possibility to require changes as Members of the public might think and that's good to know Well, I am I'll just say that I support Absent a formal process having an interest in wanting our planning commission to engage with the community early on to hear their concerns to help that It's a preventative policy, right? I mean, I think the approach is to really try to mitigate the things before they Escalate in a way that doesn't feel like they've the community has been heard or their ideas have been incorporated So, um, I'm supportive of the direction and um, if you're happy to I'm wondering if pardon me. I apologize for the interruption. I'm wondering if The motion could be restated. Sure. Why don't we have you restate the motion at council member chrome Thank you for that and then we had a second by council member brown Can we also put um the a b and d in there too? Would that be appropriate to um, what um council member matthews Alluding to wanting people to participate and be there and observe But not but we have staff member to answer substantive questions about city policies and stuff the motion In the interest of fairness and to remove any taint of bias by city officials from the review of land use development projects The provisions in the department of planning and community development outreach policy for planning projects For a planning commission subcommittee tasked with attending community meetings shall be deleted Okay, so that was a motion by council member crone seconded by council member brown But I ask for clarification of that Is the motion to approve The draft guidelines with that modification So that was the My request was to amend the motion to include uh The draft planning commission subcommittee guidelines provided in attachment three of our agenda packet that those Would be Approved as guidelines for planning commission revised and approved as guidelines for planning commissioners Who choose to attend public meetings with the exception of Where is it um Number can you remind me to see member crone to see thank you to see What is through the merit may I ask a clarifying question sorry council member crone. Yes, go ahead. Okay. Um, so basically what I'm hearing is that we would The direction would be to disband the commission But retain the guidelines subcommittee. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh my goodness. Yes Yes, yes, yes, thank you the subcommittee And to revise the guidelines to be applicable to any planning commissioner who attends a meeting Deleting asking the section about asking questions and providing input right, okay And this would actually involve revising the policy itself because the policy has the direction for the subcommittee That was kind of the direction. My question was going is it sounds like there's What the council is discussing Is modifications to both the existing policy and the draft guidelines. So the direction would be to have you revise that Based on the input you received from the council today. Okay. Does that feel comfortable for the council staff Okay. Yes clerk. Did you Feel a clear. Okay. So these are any you're feeling good? I'm just going to ask if the council would like the revised Guidelines and policy to be returned to the council perhaps on a consent calendar for further council review. I'll be fine. That's fine. Just to make sure we're clearly capturing it. Right. Great. Okay. So we'll see that at a future time on consent Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That passes unanimously Okay So we'll go ahead and move right on to our next agenda item, which is item number 23, which is the resolution endorsing the green new deal And this was an item that was continued from the prior meeting And that's item number 23 I'll go ahead and ask staff. I mean, I'm sorry I'll go ahead and ask the city council members that brought this item forward if they'd like to present on The agenda item before I open it to see if there's any questions amongst the council and then go ahead and open it up Thank you, mayor Yeah, so this was a continue from last time like you mentioned That was due to some Additional language that had been added by myself and brought forward for some potential amendments to include the Senate resolution as well as the house resolution For our message of endorsement, but then also some language in it that Made it a little bit stronger in my opinion in the opinion of community members and some people involved in environmentalism locally and fighting climate change To hold specifically corporations more accountable and then also make sure to bring in language with regards to protected communities the issues of labor the issues of transitions from existing fossil fuels over into a green economy and some other items so you can find the language in your packet and happy to answer any questions or clarify okay Well, I guess I just have maybe one clarifying question is This was an item that was brought forward by council member brown vice mayor Cummings and council member Glover and then Revisited to have a conversation. Is this an item that you are in? Support of as a committee or was this Just the updated version that was originally provided just for clarification council member brown. We had a meeting the as The three of us had a meeting and with Tiffany wise west and the outcome of that meeting was that this would be the Version that was brought to the council. Okay And was this the version that was is this version supported by tiffani and our city attorney or Did they have any input or did Our city attorney is not weighed in but I don't I don't have any concerns about it from a legal perspective Yeah, laura's here. She can comment on that Forishment interim assistant city manager. I think from Tiffany's perspective She is extremely supportive of the Green New Deal in general and she worked with the council members offline And so she we leave it to you at this point as far as the details of the conversation Okay, so in concept but not necessarily in specific specificity. Okay Okay, is there any other questions for the subcommittee members? Just want to also add one thing First I want to thank tiffani for all the work that she's done on this. She does tremendous work for our city Helping us become more sustainable and meeting the reduction in greenhouse gases Which is something that this community very much cares about and I just want to be clear that from the last meeting there were a number of the of Be it further resolve clauses that Weren't in the initial proposal that was brought to the city council Which is part of the reason why we wanted this to be reviewed. So I just wanted to make it clear that Tiffany in no way removed those and those were reintroduced that those items were New items that came forward at the last meeting and that's part of the reason why we wanted to go over this before It came before the council today. So I just wanted that to be clear Thank you for the clarification okay councilmember clever, I'm a little confused So That is true that there were additions that were not in previous Versions, however, it is also true that the language that was present in the one that was in the last agenda had been altered from the original language Which had changed the language around businesses and corporations So there are where there were additional clauses that were out of you're absolutely correct But it was also reintroduced because of some reintroduction of some original language There's but I guess the only thing that I would respond is that Some of that I know that some of that language had been reviewed by the city attorney's office and that there were Um recommendations that were made around that language and that that original version had been agreed upon to be included last time And so that was another so I'll acknowledge that that is something else that Councilmember Glover Was hoping to have changed in this and it has been included in the current version that we have before us Absolutely along with the additional clauses that it weren't that were introduced at the last meeting absolutely councilmember Myers I'll support the resolution, but um, I yeah, I guess also I just want to congratulate tiffany and the city staff on An award that the city received this week called the beacon award, which recognizes that the city is well on its way in our climate change and Climate change efforts and Will be the city as a whole will be recognized in october for that so Just important for our community to know that um, the city is actually a leader in many of the things that are that are Cited in the resolution. So I believe that we're working hard and i'm happy to Let's call the vote We have to we have this is questions and then we'll go we have to open it up to public comment first Did you have any other questions before we open it up to public comment? No, no, okay Okay, uh, we'll go ahead and open it up to public comment and then we'll come back for the for the motion go ahead And you'll have up to two minutes to address the council Um Hi, elise casby here environmental activists for the last about 40 years So I just want to say that the politics of climate change is well underway sadly Very very sadly for the american people And the green new deal for my understanding has been pretty greenwashed by corporations I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the definition of greenwashed What I hope the general public will start to realize is Most of this has have been sadly very misled about the scale and scope That climate change is about to impact all of us and is already impacting People around the world indigenous people who live Up on the ice ice fishermen and women up there Around the world. It's well established and it's well underway. It looks like we might have 10 feet Of sea level rise possibly as early as within the next 10 to 20 years Possibly earlier 10 feet sea level rise here So I just want to say that um, I have a book to recommend by dar jamil Dar jamil is one of the most excellent investigative journalists in my opinion. That's alive and working today I became aware of dar jamil when the politics of The iraq war were underway and as we all know weapons of mass destruction were never found there Our reason for going into iraq was pure and simple oil for the oligarchs here in america and around the world Dar jamil presents a very readable book. It's called the end of ice It documents many of the different Ecosystems that will be impacted by climate change not only sea level rise, but forests and so far We are way behind this green deal is probably way behind everybody needs to get up to speed. Thank you very much I care at philip This is an example of one of those, you know, false crisis Anyway, the false climate change narrative disingenuously spun by the lustful filthy lucre grabbing or anti-american principled socialist change activists Must be opposed in the strongest terms or be one of them by your silence and ignorant support Their narrative is chocked full of lies real scientists Would tell you that lie number one is that science is at a point where is is not at a point where it can predict climate 10 to 100 years into the future Climate is an example of one of the most complicated systems to model there is and the current understanding is Beyond us by orders of magnitude models of equivalent complexity would be like predicting the timing of earthquakes or the exact location Category and landfall of hurricanes a month from now or 10 years from now Light number two is that co2 a single contributor to climate that is estimated to influence climate in the 2% range Man's part far less is a lever that can control climate meaningfully Line number three is that alternative replacements will magically appear to any of the things they wish to tax Up the yin yang including all carbon-based things or dependent things including oil coal paper iron steel cement glass aluminum They will simply be taxed a zero effect on anything except the ill effects on those who pay for this ignorance Your particular support resolution contains repugnant intentions to violate the sovereign rights of individuals The phrase future policy will help create high quality union jobs Which pay for veiling wages blah blah and guarantees wage benefit parity for workers affected Indicates a decided preference to deny citizens their absolutely identical right to negotiate for themselves without unions Show a preference for central planning of all kinds and shows an unwelcome rights interference in labor negotiations A reminder you should not be representing unions But only on the behalf of all people's right to fair negotiations on the side of the people in public union negotiations You are too far on the wrong side of this My motivational guess is vote pandering if you don't think the reality is a small percentage Thank you Good afternoon. I'm brett garrett and I just want to say thank you so much For hopefully unanimously endorsing the green new deal. It's very important It's one of the ways that that santa cruz is a leader on these issues Um, I strangely have a point of agreement with the previous Speaker the scientists can't predict what's happening a hundred years in the future and at every turn we're finding that their previous predictions Were too conservative that the climate is getting worse faster than anyone predicted and That appears to be likely to continue And we just have to do all we can and thank you so much for endorsing this green new deal resolution Hello, my name is dr. John Conway I'm an environmental scientist and the head of research at the romero institute And I would just like to thank all of you and particularly tiffani wise west for your leadership on and climate action and sustainability Um, because it's very very clear that if every city and county and State and country in the world does not undertake actions like this and faster And very soon then we will have failed as a human civilization And and I would like to see that not happen. So thank you very much for your leadership And I encourage you to all vote to support a green new deal. Thank you Hi, my name is ania. I'm 19 years old and I live in santa cruz I am here on behalf of sunrise. Um, which is who proposed the green new deal originally and the national level of I think endorsing environmental legislation and getting the environmental legislation through is absolutely essential to create the livable future I feel as though if we do not take a major environmental action now It will create the future that is not good for anyone And with that said, I think environmental legislation needs to be just for all people and for all people to live And one person said here That's we are well on our way to climate change efforts in santa cruz I do not believe we are well on our way to climate change efforts. I feel scared when I go to bed at night I cannot sleep at night because i'm scared for my future And my children when I have children their future and my friends cannot sleep at night I have my best friend who cries to me at night because she's scared of her future We are fearful of our future and we have a right to be fearful for our future We already see climate change affecting our futures now. We see islands going underwater. We see wildfires I cannot move back hardly to my hometown because i'm so scared of fires being able to go through the hometown I live very close to paradise and it's one of the towns most likely to be Effective and so I really hope we take more concrete action in the future and support more environmental action Because this environmental action is not enough alone. But with that said, I think it's a stepping stone for our future. Thank you Hello, can I submit a document for the record? Go ahead My name is gramp black. I'm 21 years old and I'm the hub coordinator of sunrise in santa cruz I'm here today to let y'all know that We do endorse this green new deal and we certainly hope you guys do as well A special thanks to tiffani wise west as well as councilmember glover and his interns and the people at his office for drafting this vision statement We support climate action and we see this resolution as a building block in which our city will develop a concrete green new deal in word and deed We want to see a just transition for the displaced workers and the unemployed By creating thousands of green jobs through infrastructure retrofitting buildings and new public transit construction solar installation And an emphasis on smart agriculture with sequestration emphasized We also want to see an emphasis on social and racial justice in this green new deal in this region Additionally, I would just like to say This is a really serious crisis and I appreciate the council recognizing that But we have a long way to go and the youth are definitely waiting and the youth are definitely looking towards you for guidance And we will continue to be here to pressure you until we see it. Thank you Are there any other members of the community who want to address the council on this matter? Cassie, then you'll be our last speaker Good afternoon scott-gram I think that it's imperative that We support the green new deal and that the city itself work on implementing as many of the projects and Other things as possible On a timely manner because the time is running out. I mean we don't have 100 200 years to work this out. We have a short period of time to Reverse what is going on or at least If not reverse it Haulted in its track so it doesn't go any further um So I don't I don't see any reason why we can't just uh endorse this project There's a lot of conservative People out there like rush limbaugh and shawn hannity that are saying oh the green new deal We're going to have to get rid of all the cows. We're going to have to stop using airplanes and You know all these other nonsensical things that they're pushing against the green new deal and it's all it's going to cost You know trillions of dollars It's actually going to create so many jobs Implementing these things that it's going to pay for itself And the fact that these people will be working and paying taxes and So forth and so on and it'll create new industries So I hope that you're all supportive of this. Thank you Yeah Okay, we'll go ahead and return back to the council at this time councilmember glever councilmember brown and then vice mayor Cummings councilman thank you Yes, thank you. Thank you for all the speakers from the community I think as was illustrated in the comments and also with especially the news in recent weeks with the heat waves and the arctic and the amazon rainforest on fire that we can Hopefully come together unanimously and move this resolution forward with the goal of Acknowledging all of the fantastic work that we've done so far in the city of santa cruz to address climate change and Mitigate the impacts that we'll see from that but also As a statement of the hope for our future endeavors that can be ideally even more ambitious with the direction that we go and the roles that we take so I'd like to make the following motion that we Adopt the resolution endorsing the green new deal house resolution 109 and senate resolution 59 as well as Direct the mayor to send a letter of support for house resolution 109 and state resolution 59 to the city's congressional delegates I can buy councilmember crone and the I believe it was councilmember brown vice mayor Cummings and then councilmember raphews So I just want to make a couple of comments having been involved in Bringing this before the council And primarily what I want to say is that Given that this is a resolution that's advisory in nature And it took some time to to get it To us, you know, I think it's important that we we Are supportive and that we make uh, we We communicate that support excuse me to our congressional representatives um I um could Word Smith some of this language a little further And we unfortunately didn't have an opportunity to do that at our last meeting So that said I'm supportive of it Coming to us now as it is What I really am interested in though is the important work that we need to do to actually um Create policy and programmatic changes the the things that we need to do to actually address climate change I see this as an important step to acknowledge it to let Our congressional representative know that we're supportive And hope that he will be too at the federal level that it is a much bigger Challenge than we can deal with alone in Santa Cruz, but we certainly have our part to play and I want to thank Tiffany wise west for working On this with us And I really look forward to working with her and with the community and my colleagues As we move forward with things like building electrification And and other policies and programs here at the city I just want to echo um what councilmember brown just said because I don't think that our work stops with just moving this resolution forward today I think that as has been mentioned by many members of the public that we do have a lot of work to do having Been working at the front lines of a lot of these issues. Um, I've Did my phd work in Panama? I've worked on climate change issues in the Everglades and Continue to work to with youth for them to understand the impacts that we're having on our environment and to help um Educate and promote future leaders to become Leaders in the conservation movement So I'm deeply committed to moving forward policy and working with the members of our community to make sure that we are Moving forward with implementing change and I think that after this Resolution gets gets adopted and as we mentioned we weren't able to wordsmith this as much as we were hoping to at the last meeting But um that as this moves forward that we as a community continue to move forward taking action In the form of policy to make sure that we're actually continuing to stay ahead of many other cities when it comes to Trying to draw down our greenhouse gas emissions and become a more sustainable community Council member matthews. Thank you. Um, I uh do support the uh green new deal. I have just a couple I know people don't want to wordsmith. I have a couple what I think pretty minor Changes I would like to suggest here. Um, the text in the whereas is Make it clear that this is an aspirational document and um, I just have a few on the very last page I consider these tweaks and I hope they'd be accepted as friendly At the top be it further resolved that I'm dropping out local that businesses organizations and corporations Should be held accountable through policy and regulation for the environmental degradation Caused by their products and practices and recognized for their contributions to environmental sustainability So I I hope that would be acceptable um And that's on uh for the do you want to go through it and then have this um to be Individually accepted. I'll I'll just read them and then people can react Okay, so I'll go through all through all four through We'll go through all of them and then have a further discussion And just to clarify. Thank you. There's the clarify. This is the first be it further resolved on the second We're third on the last page. This is I think it depends on how your page lays out Yeah, in the packet. So there's four pages in my packet. Um, that is on and posted on that Be it further resolved that local businesses. Okay. And so your suggestion there is I'll read it again Yeah, and just a second be it further resolved that businesses organizations and corporations Should be held accountable through policy and regulation for the environmental degradation caused by their practices and products And recognized for their contributions to environmental sustainability So as opposed So can you just let me know why you want to take out local businesses as we are writing a resolution for our local Area, uh, and then also is there a reason why you wanted to remove out the language Environmental degradation caused by waste and pollution generated through day-to-day business and products they sell Just curious I I thought practices and products was more general That's all I'll just if I could maybe and I'll weigh in, you know, I um I support the removal of local businesses I think, you know as the representative of the city going to the national conference of mayors to advocate that multinational corporations, particularly big oil Be held accountable for their contributions to kind of clump them together with local businesses that I think we really try to work with to become green businesses feels sort of um Trying to mix a positive potential approach with a negative run, right? So we I think fully want to support National big oil like those there needs to be accountability there and right now they're seeking immunity And so I think that's consistent with that And so for me, I think that's where I sort of see feel a rub too between that being blended in with the local because they're sort of I mean there's major contributions that big oil knew about for over 50 years and deceived our public about And it's sort of hard to mix the two for me another just another what why I added that last line recognize for contributions to environmental sustainability Tiffany came and presented to the community affairs committee of the chamber and on her climate adaptation plan and Was So well received and taken so seriously. I think we want to include especially at the local level the awareness and engagement Of our business community and our organization. So that was my reason. Absolutely. Um, what, uh, I wouldn't say this. Um Yes, I totally agree with everything that y'all just said And if it's just the removal of the word local as to assume that businesses and multinational corporations Compass as well the local then I'd be okay with removing the word local I do want to point out at the last meeting it was cited that there were somewhere around 500 green businesses in the In the area, um, but in some further investigation the city's green, uh, business department Or what not reports 190 green businesses in the city of santa Cruz And then looking at all of the other businesses that exist and the business licenses some for example are like yacht charters or mcdonald's or All the apartment complexes that we have here in santa Cruz. So Those are not Green businesses and our have a you know, in my opinion, there's not very much accountability with regards especially like lane charters So they're dumping Stuff into our water because of the how much they use their engine all the time So I hope that we can understand that yes, there's a green business program. Yes, we're working with our local businesses Yes, there are 190 great green businesses registered here in santa Cruz and we want to appreciate them Also acknowledging that we have a massive amount of other businesses that are not green businesses Some of them multinational corporations and some of them directly impacting the environment for example Um, if you saw in this previous week's good times the photo contest winner, did anyone see that? Just anyone on the dice? No, um, it's uh collection of plastic beach balls that have found their way on the San Lorenzo river and Jam themselves underneath the overpass at the base of ocean view park So the question that begs then is what are we doing or what is the boardwalk being held accountable for? For their toxic plastic waste that they are emitting into our marine sanctuary That is documented now in the um in the good times But I have to be honest I who used to live up in the east side area by the park would walk that consistently and notice the inflatable hammers that you get at ticket Booths and all of the other garbage and trash that's accumulated as a direct result of the boardwalk being there Not to mention all of the oil that comes off of their machines in a marine sanctuary Not to mention the noise pollution or the car and exhaust fumes from people driving continuous circles around looking for parking to stay there Um, so there's a lot just in that one corporation with regards to environmental impact And so I want to make sure that we're having strong language in our resolution Even though it's not binding having strong language in our resolution so that then we do look at future policies We can seriously take into consideration the impact that our even our local corporations have on our On our environment, so if it will make you more comfortable I'm happy to remove local Since businesses doesn't compass all of that But I do think that we should be very clear that there is environmental degradation and waste Generated by this work. So I don't feel comfortable removing that that language. I'd love to hear from my colleagues about it However, though on this on this line Councilor Matthews It's a journey You know, I'm I'm not going to take this meeting till 6 30 I would like to strike out the local. I think add the word organizations because this just talks about business. There are plenty of other Responsible parties and I would like to add the term recognize for their contributions to environmental sustainability If that's acceptable I Yes, I just loved I'd like to hear from at least the seconder of the motion or my colleagues in your opinions on on this and the language and where specifically because Do we want to recognize specifically those that have achieved their green business certification and are Proven to be environmentally sustainable because if we just say hey great job everybody then You know, it just loses its Like what do you mean? We want to congratulate those that have been doing the things. Where is that benchmark? You know, so This is general and there are so many benchmarks for so many different endeavors. I'll just say the other two I wanted to suggest And then I'll be done Two Resolves below that be resolved that future policy. We should guarantee that these new jobs. I would say aspire And the very next to last be further resolved that through the climate action plan we commit to align I would say aspire And again, I I don't think I mean this is described as an aspirational document and I would just like to Modify those two words I saw councilmember brown's hand Yeah, um Well in terms of the non substantive Language changes. I'm agnostic. You know, I what whatever people we can we'll get us to the finish line here um in terms of the I you know, I think it is important to suggest that we're recognizing uh, and you know kind of affirming Where positive practices exist and we kind of do that with our certifications and the you know Recognition that the city gets the work that we do. So it's happening. I don't think that By saying it here. We're suggesting good job everybody and but you can always improve There's continuous improvement in some cases and in other cases. We have to push pretty hard. So Um, and then in terms of the so on the other ones, you know aspire, you know, I'm fine I'd be fine with aspire work, you know work to You know work towards these jobs, you know something like that because I don't think we can't I just don't think it's possible to guarantee We can't I think um, you know, I don't have a problem with you know, just I don't think it's weakening it I think it's just kind of reflecting reality All right by smear coming. Um, so I agree with that and then I think the other piece where um in the First be it for the resolve that we were discussing around organizations Rather than local business. I think that that's appropriate and multinational corporations And then striking Santa Cruz the reason being is that we want to encompass all organizations and multinational corporations In and beyond Santa Cruz To make sure that everyone's being held accountable I don't think that we should focus directly on Santa Cruz because we want to I mean the statement that's being made is that We want to make sure that organizations and multi corporations everywhere doing their part And so I think that striking in Santa Cruz Would be appropriate and then I also think that the other changes would also be appropriate as well House member clever. Thank you. I just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing is We're just going to strike local but leave businesses comma organizations and multinational corporations want to clarify And then uh, then we can make the other suggested changes. The only thing um is the The the union Jobs question of you know the word guarantee I think it says that we should guarantee now doesn't mean that we will Guarantee it. It's that we should guarantee it But if there's a different word that you would prefer in there as far as we'll strive to You know, uh that through future policy we strive to Uh Strive to okay wonderful That at least Creates the language of effort, you know, we're trying to as hard as we can to do it, but we can't guarantee And then the last modification was commits to a line You change that under the second to last further be it further resolved To aspire is that correct? Okay. Is that accepted and just Be it further resolved that through the city's climate act climate and energy action plan 2030 and health and all policy programs The city aspires to Align with state goals pertaining to emissions reductions Similar with the other yeah, yeah, that's just so that we can all be on the same page. Why not? Yeah I would just add Sorry But if if it's if it's of interest of the council just to incorporate in multinational big oil just to call out big oil specifically because patrol their Significantly responsible, and they should be absolutely held accountable because they've Continue to contribute to this crisis and deceive the policy makers and the public And so what would that language read again just one more time? Sorry to add it to him after multinational if you want multinational corporations and big oil. Okay. Yeah, sorry I like I like that Okay, I think are we there? We're there. Okay. All right. Do we have clarity for our city clerk? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. All right. Any opposed? Okay. That passes unanimously Okay, why don't we take five minute transition break to the next item Good job everyone Oh, that's right because you know, yeah, I'll just I'm just gonna Just item 24 Really I think I can go see if I have a quorum I think hopefully some folks will come to kind of trickle in so we'll go ahead and get started again And I gave a kind of a heads up to the people in the back. So we have now on our agenda. We're on item number 24 Which is vision zero and so we have a presentation from staff and then we'll follow it up with questions public comment and then Action and deliberation So we'll head it over to you. Good afternoon. My name is Jim Burr and I'm the transportation manager and uh, Claire Fleeceler is here with me a transportation planner and uh, I just briefly I just wanted you to know that the transportation division is Really committed to transportation safety. Um, regardless of your action today, we will continue to be committed to transportation safety for all of our roadway users we believe we're Making efforts in all the right places This city through their street smart program Through engineering for sure and through our OTS grants with with enforcement stings We believe we're doing all the right things. I think the numbers are agreeing with us I'll have the traffic safety report out later this year and I think we're going to see some really great trends In particular, I believe bike collisions have dropped greatly Like over 50 percent since 2015 And I'll back that up for the report again later this year so, um What we've laid out here for you today. I believe is one way to say yes to You know another ask of our very small division But uh, Claire will explain more about it. Thank you Good afternoon, mayor and council again I'm Claire Fleeceler transportation planner with the city and before I get started I also want to recognize that we have phil butel the chair of our transportation and public works commission here As well as tracy and lauren from the county public health department Through the community traffic safety coalition who's been working regionally on vision zero efforts most recently Really really lending a hand to the city of watsonville in their undertaking Today we're we have a brief presentation for you. We're going to go through generally what vision zero is the The actions from the transportation public works commission, which I'll abbreviate tpwc frequently that got us to this point A general discussion and then move towards our recommendation So vision zero started in sweden in the 1990s and has become a worldwide effort The overall goal is to reduce and eliminate serious injuries and fatalities on our roadway This happens by changing the approach from traditional to vision zero approach Which recognizes that serious injuries and fatalities on our roadway are preventable That human air is inevitable and that we should we should plan and address our roadways through A systematic approach to really address the fact that human air will occur and to continue to improve traffic safety for all of our roadway users This is the most up-to-date map from the vision zero network of vision zero cities in the united states As you can see those coastal cities have been taken as on in middle america not so much But uh, we're not the first and we won't be the last that's considering this Why are we taking this on the primary reason is because bikes and pedestrians in our community are Disproportionately likely to experience serious injuries and deaths on our roadway Proportional to the percentage of roadway users. They see much higher rates of serious injuries and deaths And this is based on the american community survey five-year estimates of mode share and the statewide integrated traffic reporting system sweaters um collision data The uh in order to adjust this the transportation and public works committee formed a subcommittee which met over a six month period With their primary objective to do a deep dive and make a recommendation on if A vision zero undertaking in the city of santa cruz was an appropriate response They spoke to internal city departments including city manager's office public works planning police fire They spoke to external agencies that are doing vision zero including city of watsonville fremont and others And they worked closely with the health services agency mainly with theresa rogerson who's in the audience here They met over six months. They did 17 meetings and they spoke to 21 individuals who have have been or would be involved in vision zero efforts They identified many concerns and areas of opportunity Primarily as as jim identified and as you all know We have a very very small staff and we're very busy. Um, and this is one more project to add to Our plate. Um, as you know when you take something on there's something else. It doesn't get taken on So really identified that as being one of the big things. It's a resource limitation to implementing this Um, additionally, I believe it's attachment for that you have our existing strategies on collision reductions One of which is street smart switch is now in its third year. Um, just launched last week You may have seen the press release Um, and it went from a successful citywide program in years one in year two to a countywide program So we do have an in an education arm of this already in existence Um, additionally A desire to have a overarching policy that focuses all of our efforts on traffic safety One of the things we say in our department is that safety is kind of our north star of how we approach our projects And one of the things we always bring to our commission is that we don't propose the second safest alternative Which is often why you get neighbors coming before you that are a little upset that the safest alternative is slightly more Inconvenient so being able to have that policy approach there that says safety is our number one objective And those are going to be hard choices for you um, also Looking at efficiency at cooperation and coordination because it's an interdepartmental effort Public works is the main player here But it also impacts police for enforcement fire for response times the city manager's office as the overarching You know arm of the city in that coordination And then looking at the big picture and how do we really address our roadway needs and our overall Transportation system in order to achieve reductions in reduction reductions in elimination of serious injuries and fatalities on our roadways So looking at this the tpwc subcommittee identified these as elements that address the concerns that they heard looking at the staff burden and thinking about Going after existing grants that exist for vision zero development Pending your action today. There are some existing grants that we could pursue to assist with this effort Utilizing the existing model we have for the internal climate action team that we have that is represented of almost all city departments And really increasing interdepartment communication on on transportation issues recommended not making changes or minimal changes to the street smarts campaign And really recognizing we're thankful for this it's daft does excellent project work We have a long list as you know, I say this number all the time We have 17 million dollars in grant funded and programmed projects for specific safety improvements that we're going to be doing between now and 2021 we're really proud of that and it's as a result of our prior planning efforts that really identified and prioritized by combinatorate our active transportation planning network and The tpwc subcommittee really identified that this would be a new set of project prioritization tools So with that, this is just a pretty highlight slide of some of the projects. We've done recently The b4 to creek path the pacific avenue conch flow lane the felker street bridge the beach street bike way really Within public works our priority is to increase separation increase safety and put forth the The treatments on our roadways that do have the highest rate of safety That's why you see so much effort from us coming towards completely separated facilities Including the rail trail, which is taking up a lot of our time and we're really excited to move that to the next phase So in conclusion the recommendation coming out of today is that council adopt a resolution In support of a vision zero policy for the city of santa crows And direct staff to form vision zero task force beginning in 2020 To identify what this would be the first task would be an internal audit of our existing programs to identify What it is that we already do so again attachment four highlights some of those things And then to prioritize what those gaps are what are we not doing and how can we step into those things and make a More holistic vision zero program And then as a result of that after that internal audit to develop a vision zero work plan Which would be reviewed at the transportation public works commission before coming to you at council for deliberation and action And with that we're available for any questions Great. Thank you very much. Are there any questions for the staff from the council council member mires Just have a couple questions on the staff report under the fiscal impact section It talks about redirecting Some of the work that the department Currently does annually Specifically it talks about grant writing for transportation projects, which of course i'm assuming Also include trails and an alternative transportation, which again goes towards our goals of trying to reduce emissions in the city Do you have a sense? for example I don't know if you do four grants a year and you're going to only be able to do one or Sort of kind of what is the scale of that so in other words? Just to be absolutely We apply for every grant that we are eligible for over the next i have them written down on my phone So sorry if i'm being rude looking at it Over the next six to eight months We will have the recreational trails and greenways grant program, which is a great program for rail trail Multis paths potential river walk enhancements We'll have caltrans planning grants, which we could go in for a wide variety of projects looking at continued transportation planning highway safety improvement program, which sounds like highways, but what we've used it for is sidewalks Protected turn lanes to enhance cyclists safety intersection improvements surrounding city schools and identification of high collision intersections and needed countermeasures there The active transportation program cycle five, which is the biggest bear of a grant i've ever taken on each one of those applications takes about Two months of my time And office of traffic safety grants which last year we were successful in partnering with the police department to get expanded overtime hours funded to Really target school bell times high collision corridors and weekend night drunk driving enforcement, so You may or may not know this but within public works within the city I do most of our almost all of our transportation planning grant writing and project grant writing with support from our engineering team, but It's primarily just me So it's a lot of grants that we go after trying to implement the projects that we have on our existing project list right, and thank you for that and I'm just curious it mentions in the staff report too that Looks like the city manager's office would be doing the zero The vision zero task force implementation or organization. Is that correct? Right that was that was recommended by the I think the commission that we help coordinate the coordinate that yes Okay, and is there is there staffing available for that as well? Well, I think that's one of the reasons why it's recommended to do the 20 this started in 20 2020 Could I just clarify something that I think that stood out to me? I don't want to sure. No, I think i'm done for right now one of the things that I See as you know completely Synergetic is the connection between vision zero and health and all policies And I know that works coming from the city manager's office So as we move forward and I know it's referenced in the agenda report the the The best way to marry the two In terms of timing and efforts seems really appropriate and consistent with each other's values And I'm sure other just jurisdictions have done the same likely so I'll go ahead and return back because I interrupted. Did you have any additional questions? No, I I mean I'm I'm supportive of of the effort for sure I'm just trying to understand sort of how it fits into the workload and the programming And certainly certainly see That we do a lot of work already, but I'm just trying to kind of weigh all that out Right and and we did the same and that's why we want to put off implementation until 2020 we would We are hoping for not a full-blown public Circus of a project we did extensive outreach for the safe routes to school complete streets master plan Just for five years ago and then roll that into more outreach for the ATP plan. We have 200 and over I don't even know 246 projects or something on the books You know ready grant ready if you will and so Current projects will not be impacted, but the next the the next projects we want to go after will be impacted in other words The grant writing which funds all these projects is is one of the key pieces Additionally, this is the same staff that works on our parking programs And so all of the TDM that we're doing Is also comes comes out of this staff and we have a number of ideas that we want to do above and beyond the TDM in in in terms of new parking programs downtown we want Some on-demand Permits we want some residential permits and so we we have a lot of ideas, but Anyway, a small staff to take that on so it's not current projects, but future Yeah, if I may expand on that just in one thing the things that are on our plate right now as you guys know we have a very very Small amount of discretion in our CIP and most of our the heavy heavy heavy majority of our transportation projects Are entirely grant funded and what that means is the projects that we're currently working on Have grants scopes Schedules and budgets and we can't simply set those aside and remain in good standing with those funding agencies Who we depend on for those future projects that we use to implement roadway safety projects With that said, we're really trying to find a way to say yes to this in the the constraints that we all recognize councilmember brown Yeah, thank you for the presentation and thank you for All of your work and and trying to Happen I know it's something that a lot of people in our community are excited about Certainly the transportation Mission has put in time as well. I appreciate that A question I have is in fiscal impact you It's suggested that implementation of existing plans for bike and pedestrian safety projects programs and initiatives might Compromised yeah, and so but you know given the visions the intention To me I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. Absolutely and then really quickly. Is it okay if I ask a question of Yeah, to what you said and to our small staffing levels We we depend on all of us to kind of go all in on the projects we have our entire engineering staff is full up with the Implementation of projects that we've gotten prior grant funding for so moving through the design phase to the construction phase to the completion phase In terms of upcoming projects primarily those fall onto my plate to do all of the Grant writing and preparation for that in order to obtain the funding to implement that next round of projects In the the coming year with putting if we move forward with this with putting vision zero Primarily in our public works division that will fall onto me That means that I will have less time available to pursue those continued grant opportunities To fund the projects that we have on our existing project list from our active transportation plan That's what that that's what that means really we want to try to do everything And our big goal is to try to implement as many of those projects as possible to continue to improve roadway safety And so it's it's kind of taking a pause on that seeking funding for implementation Or just not having as much time to aggressively pursue all of those opportunities because we're spending time on the planning phase Which is not wrong. It's just a a reality of kind of the staffing levels that we're operating within Do you have additional question? I have a question for commissioner boutel go ahead So if it would be helpful to hear a little bit more Come on if you would is that okay? I know what I was supposed to talk about. Okay great Thank you for all the work you've done to Pull this together and And really the energy around it I am wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about the rationale for having a task force and we the city We really love our task forces and They take a lot of time and then that's additional staff time. And so I'm just I'm just wondering It task force Comprised of whom you know timelines etc. I understand the start date would be and I appreciate the kind of recognition of our staff constraints But if just it would be helpful to hear a little bit more about that sure so our Again clear outline kind of our process that we met with a bunch of people over six months. And it was pretty extensive Um, we went into this I was on that subcommittee along with a couple other commissioners Not knowing much about the program side the process of it all how a city would adopt it We just knew that other cities successfully did it and one of the biggest lessons we learned was kind of the the best practices out of all these interviews all these cities that have done it and Most of them said don't adopt something right out of the gates It's going to take a lot of stakeholders a lot of buy-in and making sure that everybody We wanted a very successful program at the end of the day and that meant not forcing anything on to anyone and it meant really a collaborative effort and establishing some kind of task force to you know, I guess from our Our understanding kind of all we're allowed to do is make a recommendation to you guys's council to make policy And the specifics of that policy we leave up to you But we also recognize that if it came straight to you council might not be ready to adopt A very specific thing and there would be some development time in there So and I think all that coupled with We think our our number one partner in this was of course public works and transportation staff and we wanted to be a partner together in that and So we recognize maybe it's a slower step than we take and like you said task force take time and they take effort and stuff But I think the end We want a city that or we want a policy here that everybody in the city can stand behind So in terms of again, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around the like the pieces of the puzzle and you know How much time and who and when and all of that? And I know that's to be worked out, but I guess I'm just thinking Again because this is something that the transportation and public works commission has been very interested in pursuing And we really rely on our our commissions to to really roll up their sleeves and do some of this work Or a lot of it in some cases Um, is this something that the commission could kind of Do some of the the heavy lifting to help with the staff time burden and resource burden To facilitate whatever process it is that is needed to have those conversations and develop the policy I think uh, I'll say subject to brown act limitations of only three of us being able to work on it outside of meetings and stuff I think you would probably be pretty easy to find three commissioners that would be on board to to help support this effort as much as possible um That being said You know, it's a we left our commission thinking like there's a lot to develop here We we knew it and we decided not to go down that road at at the Into those weeds of the policy level But if that's the direction you want to send back to the commission for us to Further pursue. I think that could be one avenue to do it Is that address your question? Yeah, thank you. Thank you Other questions. I have vice mayor coming. That was your question. Okay Then I had councilor matthews within councilor crowned for questions. Did you have a question? Um, yeah, I'm looking at this report. Um drawing on existing resources um I did wonder about under the auspices of the city manager's office I I hear that the bulk of the work is going to fall on public works But you guys will coordinate with other departments. Is that That's right to help to help coordinate, right? And I think particularly if there was going to be a A community group that was the other sort of reason for that Yeah, and and there again we get into the capacity issue correct Just leave it at that statement Is it anticipated that with the formation of the task force in early 2020 that the Action plan would be delivered. It says within a year of adoption, but within a year or so Yeah, I would anticipate that uh early 2020 and really the 2020 timeline is pushing it out so that in the fall and You know throughout the end of 2019 We can spend our time in transportation really getting our tdm program off the off the ground Which is launching this fall and so a lot of activities around that so looking towards when we will have some staff time opening up Um, you know, I think the first activities as recommended would be to do an internal audit and really talk about what are the things We already do and identify where those gaps are. I think we do already do many of these activities It's just a rebrand of many of them and bring them under one umbrella of a vision zero program I think a year-long timeline is probably sufficient with the caveat that if the public process gets more robust than that Which it may it might take longer than that Just a comment. I have been on some committees and task forces in the past where they just say You got until this date and you have eight meetings Work it out So I know I mean it exerts a discipline on the process I do not like the idea of you being pulled away from grant writing that seems like uh Not as not Not a good choice. Um, I see here that there's the statement some existing and anticipated projects may be need to be filled with outside help So that would be pulling in consultants or contract Personnel. I mean, what do you mean by that? Um, yeah, we can build more uh outside consultant help into our into our future projects Again It's not a solve all because consultants need a lot of oversight and they don't have the same ownership Uh, I never see the same kind of ownership of the consultants. I do with city staff. Yeah And um, so it it helps but it won't but it's not going to solve the problem And just tearing off that This is one that usually would be you know celebrating and cheering what a great thing And we're just trying to recognize like how can we make this happen within the constraints that we have So I recognize that we're presenting you kind of a difficult A happy thing that is in difficult circumstances and I I don't expect an answer but um to the extent you can um Compromise to the least extent your grant writing because that's just eating your seed corn, you know I hear councilmember crone and then councilmember mayers for clarification to hear correctly that ideally You would want to wait until january for the implementation in the beginning of this to happen So that you could have the rest of the fall to finish grant writing No, uh, the rest of the fall to launch our tdm program for downtown So we have a lot of activities coming up september october november december And then we'll still have a lot of activities but at least then we will have initiated them all and hopefully they're in a more Uh stable place at that point Councilmember crone and then councilmember mayers. Thanks. My question was asked. Thanks Um Kind of a clarification. I think from councilmember browns question When you asked if the commission could be involved where you and kind of envisioning sort of a role for using the commission as a task force in a sense I mean in terms of I'm just a little clarification on that. I mean were you looking at that potential I well I was I didn't have a particular You know crystallized vision about that. I was just trying to think about the potential for the commission to have some official ongoing involvement as a way to you know Get to or get us to a policy a recommendation to the council So I'm not like specific to that. Yeah, okay. Thank you Maybe um, well, I guess I'll reserve my my comments until after we hear from the public Do you have any additional questions? Is there any additional questions at this time? I have one additional point when you're considering making a motion the sixth whereas includes the word accident traffic accidents If we could change that in the motion to um collisions That's my oversight Whereas traffic collisions disproportionately impact bicycles and pedestrians That could be reflecting I think um, it's appropriate to open it up for public comment at this time Do you want to be our first speaker for public comment? Okay, why don't you go ahead and get started Any additional members of the community who want to address us on this item? Please light up to my left and you'll have up to two minutes to address the council. Okay So I'll just add to some of the discussion that came up one regarding grant writing One thing we heard from jurisdictions municipalities that had taken on vision zero and adopted it They also recognized that it was a staff burden. Certainly every one of them said that but one tradeoff That nearly all of them pointed out to us without us asking is that they had Increased success in grants because vision zero adopting vision zero give them extra I guess safety points or something within the grant writing process And again, this was highlighted as a specific tradeoff So green salt there And then as far as development the the only path we went down it was mentioned in claire's presentation as far as Not necessarily how we would develop the program But we did look to the the climate action team within the city here as possibly a model because that seemed like an Interdepartmental cooperation thing where there's multiple stakeholders recognizing that It's not just one group. It's definitely not just public works doing it In vision zero, you know the parallel is it involves police department and certainly involves fire department involves public works There are all these groups So we thought it even if we don't know the exact content of what that Group would do at least there's some kind of model for how they work together again We had suggested on the auspices of the city manager if that works out if you can find a way to make it work Thank you Next speaker, please You want to speak? I'll just go ahead and just acknowledge you'll go after um bright here. Okay. Good afternoon. I'm Brett carrot and uh Yeah, I strongly support vision zero and um as part of the health and all policies I I think this is very important and I want to echo something that mr. Boutel just said because I had it in my notes as something to say that I've heard Vision zero makes it easier to obtain grants for those projects that enhance bicycle and and pedestrian safety And well in safety in general And those are the projects we want to be prioritizing anyway. So Yes, whatever we can do. I definitely want to be a supporter for bike and pedestrian projects And I I'll we have a Pretty dismal record of bicycle safety in this area and I'm Relieved to hear that it is improving. I look forward to seeing that data I I am one of those uh pedestrian safety statistics because uh in 2012 I was hit by a car Crossing the street as a pedestrian in capitol So that's one of the reasons this is close to my heart to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety um Please support. Thank you very much We'll go ahead and pause for a second. Uh, sir. I'm going to go ahead and pause you for just a second I just want to acknowledge the uh woman in the front who indicated she wanted to speak but needed to say is that correct? Yeah, my name is gerry. Why don't you come on? Yeah, come on up if you can and we'll go ahead and have you uh speak for two minutes and Well, um, I'd just like to say I'm sure that you maybe some of you know that Seattle has banned that orange Bicycles out there the electric bicycles and There's been over 2,700 Accidents in san francisco. They're seriously considering banning the The bicycles and I've heard people that they're kicking the bicycles. They're mad at them. They turn they turned off when they're Oh the money or they're charging their Charge card or whatever they went too fast. They can't control them. They can't control the brakes. They can't control the speed I know that they go really fast and Even children are allowed to drive them I saw a guy leaving the bus stop and he said I haven't been on a bicycle since before the 60s and his Kids were going well. Follow me. Let's go around the Santa Cruz And I thought some wobbly old woman like me wandering around with my loaded garbage Like, you know someone like that and I are just like destined It's just as scary I just wonder if you if you ever consider At least making them go 15 or 20 or something like that or you know asking people Have you ridden a bicycle lately or because I thought the guy was totally saying oh, I guess I'll figure it out like stepping on the gas So that's all I have to say about that. I thought we were talking about the buses and I want solar lights put on all of the The buses for women's protection Thank you I'd like to uh, my name is bill cook Uh, I'd like to thank city staff They they uh, they work really hard and they do excellent work That said, uh, my thoughts are that um Uh vision zero is a different concept entirely It's uh, it's been uh to my observation extremely successful elsewhere in the world This is a cultural change this would that that we're embracing with this idea. Uh, it's a shift of paradigm It's uh vision zero has been uh 30 years in the making It's successful Embracing success is a heck of a good idea So i'm here to encourage that it's it's the It's not primarily an infrastructure solution Fundamentally the speed limit is 20 miles an hour wherever bicycles and pedestrians are Sharing space with motor vehicles In addition, there's all kinds of physical infrastructure speed bumps Chicanes and such like there are brought to bear on the problem of calming traffic That seems in my In my view, uh, that seems like low hanging fruit that seems like that's reachable We are this to fully implement this it's a generational thing that In my view, we could reduce our speed limit in most of the areas where cars Pedestrians and bicycles are sharing space to 20 miles an hour. We could do that Seems very doable and that would um reduce fatalities dramatically if if there were a way to enforce that Thank you On the next speaker Hi, mayor mottkins and council members. Thank you for bringing this item to your agenda I'm teresa rogerson as claire mentioned from county public health and we've been You know helping different jurisdictions around the county to adopt vision zero Our first city was watsonville to adopt vision zero and so we've been assisting them And I I think of it as a way to help All the departments involved especially public works and the police department that we've been working with closely To kind of focus their efforts and create more efficiency So i'm hoping that in the long term this actually saves some time And we're also available to assist with grant writing And with the city of watsonville, we also assisted with public outreach and Developing their action plan And doing some data analysis. So we certainly would make ourselves available To the city of santa cruz as well and we'd be happy to do that So you have some free consultants. I guess is what i'm saying Anyway, so thank you very much and we appreciate you considering this item meetings council brett snyder No longer resident of the city, but I want to talk about the jump bikes a little bit Because I think she made some very valid points. You're talking about how traffic like problems with with Traffic disproportionately affected people on On foot and on bicycle Electric bikes are on that continuum of motor vehicle and it it is kind of a nuisance and as someone who doesn't really Care to have a smartphone because of the the the frustration and annoyance Factors of it, you know, basically i'm completely excluded from ever using a jump bike and I feel like you guys have engaged In you know, kind of like Committing a lot of civic space to something that you know, I frankly don't think I'll ever use I've had an electric bike They're fun, but they also are quite dangerous. Thank you Good afternoon, mayor Watkins and city council. My name is jeena coal. I'm the executive director at bike santa cruz county Um, I'm here to express my support for pushing forward with the vision zero policy in your city Again, as Teresa had said Watsonville is moving forward with vision zero policies It is a belief that we can have zero traffic fatalities and zero serious injuries As a avid cyclist and as a bicycle commuter from Watsonville I'm on the road a lot and I'm on You know rural streets that thank you to smartphones and maps are those rural routes are now becoming very very popular as means of shifting off of the highways But that is really greatly impacting all of Again rural roads like larkin valley Where you wouldn't expect to be passed by 35 cars in less than a quarter of a mile, but I I am And also on the surface streets so if A policy like this that can be put in place That is going to slow traffic down because we all know that speed is Where it's at speed is what it makes the difference between what's a fatality and what's an injury um, and if we can put into place infrastructure and buffered bike lanes and calming circles And what have you that will Help folks slow down. They're not going to do it on their own. They need they need guidance That we can create a safe and healthier a safer and a healthier community here in Santa Cruz What I really love about the city Is that it is very bikeable It is very walkable, but I see close calls every single day And if we can reduce that More power to us. Thank you. Thank you Are there any other speakers who'd like to address the council? Okay, you'll be our last speaker Hello council east casby again. First of all, I want to just praise the street smarts educational program I believe that it has definitively Saved my life I live very near the intersection of pacific and laurel streets And so I go through that very major intersection usually several times a day That's like three or four times a day So recently I was almost killed because um I was moving into the far lane from downtown moving across the street and a SUV I don't know how it fit in that far lane, but it basically blew through the red light And if I hadn't been extremely cautious and I have been Worned by those street smart signs in the buses. I'm a total pedestrian bus Taker I have no car and I don't ride a bike yet. So, um, I just want to say I went to speak to that person who was a woman at wall mart or wall greens rather in the parking lot and told her You know, you just almost killed me if I had taken one more step. You definitely would have hit me I'm concerned because my friend is extraordinarily tired. He doesn't get good sleep and he works really hard And I'm afraid he's going to get killed at that intersection. So again, I think this program is extremely important, especially street smarts Oh, sorry But I am very concerned. There's other things I want to talk about pacific avenue. The safety is deplorable I almost get hit every single day by skateboarders and bicyclists. I'm really worried about that Okay, I'm extremely concerned about the implementation of this program. I believe that the um, I just know his name is deadl Mr. Deadl is an anti environmentalist He is absolutely dead set against doing anything. Uh, that's environmentally friendly Uh, when we brought in that parking, uh, consultant who was so helpful patrick. Somebody. I don't know his last name Mr. Deadl just said all his data was completely different and I really have concerns about the police also as a partner in this In this uh, collaboration. Thank you very much All right, then you'll Good afternoon scott ram. Um, I'm in favor of vision zero And uh enhancing the safety of pedestrians and bicycle riders and one of the things that would actually help the most would be reducing car trips The the fewer car trips there are within the city The less likelihood that there's going to be an accident or a collision of some type Whether it's between other cars or car bicycle car human So I think emphasizing the reduction of car trips is a very important element of this entire program Thank you Okay, we'll go ahead now and return it back to the council for action and deliberation I can't make a motion But I hope that um as we move forward the element within the agenda report that has that Timing for initial adoption of this policy can be a key tenet of the council's new health and all policies effort be incorporated because I think they really do have a lot of Potential synergy and alignment. So I'll just sort of put that out there Vice mayor Cummings counts member crone Yeah, that was I think that this is something that um our community could really benefit from and I was actually going to Say that it fits very well within health and all policies and what we just Passed earlier with along the lines of the Green New Deal and trying to reduce carbon emissions So I'm prepared to make a motion That we adopt a vision zero policy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries on city streets by 2030 That we task the traffic and public works commission to develop and implement a vision zero action plan Within one year of adopting this resolution That would gather analyze utilize And share reliable data to understand traffic safety issues To prioritize resources based on evidence of the greatest need and impact And to evaluate the success of those efforts Affirm that no bike or pedestrian projects should be delayed due to adoption of vision zero Request that staff return with a recommendation on what projects would be delayed To divert staff time to vision zero implementation And then we work with county partners as grant writing consultants second We have a motion by um Vice mayor Cummings second by council member crone Would you be willing to incorporate the health and all policies as a potential area for alignment and adoption and synergy um as a consideration? Okay, that's accepted and just a question How do you vision or envision that in in vision zero like an example? I would say that if you were to think of how it would fit is the health and all policies framework would probably be sort of the more broader kind of Initiative that encompasses sustainability equity and public health and vision zero would be a tenant of one of those efforts That would fit and align perfectly in my opinion. Thanks But I think we can explore and operationally how that can actually play out as we move forward Okay Thanks. Yeah, absolutely. Uh support the motion. Um Didn't want to just make sure that the staff request. I know it was Made notes in our page, but I think the sixth whereas change the word accents to collisions Please as a friendly amendment to make that change in the motion So essentially in the resolution at the sixth whereas the traffic instead of accidents It was to be collisions instead. Okay, you made that she got okay got it. Thank you for reminding us Any other comments at this time? Okay All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously. Did you catch that? Um, Got it. Okay Okay, so we have This is it two hours Hey, you know You never know you really don't So we'll go ahead and reconvene at 7 p.m. This evening for oral communications Well, good evening, everybody. Welcome to our 7 p.m. Session of the august 27th 2019 meeting of the santa cruz city council Before we begin if we do need Overflow we'll go ahead and have the tony hill room available at the civic For the evening session, but at this point it seems that we'll have adequate space So we'll see how that goes. I'd like to ask our clerk to please call the roll Thank you, mayor at councilmember. It's crone Here lover here mires here brown is currently absent Here vice mayor coming. Yeah and mayor Watkins here So we'll go ahead and move on to our oral communications portion of our agenda Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not listed on today's agenda I am assuming that everybody who's lined up to my left is here to speak at oral communications And you will each have two minutes to speak and we request if possible to have your Name signed in if you're interested in that it's not required I'll also just remind those who are here this evening that oral communications and the evening item if you're here to address the council We are here to hear you and we ask that you respect your fellow citizens and the process even if you disagree with them If you do speak out and you speak up when somebody else is trying to speak I will give you a warning and if you continue to disrupt the meeting. I will ask you to leave I don't want to do that. So I hope that there's an opportunity for people to Move forward tonight with the ability to have respect for their fellow citizens in this process But want to be very clear about how tonight will flow and go If you do have signs, you're welcome to hold them below your shoulders, but please don't hold them above Your shoulders or in a way that's going to actually impede the person behind you from being able to see If I see you doing that, I'll ask you to please lower your sign Okay, so we'll go ahead and get started so hopefully we can get to everybody Can I get a sense of who is here to speak for oral communications? Okay, so we'll try to get to everybody oral communications is generally about 30 minutes of we can potentially go a little bit over I will go ahead and allow for Since we're starting a few minutes late until 7 40 and so if you need your full two minutes You're welcome to take it But if not and you want to get your point across in less than that it will allow for other people to speak So let's go ahead and get started. Um, please stand. Uh, go ahead and get started on my left And you'll have up to two minutes Thank you. My name is Elise Kazby. I am here wearing a Red Cross emblem because Democracy is under assault in Santa Cruz And so I just want to say first of all the sentinel misrepresentation of our two council members Where they put a large headline conduct inquiry reveals misdeeds and then they have their pictures prominently positioned Is so deceptive as to be a full on lie Really really sad for democracy here. I would recommend that I want to stop short of the b-word Which sounds a lot like cottage cheese b blank pot Let's not go that far But let's make sure that the sentinel knows that we will not tolerate a misrepresentation of the truth because In fact, the rose report Largely completely Exonerates our two council members from any wrongdoing What is happening in this city when Cynthia Matthews, martin Bernal, Bonnie Lipsk and mr. Duttel of public works jim burr of transportation with their completely reactive and anti-environmental policies Their contradictions of top-level consultants who try to tell the truth about the number of parking spaces and so many issues When our mayor is the first mayor in six years to shut down our public comment to 30 minutes Which by the way, she will count her after I sit down She is the first one I've observed in six years And whereas all the other mayors were willing to give every member to the public at least some time to speak A pointing handpicked people to push their anti-democratic agenda direct the library into a five-star parking garage Six dollars for a recall signature while lying to the signature gathers Folks, let's demand that we get more fair and true representation on council and in the media I think we need to depose the elite cabal that is trying to absolutely Exchlorate our fairly elected officials Yeah Okay, next speaker All right Yeah, I really hope tonight that the city council Speaks forcibly against martin brunos vicious smear campaign against Drew Glover and that goes hand to hand with all the other illegal and corrupt things that we're witnessing here by the property speculator supporting council people here and it's a it's I really urge you to go on netflix and watch The edge of democracy And the edge of democracy you will see some very shocking parallels to the what is in that movie To what we have witnessed a sense the new council has been in office Every single playbook by the fascists To subvert democracy has occurred here in the city council Since the beginning of the year every single one of them Lies on on recall petitions A smear campaign by martin brunel to claim that it's unsafe to communicate With drew glover who's got to be the gentlest most compassionate person that has ever sat on this city council And that is outrageous a leading star Our community to be trashed in the media and and to manipulate events so that Oh, they're what uh when take back santa Cruz likes said, you know spread a rumor about drew being angry And then martin brunel uses that as a way to smear drew in the media No mention in that in the media smear campaigns about the six dollar signature Over and over again every one of those poor kind people that I meet that are Doing the getting signatures for the recall are having to get To get six dollars To to live Okay, that is really really outrageous that we have to do that. I hope it's really It's quite upsetting. You're gonna need to leave. That's your warning next time I you speak out or go longer I'm gonna ask you to go ahead and leave. I'll have our Our haver sergeant of arms escort you out. So you've been warned next Interruption will have you escorted out. Okay next speaker democratic to me Hi, my name's sarah manilde and I I'm coming here completely independent of all of this I didn't know any of this was happening So I guess it's important to me to say something without Because my style is a little different than their styles I came here to support mr. Glover. I I had the experience of leaving Trader joes and having somebody I call it assault, but they were very aggressively giving me this recall petition And I tried I talked to them a little bit and I said no I don't you know this that the other thing and I thought about it for a very long time and basically what I feel is that I voted for mr. Glover. I support mr. Glover completely And I think the city council cannot Function as a democratic unit unless we stop having every time someone has a position We don't agree with Recall campaigns that produces this like Chaos rather than government And I can't believe it I live My federal government has a leader that I completely 100% disagree with I don't get to recall him I have had to live under governments that I don't agree with and so I am so Offended that people who take a different position No matter what your position is what you think the homeless Situation is good or whether you think it's bad or whether you're a homeless advocate or whether you're not You have no business trying to recall mr. Glover and I 100% support him. He's one of the few people I have voted for That are Representing me right now. Thank you very much My name is Lee Broca and once I start reading every word will be from this report Watch in statement to the public 2 12 19 7 o'clock page 10 quote I'd like to speak to the perceptions that are floating around in the community There are perceptions that my colleagues both council members grover Glover and crone are intentionally bullying me because I am a woman I say this perception out loud not to validate its truth But rather to stand alongside my fellow council members staff and community members who may feel pushed around or bullied page 14 Mayor watchin's father Who is county superintendent of schools for many years and other men and women? She respects have suggested to mayor watchin's the council members Glover and crone would not interrupt her every Question to every decision she makes Or try to overwrite her if she were a man rather than a woman Page 52 footnote 32 vice mayor Cummings, thank you, sir Vice mayor that was editorial Vice mayor Cummings told me he believes the complaints leading to this investigation may be politically motivated to undermine And make less effective some of the policies Efforts and those of his council members crone and Glover slandy brown investigating alleged political motivations Complaints are beyond the scope of my complaint recommendations page 89 council members All members number three all members of city council should immediately participate in professional mediation and conflict resolution I support you too Yeah, hi bruce thomas I'm 18 year resident of do4 street, and I'm here on behalf of do4 neighbors We presented a petition a year ago after the openings of starbucks and blaze pizza at 1901 mission street, and I want to Reiterate that there are ongoing problems contrary to a report that was posted in the meeting The addendum of last week's two weeks ago is meeting council meeting agenda So i'm soliciting help i've got some help from ralph of the City manager's office, but it's been really slow, and i'm going to ask The council if they can help intervene to try to make sure we can finally get some meetings going or something Where we can draw a solution the one of the key problems is A bank was split into two two fast food franchises and no loading zone was specified So after the fact a very ineffective one was put up and it doesn't get used it can't be used because people don't honor The neighbors have a lot of ideals we want to help It would be really good if someone on the council could help bring us together And have action items that are responded to we had action items from a meeting last october And by and large they were dropped and some of the ideas those action items were actually would have been very helpful So again do4 neighbors are soliciting help from the council to help us try to get a solution That's going to be long term and effective. Thank you Hi, uh, how was your bike ride on the 24th? You can go ahead and pause it This is a chance for us to hear from you. Okay. Uh, yeah, I just I just I think I think they're kind of parallels to like public comment To like your bike ride. I think like in some ways you should consider Letting people talk longer. Um, I mean it's a little thing to ask If you look at it in the larger in the larger picture Um, I wanted to say something about the library Concept of the parking garage above the library. Um, I think that that idea is so bad. It belongs in north korea it's it's utterly remarkably remarkably bad and It's offensive to people who love libraries so I think you guys should consider because uh the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary Visitor Center cost about 13 million is what I've heard and that's including the land it was built on and that structure Is is only slightly smaller than you would need to make a really nice library for a community this size and you wouldn't have to put A ridiculous parking garage on top of it and and you wouldn't have to use up I mean if you look at this parcel over here that the library is currently on With the parking lots that are adjacent to it the whole thing Would um, you know easily support a new structure Um, you know the footprint of that area would support a new structure and there's plenty of um, you know parking garages and things nearby So I think um, I think that would be a better option. Um This winter, uh, you're going to have uh holiday shoppers and uh by that that's a euphemism for uh the campers But uh, you know, they're they're a little bit like holiday shoppers uh Looking for aggressively advertised substantial bargains on popular merchandise, but um, they um I think they deserve amenities. Um, because in in some respects They're just looking for a little tiny slice of of the american dream. Um Next speaker Next speaker. I'm not sure there's any paper Okay Whether it's not okay next next speaker we'll go ahead and I'm sorry Oh, you're speaking to the agenda Okay, this is oral communications reminding you who um is in the audience that this is for items that are not on today's agenda So if you're interested in addressing the council on the item that is not on today's agenda Please line up to my left and we'll try to get through Everybody who is here to speak on any item not on our agenda Within the next 25 minutes or so, please Good evening. My name is becky steinbrunner. I'm a resident of rural aptos And i'm here to speak to you. I was not able to come to rosemary minards earlier presentation to you today about the mid county groundwater agency and the draft Sustainability plan. This is it and I would like to ask that uh you and members of the public attend tomorrow night At 7 p.m at the simkins swim center the question and answer period with the mid county groundwater agency board Regarding this plan. This is huge. This is huge It is biased for uh support of uh, soquel creek water districts pure water soquel Project, which will inject 1.3 million gallons a day Of treated sewage water into the drinking water supply aquifer Nobody's giving a vote on this. They're just doing it and pushing it through The last time I spoke before your council It was to make the agreement with soquel creek water district regarding the tertiary treatment plant at the wastewater treatment facility And again councilman crone. Thank you for pulling that item off the conceit agenda that day Mr. Basso that day, uh, who is the attorney for soquel creek water district told your council that i am the only one That's complaining. That is not true I am the only one that has been able to have the time and the energy to Put forth a pro per litigation against the district for a very sham of an eir on the project But I represent Hundreds and many people are thanking me for trying to take this action because many people feel it is wrong And and they worry about the long term Health effects that are unstudied as to low levels of endocrine disruptors and pharmaceuticals in the water Which cannot and the facility Operators know this it cannot all be removed. Corollo engineering has told the water district this Your time is up. Thank you very much speaker Hi, sherry sherry peterson. I'm here to speak about image can Well, I've been visiting over there lately I've been going over there for 35 years since it started and um, You know, I I do art and There's a denizen calling make breakfast on monday And I just wish that you'd listen up the the police is outside and he's wondering What am I doing here because everyone says oh good morning and we're all very friendly and we We get along well and we watch tv and there's a lot of groups in there and things to do and I just wish that you would think of other daycares for the it's Coming it's going to be a cold winter. I feel and there needs to be more things open to people Just even if it's just an open building with yarn in it or something simple like paper with color crayons or whatever it takes, you know showing people how to Become carpenters or there's a million things that the city could do to help people Get better an image can helps people in a million ways. It's helped me and it's also a Doesn't allow any alcohol over there and that and that's really good So drop-in centers would be really handy It would help people around here that I notice too many people are on alcohol or drugs And they have have something else to do and I wish to even think about that in your budgeting making room for other daycare programs and also Letting loose image chance restriction Where we can actually take food out of there because like 50 to 70 percent of us are homeless And it'd be really nice to take a bunch of grapes out of there Today, I had to eat five bananas because I wasn't allowed to take two home Thank you Hey, hi garrus philip. I um It's going to cut into my time that thing I really wanted to speak about but uh, I do feel compelled to say as a member of Seneca who's united that uh, nobody's getting paid six dollars a signature for anything. It's a grassroots effort We're all doing it for free Okay, you do it You know, well, I I know no one I'm gonna go ahead and pause you can I'm gonna go ahead and pause your time at least That's a warning next time. There's an interruption. I'm gonna ask that you please leave Uh-huh next, please continue without disruption whether or not we agree with you we're we welcome your okay Yeah, and and the narrative for the reasons for the recall for me personally are up to about 30 minutes So there's a lot of reasons I suggest that the public listen to the reasons And make up their own mind whether they are sufficient to justify a recall or not and not listen to The grievance monger fan club that so far as I've heard hasn't doesn't have any, you know actual reasons not to Uh, anyway, I'm gonna continue Generally, I'm not in favor of the city engaging in large social program funding with city money for select special interests Livers of the population to start the tax base of the city isn't intended or suited for such things Federal and state taxes are progressive and based on profit. No profit. No tax As long as all the profit is not taxed the economy pie grows and prosperity ensues The fed has constitutional authority to provide for welfare. The city does not Normal property taxes sales taxes other fees depend of the economic pie and don't respect profit if too large They damage prosperity They are properly intended for residents to collectively buy city services such as streets parks libraries police fire And no barrier public municipal offerings and improvements that all can access National social problems are beyond the scope of the city to solve and should not use such funding sources The use of false oppression narratives to justify higher taxes rent control or the outright theft of personal wealth in rumored transfer taxes and business Licenses of minor housing providers are ill-conceived economic and political attempts at violations of individual liberty Individual liberty approaching oppressions of their own making Even worse, for example, is when the social engineering goals of the council advisory committee on homelessness Did not unbelievably include explicitly at all whatsoever the specific goal of reducing homelessness by some measured amount Over time that we may judge their effectiveness Next speaker, please The the gentleman in the left is waiting for the evening's item. You're welcome to come Pat kiddle santa cruz um I bring up a subject frequently because I feel that it's very fundamental And most people are afraid to bring it up even though it affects just about everything that we try to accomplish That is specifically the israel lobby The israel lobby basically intimidates people and actually confronting them with facts If you do confront the israel lobby with facts, you will be um Unpleasantly treated I can speak from experience But that does not intimidate me because um I just figure hey if you can refute what I say about israel or the israel lobby or anything related to it I will apologize And I've made that offer to everybody who doesn't like what I say about the israel lobby But the fact is nobody ever tells me What it is that i'm wrong about they just hate me for stating facts about the israel lobby One fact i'm wearing a t-shirt right now. I don't know if this is going to show up on tv Anyway, um This goes back, but the israel lobby's uh nefarious activities goes back further than 1967 When they actually israel actually knowingly attacked an American us navy ship And they did it with the intent of getting the united states to start a war with israel's arab enemies so that uh Israel won't have to do it themselves. This is customary practice with the israel lobby sucking us into Wars for israel so israel can take over the mid east And I say if you look into the israel lobby And speak up you'll be doing us all a favor. Thank you Please my name is sarah smith And I feel like democracy can't function without respect for all people Our community is in a crisis with a pervasive lack of respect Our government will be dysfunctional until we regain it again and policies matter and behavior matters I've learned about standing for social justice throughout my life In west africa in alabama in india In mexico and at home I'm working on a movie called the boys who say no who said no about the draft resistance movement of the 60s It was our movement and we used nonviolent action to bring about change and stop a war We felt betrayed by the policies and actions of our leaders and we took a stand Today, I take a stand and ask our leaders and all the members of our community To show deep respect for each other Stop name calling and make serious efforts to work together for the good of all in our city and our country We have a big job ahead of us to build a stronger nation That takes care of all of its citizens where mistreatment of people in any situation is not condoned David harris a leader of the draft resistance said clearly you don't change people's minds by calling them pigs I say don't call people names and expect to change anything I want our community to stand for respect and justice. This is who we are In 1965. I marched in the streets of selma, alabama With 60 other white people who clearly said we stand for the rights of black people to have full voting rights It was scary. We were surrounded by white people yelling at us throwing things and we marched on Many of us in this community have stood up to oppose racism and stand for social justice I walked with martin luther king in montgomery. Time is up. Thank you. You're welcome to submit the comments Our next speaker, please come forward next speaker You're welcome you're welcome to come forward Well First of all, I really do want to save our library over there in that beautiful setting With the view of the the city hall here Unless we maybe we can move the library into the city hall and move city hall into logo's old building It's just not fair that we keep threatening our parking lot, which has that beautiful farmers market Which is the one big beautiful thing that our community manages to do every wednesday It's a beautiful thing that farmers market and we need to keep it And we need to keep those trees that are over 200 years old that have been sequestering carbon for us for over 200 years It's just wrong They've set up a little shop in the farmers market trying to push the library and the parking garage but they never actually Tell you what the outside is going to look and they never actually show that the trees are going to be gone And it's just going to turn our city into a Nazi worship worshiping thing downtown. It's just wrong Okay, and we need more bathrooms And why do we that beautiful san lorenzo park has that that shindig for alcoholics? Always at the last of the month 40 dollars they charge 40 dollars a person On saturday to go in there and drink tequila and tacos And they do it on the last few days of the month because they know poor people can't do it They can't afford that and they're just drunks and and people what happened to the wham festival We haven't had one of those for 10 years. It's just wrong We need to have something good in that park every weekend It's a beautiful park and we need to let the gay pride people end there too and have a beautiful celebration And the farmers market needs to stay in that park Good evening council and synthia with center cruise tenants association A person who's collecting signatures for the recall told me that they received their paycheck from planning commissioner robert singleton Is that true? Maybe that's not true, but I did tell them that they were paying 40 dollars a signature in alameda And they were just shocked their jaws dropped and hit the floor So regarding district elections santa cruz will soon have district elections or if fought a ranked choice system Which would be a hundred percent more fair difficulty So the drawing of electrical district lines is contentious those who are in office have a strong influence Over redistricting decisions political leaders will often influence the drawing of district lines in ways that help perpetuate their own power Or the strength of their group. For example, if If a counselor wins an election by a narrow margin He might have the lines of the district redrawn it drawn an attempt to exclude a neighborhood that voted against him If a surround if the downtown is surrounded by if if a multifamily downtown is surrounded by a single family neighborhoods People in power might try to redraw district lines in a way that chops up the downtown area So that several single family home districts each swallow up a small piece of the downtown district Or thereby leaving no downtown voting district at all or no ucse district more likely Can also allow politicians to separate wealthy populations from poor ones or to make racial divisions Um So white white districts were ruled to be acceptable while a majority african American district and a majority latino district were ruled unacceptable This was in texas The ranked voting or distributing multiple votes could be useful changes That might get us away from the all or nothing winner takes all electoral system Which encourage people to vote against someone rather than for someone in ranked voting Which is used in in uh, Cambridge voters get to assign ranks to all the candidates not just one in their district The other proposed system of distributing multiple votes would allow each voter to have for example seven votes Okay, let's see if I got this right so you decided to have 18 thousand Spend 18 thousand dollars to do an investigation are two most progressive city council members There are about I might have this a little off with seven allegations all unfound Almost all unfounded one substantiated for a sarcastic laugh And one was a substantiated because a conference room Comment about a conference room leaving late So really 18 thousand dollars to find out you need mediation Mediation that was asked by chris andrew on multiple occasions Really 18 thousand dollars you could have done the mediation without the 18 thousand dollars and the 18 thousand dollars could have gone to people such as Maybe our homeless population The real reason this witch hunt was started is because these two people On the city council do not play the game of i'll vote for this if you vote for that They represent what we voted for they have not changed their views They stand strong And the headlines on k i o n and jessica york. I'm really disappointed at you sometimes you do good But that one you mentioned you you do the wrong doings you mentioned that instead of most of the allegations were unsistantiated The real headline should be anti anti homeless and pro gentrification city council Spend 18 thousand dollars Trying to get rid of their fellow progressive city council members instead of mediating So in the end i would like to dedicate this shirt to you And Okay, i will wait i've got to wear it every single day your time is that while you are Our supposed okay your time is that as whole mayor Okay, so you've been warned and next time there's a disruption. We'll go ahead and ask you to respectfully leave I'm going to go ahead and close um before we get started I'm going to go ahead and close oral communications after the person with the hat on and the flower in the and the hair You will be our last speaker. We have an evening item before us. That's it I just didn't want to stand my foot hurt. No, i'm sorry We're going to have you have other opportunities to address us We're going to go ahead and close oral communications after the person with the hair with the flower in his hat You're too late. I'm sorry We'll go ahead and remind people that even if you don't agree with what they have to say We're going to respectfully listen to them and we're going to respectfully Hear them even if I don't agree with what they have to say I will respectfully ask that they have the respect of all citizens to be heard without disruption So I asked you to respect your fellow citizens and those with the signs I ask you not to disrupt those behind you and to please lower them So that the people behind you can see please you have your two minutes Hi, alisha cool president of the santa cruz chapter of the california homeless union As we know all people that were living at the ross camp were not adequately housed and so we have Homeless encampments all over the city right now. So on behalf of the current situation I'm asking you to consider agendizing in the near future Another plan for a transitional homeless encampment To be set up sooner than later a winter is fast approaching And so I have great concerns that people are outside. They're unhoused. They're unprotected right now And in the interim, I'm also asking you to consider their basic emergency needs And think about distributing things on a regular basis such as motel vouchers and laundry vouchers It's going to be really hard in this rain and fog For people to get their needs met. We don't have enough shelter availability And so I'm asking you to consider You know placing those things in place immediately do the data do the research I mean, I think it's clear that we need those things and and those are things that you can immediately do To help our unhoused individuals And I would also like to thank drew and chris for all the work that they've done For all the time that they've taken They represent voices that often don't get heard in these matters. And so I appreciate all the work that you guys have done Thank you very much Hi council I thought I'd tell you a quick story and ask for your help. So I was at choppers corner three hours ago I was approached by a petitioner for the recall campaign My name is mica posner And I was informed that the reason we should recall glover and crone is because they don't support transitional housing for people And then I was told that councilmember glover had Had verbally assaulted someone at city hall recently When I asked the woman why this wasn't in the exhaustive report that I just read she said, well, I don't know, but I know it's true I'm sure it's true So the people are gathering the petitions are lying And then I said, well, why are you doing this and they said we really need the money So they're getting paid and then they're lying. So my ask of you Um and especially Cynthia Matthews because I know you care about civility and I respect you for that and mayor walkins because I also know you're calling for civility is go to go to shoppers and ask them Why you should recall these council members and if they lie to you then tell the newspaper Or use your position ask them not to do that because you know, I'm not claiming that my side doesn't stretch the truth either or whatever But all of us it's coming on all of us to try to keep the dialogue truthful and civil And that's not happening with the recall campaign right now. So I'm also asking you to do that. Jessica Just go ask them, you know, just go ask them why and if they lie to you then, you know Put in the newspaper You're welcome to address the council at this time if you want to address somebody else on it on a different time You're welcome to do that on your own time. I just including your opportunity to address the council. I understand And I I was asking you to do that. So I hope you do so thanks for your help I hope that we all work on You know having a civil and truthful dialogue and I know I'm going to do that when people Say erroneous stuff about you know people that I'm not allied with and anyways I hope we all work on this together because the other speaker that march with Martin Luther King is right Things have gotten to a new low and we really got to work a little bit harder. Thank you We'll go ahead I'm going to go ahead and ask you to please lower your signs for the last time No higher than your shoulder if you're not interested in doing that You can go ahead and stand in the back if you're still not interested in doing that Then I'm going to go ahead and ask that you stand outside It has to be lower than so you're not disrupting Or Not allowing the people behind you to see Okay, they can see that This person is saying they can't see or can you see okay? No higher than that a place that's they're not going to be able to see mr. McHenry the same for you, please go ahead You can go ahead you have two minutes and It's very disruptive right now to have so much People not having good harmony with each other Let's try to be together more, please. Let's have more love and cooperation with everyone Passion of course is going to come into it and every time you add one more person it exponentially makes problems, right? So let's just try to work on it and let's just keep working forward and The main thing I want to see right now for everybody to forget all the problems And we need to look at our planet and our universe And we got to start at the bottom here and we got to do introspection Retrospection and set in the backwards order and future spectrum is the word I want to add to that if it isn't already there And we need to work for our planet more than all the rest of this stuff Other stuff is kind of moot if we can't keep our planet together Species extinction is a very real thing that's happening right now. We got to work on that tying into that Is a sacred ceremony of village site Where the almond moots and people that were here originally that knew how to steward this land in a very excellent way with spirit With knowledge with working on the land not just destroying it We don't only destroy either but they really could teach us a lot about how to take care of land and steward it And give us all strength and soul We're going to have a walk to support them In two Sundays from now on the 8th of september Everybody's invited one o'clock to six o'clock and San Juan Batista. We're going to walk five miles for those who can Otherwise, we're going to take people on we're going to have you know Talkers and you know ceremonies at the beginning and at the end we're going to have a big feast at the Beddable RV park. They're hosting it which is right next to the sergeant quarry Proposed site. So what they want to do is take their sacred land and make a quarry there So please Members of the community and city council It's public record though not reported by the sentinel that the city's motion to dismiss the ross camp lawsuit Has not been dismissed Instead the city and the ross camp refugees have been directed to return to federal court in october After some substantive meetings to resolve real problems Huff one of the parties of the lawsuit calls first for a public apology to the community of Santa Cruz This would admit that most of the residents of the ross camp were not offered alternative shelter Nor are they sheltered now We demand immediate action by city council to rectify this by implementing delayed stalled and buried plans For survival homeless encampments as well as safe rv and vehicle lots to be opened no later than november 1st Considering the coming winter Considering the current violations of the martin versus boysy prohibitions on punishing homeless people in public places for simply being there City council must declare a moratorium on the enforcement of all ordinance has shown to unduly impact Homeless folks that have little to do with health and safety these include but are not limited to obstructing the sidewalk being in a park after dark being in a closed area and no trespassing on public property Considering the city's continued seizure of homeless survival gear City agencies must make tents and blankets available Expand to reasonable business hours times when confiscated property can be recovered and distribute laundry and motel vouchers To unhoused individuals particularly for the disabled and elderly until affordable housing is more than just talk Make survival tents available more closely monitor the seizure of tents and homeless property is abandoned Expand police hours for reclaiming property provide regular Distribution of these vouchers as mentioned before end the sweeps of existing homeless camps Unless actual shelter alternatives are available prior to the destruction of the camp. Thank you for not interrupting my sentence i'm going to go ahead and have our last speaker unless did i see that you switched out with the woman in the Okay, you'll have two minutes and then you'll be our last speaker after Hello, my name is alex laundose. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak I've lived in this community for 30 years and I value the opportunity that we all have to speak to you So all of us in this audience everyone here everyone watching in our community We have different opinions and we want to express that we want people to listen to what we have to say and There's a lot of issues. There's a lot of important issues that we deal with here in our community Locally regionally and internationally and I think we're just getting distracted from the main issue And i'm going to reiterate go over what the last gentleman said Right now we're going through the global warming tipping point and we're headed into the sixth mass extinction We're um, all of the this is just such a misprioritization Of resources for us all to be here all the people that drove vehicles that walked here the road bikes Producing this through the tv. It's just such a bad use of all the intelligence here when we should be Redirecting all of this to help make the world a better place. There's a lot of important issues But we should be prioritizing climate change environmental issues. There's um, we're passing so many different thresholds Animals are going instinct. There's a continual increase of parts per million greenhouse gases in the atmosphere The earth is warming at an exponential rate. We're seeing more global heat waves more forest fires Superstorms the glaciers are melting and the ocean level is rising I don't understand why we're doing any of these new construction projects when we know eventually the ocean's going to rise And we're going to have to relocate cities like other communities around the world I've lived in this community for 30 years. I've known drew and some of the other members um on this board for quite a while I fully support drew glover and justin and I think that they are very progressive and they're dealing with these important issues Not all this drama that I don't even know what's going on with everything in this council I just know that we're here and we're not addressing environmental issues We're not addressing the homeless population We're not helping animals or this this just seems like such a waste of time and priorities And it's upsetting that we're all in here and this is what we're talking about So I hope um that I can continue to support drew and justin the best that I can Yeah, thank you. Okay. You'll be our last Speaker for oral communications and then we're going to go ahead and close oral communications after you Hi, uh, I'm greg bankson. I'm a resident of santa cruz. I'm a registered voter I was a ross camp resident and council member whatever that means, but um, nonetheless I did witness and we have it on video of um, you know, um Jason hyduke who's a person I do respect a heck of a lot Saying stuff about our camp and about its safety, etc And then I have video of him saying hey, we fell down on that. We're we're human We just we're so sorry and then the police didn't communicate with us and they put up these um nuisance signs And so it totally tore apart your Things um drew a glover, you know, he's accused of saying that the camp could save itself Yeah, it could have if somebody would have fallen Onto their word and actually carried things out Justin Cummings came out to the camp and had awesome I appreciate that and people I mean you came out there. It's real People, uh, you know undercutting you now or whatever, but I mean it's politics. I understand that. Okay I understand exactly what's going on Um, and unfortunately everybody does and I'm gonna bring because berlinder stern, you know, um, you know, uh, Paris match We're bringing international eyes because this has now become a fiasco and this should not be a fiasco Chris crone. That's a badass dude, um His just because of purple shirt drew a glover Nonviolence, um, nonviolence is power my people nonviolence is power Martin, um, we haven't had time to talk. Um, but I mean we need to bring this place together We need to stop this. I mean the stuff that's happening here is ridiculous. We don't need to be a fiasco Um 14 seconds left I'm gonna yield the floor and just say, um, let's let's get it together Let's be people. Let's be Santa Cruz for gosh sakes. We can do it All right Oral communications will be closed at this time if you are here for our evening item I will go ahead and um allow you to stay it doesn't seem like we'll be needing our overflow space here this evening But um, that was available. So we'll go ahead and um continue to have all of the Folks here who are interested in staying for the evening item to stay in the chambers And we'll go ahead and have staff come forward And if those that want to leave after oral communications now would be the time So please come forward and we'll go ahead and get started All right. Good. Good evening, uh, mayor and city council. My name is tony ellie direct of parks and recreation For the city and forgive me. I've got a bit of a cold here. Um, but yeah tonight, uh, as soon as this presentation comes up here Just one second Tonight in general what we're talking about tonight, um as is on the screen access and hours of parks and recreation and public facilities Uh this evening and so this encompasses a couple big things the existing ordinance under the city's code This is 13.04 0.011 and this is regarding the department's authority to regulate park hours Park and facility hours within the the parks and recreation purview. So that'll be a big focus of tonight We'll talk about a few options on that and the second piece of it Will be really i'll call it a case study but kind of an example of Of this policy in action if you will at the loud nelson community center So we'll look at that specifically as well All right. So the history on this on february twelfth of this year the city council directed staff to return to a council meeting with updates and responses To a few different items here three key items status and reasoning of current park and facility closures Uh possible ordinance change for park and facility hours. This would be an ordinance change to 13.04 as i just mentioned And then the loud nelson center restroom policy Staff returned to city council in february 26 with a project charter Detailing exactly kind of what we were going to go through the process. We're going to go through To bring this back to the city council We did review this matter with the parks and recreation commission On july 1st, we have a few commission members here tonight that i believe might speak to this issue As well at the parks and recreation Commission meeting i think i'll reference that here just a little bit about what happened at that meeting So just to start status and reasoning of current park and facility closures. So as kind of on a high level Our parks and facilities really are virtually all open at this point as we'll talk about loud and nelson We've got a limited access or restricted access policy in place But we do not have broad closures of of parks at this point So as a whole kind of a snapshot of what we do in parks and recreation We manage 50 parks open spaces and beaches about 1700 more than 1700 acres and 35 miles of trails We have 20 restroom facilities throughout our park system And in addition restrooms at the civic auditorium and loud nelson community center So we we often close parks we often close parks for a few different reasons and those are based in operational and environmental reasons so Maintenance and repairs we talked about the harvey west playground installation earlier This morning as part of the city council meeting. So we'll close aspects or parts of parks For capital improvements repairs maintenance, so that's a very common thing Protection of the environment iran a gulch is a great example. We have closed off areas to the public To rehabilitate and restore and hopefully save the tar plant at iran a gulch Public safety there's an area of cal's beach that's been closed the past few weeks because some of the cliffs are unstable and collapsing So we have areas of cal's beach that is closed due to public safety because of the the collapsing cliffs So we close areas of parks often And this is really part of that authority that's established by the municipal code to allow for that for these environmental reasons maintenance reasons and public safety In very rare cases We will close restrooms or parks or areas of parks For some of these issues that are also Enabled through the city's ordinance and that would be things like number one on the bottom So response to ongoing situations such as vandalism That inflict damage to a park facility Or require repair rehabilitation or number two ongoing unlawful activity. So in the city's ordinance, this is a key part of it Um, essentially cease or prohibit Unlawful activity in the parks. And so this is rare This is rare that we would close parks for or close parks or facilities for this reason And we'll talk about that a little bit more in just a moment Um, so just for reference here's the code. I've referenced a few times. Um, I'll just read this out loud here The parks and recreation director may by regulation Establish hours during which any park park road trail grounds building or facility is open to the general public Said hours shall be established for the purpose of protecting park properties park roads trails and other areas from acts of vandalism And to prohibit the general public for engaging in unlawful activity. So that's currently what is on the on the books So I wanted to share just kind of a brief operational perspective before we get into some, um Some more details here. So I'll just read from my paper here It's a key priority for the parks and recreation department to provide open accessible safe parks and facilities As I mentioned, all parks and facilities are currently open In the case of the loudness and community center, which we'll discuss in just a moment It's open on a limited basis to individuals using the facility for classes programs and activities The parks and rec team maintains and cleans restrooms each day Without fail across the park system to ensure that they're open to the public And despite ongoing incidents of vandalism and illegal activity and virtually All of our park restrooms across the park system. They remain open. We we make that a priority to keep the parks open The community is acutely aware of the issues in our park restrooms. And so each week we hear from members of the community That demand that our restrooms be closed. So we hear this in neighborhood parks all the time close the restroom Close the park. It's not safe. We hear this every week But also we hear every week from members of the community that say In really demand that parks and restrooms and facilities be open so we hear both sides of it and Again, I say that to just sort of acknowledge the complexity of this that we're trying to figure out how to how to best operate Best serve the community, but we do hear from both sides every week So the following slides that we'll get into What we did in preparation for tonight is we did a two-week subset a two-week assessment Of restroom maintenance in our city parks And so this is This is sort of standard operations. This is literally from the first two weeks of the month of august And just kind of a heads up on this some of the the images that we'll share and some of the details are a bit graphic So just a warning on that So over the past two weeks this august 5th to the 18th a snapshot of our parks We spent 344 staff hours cleaning restrooms, and that's about 13 percent of our park maintenance labor hours in total In those two weeks we had 226 unique incidents In our restrooms eight encounters with blood 35 clog toilets 66 instances requiring removal of graffiti 12 needles found two observations of active drug use In detail august 5th, and this is just a snapshot of a few just a handful of them Garfield park on the west side the toilet was plugged with a drug cooking can august 6th Sandlow san lorenzo park Men's toilet clogged with the flannel shirt toilet paper feces watermelon in the urinal and sink gar needle in the garbage can Missing toilet paper august 10th blood splatter on the wall in the women's restrooms fireworks set off in the sink Blood and needles found in the sink and on and on graffiti Trash debris left and this is just this is a snapshot. These are just again a handful A handful of those 226 incidents over the last two weeks In our restrooms Here's some images. I'm just briefly. I'm not going to describe exactly what's going on here But these are some of the the examples here blood splatter on the wall and floor Syringes in the trash can a variety of different items in the in the trash cans here again Syringes needles these are some of the older pictures. This is going to lead us into the loudon elson discussion some of the graffiti and items that we found at the the Loudon elson restroom when it was open prior to february of 2018. So again vandalism doors ripped off kicked off Human waste all over the the interior partitions in the restroom. So these are these are just ongoing issues again In a two-week snapshot. I just hope that paints a picture of what our staff Is dealing with and managing and I guess before I move to the next slide I just want to say a quick thanks to the parks and recreation staff. This is a hard job And every every day Parks and rec prides itself on being a can-do department. We're going in we're managing these things. We're handling these things And in all of these contexts. So all of these things that I mentioned over two weeks All of these restrooms are still open. We're not coming to the council We're not coming to the council saying we should close these we're not We're not enacting this authority through the municipal code. So we we don't abuse this. It's very rare cases And so between the police department between and the enforcement side the parks and recreation side I just want to give a thanks and kudos to the parks and rec staff who deal with with these things every day So, okay, so moving on here one of the other questions that city council had for us In the february meeting was was really to come back with some pricing In terms of what it would cost to have attendance at our restrooms And so what we did is we broke this down in terms of we looked at a temporary maintenance worker aid In terms of what it would cost to staff our restrooms. And so we broke it down by restroom in the different needs at different restrooms The one that's not included in here Actually is loud nelson But we would expect that would be very similar to san lorenzo park that you can see in green About 150 000 dollars per year. So In in total as a possible solution or a possible mechanism to help curb some of these challenges that we face with restrooms It would be about two million dollars per year To staff up our restrooms So that's just a snapshot. I'm happy to talk about that or answer any questions that that you all might have associated with those costs So shifting gears to the ordinance change and park facilities in hours. Again, this is the existing municipal code 13.04 Um, and we read through this just a moment ago But just for reference and we can come back to this as we discuss This is the existing ordinance that allows for the authority to set hours of operation in parks and park properties When we went to the parks and recreation commission on july 1st of this year The recommendation from the parks and recreation commission was unanimous A unanimous vote for to recommend these four items to the city council So i'm bringing these forth For your review and this is all included in your agenda packet as well So the direction or advisement that we got from the commission was to create a set of health and safety And environmental conditions under which the director has discretion to close either partially or entirely a park open space or facility Notify the commission and the city council within 24 hours of an emergency closure of a facility Or within seven days before a planned closure and estimated time for reopening Establish a 21 day requirement Um or the closest city council meeting to present an update Uh to the city council after a closure to receive additional direction And the final piece work with the county's health services agency on addressing syringe litter Um As well as public urination defecation in parks and open spaces So that was the recommendation from the commission that was a unanimous recommendation to the city council So one I think one policy decision really this before the council tonight Is in terms of the the updated language to the city's code to the municipal code A couple options that the council could take should the council wish to update this language In accordance of what the in accordance with what the parks and recreation commission recommended So the council could direct us to update the municipal code With language that will review here in just a second or as an alternative mechanism could Require staff or recommend the staff Update the the council policy, which is 7.1 in either case either mechanism will create a mandate for city staff To adhere to council's direction. So either the updated code or the policy in this case Will give us direction and and will be be that solid mandate from the city council At the bottom, we have this plus plus a complimentary administrative procedure order an apo To create greater transparency consistency and openness of the process This was important to us because um the uh The the motion that was made back in february and the direction that we got from city council What we read between the lines is that we needed greater transparency of the process We needed greater openness of the process. So if we are utilizing this authority Why are we using it and so in either case if the city council? Directs us to update the code or a council policy or or no update What staff is is doing planning to do is craft and we've got a draft of this apo tonight Craft this apo to provide guidance So if any member of the community or if the council or anybody said, why are you closing a restroom or why are you? closing off A riparian area or why are you doing this? We can go through that apo and said we evaluated these criteria and we're closing something for For these reasons and so that apo really is just a step in transparency Lending toward either the policy or the municipal code update So the draft language for the code, this is included in your packet as well Really just encompasses the direction that we receive from the commission So 24 hours within an emergency closure seven days before a planned closure Or in reporting back to the city council for any closure lasting longer than 21 days The council policy really is the is the same thing. So very similar language virtually identical language But just codified in council policy rather than the ordinance. So again, these are the two options that council could choose from And in the apo again mirroring the same language This is the intro in the apo that just references either the code or the policy And then here are some of the criteria again as we talked about operational criteria environmental or public safety So these are some of the different things that we would look at and going through that process to Decide if we are to restrict or close something. So again, it's part of that process Again just referencing these are the two options for city council And what i'd like to do now in talking about the loud nelson community center in particular in the existing policy that we have Again recapping that policy that the restrooms are open at loud and nelson community center. They're open to people using the facility For programs classes and activities But what i'd like to do is invite up our loud nelson supervisor isaeth ray and then following Isis will be robert acosta who is our recreation supervisor who oversees the team center At loud nelson. So without i'd like to invite up isaith Good evening council and mayor My name is isaeth i'm the supervisor I'd like to start off by just giving a very brief picture of who i am Then what the the center is and then experiences we've had I am a person that at the age of six started participating in community theater with my family My mom and my brother I learned what it was to Be a part of a community Create something and then give it back to the community being part of a bigger picture And and and part of the community at the age of eight. I ran home told my mom. I have to play soccer I want to play soccer She not being an athlete or ever having participated on team sports did a little research and got me on to our Hometown recreation department soccer youth league which ended up being a wonderful experience for me led to A lifetime career of athletics led me to college Uh at college I'll be honest. I went there to play basketball, but while I was there they said hey, you need to pick a major I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do But when I reflected on the experiences I've had the positive influences in my life I recognized the opportunities that had been provided to me through recreation and community and I decided that's how I wanted to Focus my career and give back to my community. I Received my degree in recreation administration And since that time over 20 years. I have dedicated my life and career to providing quality And enriching programs to the communities that I have been a part of it is a passion of mine Um the laudan nelson center Started out as a school laurel street school. Um, there'd been a previous building from the 1800s, but the current building now Built in early 30 31 opened as the laurel street school in 33 and served as an elementary school To which many members of our community attended as children and was such for many many years And then in the late 70s I think it sat unused for quite a while But then in the late 70s There was a joint use agreement between sanderfew city schools and the city Parks and recreation department and they decided to Make at a community center and it was named You know the the historical story of laudan nelson. It was named after him to honor him and his contribution to The school children of sander cruise At the center We provide an array of social recreational and cultural experiences. It is a hub for our community many of the classes that we offer Range from the mom and dad and me ballet class where some of our youngest participants are less than two years old to The meals on wheels lunch program, which our most seasoned attendee is 102 years old We also house the county office of education alternative ed high school class Which operates year-round during the regular school year as well as summer classes We have multiple 12-step programs who utilize our facility to Better their situations and get help with challenges in their lives We have the teen center. We have the senior center in the senior computer lab Many of our senior center classes are free to the attendees or they are for a very very small suggested donation We also offer annual events to the community Mostly with a family focus also some of the cultural focus Fungus fair juneteenth wacky water day halloween festival frosty funfest And then additional services that we provide to the community where we partner with outside agencies such as project scout Where we offer free tax service for low-come individuals High cap where we offer free health insurance counseling and advocacy free blood pressure screenings The meals on wheels program again offers Free or very low cost if the individual has it Meals monday through friday at the center We partner with community bridges Additionally to lift line to provide Free transportation to the center and access to all the programs to anyone in the county It's not just limited by city residency We offer we partner with hospice of santa cruz to offer free grief support for individuals experiencing loss in their lives Outside of the programs that we offer myself and staff on a daily basis provide outreach services and and do our best to connect Those in need and those that we identify not only in the building in the programs But also in the park with the appropriate providers Such as encompass Community bridges senior network services homeless services center second harvest food bank adult mental health services Family service agency of central coast monarch services walnut avenue women services And um other services such as offering to provide sanitary incontinence Products measure what those are called but you know we we do outreach. We are there for our community. We are trying to help the people that we can Unfortunately When I when I became the supervisor at loudon elson in february of 2017 I was so appreciative to step into a thriving community center that offered wonderful programs and services But something else that I noticed too An experience on a daily basis along with my staff with some really outrageous unhealthy unsafe conditions that were occurring in the restrooms These included daily instances of staff and patrons witnessing drug and alcohol use in the bathroom in the stalls discarded paraphernalia Sometimes still containing the substance that was being used such as needles alcohol containers Um marijuana leaves like on the ground the dispensers the toilet paper dispensers foil with burn Ashton it Frequent discovery by staff and or patrons of unconscious individuals in the stalls Uh in september of 2016 a newly hired rec to recreation to it's a um entry-level position Walked into the restroom to found it find an unconscious man in one of the stalls with a needle on his person Uh staff called 911 and and staff tried to revive this individual while waiting for paramedics to arrive And they were unsuccessful as were the paramedics and the gentleman was pronounced dead at the hospital He had overdosed from drug use And this had a profound effect on the staff and the patrons and and this was during teen center operating hours And this was something that we That was the one tragic end, but there were so many instances of individuals who were Engaging in the type of behavior that could lead to that circumstance We had daily occurrences of intoxicated individuals using the restrooms um Not only being disruptive and and intimidating to some individuals, but also um Not intentionally, but just as the state of their condition missing the mark when trying to use the restroom In addition to that there were several instances of people who clearly were intentionally spreading or or spraying urine or feces around the restroom For for whatever reason or whatever condition Staff was subjected to individuals with aggressive disruptive and at times physically threatening behavior We have an instance of an employee who was chased out of the restroom stall of which he Approached someone who was engaging in illegal activity who was able to see a um Injection kit on the floor of the stall and a gentleman Chased him out of the restroom with a loaded syringe and and my staff member had to run out from the men's restroom Down the hall behind the front desk and into a senior programs office where he could get behind a locked door This was in uh 2015 There's also been examples of violent vandalism in which two uh Brand new partition doors that had just recently been purchased during a renovation in 2017 Were torn off the hinges where the hinges were literally snapped in half Just the week prior to that um Paper towel dispensers had been torn out of the wall And on and on in addition paper towels and toilet paper were routinely Taken or hoarded and frequently we would walk in To individuals just pulling the paper towel into their backpack repeatedly Also a graffiti often gang Gang tags I guess they're called In the restrooms And then the frequent discovery of inappropriate sexual acts Either with another individual or by oneself, but visible to people attending the restrooms Um one example in june of 2017 A man was discovered inside the women's ad a stall with his clothing partially Removed on the floor of the bathroom engaging in a sexual act with his his luggage We there's been questions about the documentation of all these instances We have some documentation. We've provided some we've provided pictures There's been some that we have that wasn't Captured in certain in public records requests due to the timeline But the truth of the matter is that these instances were becoming so routine for my staff That they stopped being noteworthy. It just became This every day occurrence where Our main focus was just to mitigate the issue immediately and get back to what we were there for which was to provide programs for our patrons in a safe environment The center's mission statement Is to seek the miss the center's mission is to seek a balance between social recreational and cultural services To the diverse communities of Santa Cruz The center strives to create a space that feels welcoming comfortable safe and accessible to all who use it I do understand that there is a need for additional services for individuals who don't necessarily have A restroom of their own to go to I do not believe That the Loudon Nelson Center is the place for it due to the many populations and the many groups who attend our our center That could be threatened by the activity that was going on Thank you Thank you All right, I'd like to introduce robert acosta who has a part team center Thank you council. I appreciate the time. I always People don't believe me when I say this but I I like presenting in front of city council. So I thank you for the opportunity You know, I didn't know what isaeth was going to say So it's funny because as part of my conversation. I like to give a brief introduction about myself as well I was raised by a single mother who eventually became A heroin addict and I can say that now because she's very successful. She's a drug counselor a retired drug counselor um, but The reason I mentioned that is because of That much longer story than what I just said I've always wanted to create a space Um that I didn't have when I was growing up when I was a youngster growing up um And that was that was very important to me the teen center as many of you know used to be located at where wall greens is at downtown and And in 2010 we moved to the current space at loud Nelson, which apparently used to be the kindergarten class That's what some of the people working on our re when we rebuilt it were saying And part of the reason that this subject to me Is so heartbreaking is because I work directly with staff who Really do care about This community and they don't they don't just care about it. They're like truly passionate about it. Um You know, I I appreciate you guys in this council even if Even if you didn't do any of the stuff that you guys do in the community if this was the only Thing you did for the community I could not have more respect for you and I do know for the fact that you all do much more than Than that and so that's the passion that our staff has as well And it's the same kind of passion that many of these people here have for the non-housed community of Santa Cruz um, I understand passion Making sure that teens Thrive and survive is one of my passions. I've worked directly with some of you and still work with some of you On on many of these things the staff that works for us Is not doing it for money We want our money don't get me wrong, but that's not why we do it. It's done because They care about Santa Cruz the people that work in this community care about Santa Cruz people with the degrees that That our staff have Could be working for a lot more money over the hill Um could be working in the private sector But when I ask pretty universally the answer is because we love Santa Cruz That's why we want to do what we do here in Santa Cruz um And it's it's unfortunate that these people who I care about who have the passion for for This town and for the people in this town and for the community Are having to deal with members of the of the public attacking them personally It's it's something that has started at our highest office And it's unfortunate that the people I work with are having to deal with name calling from our community From our community that they will still go passionately and work hard for even after that So that has always been Something that is heartbreaking to me. Um They love Santa Cruz and they want to be part of the solution to the city's problems um And all of us just want things to be better to so to get specifically to the teen center And why this is such a big deal to me. Um The teen center is very important to me because it's a place where Where our youth come and they can hang out with their friends. They can just relax. They can just chill out um And they can spend time with the positive mentors that we have working at the teen center You know often One of the things that drives us crazy about in our profession is well, it's just a recreation program and true We are just a recreation program, but the teen center is a big deal and no matter what someone's going through we have the resources to get these youth To what they need from our from just our recreation program Some of the things that our teens are currently dealing with right now Um outside of their regular teen angsty. Oh my god. Why do you hate me? Things that teens just do Um We have teens that are dealing with drug use that whether it's them using drugs or their parents using drugs We have teens that are using drugs and don't want to stop using drugs We have teens who are having a struggle to quit the drugs that they're using And and we have teens that are just dealing with who they are with their sexuality and we have our resources that we can send them to um We have trained teens that are treated badly because of their skin color and yes, it's not as bad as it might be out of california Um, but it but it does happen even even here. It's it's we're lucky that it's not as bad as elsewhere But it does happen. Um I have teens who From all walks of life that come to the doors of our teen center teens who live in two million dollar homes And teens who are homeless living in their cars and or living at the shelter um Teens are dealing with abuse both physical and mental and the last time just a few days ago that someone called To make a report because teenagers are being solicited sexually from their guardians Partners These are the kind of stuff that the teens talk to us about That we send them on to the resources or that we just have conversations with them about And they know that we will guide them through those cps talks through the police officer coming into the teen center Um, they know that that's what we are there for um Before the restrooms were closed at loud nelson these same teens that i'm telling you about Had to deal with walking into a rest literally cloud-filled restroom, you know marijuana Um And teens Offered hard drugs offered meth try it. It's right here do it We've had teens walk into the restrooms and be told to get the f out of here because they came in mid transaction to somebody selling drugs um And sorry for the graphic nature of this but we've had teenagers open the stall door to two men One giving the other oral sex while the other one was shooting up at the same time That's what our teen saw at the teen center And some parents stopped letting their kids come to the teen center Because because of some of the things and I will tell you it's night and day since we started this new policy night and day There is not There there is not It's just it doesn't happen. There's no hassling anymore and I will tell you there is there is It is in the we the staff at loud nelson Is very It's a policy. It doesn't a target one population. I had a friend coming looking for me I wasn't at work that day when I saw them later said they wouldn't even let me use the restroom and my answer was good I'm glad they're not supposed to let you use the restroom. I've had people say to me that um Come on robert if you just give me the code come on. I just needs to go use the restroom give me the code And then I can joke around and say well if you sign up for a parks and rec class Then they'll give you the code and you can go ahead and use the restroom, but it's something That is important to us. I know you guys care about our space. I know that you showed it during budget hearings You showed it during one-on-one meetings. I've had with some of you I know you guys care about our space and our teens are counting on things staying the same that the way they are now Um, again, they have not been hassled since this process started The last that except for one time one of my teens A few weeks ago went to use the restroom the woman's restroom And she was hassled by people protesting the bathroom She was told why do you get to use the restroom and not other people and she had to come and talk to me and say Why are these people bothering me? And that's the only time since we've started this process that my teens have been hassled So this is why this is very important to me and thank you for your time All right, thanks to isith and robert For their testimony here today really appreciate that from them from them just really quickly to conclude and then we'll Move it move on it's in back to city council here. I just want to say So in summary tonight, we're seeking policy guidance from the city council related to park and facility hours Also seeking for your direction related to this existing restroom policy loud nelson Um staff's recommendation tonight is consistent with that of the parks and recreation commission To uphold the existing policy at the loud nelson community center And should the council wish to include new mandates for park and facility closures We would recommend an amendment to council policy 7.1 To establish that mandate to staff With those new provisions that we talked about earlier I do want to mention we Robert touched on it briefly. I want to mention that um In this conversation tonight, we're really only looking at parks and recreation restrooms with a focus on loud nelson um And I think one thing that that robert or isith didn't mention is that we have a resource at the front desk at loud nelson So if people come in and need to use the restroom, and they're not part of a program or class or activity We have a resource list of nearby restrooms in the area For people who who need a restroom in that moment. So we provide that resource to people who are coming to the center What is the closest area? That has an available restroom Big picture. We know that the big picture. We know that there are We'll go ahead and pause it. We're going to have an opportunity for it to hear from the community We're going to go ahead and conclude the presentation We'll ask questions Then we'll be the opportunity for us to hear from you at that time We'll respect you and your of your opinions and we ask that you also respect our staff as well as our opportunity as well Please continue See again the resource that I mentioned But I think this discussion tonight again is very focused on parks and rec and on loud nelson And I think we recognize that There there's a need for public restrooms. There are public restrooms all throughout downtown in Parking garages portlets different locations. And so that really is beyond the scope of parks and recreation How many restrooms are needed where they're located? And that that could be I'm not sure exactly what the the council advisory committee on homelessness is reviewing But that may be a bigger discussion in terms of where restrooms are. What's the inventory? How are those run and managed? The budget tied to that and so forth So again tonight I just want to kind of put that in context that we're really just looking at loud nelson And to reiterate what robert and iceth said again our request is That the council uphold the existing policy because of the intersection of these different uses both at the community center And at laurel park. So I think the idea of a portlet at laurel park is from our standpoint We come with the same recommendation to uphold that policy to not have a portlet at laurel park because of that same intersection With different activities and uses. So very similar to loud nelson. I hope that makes sense Finally moving forward. I I know this is a Heated topic, but I just want to ask that we move forward tonight and really focus on on the policy and on the process There have been claims about about staff and I would just respectfully ask that We don't demonize or attack the people and the human beings as part of this Let's attack the process and the policy and figure that out. So I would just respectfully put that out there The parks and rec team is a very very dedicated and passionate team And we are again, we hear from the community on all sides of this issue in many issues And so that's why we're here at council tonight to get your direction your policy direction And addressing this it's complex, but we are a can do group And want to do everything we can to make sure that the parks and facilities Can be open but also safe and serving everybody. So I just wanted to say Thanks to the council for the opportunity to to share here from our perspective and happy to answer any questions Well, we'll go ahead and first I want to just thank you for your presentation this evening But above and beyond that Just your commitment and your dedication and your authenticity is very clear in terms of the presenters here But your entire team so I just really want to acknowledge that and acknowledge the work So as I mentioned earlier now will be the time for questions of our staff and we'll Go ahead and have an opportunity to hear from the community after that process and then return back for comments and Council action. Are there any questions for the staff at this time? Okay, council member brown Council member Matthews vice mayor Cummings council member crone council member mires customer Yeah, thank you for the presentation. Thank you for being here and really thank you for all the work you do. It's Really just it's it's an honor to Be able to work with you all and know that That people who really care that much are Working and all that great stuff is happening at loud and elson. It's why it was my favorite park when we were asked So I have my question is related to The report back on the cost to staff all restrooms with attendance and I realized that was the Request that we made for information. I'm wondering that if Have there been conversations with the Parks maintenance staff about What they think might be helpful for them and you know, I mean, there may be something that's not Like an attendant at every bathroom that Could be help them Get their job done That and I'm just wondering if there's any of those conversations have happened I personally have talked with parks maintenance staff who talk about the you know The the other challenge that are one of the other challenges they have which is cleaning up feces That's out in public because In part because we don't have sufficient facilities So that's a workplace issue just like these other issues or workplace issues. I take that very seriously And we'll talk about that later As we proceed with our deliberations, but I'm just wondering like what what are the people on the ground They think what might be work might be helpful Yeah, I definitely want to lean on icith and robert here from the perspective of Operating the facility at loud and I think from the park maintenance team. These are all discussions that we have Continuously, we I would say we don't have a solution. I mean, we don't have a recommended path. I think staffing the restrooms is It's certainly an option and I think that would give staff A level of peace of mind. I think one challenge for staff is going in in the morning Place like grant park and you don't know exactly what you're going to encounter or what you're going to find In that park as you go in in the morning. And so in a lot of cases they're facing threatening situations or Different scenarios that that you know could could threaten their own safety. Obviously there's the the The side of it that you mentioned the cleanup side of it. I think that's just a bigger a bigger discussion I mean where again, we have got 20 20 restrooms in our park facilities and You know, sometimes they're used sometimes they're not and so I think we I would say that we don't have a great recommendation or strategy on how to handle that. I think the the restroom attendant is one of the Is one of those options out there, but it's very expensive And and yeah volunteers couldn't could Could do that potentially, but I think yeah, who's managing those people? How does that work exactly? There are a lot more questions we have than than answers in terms of how to manage that Councillor rex I have just kind of a Technical question here. The recommendation before us is to accept recommendations from the parks and rec commission regarding access and hours of public Facilities and direct staff to incorporate recommendations as appropriate to update The municipal code 13.04 etc and or council policy 7.1 and I we had this conversation. I just want to clarify Either one of those achieves the same end for you. Is that correct correct? Yeah, and Updating the municipal code would take a couple of readings updating a policy would be a single action and Would be simpler to modify At any point in the future and then is there an apio? I'm kind of flipping back and forth between my that's in addition So you'd want either the code Adopting the code or the policy plus an apio. Am I administrative procedure? Am I Reading that correct and and we can as it's an administrative procedure or policy order we can do that in-house Administratively and we're committing to doing that regardless of whether what council decides to do So I think the decision for council is yeah the code or the council policy The recommendation from staff being the council policy as you mentioned it gives us a direct mandate And it's effective effective tonight essentially and giving direction on that assumes action on the apio. Is that correct? Correct, so they don't need to give additional direction on okay. I just want to get clear on that. Thank you Vice mayor Cummings This was more of a question for I think probably the city manager's office so Recently and we received an email And I think it was from food not bombs interested in paying for and contributing financially to the city for the installation of porta potties Porta let's have you want to call them and I was just wondering is there any potential mechanism for If members of the public would like to donate money to the city For the installation and maintenance of these types of structures. Is there any type of protocol for allowing that? Well, I think it just depends on what the particular Request is the location the hours the need all that has to be evaluated So we did get a request we did forward it to the appropriate departments to review But I think generally it just depends on on what the what the request is and and whether It's able to be compatible with wherever their request is and all those factors. So that all has to be taken into account I just want to also say thank you all for this great presentation and we're taking the time to be here Share with you're with us in the community your experiences at loud Nelson Councilmember crown Myers and then Glover Yeah, I'm just wondering um Tony um What constitutes a patron at um loud Nelson because I know I've played basketball for years there and Always use the bathroom not all the basketball players use the bathroom Well, I don't think it's an official program, but are they how do you judge? Someone who's using the facility If I may I'll let isaac speak to that Hi so anyone who is attending a class a program an event is using purchasing something at the Little cafe that's located in there someone that's there to do business It is not related to us receiving revenue. It's anyone, you know, they're yes, we have revenue making programs there But we also have free programs there the we also extend the access to the restrooms to Children playing in the playground who are there, um, you know from the neighborhood Most likely who are there accessing the park. So if they're accompanied by an adult Also as well as individuals who are Come to the park at times part of hope services or other agencies that have individuals with developmental disabilities Who have an adult attendee? We welcome them and that's based on The notion that a young child or someone who might not be able to communicate Their need to use the restroom before leaving their home or nearby area Is not able to identify and communicate that at their previous location That's why that's extended. So the basketball players can or can't use the restroom. No And neither individual is using the ping-pong table or the chess table Tony I have another question For you. What were you called that? Port-a-let, where did that word come from? That might be my midwestern roots. Oh I was like What would be the problem if Well, first of all, would you be willing to use volunteers and what if someone if we did a Like sort of a prototype six month Bathroom that was staffed by a group of volunteers for certain hours Near the basketball court Yeah, I think that's a good question. I think I think in general, I mean again what we Would want to do a loud and and at the park nearby again because that intersection of uses Would be would be to not have public restrooms At that location for the the issues that we've talked about tonight Now in the broader discussion Looking downtown where the closest restrooms Could we have some in an adjacent area? Could we have some in a nearby area? I think we would be supportive of that so that you don't have that intersection of uses youth and meals on wheels and different things like that Where you could have kind of a pilot program if you will and staff it with either volunteers or Or paid staff As we talked about you know from a from a costing standpoint So I said this coming up. So I want her to speak to it. But again, I think We would like to I think generally keep it away from the the property and maybe run a pilot in partnership with public works and other appropriate departments um one item I'd like to add that I didn't cover in my initial presentation and it's a Very real and ongoing and established situation is that Um for over a decade now there has been a well known Open drug market so to speak on the corner of Laurel and washington street. There has been police involvement many times. There's been a sting operation prior to my Involvement at the center. There's been various attempts to mitigate that for whatever reason I don't know if it's some sort of vortex that corner Has had ongoing drug dealing if we put in public restrooms in that location We've just provided a one-shop stop for these individuals. They buy their drugs. They go into the restroom and use them I'm not being dramatic. That will happen. That is what was happening In the restrooms at loudon So I I do have very real and justified concerns about that about putting the restroom there and and um What that will attract again to as tony mentioned the intersection of our activities That we're there to provide to the community and and those activities last last two questions. Um, so you really sincerely Don't think that a Having an attendant there would Could be eyes and ears on the street as well as um willing to clean up The restroom and make sure it operates Are you are you referring to an attendant at a port of potty or in at the restrooms inside at the port of potty? um I don't know. I can't I mean I don't I haven't seen that situation. I do think that the um It would take a very unique volunteer to to put in that time and that commitment and and uh be able to To Interact and intervene with those situations and um, they would have to be somebody that is thick skinned Physically comfortable being threatened, you know, but I I don't know because we haven't we haven't had that specific instance. Thank you Last question is um, I'm gonna go ahead and interrupt you I'm gonna go ahead and ask that members of the community reframe from speaking out at this time. Miss cool I'm gonna go ahead and ask that you please uh Wait and you're tell it's your turn and we'll have an opportunity to hear from you at that time Right now is the opportunity for the council to um ask questions of our staff You'll have an opportunity to speak as well. We'll go ahead and consider that a warning Please continue of council member chrome with your questioning. I hear different things about the pd. Uh, the police department community room restroom our people Have the ability to use that restroom. Is it open or is it only during like community events that go on in that room? Um, our understanding and what's been communicated to us from um, pd. Is that it is generally open however if there are trainings being held Police related trainings being held in the community Room or if there are like the teen academy If there's vulnerable groups who may be there attending something at the community room We have the calendar of what's going on in the community room so we can look at it and say, okay It's open and then it's open during their their front office hours. It's not 24 seven access But we do offer that Service to look at the calendar and let them know if that one's an option. Thank you. Thank you mayor Council member Myers and then council member Glover and then vice mayor Cummings Thanks to the staff and um, most importantly, thank you for running an amazing community center and serving It sounds like everyone from 101 102 down to uh, very young and uh, just being mentors for them and and being a safe place For our community to be so thank you very much for whatever you guys do I have a couple questions about some other facilities. Um The depot I know uh the carriage or carriage building there Is that does that have restrooms in it or is that available at all? I don't know enough about that facility to know what's there or not there Except I vote there so Yes, it's open. Um, I believe park hours is all it's open The travis is not here to to speak to that from the park side But I think it's just park hours that that's open So that would be typical park hours as in as in any other sunsets. Okay. And is that similar at the restrooms? Both Both of the restroom facilities down at the beach Correct correct, uh, and really the same with virtually all of our restrooms So grant park the same thing we open those up first thing in the morning. Um, near lagoon near lagoon. Yep as a restroom Yeah, and um Downtown it would be civic center probably civic auditorium would be the closest and civic auditorium and there are public restrooms as well Um, I won't get all these right but uh through parking garages and porta potty's porta let's um Yeah, a variety of restrooms downtown as well. And have you had cause to close any of the other? Um restrooms such as the one at the depot park because of anilism or other things like that Yeah, we've closed sand excuse me san lorenzo park Temporarily in the past year. We've closed grant park restroom Handful of times in the past year And those have been relatively short durations. Um grant park in all cases It was due to vandalism and maintenance needs repair needs Um similar to san lorenzo where we find a lot of syringes Kind of jammed down toilets and in different debris jammed down toilets to Uh to clog thank you To clog up the plumbing and so in a couple cases sand low in particular We installed essentially new infrastructure kind of a new daylight in the a new access point in the sewer lateral So that we could snake that out rather than having a contractor come in and pay a lot more money to do so, so Yeah due to vandalism Yeah, a lot of syringe use Graffiti those type of things both grant and salarins have been closed At least a handful of times in the past year has neary or the beaches or The depot site park been closed that that you can recall Not that I can recall Not that I can recall. Okay. Thank you We have councillor Glover, vice mayor Cummings and then I'll come over to councillor. Thank you Was that one of the resource pages? That's the list of all the restrooms restroom hours Including hours and Okay, thank you. That's what we also provide at the counter. That's what the resource list. Okay. Awesome. Um Yeah, I'd love to see that when you have a second. Maybe while we're here in public comment um, so what's the just what's the Closest bathroom that you recommend people go to was that we just say that's depot if say the police department's closed There are some kind of in different directions, but um PD is one of them depot is one of them um There are other known um Businesses but we don't necessarily because they're not city ones. We don't necessarily Say it out loud, but there's like the bagelry um the laundromat the La jacienda mexican restaurant is is um frequently open possibly not always, but um Yeah, so that's what this list is for. Okay. Thank you. Um the I appreciate the presentation for the research that was done as well as the sharing of your personal experiences and your work over at the the center It's just What are your policies for people with different levels of ability and mobility? Specifically if they come let's say at 405 on a weekday when the police department lobbies closed Are they forced to go and find alternative? Bathrooms and if that is the case if depot park is the closest one It's about 0.3 miles away for an able-bodied person. That's not that bad, but for someone that has uh mobility issues that could be five miles, uh, so What what's the policy around people with mobility issues? If they're not there to attend a class or a program or an event At that time then they would not be given access to the restroom The one the one exception like I mentioned is for individuals with developmental disabilities with a with um An attendee. Yeah, um Because there was um It was also interesting to hear the statement about the young children that can use the bathrooms because I had a mother come And tell me that she wasn't allowed to use the bathroom because her even though her child was using the the the Play structure So unfortunate to have that account, but maybe it was just a mistake or oversight or something With uh The Policy at the center. I mean I brought you know, I was one of the counselors who brought this forward So it's really important for me personally with regards to access to bathrooms for people. Um, what does it take to get involved with one of the programs? Can you walk in and say hey, I'm a part of what's going on in room C And as long as you go into room C and spend An hour 30 minutes five minutes. What's is there a policy specific? Specificity with regards to participation program that to pay if it's a free program Can they just walk in and say I'm part of that program? Um, I it depends on what the program is and who's facilitating the program um So some some of the programs or classes that are offered are by private parties who have leased that room and then are Are given a presentation Or class or service. Um, there are certain programs that are for specific groups seniors teens toddlers There are Some groups some classes that are pretty much wide open Um But you know so say for example, um the high cap group which is there to provide insurance counseling theoretically someone could walk in and Maybe who wasn't actually there to seek those services and they could go in and Engage with those individuals that does seem like it would be Disrespectful to the facilitators of the class because then they're You know, I'm engaging that person and taking their time and resources Um, but you know, we we do trust people. We're not looking to catch people in lies Or you know, we're not looking to to put people in a situation where they're going and and Misrepresenting their purpose in a class or or a program Okay, thank you. Um, and then uh, I'll look forward to seeing the the list that is distributed to people. Um The concern I had there And it was just the statement That sometimes they're directed towards other businesses Because I think statistically looking at businesses and how we've seen in Santa Cruz with all of the messages of no restroom use for non customers And I think there's there's an article out of washington dc That cites like at least 65 of the experiences of people trying to use the bathroom if they're experiencing homelessness experience oppression so just You know thinking about just access to bathrooms if someone that had mobility issues came to london nelson and needed to use the restroom, but then was told to go Point three miles away or try across the street at la hacienda But if they turn them down then they're forced to then have been delayed that much longer and get to where they're at so There's just a lot of problems, uh, but I but I do want to figure out a way to address the issues that your staff is facing with regards to the impact and also an acknowledgement of the Issues concerns potential dangers and impacts it has on the youth there to figure out a good solution around there Outside of I mean this was I think was asked before a little bit, but has there been any other kind of creative outside of the box problem solving besides the Uh attendant on every bathroom and the two million dollar price tag with regards to just some other things and it's okay You know, I mean this was a thing, but just wondering No, but if you hear anything let us know please. Um, I think again We're looking at parks and recreation facilities tonight. I think big picture looking at the downtown I think if there's a broader inventory, uh, both city owned and publicly provided and then You know again a question Do we factor in like the restaurants and those things does that is that part of that inventory kind of a master plan? If you will of what's available when did available That I think could be could be a first step and then how do you staff that to support it? But but yeah, no necessarily, you know innovative ideas tonight work on it together and then uh one last question You mentioned the issue of needles I mean there was a bunch of stuff you mentioned with regards to like firecrackers and all other kind of stuff Which is always unfortunate, but needles are a big concern Do you and the parks department support the implementation or the installing of sharps containers in all public bathrooms? In all public bathrooms, no no, uh, we've got really Really detailed data and we're working with county health services agency right now In terms of their litter reduction program There was part of the direction that we got from the parks and recreation commission There are places. I think where they could be well used But to put them everywhere that the data doesn't support it I don't think there's necessarily a reason to put them everywhere, but we do have really detailed data We found approximately 4500 syringes in parks beaches and open spaces last calendar year And expect to find that same number this year, but they're targeted in specific areas So my answer to your question would be no for all parks and restrooms. That's a wonderful answer with regards to the Fulness of it. Um, and I would I look forward to working with you on identifying those hot spots for sharps containers. Thank you Had another question that's probably more for the city manager's office, um Have there been any what kind of issues? Have you all had any reports about with the portlets that are around town because I see people using them when necessary and I just want to understand whether or not we see the same levels of vandalism that we find occurring at Loudon Nelson Center You're referring to the ones that the the ones downtown in the parking lots. We have we have three three sets of those We do have, uh, you know, quite a bit of a high level service Parks may have actually some some more data than than I do and we do have incidents of vandalism periodically at those We work really closely with the vendor to get them replaced or fixed as quickly as possible But we do have challenges with those but however those we do keep open 24 7 In addition to the two in the parking garages downtown that are open during the day Up until the early evening hours. I don't know if Tony if you have any more information on the toilets, but you know, we In general, um, I think they they we do a really good job of trying to keep them open as much as possible Or maintain as much as possible, but we do have incidents as yes Thanks and then one more question, um Are there with my understanding is that that, you know, the Laurel Street Park, which I guess is adjacent to Loudon Nelson that We have a wide range of people who use that park including members of the homeless community Um, so I just wanted to see, you know, what in terms of people who are going there to recreate versus people who Maybe experiencing homeless who use that as a place to rest If you can just speak towards a kind of ratio of people who are hanging out there and um, I I don't haven't run those numbers recently. Um, I would say we have far more individuals Coming to the building to use the surface the the center for a specific purpose, but we do have a fairly Regular set of individuals who are coming there for a safe place to sleep during the day and hang out and also socialize, I think On average, I would say there's usually about 10 Individuals 10 to 15 it kind of ebbs and flows But um in terms of like you can count on them every day It's about 10 that are usually there in the park um hanging out Do you have a question councillor matthews? No, okay. Um, I think we'll go ahead at this time now Open it up to public comment. Thank you. And we'll probably have some more clarifying questions or discussion After I will go ahead and see if there I have I'll go ahead and allow the gentleman who's been waiting To speak first for up to two minutes And then I'm going to go ahead and open it up to anybody who wants to adjust the council Very briefly in one minute And after that we'll have our group presentations and then a two-minute public comment So we'll go ahead and Yeah, you'll have your you'll have your opportunity as a group presentation to Present after people who want to speak briefly for one minute go first And we'll start with you and if you're up for did you want the one minute or were you up for the Just make us brief. Yeah Yeah, I really appreciate the director's comments and and also the director of loud and else and Their report was thoroughly graphic and I think we can really see what kind of problems that are going on there It's really important that you Safeguard those participants. These are kids and seniors and they cannot be subject to that type of Traumatic and dangerous environment that's being imported into that center One thing I would say is you you folks are incredibly lucky to have those people working for this city I was an employer for many years here And one of the important things is if you're going to give people Responsibility You have to give them the tools to be able to have the authority to deal with these things They can't be coming back over and over to you With you know going what are we going to do? You you have to give Authority along with responsibility and they they're certainly are handling their responsibilities and they're asking for the guidance And the authority to deal with them And you really do have to cede them that authority to some extent by giving them proper policies to deal with these these issues Is there any other member of the community who would like to address the council in one minute briefly? I can be in one minute I think So I have a huge concern when an innovative solution has been proposed and yet we still hear Would you like to open the bathrooms? No Um, I kind of think after this conversation we might consider taking the word community out of the Loudon Nelson community center It's not okay when I hear untruths being said as well people who have small children at the park do not get to use the bathroom I personally have been told that my kids can't use the bathroom when people have potty training children That that's an issue when people have mobility issues. That's that's an issue It's not okay to call yourself a community center and then when somebody really needs to come in there and use the bathroom And they're elderly you hand them a piece of paper Directing them to you know A little less than a mile away. It's it's unacceptable We need bathrooms because everybody goes to the bathroom if you put an attendant in those bathrooms It will be a lot less likely that they're going to be violated in some of the ways that you that you heard Which we can't even prove whether or not they're true because there's very small data on that Anybody else briefly, um, you'll have one minute if you're interested in speaking for one minute Can I have a longer if I wait longer? Yeah, you can Is there anybody interested in addressing the council within one minute briefly? Please come forward and you'll have one minute I'm mike reos and i'm from loudon nelson Meals on wheels program manager It is a safe environment now The bathrooms are safe for everybody and that's why i'm here to let I know some of my folks will like it But that's what we're here for a safe place for people and it is Thanks um So it seems like the uh proposals today don't solve the problem. They just kind of redirected It seems like some more long-term solutions might be safe injection sites And obviously these kinds of policies are targeted at the homeless population And we all know that the solution to homelessness is housing So if we could at least spend the same amount of time discussing long-term solutions, I think that would be great Thanks Would you like to address the council in one minute? Okay When I say it's a complex challenge like said before and that we can do it as a community And a respect park labor is being won in watsonville for about six months as a substitute um I think one idea Could have some type of rules and agreements signed in by time To hold people responsible if they want to use the restroom at loudon another idea and just uh public restrooms around has Develop some kind of art That can discourage inappropriate behavior Inside and prevent vandalism And how art is very powerful in that way And that's it. Thank you Okay, seeing no additional members of the community wanting to address the council briefly in one minute We'll go ahead and um return back to the presentations and I have um the first presentation being mr. Norris from huff Please come forward. You'll have up to four minutes I hate to say this but I have to use the bathroom So we'll have the second presentation being um conscious in action and I believe we had steve But it seems that we have um Uh phil posner here And I have only three presentations and the next will be uh jay and brown And you'll have four minutes Thanks Good evening mayor and city council. I'm phil posner founder and co-chair with steve pleich of conscious and action Perhaps you saw my letter to the editor in today's sentinel, which Is germane to some of the stuff we're talking about this evening We are an activist group that addresses issues that have to do with justice and suffering in our community Including the need to increase 24 hour access bathrooms In that context last week we organized a petition to you Which I have handed to you just now And those here assembled also have it However, I do want to read the first lines as they are statements from individuals who stood at this very podium within the last year I'm 81 and homeless. She said standing before a city our city council And at night I have no place to pee or defecate. I'm here asking for your help closed quote I have a prostate problem. He said and sometimes I pee In my pants In three days last week Our three homeless activist organizations the board of the association of faith communities Hadesha main new synagogue the local aclu five downtown businesses The united service agency and the local chapters of veterans for peace all signed on to the petition Which you now have in your hands. Imagine how many more others we could have had signed if it we had more time We understand that the city is facing an ongoing financial crisis and that both council and staff Are limited by time and energy in their efforts to address pressing Community problems and we understand that government alone cannot solve all of our community ills as reflected in Tony's Sharing with you. However, we also believe that good government must prioritize issues that have to do with human suffering and discrimination And I'm going to cut out the stuff that I gave handed to you about the state section Our concern is discrimination We understand that there are not nice people But what about that lady 81 who had no place to pee? What about that man who had to pee in his pants in other words? Why does the city in this case parks and rec particularly with loud and prioritized Of some bad individuals and therefore discriminated against all of the other innocent individuals Who have no place to go to and tony. I respect you very wherever you are. I respect very much his work, but tony We came to you. We met with you at least twice and we gave Out of the box eight suggestions that we thought were pretty creative And tony said to us I will get back to you. We never heard from him And I said you the other day said to me. We're considering some of your proposals I didn't hear any proposal having to do with monitors Signing in and other things that we have suggested now for over a year Council persons as you know, our community is replete with occasions when ordinary citizens and their government have to come together to create A public-private partnership for the good of our community We believe that the privates privations suffering and lack of basic dignity caused by the presently existing lack of sufficient bathrooms In santa cruz is such an occasion as our petition indicates We would prefer that you direct parks and rec and other relevant city departments to open more bathrooms So that people don't have to pee However, indicative of the fact that the city has a moral responsibility Okay, I'll stop. Thank you. You have the rest of my talk. I hope you look at it. Thank you very much Okay All right, mr. Norris is the opportunity for you to speak on behalf of pass And you'll have four minutes. Please come forward so Who will change city councils dirty diapers at laudan elson and city hall clearly not the city council unfortunately Or maybe not. I mean, who knows what can happen Some activists are posted adult diapers around the city as an iconic and ironic reminder That bathrooms here at city hall and at laudan elson remain closed during business hours and this has gone on for months or years hence the parks and rec It's claim that it's going to wants to be accountable is is not really accountable at all It is in fact taken the choice of closing bathrooms here at city hall For political purposes because there were protests here around the sleeping band and similarly In the laudan elson center these those bathrooms became closed after the closing of the san lorenzo park when people had to move there or move to the different parks and We had supervisor isaeth ray who you heard who spoke to earlier She directed her staff to refuse access to these bathrooms Even though laurel park is a part of the center We're hearing this classist and and sort of suspiciously racist aspect Where people who are in the park using the park Are conflated with people who are drug dealers or Masterbaters or i don't know what else But there are plenty of actual people needing to use this who use that who play basketball who can no longer use these bathrooms Clearly discrimination that doesn't doesn't say black only it doesn't say white only but it says Only people who are paying and coming to paying events are at the discretion of the staff Because sometimes staff members let people go there sometimes It's ironic that isaeth ray spoke out about the wretched conditions for renters and workers For herself and her family at the last city council meeting. She was right And she should not be put into position of having to force people to piss in their pants to do her job And if she's initiating this then i'm sorry to hear that too We have ourselves those of us who are concerned with opening these bathrooms Taking direct action and we will take direct action again in order to make sure the community can exercise its true voice City council Bernal's memorandum attached to this whole issue, which you have Is a reprint from 2018 He hasn't presented you with any new data other than the verbal anecdotes of isaeth ray and tony elliot There is no series of stats Particularly about particular abuses and and costs So-called vandalism in the bathrooms. You don't have any indication of what the real costs are Compared with normal upkeep costs elsewhere in the city I also of course as was pointed out the solution seems to be The feces on the grass solution There's no cost to what what's the cost of cleaning up all that stuff that was raised by by mr. Crown here It's an obvious question And there's been no answer to it from mr. Bernal or anybody in the city because the purpose here is really more of A class notion That it's okay to exclude a class of people in this case people who are drug users homeless poor wash their clothes in the sink then to Deal with those issues the way to deal with them is to exclude them to deny them to lock them out Well, I tell the community and I ask the community we must resist this and not through this council Unless they unaccountably take action tonight We must resist it by getting those codes Sharing those codes with anybody who needs them and using those codes on september third We will be at Loudon elson a week from today at 130 opening those bathrooms to people who need them That I believe is what's going to happen. Thank you The last group presentation is um, we have jam brown coming up and I think it's on behalf of the parks and rec commission And you'll have four minutes as well Then we'll go to open public comment for two minutes and we'll see the light on the left Good evening mayor members of the council. I'm jay and brown chair of your parks and rec commission I'd like to acknowledge the other members of the commission who are here this evening vice chair. Locatelli Commissioner meo commissioner don's got norris and commissioner christina kincaid glavis Um as stated by the staff a commission unanimously passed two recommendations at our july 1st meeting One is related to facilities closures and restrictions in general and a more specific recommendation around further study For the loudon elson restrooms. I won't repeat what's in your packet But I do really appreciate the opportunity to provide you more information about the discussion that the committee had that led to those recommendations In crafting these recommendations the commission really sought to create a balance between the desire to make our facilities Safe and accessible with the need for greater transparency about how those decisions are made We thought it was important to preserve the discretion of our parks and recreation staff to use their best professional judgment about when conditions of a facility Be it a restroom or other portions of a park or open space Necessitate closure in order to reduce harmful conditions or address an emerging environmental need such as restoration or fire prevention We also felt it was important for the council and the commission to receive timely updates about those closures as well as an estimated timeline for reopening And that's why we structured our recommendation in such a way that would create clear guidelines for the parks and rec director to use When deciding whether to close a facility and then to create a communications protocol that provides notification to the council and the commission This recommendation was specifically crafted to provide the council with an opportunity to receive an update And provide direction no later than 21 days from the beginning of a closure or at their next regular council meeting And the commission of course can be updated by email and provide input every other month when we actually meet here in person I think I speak for all of us when I say that the commission joins the parks and rec staff in wanting our facilities open to the greatest extent possible Under safe and well-maintained conditions It's clear throughout the city that staff are entrusted by the council to use their professional judgment To properly maintain other infrastructure such as roads and water mains and close them when conditions necessitate doing so for health and safety reasons Parks and rec should be no different Our parks and rec staff provide a testimony to the commission Much of which you also heard this evening about some of the deplorable public health conditions That they and other members of the public have been exposed to in restrooms and other areas of our facilities We also know that from time to time Non-emergency conditions such as the need for restoration and repair is require restricting access So we felt it was important that our staff remain empowered to serve the public By having a transparent process for temporarily closing facilities when conditions justify Lastly the commission also discussed the importance of differentiating between behaviors that necessitate action To reduce harm versus the identification of any particular groups of people We do not as a commission support limiting access to our facilities based on any real Or perceived identity or status But rather as a result of behaviors and conditions And we do not see a correlation between a person's housing status and behaviors that are in violation of our rules and regulations As we all know bad behaviors can come with the hands of people who have shelter and people who don't We have a beautiful parks and open space system that we all want to be free of public health hazards So we hope that the city can partner with the county's public health agency To address what really are countywide challenges around needle waste and human waste With that, I thank you for your time and I'd like to invite other members of the commission to share any individual comments They may have I'll just echo uh james and all of our uh recommendation to you and I felt it very important because Because we oh, is that done? You know what? I think we'd be more appropriate if you wanted to add any additional comments that you can do So But I want to thank the commission for being here and thank you for your service Tourcity in that capacity as well. Sorry. I guess it was confusing. We were told the commissioners would have two additional minutes They can have two additional minutes after that's right. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay So we'll go ahead and have and you'll have up to two minutes Keith mckenry mckenry liked the library I found it interesting and have always found it interesting that there's an open-air drug market across from the police station I went to the uh I rented louden nelson. I went to an appointment to do a sound check with the sound person I needed to go to the bathroom. I have had prostate Operations. I had to go I was not allowed to go I asked why you just give me the number like they do in other restaurants In places like that. They would not give that to me. So I had to pee in the bushes outside of louden nelson. That's Really inappropriate. Um, I think if you just have a policy where a person comes up to the front desk and asks to have the code Um, it would probably work out just fine And a lot of the problems that you saw when there was no code Would disappear because i'm sure no one really wants to go through that It turns out that the state of california and the federal government Says that there has to be um Five toilets and hand wash facilities for every hundred employee. I would suggest that's probably according to the um a national I mean the california association of environmental health managers A policy that should be adopted for people living outside. They um Has assured me that that was probably a uh public health crisis and that the city would um be well advised to have Five toilets and five hand wash stations per hundred people that live outside I could not make it to the police station. It was already closed. There was no other places to go I wasn't given like the uh little letter telling me what other bathrooms were in the area So I had to resort to the bushes and I think a great many other people have to do that There are many health issues surrounding going to the bathroom when I was homeless I had fibromyalgia and I had irritable bowel syndrome and it was a huge crisis all the time And it was I felt really horrible that I had to go to the bathroom outside so frequently. Thank you It's I too question uh, how much staff time was spent cleaning up non-bathroom human waste Uh, we do know that last year 94 citations for public urination were issued Uh, it's very likely that we need to have more public bathrooms available with uh extended hours We also need to account and plan for the reality that bathrooms will be vandalized and the illegal behavior is likely to occur in them But rather than closing bathrooms or limiting access to them Let's plan a way to keep toilet facilities open while accounting for and mitigating vandalism and other illegal behavior Let's investigate the best practices for bathroom management Maybe open some new bathroom locations. Maybe install some sharps containers. Maybe staff some commonly abused locations Maybe use volunteers or allow private organizations to pay for public facilities If bathroom if paid bathroom staff are used consider empowering them to refer people to social services If the primary reason to hire bathroom staff is to reduce vandalism It seems like hiring attendance is not necessarily the right solution from a pure cost benefit perspective According to the staff presentation in the in the last two weeks There were approximately 25 man hours per day associated for cleaning up the vandalism spent on Citywide The existing maintenance costs appear to be far less than a far less expensive than hiring bathroom attendance citywide would be If bathrooms are being closed primarily because of issues with public safety Then let's look at how we can address the underlying problem behaviors without limiting the public's access to an important public resource. Thank you I hope we can all agree that these are important issues It's a real balance, you know to staff legitimately are saying this is really really hard And the public is legitimately saying the public facility should be open for the public So and you're the right body to hear this because you do represent the public and overseeing these facilities So the most important thing for me that I urge you to do is to adopt the policy where the council decides When to close the facility for more than 14 or 21 days or whatever The suggestion to use apos and council member handbooks. Let me give you my experience with that as a council member Um, it was huge. It had a gun on it. It was the bear cat So it turns out that when they when the police supplied for a grant to get the bear cat They were already supposed to have talked to the council before they applied for the grant That was an apo at the time, but everyone had forgotten about it, right? I bet you if you had You know 600 hours you could find 50 or 100 apos or council member handbook policies that weren't remembered not out of any kind of you know their election of duty just because That stuff is tiny and minutiae and people don't remember it and this particular issue as you know Is not a minute issue. It's an issue that people care about the staff care a lot about it The public cares a lot about it. Homeless advocates care a lot about it It's not the kind of thing you should put in an apo and assume that you will hear about it if if you want to you have the responsibility to mitigate and referee and balance these concerns and so The the straightforward way to do that is to tell the staff that they can close a bathroom for 14 or 20 days which is plenty of time to fix things or repair things whatever But if they're going to close it as a policy act to reduce usage so as to protect a facility That's a city council decision that shouldn't be a staff decision when these parks were open No one ever imagined no one ever imagined that the staff would close the facility to the public to protect the facility That's not a staff level decision So I hope that you'll immediately Adopt the original language and just to show you how hard it took seven months just to get this issue back to you So you should adopt the language to say that they may not close facilities without going to the city council Thank you very much One of the reasons that this is really important is For environmental issues too as far as i'm concerned the parks Are an open spaces are going to be really important and view of the climate change Park and rec should have the possibility to close and protect an area when necessary So also, I think hearing from the city attorney in regards to How other cities and the state law is in regards to open public Uh public owned bathrooms will help this discussion So thank you very much and That's it Next speaker, please Hi, my name is Elise casby and i'm furious and I don't have a lot of respect for any of the officials in the city I'm sorry But I was a respectful citizen for decades and I said slowly investigated the truth The situation that homeless people are living in not only in santa cruz, but in other cities And other aspects of our so-called burgeoning democracy. I I have just become extremely Disrespectful and it's because people have not earned my respect And I just want to start with these presentations First of all, I want to thank tony for his presentation, especially the apio that he's in asking for on transparency But this report was terribly terribly biased and full of prejudice by any sociological academic standard Both his and liseth's reports. They come up against a background of hate and Amazing awful prejudice against the homeless that is every day Uh touted and encouraged by Not only synthy matthews in this council But also by people who run the homeless shelters in many instances and I've investigated them and I have not written my report I think I might have to do it when I leave the town because I think it's unsafe to tell the truth too much here I applaud councilmember clever's truth-telling and patience I can't understand how he has that much and also councilmember crone and browns But I just want to say liseth interestingly missed the fact that the metro bathroom is very close Maybe closer than the depot park for somebody who's every day in the business of recommending close bathrooms Why did she miss that huge question mark? And I'll tell you why because that report is so lacking in facts As she said some data How about replete police reports to some of these instances? I'm just disgusted by this entire So-called neutral report. It is not it is horribly biased It was stalling from up here. I want information on it and I want it I'm Cynthia with Santa Cruz tenants association. Um, I was just listening to the um Iseth and the head of parks and recreations report and it was very interesting But I feel like there's two visions of Santa Cruz, but one of them sort of more real than the other Santa Cruz is like a Known Sexual trafficking hub. It's had an extreme drug problem for many years and it has an fbi task force, you know lodged here Permanently with the sheriff's department people who work for the city They need to understand what kind of a place this really is and not try to concoct a Kind of an image of what they would like it to be like if only they could and So, you know, I don't know how you're gonna to to get to that, but You know, it's not I and you know the city has 65 fewer children than Watsonville for a reason I protected my son for a reason. I didn't become a drug addict for a reason You know, it's it's all around here. It takes a consciousness To live a healthy life here. And so people who work for the city They need to understand that these are our neighbors and some of them are sick Some of them are mentally sick and there's nowhere for them to go And then we have a high percentage here because such a nice place This place is not going to be kicking out all these people who You know, aren't the your ideal neighbors They're going to be here And I think maybe that the staff could use also some training on really just a little bit more Compassion, I mean pregnant women You know old people. I mean I take care of guys in continent You know, these people need to be able to use the bathroom as do I there's a lot of pre-diabetic people around here They have to pee every half hour, you know, you you you just have to have a little more broader look at people all right I'm gonna get a sense of how many people still want to address the council Okay, we'll have the three and then the individual on the on the end there as our last speaker, please I agree pretty much what everybody's been saying and We need to go preemptive and that should save us the money as well And maybe solve a lot of other issues we have with drug problems or whatever I came to this town. I was I did at least 50 big wilderness tracks way out in the middle of nowhere Nobody was to say where I could go where I can't go to the bathroom I came into this town and had a girlfriend here. We she was nagging for a little girl And we used to go to loud Nelson. This is 40 years ago. These are not new events I don't remember all these years being closed down Now I knew I also was like the stepdad to one of the boys that now is a man who worked at loud Nelson for years and years off and on that had to deal with these issues Same thing. He had to deal with the issues But the center wasn't closed down for people like me who went to go ask to play basketball And I couldn't do it Speaking of basketball playing. I don't go there now because I can't play basketball because I can't go wash Go to the bathroom there. So I'm punished. So you're punishing everybody else with some bad boys or bad girls do That is not fair. We got to keep looking for solutions We can't push everybody away from what we need to do. You have to change the mission statement You have to change that it's not a community center anymore because it's not taking all of the community It's not taking the mission. So I'm gonna go ahead and pause you. I'm gonna go ahead and pause the comments This is your opportunity to address the council If you want to address the council, you're welcome to do that I'm not gonna be rude, but I'm gonna go ahead and cut off your time And you're gonna have to go ahead and take a seat at this time. This is not the opportunity to address We're part of the community It's not fair to do that If you want to address the council, you're welcome to address the council Feel free to address us and you'll have your remainder of time Yeah, so I got my back to everybody else You can see that. Yeah, go ahead. If you want to address the council, you're welcome to do that I can't I'm trying to talk to everybody because we all govern together and I'm not trying to be disrespectful of you or anybody But it's disrespectful if I can't talk to everyone else and only you Mr. Norris, I'm gonna go ahead and ask that you please stop that because you've been warned if there's another Outburst and I'm gonna go ahead and that's what you do. It's just selective again. Okay. I want I'll talk to you Okay, how much longer do I got then you're gonna give it to me again Why don't we go ahead and take if you can't we'll go ahead and Yeah, I'll talk to you how much more on you can give me that you want to finish your comments We can go ahead and finish the comments then that Okay, well, we'll go. Okay, mr. McHenry You could okay. Why don't you go ahead and go ahead and leave please we'll go ahead and ask that you leave I have given you a warning The the staff here go ahead and ask You're interrupting the ability for us to be able to do cities business. You can go ahead and go We'll wait until you're able to We'll have decorum back in the council and it's just very hurtful that you won't let me share with everybody in the room Because everybody's the politician here Everybody voted for these people Everybody's part of this community Right, it's just not right that I have to turn my back and not be able to go back and forth to them and you It's just not right. I'll have to say that But like I said, it's just and I used to bring my daughter to loud nelson 20 years ago And it was it was not an issue. I brought my daughter to the mall. I've been hearing about that too How dangerous the mall is that's bull. I go down there all the time There's kids there all the time having fun every single day all day long Too much paranoia came out of control Yes, my name is Elania Naughty. I did not intend on speaking But I want to clarify one the parks were closed for five to six weeks The beach has been closed the cow beach the bathrooms at least one of them has been closed at least three times Because I'm there at least five six days a week I go by both the city park and grand street park at least three times a day because I live off of market street I'm fortunate enough that I have not had a place as well as had a place. I'm one of the first 180 180 recipients I'm not a drug addict, but I have worked with addicts all my life. I'm a retired social worker So I pretty much have an idea about a lot of these quote-unquote drug war politics I love santa crux To be honest, it's really kind of disgusting what's happening in santa crux because you're turning into san francisco in five years from now You'll open all the bathrooms just like santa crux had to because you're so disgusted with all the head bang And all this stuff. But right now you're in the process of training people To not have any common sense and decent humanity And as far as loud nelson My grandson I've been turned away three times because when I go to do laundry downtown, which is not that often anymore Because I have to bring my basket You know while our laundry's at the place we bring our basket because i'm not going to leave it at speedy wash to get stolen We go over there to play But since we're not using the facilities because the parks in the basketball court are not considered part of the facilities Luckily, I know how to look people and I make it clear to them how inhumane it is for you to tell me that I can't use the restroom more than my grandson can't I have been allowed to So if it goes against your policies Then you need to talk to your staff because it is inhumane to not let someone with a disability card Or a child use the restroom You know Now the fact I also used to volunteer at the shelter and when I caught somebody using I remembered their face Like I said common sense is not that common for some reason Now unfortunately when you have police officers I don't call them but I am the kind of person that when I bust somebody using in public I do tend to go off because I feel assaulted a needle in public is just like a gun I have no sympathy for it. I have sympathy for the user but not the needle But when an officer says did everyone here has a needle you can't count on them. Okay Have you guys been going all day? I'm so sorry. Okay. Uh, my name is surge and Uh, I want to thank parks and rec 2 and and tony and those guys. I enjoy Poganip I went running there yesterday. I got a tour of the homeless garden project today that what they're going to be putting out there Had a hawk land on my windshield on my windshield wiper got a picture super cool. Um, saw some wild turkeys I've enjoyed community centers my whole life, you know as a kid taking classes Loud Nelson winter shelter 2017 2018 I helped run the winter shelter And we did intakes at loud nelson right about the same time that the bathrooms were closed And we had to walk people to the bathrooms and stuff like that. Um, I I People have to breathe eat defecate urinate whether you let them You're gonna allow them to do it or not Uh, if you don't want them public urination and public defecation Have to give them bathrooms if you don't want to leave trash on the ground You have to give them trash cans if you don't want to have needles on the ground You put out sharps containers Um, there have been votes before by city council of limiting those red Sharps containers around town because they didn't they didn't want them seen But there are very few of those things around that's also part of the problem It seemed to me that there was there wasn't really numbers on the loud nelson of what the problems were There are a bunch of anecdotes a bunch of disgusting and gross things that people who clean bathrooms have to deal with Which is super true But that's bathrooms and that's the public and That's way cheaper than having an assistant to It seemed more that it was the emotional response Somebody had a horrible first day when somebody overdosed on their first day. Absolutely true But to close the bathroom because of that for which really mostly challenges the homeless Who tend to not get the same medical care who tend to have the elderly have the prostate problems and need the bathrooms They're the ones that are going to suffer. I'm proposing you send it to the catch Your time and you keep it keep it open till then I think you your time is up. Thank you very much. Thanks Good evening i'm scott ram I believe there's a state law that says that any public facility Has to have open bathrooms accessible to the public whether or not they're using the facility or not Um Then the issue of people destroying the bathrooms. Well, they have in prisons Indestructible toilets and sinks And we could put these in the bathrooms if that's really an issue we could put these indestructible The fixtures in and that way we would take care of that problem um when I used to live in isla vista The park's district there For the cleaning problems Would take all the paper products out or they had some product dispensers that they could seal up and then they would hose off the bathrooms And they could you know spray it with disinfectant and hose it off That takes care of a lot of problems that way You know that way you're not spending as much time cleaning And you you get the job done much quicker Um If there's an od problem in the bathrooms at loud nelson Why don't they have narcon behind the counter? So there's somebody od's in the bathroom you can go Spray some narcan up their nose and the od is over. It seems like a really reasonable idea As far as needles go One of the main reasons people litter needles all over the place Is because once they're dirty they're illegal They can get arrested and taken to jail for carrying a dirty needle If they have a clean needle They can't get arrested for that but a dirty needle is an arrestable offense So if you Direct the police to stop arresting people for dirty needles. Maybe they won't throw them all over town Okay, your time is them Okay, we're gonna go ahead and um, we're gonna go ahead and close public comment I'll just remind the community that It's my job to ensure decorum and it's an opportunity when public comment is to address the council And it's my job to also ensure that the Language use is for the council and not necessarily Directed at any staff or any individuals if we have questions for staff based on your comments We can take that in and we can ask the staff for that but to have Language and questions or a comment directed directly to staff Is not appropriate for public comment. It's a time to address the council and it's my job to ensure decorum at that time I'm going to go ahead and take a quick pause. We're going to have a two minute break And then we're going to return back to council for action and deliberation Story All the council meeting back into session if I could get your attention Okay, so we um are out of time and I'll go ahead and um Remind the community that we had an opportunity to hear from you This is now the time for the council to have an opportunity to To provide policy direction and to take in your input and other Inputs and decide what's best for our city as we move forward So we'll go ahead and bring it back to the council for action and deliberation I think I heard councillor matthews vice mayor comings and then I didn't see any other hands. So go ahead councillor matthews Well, I want to thank everyone for being here and particularly thank The parks and rec staff for their extremely personal and real life testimony about the Conditions that have presented themselves at loud nelson and their mission to serving a very very very broad range of community members safely And I also want to thank our parks commissioners who are here. I think almost the entire commission attended Um, to my mind The The testimony was very Convincing I do also want to say I I appreciate getting a list of referral Restrooms and metro is not on here. That's another one. I don't know. It's not on there In any way, there are others in addition uh, they're actually To my count and I've been actually involved in putting a number of these facilities online Over the years various parking garages port bodies garages Oh, I'm sorry. We we um Had a microphone issue here. So um I think the city has made a serious effort to provide restroom facilities throughout downtown and other places And that will be an ongoing effort and the cleanliness and maintenance of our restroom facilities throughout the city and public places And particularly parks is an ongoing challenge Uh, it's a challenge for our parks staff It's a challenge for our parks users and we will continue working on that Specifically, um, I do want to say, um, I want to move that we accept the recommendations of the parks and rec commission Regarding access and hours of public facilities And direct the staff to incorporate recommendations as As appropriate By adopting, uh, council policy, uh, 7.1 That would be upholding the existing policy for loud and nilson center laurel park and, um Other public facilities as described I'll second it. Okay. We have a motion by council member matthew seconded by council member mires Um, and did you have any further comments? I think that covers the basis. Yes um, my vice mayor comics I know that within the recommendations I was wondering if we might be able to separate these because I would like to Before I can offer a friendly amendment to some of the language, um, around um, changes to policy 7.1 so, um Page 1 Dot 11 And it states that Parks and Rec director shall notify members of the parks and rec Sorry Parks and recreation director shall notify members of the parks and recreation commission In city council within 24 hours after any emergency closure Or facility to the general public Or not less than within seven days before planned closure and provide an estimated time for reopening And shall during such a period of closure provide status updates to members of the parks and recreation commission And the language change that I would suggest is Uh, require the consent of the city council when the parks director intends to close a park or facility for more than 21 days and just to provide some context around that the idea being that Oftentimes when parks get closed and facilities get closed for long periods of time members of the public generally are curious as to Why they're staying closed why they haven't been open and by providing the feedback to the city council for consideration I mean this is something that could potentially just go on the consent agenda and get approved by the city council and not Be something that takes a lot of time, but if there's a lot of community Inquiry as to why parks aren't being open I think that providing a 21 day timeline actually allows for If there's work that needs to be done around maintenance or other issues that need to be taken care of If it's going to take longer it can just get communicated back to us in the public And we can provide the consent necessary for those facilities either to recommendations for them to open or remain closed That's not a family amendment. I I think Actually practice has been pretty close to this is if they're for for whatever reason if it's maintenance damage tree falls whatever Um If there's an emergency, I think this has been a standard practice. I I don't favor every Closure having to come to the city council shell during a period of closure provides status updates to members of parks Right commission and council not less than everyone 21 days thereafter. So the way I'm reading this is You will you'll inform us Us in the commission within 24 hours of emergency You'll inform us seven days before a planned closure and that would include a reason And for a closure as well as a time for reopening And So it's either one of those things these The facilities are closed either for emergency or for planning. Am I am I reading this language correctly? And Vandalism would be an emergency if it's not usable. I mean that's it has to be maintained and illegal activity. So, yeah And you would provide an estimated time for reopening And if the time is more than 21 Goes more than 21 days you would Inform us You would give us updates And the council could at that at any point Ask to have it agendized And I it's my impression that various facilities for various reasons are closed pretty frequently and I don't think we need this level of Agenda action. So maybe you could comment on the frequency and severity and reasons Um for the closures Yes, so to clarify this, I think the intent really behind the the 21 days And I think it's probably worth cleaning up this language a bit our intent in proposing This was that for a closure expected to last longer than 21 days Or lasting 21 days that we would communicate to the city council Via a memo essentially that we would communicate to city council that we expect this closure to go longer than 21 days Or it has gone 21 days In the form of a memo and then the city council could say well in this case, it's um Environmentally related it's preservation of the tar plant or something. So we're supportive of that No need to bring it to council or the council could say uh, this is questionable as a policy a matter of policy And request the staff agendize that item to to bring that back in for any closure longer than 21 days Uh, I think what might be missing here, too is just um some kind of and My guess is you do this, uh A notice at the park closed for maintenance Anticipated reopening such in such a time Um, so maybe some reference to public notice. They're just explaining the reason for the closure Um, but I really don't favor Automatically bringing these to the council for approval So that friendly moment isn't accepted at this time, but now I'll try and think of language about Notifying the public just At the location does that make sense it doesn't I believe that's in the existing ordinance already I believe that's in the existing language is one of the kind of sub parts a b c Do you guys mind toggling back to the? To the original. Thank you Yeah, there already is a Component to the existing ordinance that uh requires that we See Part so part b he had notice of such hours of operation shall be posted conspicuously posted and maintained Well, that's for the open hours, right Yes, that allows you to establish By regulation hours and that you post the hours And we would I see and then the parks shall notify facility closure shall be communicated to members of the commission Oh, that's the same language there Okay, well, let's try and work on that like So at this time, it's not a point. Yep councilor brown and then council member glugger So well, I would support the motion with the Change in language proposed by vice mayor Cummings So while that's not been accepted as a friendly amendment. It sounds like we may need to make that as a motion To amend and vote on it second um Well, I was going to let the um a person with the language in front make the motion but What however we'd like to proceed there, but I also want to ask a clarifying question about Other recommendations because I don't I do want to make sure that we have an opportunity to Provide some direction about some of the other items including You know bathrooms at loud nelson and and I believe You know, I would like to take the some of the catch members off up on their offer to Refer some items to them But I so I don't I just don't want to lose those and I'm happy to make those as separate motions or Here other motions, but I just don't want to have because sometimes we close as soon as we get through this one Motion and I'd like to make sure that doesn't happen Okay, but it doesn't sound like we may get through them all if we put them all together So let's go ahead and try to then separate them out if that makes the most I think they're different Yeah, frankly, so we'll go ahead and acknowledge that and allow space for that after we vote for Councilmember Glover. Thanks. Yeah, so I would Not support the motion as it is currently worded I would support it Potentially with the amended language is suggested by vice mayor Cummings Simply for the fact that the reason why this initial issue came up was because of a lack of Transparency in the process of the closure of parks and restricted access for people experiencing homelessness Or the community in general, but especially for people experiencing homelessness and the logic around the coming to council for Authorization for those closures is so that we can be aware of the closures and give Thumbs up thumbs down and or come up with other solutions in the interim since That is important to be able to continually offer bathroom access even if there is the closure of a facility So that needs to be taken into consideration also With regards to some of the statements so also to echo councilmember Brown I think it would behoove us to take the catch members up on their interest in looking over the issue and coming back with recommendations One of or one suggestion that was made was that we Open up the bathrooms at london nelson For a interim period of time while the catch reviews the information and the attendants collect data because it was a really great presentation No doubt really great presentation except for the data. So There was the First two weeks of august with the 226 that wasn't specifically london nelson though, right? That was all parks bathrooms. So What what's the data? anecdotal stuff is totally powerful and Definitely speaks to the emotional side of things But what is where is the empirical data that we're making our decisions off of and what is the collection process? I understand that the library has a rather rigorous data collection when it comes to Situations and interactions with people especially if they have specific needs or issues with the facility So then the question that follows would be why is the community center? Which is claiming that it needs to restrict bathroom access not collecting that data to be used in Ways to potentially explore and expand our services to maximize the impact on everyone I'm also curious as to what the solutions or suggestions were that were brought forward by the conscience and action group Which didn't make it into the presentation That's a little disturbing especially because we want to be thinking of creative solutions and right now which seems to be Some experience a lot one up here isn't either or Kind of a mentality as opposed to a here are some multiple options. So let's talk through them all and get creative with the solution Now it's not talking negatively against this the the work of the staff or the the presentation itself but it seems to be something that is A part of the culture and so if we can work towards shifting that and getting more creative in the way that we address some of these problems as opposed to exorbitant costs for universal bathroom attendance or locking bathrooms and keeping people out for their ability to participate So There's that and then i'm also interested to hear the perception of the uh city attorney because he One of the presentations that was mentioned in one of the documents that was given to us. It was cited Article one of the health and safety code of the state of california Uh, it specifically says every public agency that conducts an establishment serving the public or open to the public And that maintains there in restrooms facilities for the public Shall make every water closet for each sex maintained within the facility available without cost or charge to the patron's guest or invitees of the establishment Just looking at some of the language here If we want to look at patrons for example The definition of patrons as one who buys the goods or uses the services offered especially by an establishment So that suggests that there is no need for purchase or direct participation in the Community center if it is in fact a part of laurel park, which is a open community space for everyone to use for free. So In your interpretation What do you think? I read the statute as distinguishing between public as it references at the beginning of the statute Every agency every public agency that Conducts an establishment serving the public or open to the public Skipping to the chair cutting to the chase shall make every water closet available without cost or charge to the patrons guests or invitees so I think the the the latter part is a narrowing construction of the Of the term public as it's used at the beginning of that of that section and the statute Doesn't specifically define what a patron guest or invitee is but you know, we consulted Black's law dictionary, which seems to be consistent with the interpretation given patron by the staff in in the in the current policy and also You know based on rules of statutory construction We believe the legislature would not have used the descriptive limiting terms patrons guests or invitees if it intended The policy the statute to apply to the public generally since it did refer to the public Um at the outset of that section. So so I don't Don't get me wrong. I think this is an important policy discussion for the city council to make I don't think state law compels the outcome. However, thank you Just also with that the definition of guest is a person whom hospitality is extended So if we're looking at the mission statement of the community center and we're trying to be as hospitable to as many people as possible That could be problematic with regards to The services that we do or don't offer so There's a lot going on there's a lot of moving parts here My ultimate goal is to open up bathrooms for people that need them and to make them as readily accessible And available as possible while maintaining safety, but not precluding people's access for the fear of safety based off of anecdotal evidence So I would really like to figure out a way so that we can Get the bathrooms open collect evidence and then make our decision based off of data as opposed to Anecdotes and also it's concerning because There's the ability there's the ability issue of people with disabilities But then there are have been multiple people now outside of the people that have approached me individually But two here tonight with small children that said that they were Barred or restricted from using the restrooms, which was a direct contradiction to a report. We heard in the presentation. So conflicting stories weak data People not having access to public restrooms and a public health issue with the defecation urination on our streets I think we need to open the bathroom Vice mayor coming Have a question or clarifying not anymore. No, I'm sorry. Okay. Um, any other Councilmember um, well, I have other comments about some of the other items But I'm just wondering if where we're at with we have emotion We've made some comments Sure I Yeah, we have a motion on the floor made by councilmember mathews seconded by councilmember mires. There was a friendly amendment proposed by Vice mayor Cummings that the language didn't necessarily reflect what I think the intention So it was not accepted at this point by councilmember mathews And then there was an interest in moving some of the other items on behalf of yourself councilmember brown So let's move her out with the process We can go ahead and move forward with the motion and then try to get to the other stuff at this point Vice mayor Cummings and then councilmember mathews. I'm just wondering if we we can separate some of the different pieces of this So that we can vote on because I think there's a lot of things that we agree on There's some things that we disagree on and maybe we can use that as an approach to come to some kind of consensus on this All for it. Okay. Do we want to take your motion piece by piece? Well, uh, Yes, and I'm going to ask the director to help me. So what I'm looking at here Particularly is the page labeled administrative policy procedure It says policy And then it quotes below the municipal code 13.04.011 And then there's also another thing that says draft council policy 7.1 And you have told me that they accomplish the same thing but much of the wording is kind of different am I The and and then let me just say my other question because I know where I want to go with this And then there is a second page after the municipal code is quoted And maybe that's quoted just as a reference there. I don't know then there's the procedure Which gives the operational criteria for closing and that's important to incorporate The policy says that the parks and rec director and this is existing policy. Am I correct? This is draft policy that we brought to the council tonight that we are committing to put forth regardless of what mechanism council directs us To codify be it the count the council policy or the ordinance update. Okay So the proposed policy is that parks and rec director and or his Or her designate shall adhere to the following guidelines When exercising authority Established by the municipal code regarding parks and facility hours the director and or his or designate shall utilize the following criteria To assess the need to restrict hours and or close a park or facility And then you go to the next page, which is the procedure and that gives the criteria. That's where it talks about Um They may exercise this authority after evaluating these criteria And then they notify us Within 24 hours of an emergency within seven days of a planned closure We're discussing the uh 21 days But this authority rests with The parks director or their designate based on operational criteria, which can be capital improvement projects It can be maintenance projects. It can be environmental criteria criteria sensitive habitat restoration protection of watersheds and then a whole bunch of public safety criteria including Preservation of public assets a cease or prevent activities which cause damage or harm Protection of the general public to physical environmental and health hazards created by illegal activity. Those are the ones on which I believe You have closed the restrooms at Loudon Nelson Based on these criteria for an indefinite period of time And um I I favor Moving that policy and that procedure and I think the um The top the language at the top of the procedure says if that closure is going to last For more than the immediate period 21 days or more Then you would notify the council and the commission and presumably the general public We can put that in there um and As I would prefer it then A council member has the ability To request that be agendized But not every single time everything is closed whether it's operational environmental public safety. Does it get agendized? I think That would bog down our Agendas even on consent Unnecessarily so I I favor being notified with the option of agendizing it But but leaving the jurisdiction to the officer Okay council member brown um, is it possible to get any information clarity on How often parks are facilities are closed for more than 21 days? Just asking because my understanding Is that based upon some broader conversations by members of the community? um with parks maintenance staff that 14 days seem to be uh An amount of time that they considered Generally to be able to get certain maintenance work done particular work done that that was a reasonable amount of time We're talking about 21 days here. Um How often I mean, I just don't see us. I guess i'm asking just in speaking to the question of getting bogged down Um, we're not talking about every closure. We're talking about more than 21 days I don't know offhand we could get that information though. I think it's been a Um a couple of times this year off the cuff, but I can get that information I guess I'll just maybe add that I think I appreciate the intention behind The effort and I also kind of understand the concern with the potential If if if it is a possibility of getting kind of bogged down or removing your discretion I think I think if there's a Um a Major decision in regards to a facility that's going to be longer I think that would be something that the council would want to know about and be able to do something about So I think I mean I I wonder how we can kind of I Come to a consensus here to sort of move this along knowing that I think we want to be responsive to the community and make uh decisions if we need to Um based on a potential closure while not having to kind of affirm everything that comes through That we know is your responsibility. So Comes from where I'll go ahead and say well first we have councilmember clever and then I'll go ahead and come back to my Cummings Um Do you have the information as to those alternative suggestions that were brought by the community advocates? Yeah, I don't have the list with me per se but um, it's talking to rabbi posner a minute ago about the suggestions And we did meet we met a couple times They had a variety of suggestions and one thing that we were discussing that we Failed to put in our presentation tonight, but it was included in our presentation with the commission on july 1st Are are those steps the steps that we took? Even before I met with rabbi posner and robert norse and and other folks We took steps Into account and put those in place leading up to the decision to limit access to the loud nelson restrooms in 2018 And I don't want to speak out of turn I'll invite iceth to come up to speak to this but a lot of those recommendations those creative recommendations about having a check In and check out process Having a restroom attendant We have done these things it loud nelson And so it wasn't a decision where we got to 2018 and we said oh, it's bad. Let's close it We took every possible step we could to address these issues offering services to people Who needed them at the community center even bending? You know some of our typical policies about allowing people to keep things there at the community center so that they had You know resources or ability to help themselves in restrooms So we took a variety of tactics a lot of which were recommended By rabbi posner and we have done those and did not see success with those and so that's what led us to What again is kind of a rare situation of closing or limiting access and and what we see is a pretty extreme Situation but i'll have iceth speak to that if you don't mind Prior to my taking over the position rachel kaufman who's now the superintendent was the supervisor and Had taken measures In response to the the same type of activity and conditions that I described Those actions included in the installation of security cameras, which were installed at both ends of the hallway to try to Identify or see where the problems were originating Unfortunately that the the cameras didn't go inside the restrooms that didn't that didn't prove effective We also a ranger was assigned to the center Monday through saturday 8 30 to 3 30, which is kind of a bulk of our hours not not our hours entirety In entirety and we also had a first alarm guard that was hired for a period of time That was there during similar hours also going back and forth and being a visual presence of you know, the this activity is not allowed here They had Staff they had attendance staff attending both restrooms at at one point even Doing sort of limited bag checks nobody was reaching into somebody else's bag But kind of open and let us see what's in there That did not curb the behavior entirely And then also there were periods of times when they did close or restrict the restroom for periods of times in which it did End the behaviors, but as soon as the restrooms opened up again the behaviors quickly returned so limiting access in the manner that we have um With the keypads was sort of a last resort and I should also mention We initially closed the restrooms at the very end of february. I think it was february 26 2018 we didn't put the keypads in until june of that year during that time we had Individuals who wanted access to the restroom had to come and get a staff member that staff member had to stop But they were doing and go Let the individuals in keep the restrooms open kind of hang out to make sure the activities weren't weren't going on Which proved to be incredibly taxing on the staff taking away from their their regular jobs and also Emotionally taxing for them as well Um And in in addition there I there was data I wanted to just mention and that can be provided a later date prior to my being there rachel had started a log That um was and I do have it here I can reference it if you want it but I could probably also provide a digital copy But there was a log of all the the illegal activities that were happening in the in the center and the park With dates and times and it captured about a year It was the winter of 15 to the winter of 16 In which many many of the the illegal activities were occurring in the restrooms That wasn't in that time frame wasn't in Mr. Norse had has done a public records request before asking for Data on this sort of thing and that time period wasn't included in his request So I don't believe that document went out Um, and it was a couple years ago was before I took over And then I unfortunately didn't realize that that log was when I when I started I didn't realize that log had existed And it took a while for me to realize that that Was a necessary item and would have been a great idea for me to pick up right away Unfortunately, I didn't and so there during it was at the end of my first year there that decision was made but Thank you. Thank you. Um, well, uh, then I would uh I would make Because I don't I just don't like where this is going with the language and Stuff that was in the original motion, uh, and my ultimate goal is to open bathrooms And we have an organization or a group that's focused on analyzing and looking at issues like bathrooms And ideally could open up a larger conversation around it. So I'm really tempted to make a substitute motion Which I think I will uh make a substitute motion, which would be to amend the Council policy 7.1 with the recommended language except for the, um Change that was suggested by vice mayor Cummings, which would be that if there is Plan to close the bathroom for 21 days or more. It would have to come to the council for authorization first Okay, so there's a substitute motion by uh councilmember Glover. Is there a second? I second. Okay, there's a second by councilmember crone We'll now go ahead and debate whether or not we want to accept the substitute motion at this time So we can um tailor our debate in our conversation around that vice mayor Cummings councilmember meyers councilmember brown So I actually had gone over item seven To make some because I think that I found an area that might be um an area consensus for us, which would be that um Are you just sorry just a pause. Are you discussing the first motion or the second motion? The first another motion. No, no, no, it's the first. Well, it's the original motion made by count Yes, correct. Because that's going to be if we don't Support the substitute motion then we'll return back to this to the original motion for debate I think then this would apply to the second motion since it's going to be based on the language that I provided So would that be appropriate? I'm looking to discuss. Okay. So the attorney says yes So in the initially when I provided this, you know, it was probably for um emergency and when there's closures for more than 21 days, but I think more specifically what this was this language Was trying to get at and I think would be most applicable is for when there's emergency closures Because when there's an emergency closure If the park or facility is going to remain closed for more than 21 days after an emergency Then it should come back to the city council so that we can provide approval for because if it's an emergency Ideally we would the expectation would be that it would be something that would be resolved In a timely manner or quickly if it if they're unable to resolve it In 21 days, then I think that should come back to the council So that we can either provide approval on consent or if there's a need for discussion for items that are Planned like if it's going to be a plan closure and we know that it's going to be for a long duration of time And it's more than 21 days I think that getting updates and feedback on that is fine because if it's a restoration project that we know is Going to last six months We don't need to have to make a decision every 21 days as to Maintain keeping that program going but I do think that um, so I think that If it's planned having an update every 21 days is fine If it's an emergency thing would be appropriate that if it's going to last more than 21 days That it come back to city council for approval, whether that be consent or on As public hearing, okay. I appreciate your rationale Um, direct response. Well, I want to go ahead and um, I I'm a look to our city attorney here on this one I'm a bit confused in terms of the interpretation that you have of his modification of the original kind of motion We have a second motion. I thought what was going to be suggested was a friendly amendment to the Substitute motion so I so I think we really should be talking now about the substitute motion I agree. Okay. So if if we could appreciate your rationale Can you please repeat your substitute motion so we're able to Understand what you're describing if there's an amendment then we could discuss that at this time substitute motion was to uh adopt staff recommendation of amending policy 7.1 with the provided language with the change that if a Facility is going to be closed for more than 21 days and it must come to council for authorization now Vice mayor Cummings I can appreciate what you're Trying to do except the only concern I have there is that If there is a planned closure And we just receive a memo about it But we don't have the ability to take action to direct staff to do something to Provide additional bathroom services for the location Then it's going to take an additional at least two weeks if we immediately put it on the next agenda after we receive that memo To then be able to give direction to provide additional bathroom services Okay, we'll go ahead and have you respond and then I know councilmember mires has been waiting to I was just going to say that if we were in councilmember brown as well If we receive that memo from the parks and rec director at that point in time We can agendize it if it's worth pushing against city staff point time. Sorry, which point in time If we receive them or if we receive the memo 21 day like There's a product that's going to occur That's going to be longer than 21 days At the point in time and we understand that this this project's coming forward We can make recommendations or changes when we receive any updates We can we can agendize it and make any recommendations or changes. So I don't see How that inhibits us from actually taking action on anything that might be coming forward But if they have a planned capital project that is planned to take I don't know 21 days or something and it's just a planned capital project They've had on their calendar forever and they're going to do it and then they come and Just say hey, we're going to do this project with a 21 day closure Then it requires getting on the immediately in the next agenda to be able to discuss and make that change My experience thus far with getting things immediate on the next agenda is not very positive. So the I mean it puts a lot of trust in the hands of those that are making the agenda and Based off of the rationale that I have heard multiple times when trying to agendize things that are urgent and need immediate Attention is that in adding it to the agenda. We're going to either knock other things off or we're going to Make the meetings go super long. So we risk that pushback if They come forward with that notice That's going to be 21 days or more When it's just a notice because then we have to go through the entire process of agendizing Instead of requiring them to give us an agendized notice so that we can look at it and say, oh, they're going to do a project for 21 days Okay, it's a planned project. That's wonderful. But what are we going to do to address it? So then we don't have to reactionarily knee-jerk response when it's just an emergency or Planned thing, you know, do you get what I'm saying? So it sounds to me like you're not accepting the friendly amendment I think I'm trying to talk I'm trying to talk it through with my colleague to make sure that we're on the same page before I accept it Or to see if he shares my concerns about the potential difficulty of getting something on engend in a timely manner When we receive the notice from the parks next department I'm going to go ahead and have council member you can think about how you want to respond if you want to respond Council member Myers has been waiting and then council member brown Uh, I think I think I'm just going to pass. Um Um, yeah Okay, council member brown And then we can go ahead and see if we want to just take the vote on the substitute motion at this point council member brown Yeah, um, so I guess I I just want to At least from my perspective add a point of clarification in making You know in in saying that I want to support the um The council receiving a request When for these longer term closures in no way suggests that I my intention is to want to usurp the authority of our parks director or the parks department um this is simply a matter of wanting to have a built-in opportunity to weigh in I mean I I it's hard for me to think of Uh, in instance where I would disagree with the parks director's recommendation on this it's simply a matter of kind of Because as we know it can be difficult to get things agendized it can be We also I mean it's not just a matter of um it being difficult It's a matter of it being difficult for us to track these things and what if we're busy and you know If it just comes on to the consent agenda even I don't see why it's such a big deal to um just include that language that um Vice mayor Cummings initially included and I think um council member Glover was picking up on and I I don't necessarily think the distinction between emergency and planned Will it makes that much of a difference. So I think it would just be I would my preference would be for it to be just a standard practice for closures of more than 21 days Okay, I'll just say I think that um, you know, and I'm happy to see if the staff wants to weigh in in terms of their professional opinion on this But my my feeling is there are a lot of things that the council wants to do and of course we want to be responsive when we need to be responsive and to balance The policy decisions that we want to make within a meeting and having a process with meetings that Allows us to do that and have our discretion for our executives that we have in these positions to help us navigate that feels comfortable for me I um, I do have concerns that Past council decisions or actions or mandates in terms of timelines or potential upcoming timelines Will make it very difficult to for me or anybody who's in this position not necessarily myself To have ability to manage the meetings. So I um, you know I have hesitation. I know that we talked about that earlier. That's my opinion about it I think I share the sentiment that we don't want to catch the community off guard We want to be responsive if there's something that needs to be Attended to or there needs to be a different path. We want to be responsive to that and um, I struggle with how to make that manageable given all the other policy direction and interests that I know we all share and wanting to accomplish to do city business So I support the modified recommendation for an emergency personally But the motion before or the substitute motion before us is not to include that language But to have all items before us So I think we've heard if there's any additional comments we can vote on the substitute motion One one additional comment is that you know since this is going to be I'm comfortable with leaving the original language and then just seeing how this plays out and if we need to revisit it Then I think that that'll be most appropriate So I'm gonna accept the substitute motion and so we can continue moving on and we will see how this What is the summer math motion now the substitute motion will have you go ahead and repeat the Third time's a charm the substitute motion is to move forward on amending council policy 7.1 with the recommended language from the parks and rec department with the exception and the change That it would require all closures of 21 days or more to come before the council for authorization Okay And that was seconded by council member council member math. And so let me just ask now Does that mean from this point forward? I I definitely want to support the existing policy at loud and nelson. Does this mean does this meeting constitute That action does it mean that we will now have a meeting on the closure of the bathrooms at loud and nelson and an open space here and Something over here That's going to last for more than 21 days and some of the closures last for A really indefinite period of time Um, so I don't think this has taken us down a path That's not workable. We have Tony elliott will have a councillor glover and then council member brown Yeah, just add one other nuance and layer to this. I think the 21 days I'm thinking back to the month of july when council was on recess. I think I'm going to struggle to be a wordsmith here off the off the cuff But I think some language like 21 days are the soonest council meeting or something like that so that we can Have that flexibility to come back. So we're not calling a an emergency meeting in july for example Okay, thank you for that. Yes I I believe I've looked back at the original agenda report, but something along those lines absolutely And I just wanted to emphasize Since there was that question from council member matthews about what does that mean for the community center? I just want to acknowledge that council member brown said before we move on past the policy language is addressing the issue of The london nelson center specifically with regards to the functionality and the policy that's associated with it. Am I correct? Yeah, I was hoping that we could Take care of this item this piece of the action that we're going to be taking tonight move for Request for closures moving forward and then go back to because we also have other recommendations from the parks and rec commission That we're not included in your motion, but we're included in council member matthews motion I mean, there's a lot more that to get through So um this I am seeing as for moving for Prospective council member mires, and then we'll go ahead and see if we can make take So I I'm trying to understand how this will work. Um Since it sounds like council will then be in charge of making the authorization for something that's going to be 21 days or longer Um What are our procedures? What are our reasons for closing or accepting or not closing a park? So I think the strength of what the parks commission Um, and we've had great uh reports by commissions all day long which we've approved Um, but I worry that we now I don't know tony if we would need to Define a procedure for city councils Uh procedures in terms of how we are going to determine what uh versus the parks director, which is Would be a typical pathway Um with the water director the public works director Uh, I'm just trying to think of sort of how we typically would uh, you know Allow a director to to determine these things. So I'm just curious Um, for example, I'm not sure why how I would determine whether a park should be closed or open after on day 22 So that's one thing. I'm trying to figure out a procedure really. I think that's a good question Just going back to the recommendation of the parks and rec commission Was to create a set of health safety and environmental conditions under which the director has discretion Um to close a facility Uh, I don't think that the commission was contemplating the that the council um create those Standards at this meeting probably would be appropriate to direct staff to come back with a recommended set of conditions and and uh Under which the director would have that discretion Answer your question. Yes Councilmember Glover and then councilmember matthews. Thanks just to address that uh, just to address that last question. Um I I feel like we as uh elected officials on the dais are charged with uh being representative of our community And taking into consideration the situations that are brought forward by our directors and our staff Wayne them against our own, uh Compasses for lack of a better word as to what it is that we need to do And then by all means like I believe comes more brown sat I doubt that there will be a time when I disagree with director Elliott with regards to the necessity of closing a bathroom But in having the awareness that there will be a bathroom closure for more than 21 days Gives us the opportunity as elected officials to reallocate other resources to be able to Accommodate the loss of that bathroom as well as adequately communicate it to our residents who may not have direct access to say a newsletter from the city council and Communicate that to them say oh this bathroom is going to be closed. Here is a Emergency services area that was created by the city council so that you don't need to do this It's no way questioning the validity or the professionalism of director Elliott It is to give us an additional tool because I believe that this spurs from a history And this is before director Elliott's time of The closure the sporadic closure of public facilities without explanation without authorization from the city council And that has had a detrimental effect disproportionately on people experiencing homelessness or the poor So we're doing this to add a layer of security for our community members to feel that there is that transparency And the accountability for when facilities are closed All right, I you know, I think this process is iterative I think that we had a recommendation that was vetted by our staff and our planning commission. I mean our parks and rec commission that was supported unanimously So I I stand on sort of going in that direction and then hopefully Refining along the way not knowing that and kind of just jumping right into this new direction I don't feel comfortable with personally so that I won't be supporting the substitute motion But we can go ahead and move on and motion to call the question Okay, there's a motion to call the question. Is there a second second? Okay, we're going to go ahead and call the question. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye opposed. No Okay, so that passes with councilmember crone glover brown and vice mayor Cummings voted in support Matthews mires and myself voting against now you may proceed to vote on the substitute motion Okay, okay. All those in favor of the substitute motion, please say aye. Aye opposed. No So that passes with councilmember brown Crone glover and vice mayor Cummings voting in support councilmember Matthews mires and myself. I am really concerned. Wait, we're going to go ahead and pause We have councilmember brown And then I believe we have vice mayor Cummings and then we'll go to you I just I was hoping to clarify before but since the question was called There wasn't an opportunity that we're not just talking about bathrooms here The policy is related to park and public facilities Oh, so it's not Specifically bathrooms any of these criteria Okay, so do um vice mayor Cummings then councilmember Matthews I was going to move um The other items that we didn't move in that motion. So I'm creating a set of health and safety and environmental conditions under which the director has discretion to close either partially entirely Park open space or facility Notify the commission and city council within 24 hours and I guess that's part of the last motion um Work with the county health services agency on addressing syringe litter as well as public care nation and defecation in parks and open spaces Second, okay, so we have a motion for Essentially item number four since items one through three in that list had already been previously addressed in the prior action Is that correct? It wasn't clear if item one was so I mean if Okay, you item one was I'm sorry one two and four were not My understanding is items two and three have been Already addressed. So you're making a motion to approve items one and four at this time Okay, we have a motion by councilmember vice mayor Cummings second by councilmember Glover any further discussion councilmember Matthews We're talking one and four one and four I'm fine with those. I have a question about something else. Okay, so all those. Oh comes from iris. I have a question I just want to make sure for um director Elliott The the operation of the criteria that's on the procedure. Is that was that meant to address number one or? I'm sorry. Remind me what number one is One is creating a set of health safety and environmental conditions under which the director correct be this Page here that is the procedure that Is part of the packet on page one one point ten correct. Yeah, okay, so I just want to make sure Okay, all those in favor, please. Oh, did you have a further I do just have a question because now It says create a set of health safety environmental standards on which the director has discretion to close Either partially or entirely a park, but we have just taken away his discretion So it's it's essentially item four is sort of what my understanding is is that that's not necessarily applicable at this point, so we're going to weirdly okay, so we're going to go ahead with Councilmember Glover, but my understanding if you want to modify the motion to be item just simply number four since item number one is basically Kind of already been discussed as most of those are going to come to the council directly So thank you it's my understanding that The director only has to come to authorization to close things if it's going to be more than 21 days so that So that That would suggest that the health and safety guidelines that are at his discrept the director's discretion to close a Facility is between zero and 20 days without authorization So I don't understand why there is a concern with regard to taking that ability away Only after the 21st day or the anticipated closure of the 21st day Is there to be a authorization granted by the city council? Yet again the apo is just the procedure So we would use that guidance whether it's zero to 20 days or 21 or more We would use that same guidance and what we could do is a follow-up to since it's an administrative procedure order Typically, we would do those in-house. We would craft those criteria into what we could do to follow up on that And again, I mentioned that we're already committed to doing that to lend to the transparency We could provide that back to the city council In the form of a memo or something just so you're all aware of those criteria again that would apply to zero to 20 Or or beyond. Thank you Vice mayor coming. So my understanding was with moving item number one. It was that the The apo and I'm sorry. I don't remember what the acronym stands for but I'm gonna say a procedure order that that doesn't exist right now And so creating that set of health safety and environmental standards Is what we also need to direct that the parks and rec director do so that's why I'm moving those two items one and four Okay council around I Since it came up. I mean I assume that the council would use the same Guidelines for making our decisions but For the sake of clarity could we just say create a set of health safety and environmental conditions under which the director And or city council has discretion to close either partially or entirely a park open space or facility For number one accepted Any further discussion All right, nope. So it's the director or the council or the council would be the and or count. Yeah or counts Okay, that makes sense given the prior Direction so all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed could that pass this unanimously? Okay, uh council vice mayor coming as council member Glover and the council member brown I think I know that there's a lot of issues around bathrooms in the city and so Um, I think that we Here at city hall also need to do our part and so I'm going to move that we reopen the public bathrooms at city hall during business hours Work with staff to address concerns and provide Have staff provide council with recommendations on what kind of support the council could provide here at city hall second We have a motion by vice mayor coming seconded by council member Glover Did you have any additional comments you were next? uh, my issue is With bathrooms in general and especially london nelson, but not wanting to Disregard the concerns that were expressed by the teen center as well as the staff so I would I mean do we want to send it to Review from the catch which has been requested by some folks Deal the first look we can do that. I mean, I don't know we could add it but either way but um, otherwise We'll do it separately. Okay. We'll go ahead and um Wait on that as a potential decision make but we have a motion by vice mayor Cummings seconded by council member Glover council member Matthews, I don't remember. Did you have your hand up council member brown? No council members. Yeah, uh, would you We have been down this path before would you um, be willing to put a Fairly short timeline for report back on our experience sure, um, I would say A month Yeah If it's a short just a memo there's just a short turnaround I mean, I think that we get report backs from the library on what they're experiencing I think that it's fair that we get report backs on what's happening here at city hall and we can assess Um, how the bathroom opening is doing All right council member brown Yeah, I yeah, I just want to say that I I support that and um, and I Mostly because I really do, you know, and I want to acknowledge that this is I do see this as a workplace issue and I believe that You know that our staff Should have the ability to weigh in about their experience and and we need to take that seriously We need to take that as seriously as we take any other Expression of concern if not more Because these are the people who actually keep these facilities running So I I just think that that it is a balance and I'm interested in trying to Expand access to facilities. I know it's Many people have talked to me about how it's an issue here when they come to do business and so I support the motion and You know, I just want to be clear that the decisions that I'm making are I certainly not intended to Put Staff in um difficult positions and and so we want to make sure I want to make sure that we work with you to do it in a way That's acceptable. Okay. So we have a motion. I um, I I share that interest in hearing from staff I I prefer to hear that before making a policy decision one way or another So I won't be supporting the motion before me at this time Okay, all those in favor. Please say I I opposed no So that passes with council member brown vice mayor Cummings crown and lever and support Matthews meyers and myself voting against voted for it. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, councilor Matthews voting in support meyers and myself voting against, okay Do we have any other potential? Councilor Glover, thank you. I'd like to make a motion to refer the issue of bathroom access With a priority Loudon Nelson To the catch for review and report back Give a motion by council member Glover Is there a second? I'll second Okay, second by vice mayor Cummings. I want to add I would like to ask for friendly amendment that we also have them consider additional locations in the downtown where port-a-potties Portalettes may be installed and a report back when appropriate Absolutely, could we expand it from port-a-potties and port-a-lets to potentially Permanently located 24-hour bathrooms like Portland news and stuff like that just to explore it Excellent Accepted Okay, so we have a motion in a second I see I don't know city manager martin brunel wanted to weigh in I was going to say that I think it's anticipated that the cash will look at Both hygiene and storage sites is a policy decision So I think that would be appropriate to give direction to look at you know the issue of hygiene Um in all its various components as well as storage So you could direct that and it's anticipated the the cash meets on tuesday and then in addition If you wanted them to make it a Priority as far as the first phase of their work that's anticipated to be completed by december So that's direction you could also provide Council member mires and then can you repeat? I'm what's the was there? Yeah, I don't know what the motion is the motion is to refer for catchers review the issue of bathrooms and hygiene And to explore the potential placement of porta potties portlets or alternative hygiene facilities Like the portland lose And what was the front? It was that in was that in Where is this in parks? Is this down? I are we really voting on something that it's actually agendaized right now because I have to have a good back. Is that it's just going to the catch What is going to them? Yes the the I think the the motion is intent is to have the cash look at the issue of hygiene In the city and hygiene needs which we get from a parks closure to I mean this seems like a I'm confused on where we are because Um, I'm trying to understand where all this is all going right now Um, if I can it seems that you're asking are you asking a legal clarification question? And I'll look for our city attorney to respond to that Yes, I am Thinking that the direction can be given to bring this back to the council for consideration um as opposed to Referring it to the catch at this point Because it's not on your agenda. Yeah, I mean, I think we've gone into actually public hygiene and public restrooms And our agenda item is not that so okay Curious so the clarification is that we are unable to make a direct referral as a policy decision before us tonight, but the potential Solution or our outcome could be that we have a future agenda item brought before the council For us to consider this being directed to the catch at a future time. Is that reflect what you your legal interpretation? Yes, okay Okay, we have councillor brown Gleber and then vice mayor Cummings Yeah, well, I'm definitely not going to dispute the advice of Our city attorney on this matter, but in terms of how it's connected my sense was Because one of the items on this agenda was related to the loud and nelson bathroom The Discussion so I mean we could make a motion to Refer to the catch that's only the loud and nelson bathroom and we can't talk about Others and but that would be okay. I just want to see Because to me it makes sense to just say okay loud and nelson and more broadly And if that's not okay, then we'll yeah, I'm I'm persuaded by that argument Okay, vice mayor Cummings and then Oh clever That was gonna be my comment was that I think the initial motion was to send the bathroom topic to The catch and I was just adding that we consider other Potential locations as well. So Thank you Yeah, and then just the logic to Kind of riff off my colleagues and what they're talking about is since it specifically talked about public facilities I was assuming the public facilities meant All public facilities, which included bathrooms and access to bathrooms and since we're not talking about Bathrooms as a whole with regards to parks because as park says that's not their purview But there is the topic of bathrooms on here then Sending the topic of bathrooms to catch with some Specific areas of interest that we'd like for them to explore was the rationale behind the the motion Yeah, I understand and I also I I think just Based on the discussions that the council's had with regard to park facilities over the past several months The the topic of access to bathrooms has been a big part of that Thank you. So we'll stick with the same motion. I I stand correct Okay, the motion do you want to restate the motion? To send the topic of bathrooms and hygiene to catch Uh and ask them to explore potential solutions for locations for bathrooms in the downtown area Like port to parties port elues or the portland lou model of 24-hour access bathrooms Was there a friendly amendment that was not that's all okay. Okay Okay, uh councilor matthew. So there's no reference to loudon nelson in that Not in that one specifically uh, I we could prioritize the london nelson community center for immediate Happening with the solutions, but I'd like to have catch to give a holistic view because if they recommend giving Or establishing alternative bathroom places to deal with the concerns that are being Mentioned by the staff at london nelson and the director not wanting to cross Young teens with potentially Potential situations Then we we should honor that and uh not Force the loudon nelson london nelson situation, but have a larger conversation about bathrooms Uh In the interim at least we have the city hall ones open I guess I'll just weigh in a little bit one thing that I would say is that part of what I Understand the caches purposes is to explore existing documents that are helping them understand sort of the scope of what's been explored prior Recommendations and I believe that actually includes bathrooms. So I think this is within their existing scope of work So I think if anything it's just sort of reiterating our interest in hearing their opinion on Their existing kind of charge in regards to how the bathroom Challenges could be resolved Personally, so it seems Sort of reiterating our interest in maybe making that a priority if they have any recommendations Sooner rather than later Okay, councilor mattis. I think that's appropriate for cash to deal with the bathrooms and hygiene Needs and resources. Uh, I don't think it should be restricted to downtown when we got harvey west We got east side. We got all over the city. We have these issues. So I think that reference As a clean reference is entirely appropriate. Okay, so if if you would amend your Motion in that direction I would accept that Okay, okay sounds like we have an amended motion to include all restroom access throughout the city Okay, all those in favor councilmember brown just a quick Request that one I believe that Our city manager suggested hygiene storage Oh the whole pack the whole package. Yeah, is that okay? I think hygiene. Yeah, and um That it that we And and again, this may just be a reiteration, but I think it's it's worth just saying letting the catch know that this is a priority for the council Um, I see a hand up over there. No, I think you know, sorry. We can talk about it afterwards But I I but I the other Point that um our city manager made was um suggesting that it'd be included in the first round of recommendations No, I'm happy to include that as well. Thank you. Uh, absolutely You get that does that make But I can I get a who was the second vice mayor coming so as the second And we're looking for that to be if they have an outcome or as soon as possible that Priority that was sort of the last comment. Okay. All those. Oh councilmember cone Would you take it also as a friendly amendment that the catch looks into the use of volunteer? You know oversight of bathroom facilities Yes, I think staffing in general and all creative opportunities there, but If you would prefer to include um intentional Uh exploration of volunteer services, then we could include that. Thanks Is that accepted by the second there of the motion? Okay. Okay Councilor matthews I'd prefer to keep it clean. There are all sorts of ideas But okay, so was the but it was a friendly amendment that was accepted to also include them explorer volunteers, which is probably also within the scope But okay. Okay. All those in favor. Please say aye. I opposed Okay, that passes with councilor meyers rodeo Okay, councilor matthews. Uh, I'd like to know what's going to happen at loud Nelson now I feel strongly so strongly that the safety Of the program participants at loud Nelson based on decades of experience Needs to be preserved with the policies that are currently in effect Period Do you want to make that into a motion? if That's a pending. I don't know. We need that. We at this point endorse the continuation of the ongoing policy at loud Nelson Is that a motion? Yes. Okay. Is there a second? I'll go ahead and second that Vice mayor Cummings. My understanding is that Currently the policy is still in effect since this is all going to go to the catch for recommendations And so that we weren't going to do take any action on loud Nelson this evening That was my understanding with the previous motion that we're not going to do anything at this moment in time with loud Nelson in that Does it hurt to just affirm it? I think there's a lot of question out there It's nodding. Yeah, I'm a lot of concern Yeah Sure, what was the motion that we affirm the continuation of the current policy regarding the access to restaurants at loud Nelson Okay, so that was a motion by councilor matthews. I seconded that Any further discussion? I'm just you know, uh, I'll support it. It's just I'm just concerned because it doesn't address the issue of access to bathrooms that is currently being faced by people At that community center, but it's something that we're currently working on. We're making motion We've we're opening up the ones here. So it's good. I'm just going to just express it that I'm still concerned about the lack of bathroom access around the community center But we can move forward with it. Okay, all those in favor Kind of I'm sorry. I just want to also express that I'm actually I'm going to be really interested to see how the catch works with Members of the community folks at loud Nelson parks department so that we can understand Whether or not there's going to be creative alternatives to Providing people with more access around bathrooms, but I'll be supporting this tonight Councilmember brown and I'm just going to make the comment that I'm reading the tea leaves and from Back of the room there that there may be requests coming our way for more data to help them to help the catch members Make some decisions or kind of go through this process of investigation. And so If that request comes, I'd Hope that we can put on the agenda and support it or provide support however possible to get that data to them I'm just out there Mr. Cummings last comment. I'd also like to encourage the use of discretion when it comes to Allowing people with children allowing seniors and people with disabilities the ability to use the bathroom because It was mentioned by some members of the public today that You know when people are unable to well when people really need to go to the bathroom And they might have medical conditions or they have their company with children and they're trying to take them to the bathroom that Some level of discretion should be used around allowing people to use the bathroom Especially in those kinds of circumstances so that we're not Putting those people in a position where they might have to advocate on themselves Is that a friendly amendment? Yeah, why don't you come on up? Um, I first want to address the situations in in which parents have been turned away with children Um, I I've not been aware of that but I do fully recognize that with new staff Substitute staff that we sometimes have when we're having staff meetings or other things that are we're not able to have our regular staff up front um Or even staff who may be overwhelmed or over Um Discomforted by the the situation or the person asking I recognize that there have been I'm sure there have been instances where somebody that technically should have been gained access wasn't Likewise, there's been individuals who technically you shouldn't have been given access were It is it is extremely challenging for staff to be faced with people who are at times cussing them out Questioning their integrity as human beings what not instead of just looking at them as someone who's doing their job But I will have the conversation again with staff and we do have new recent staff in And and really enforce the importance of Really sticking to the policy and that's been my message from day one It's easier said than done with such a large staff rotating staff staff That's not even necessarily crossing over because the length of our business hours, but I am committed to communicating that to them again and Getting the message across the importance of of being fair to everyone in terms of giving Being able to discern who has a disability or a need greater than someone else that becomes extremely challenging for for my staff or anyone to Determine and that's why we do have sort of this strict policy about who who can and can't we can't look at one person and say oh you have a continence issue and and you don't Or you have a disability which we're you know, we are discouraged from making that assumption about anyone in the first place, but um That kind of making a discretion on on different people really is extremely challenging and I I While I am totally sympathetic to people that have different physical challenges That is why the policy is so very restrictive is because we can't be put in the position of making those judgments or those calls or those interpretations about people's physical abilities Sounds to me like until we change the policy that makes the most sense. Thank you Councilmember chrome, but for children Sounds like that. That's something that they're going to look at how they're going to onboard and train staff to ensure that that's Resolved. Okay. All those in favor of the motion. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed. Okay. That passes unanimously Are there any other elements that need to be addressed by the council? Being none, we'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting at this time