 Welcome to our 12 PM public portion of the closed litigation session of the May 14, 2019 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. In this part of the meeting, the council will receive public testimony and thereafter, council members will move to the courtyard conference room for our closed session. I could ask our clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council members, Crown? Here. Cover? Here. Liars? Here. Crown? Here. Matthews? Here. Vice Mayor Cummings? Here. Mayor Watkins? Here. So before we open public comment, which I see there's no member of the public here, I have a brief announcement. Our city attorney will provide a report on items listed on the closed session agenda at the beginning of our 12 30 PM session. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to our closed session? Seeing no one. I'll look for a motion on agenda item one to refer to closed session municipal war of agreement, Paradise Dogs. So move. Okay, and second? Second. Okay, I'll go ahead and second that. So we have a motion by Council Member Matthews, seconded by myself. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Now I'm looking for a motion on agenda item two referral to closed session 605 Front Street lease agreement with Carissa Cates, DBS, Santa Cruz Thread. So moved. Second. Okay, a motion by Vice Mayor Cummings, seconded by Council Member Cron. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That too passes unanimously. So we'll go ahead at this time then adjourn our meeting to our conference room as we go into closed session. Thank you, everybody. All right, well good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to our 1230 session of the May 14th, 2019 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. I'd like to ask our clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member, it's Cron. Here. Glover. Here. Liar. Here. Brown. Here. Matthews. Here. Vice Mayor Cummings is currently absent and Mayor Watkins. Here. If you could, clerk, lead us to the Pledge of Allegiance. So at this time, we have an opportunity to meet some of our new employees. And we'll go ahead and start with our library employees. So if we could have Susan Nemitz come forward and introduce her new employee. I'm so excited to introduce Philip Bolton. Philip's actually been with us for four years working as a temporary worker and is now moving into the permanent ranks at our Felton Library. We're really excited because within the next year we're going to be open the brand new Felton facility. And we're starting to staff up and get some permanent staff there. Phillips lived around the world, was born in Great Britain, and has decided to settle in Santa Cruz, did get his degree from San Jose State in history. We're just really, really happy to have him on board. He's also a soccer fan. Corcoran. Nice to meet you. Thank you. Nice to meet you guys. Welcome, thank you so much. Maybe if we could have our public works director, Mark Dettel come forward and introduce his new employees. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. It's my pleasure to introduce two new employees. Right next to me is Aburto Zaragoza and Hernandez. He's working up at the Resource Recovery Facility as a recycling processor. He's born in Jalisco, Mexico. He currently lives in Watsonville with his wife and three-year-old son. He used to work in construction, doing residential floors, building walls, roofs. And he currently also has a job, a part-time job at Pizza My Heart. So you may see him in there cooking pizzas in the afternoon. When he's not working, he enjoys spending time with his family and going to our parks and spending time in the parks. He also likes to run, he's a runner, so please join me in welcoming Aburto. Next to Aburto is Tanner Barnes. He's a new environmental compliance inspector, works with our wastewater treatment facility. He goes out inspects the businesses and some of our major dischargers. He was born and raised in San Diego, currently lives in Santa Cruz, near the harbor. And has a brother that lives nearby in Soquel. Previous work experience includes working with kinetic labs as environmental scientist. And he also focused on watershed monitoring, storm water quality, sediment investigations with the harbors and lakes. He attended University of California Davis and has a major environmental policy and analysis and planning and also a minor in education. And when he's not working, he enjoys rock climbing, surfing and camping. And a fun fact, earlier this year he traveled to Morocco for the first time and spent two weeks learning from the locals, eating new food and discovering fun point breaks. So please join me in welcoming Tanner, as well. Welcome, thank you. Okay, and lastly, we have our director of water, Rosemary Bernard. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm really happy today to be introducing two new employees to the water department. I'm going to start with Amy Roje. She's a brand new laboratory technician. Our water quality lab is fully staffed across in our fingers. We have challenges with turnover in that particular part of our organization. But we're really happy to welcome Amy. She grew up in a rural area in the Central Valley. When she told me it was Valley Springs, I actually knew where it was and she was quite impressed. And she went to college at UCSC and never left because who would want to leave Santa Cruz? She has a BS in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from UCSC. Before coming to us, she worked in biotechnology at Santa Cruz Biotech. And she also worked at a water pollution control plant over in the city of Sonneville as a lab in field tech. Sampling and analyzing pre-treated industrial wastewater and treatment plant samples. She has recently joined us as a temporary laboratory technician and competed to be on the list for the regular job. And she's thrilled and we're thrilled to now have her as a permanent addition. She lives in Soquel with her partner and in her free time she enjoys gardening, baking, reading, hiking, and backpacking. So please welcome Amy Roje. And next to Amy is Sonia Weeks, who's joined us as a utility services rep working in the Seattle Municipal Utilities Office over in our area. I think you might remember from when I was here last week, I talked about they take 45,000 calls a year and they deal with thousands of walking customers over the whole year. So this is one of our new employees who does that work. She has both AA and a BS in business and public administration. She's a business owner for ten years with a contract for California State Parks. And then she was born and raised in Napa, so she said she had a choice of being in the food industry or the wine industry. And she chose the food part, which will fit her in really well with all of the culinary experts we have in our customer service group. She has been involved in Twin Lakes Church for 15 years, local surf school. And she has a group of folks that she meets with once a week to talk Italian for an hour and a half, so that's really great. Maybe she can teach me. She has a 16 year old daughter and two cats and she loves to snow ski, surf. And she's getting over her shoulder injury and she just wants to thrive on her job and do it with integrity and care, which I really like and makes her a really great fit for our customer service group. So please welcome Sonya Weeks. Welcome to the city of Santa Cruz. So at this time, we'll go ahead and shift to our presentations and we have several presentations today. So we'll start with our first, and that is on recognizing June as San Lorenzo River Month. And we'll go ahead and invite Michelle Williams and Greg Pepping forward. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council members and staff. My name is Michelle Williams. I'm Executive Director for one more month of Arts Council Santa Cruz County. And we are so delighted to once again thank you for your partnership in ebb and flow. Which is not just a tremendous movement for our city, but a fantastic party as well. I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for your investment in the arts as a city. As we know from the Arts and Economic Prosperity Study, the non-profits arts sector in Santa Cruz County generates $38.5 million of economic activity every year and supports nearly 900 full time equivalent jobs. We are proud to support the city of Santa Cruz in this way and work to make our community stronger. Ebb and Flow is one of the ways we do this. Ebb and Flow, part of the magic of it, is that it helps so many organizations meet their discrete missions. It does so many things. It creates stewards of our river. It drives our economy. It strengthens partnerships, and we do it all making great art. Ebb and Flow is a little bit different every year. Last year for me, the highlights was the fire dancing next to the Soquel Street Bridge and also having the Vertical Dance Pioneer's Banda Loops dance off the sides of the buildings at the Tannery Art Center. This year we're focusing on place making at the Tannery Art Center and focusing on that part of the river right next to the Tannery. And it's going to be an extraordinary event with some really wonderful artists. And I'll tell you just a very little bit about all of them. So Jason Fan is a Bay Area artist and he is taking driftwood that has floated down the San Lorenzo River and ended up on Main Beach, which has been collected by the city and re-delivered back to the Tannery Art Center. And he is making giant life-size sculptures that are like human nests that are going to be really stunning. And we're doing community builds as part of making that happen. And if you drive by the Tannery, we've installed a sister installation that's very similar to this one that he made in Marin that's already up. So you can see what sort of thing is going to take shape and that's going to be happening over the next few weeks. We're also working with Wes Modes, who is a local artist and UCSC lecturer, who has spent close to a decade documenting the stories of people who live adjacent to rivers over the last ten years. And he has interviewed and filmed more than a dozen people who live next to the San Lorenzo River. Or are there often including fishermen, environmentalists, Tannery and Ross Camp residents and kids who regularly play along the river banks. And his stories are going to be incorporated into multiple parts of ebb and flow. And then Shade Church is this extraordinary international artist who makes these giant life-size sculptures inside of places. And he does them with wet clay and then they slowly degrade over the course of the installation. You can see them morphing and changing, much like our environment and our history and what not. And so this is happening at Radius Gallery up through July 7th. So that's going to be an extraordinary installation to see at the beginning, the middle and the end of the installation. And then finally we're working with Molly Katzman in Tannery World Dance. Molly is creating a multimedia dance piece incorporating excerpts from West Modes River Stories. And all this you can experience at First Friday, June 7th at the Tannery. This year's festival is focusing on that river segment around the Tannery. And we like you to think of it as an eco-conscious block party for the river. And it's going to have fantastic artists, musicians and performers, family friendly activities, food trucks and beer. We invite you to bring your friends, bring your family and come celebrate the river, the Tannery and creativity at Ebenflow. One of the things that the only thing that makes Ebenflow work is incredible partnership. It takes not just a village but an entire community with so many wonderful partners, including the city. And one of the most important partners is standing next to me at the Coastal Watershed Council, Greg Pepping. Thank you, Michelle. Good afternoon, mayor and council members. I want to just give a little bit of context to share with you a bigger picture that Ebenflow fits in. And as I do that, say thank you for the acknowledgement for the month of June for the proclamation from the mayor to name June 2019 San Lorenzo River Month. The river is actually the reason that Santa Cruz became a community in the first place. And many of us have forgotten that. Many people still feel a connection to the river, but your official proclamation of June as river month helps people remember that. And it helps them build an emotional connection to the river, a personal connection to nature, and that's as important as it ever was. It's as important as it for individuals, for all the neighborhoods next to the river. It's important for community health overall. And that's what part of this month is part of. So we get to slow down and go a little bit slower into the fast pace of this world today, right next to a river that goes right next to downtown. So the proclamation that the mayor has signed has a bunch of where as is I want to share a couple of why's. Why is the Coastal Watershed Council focused all of our energy on the lower San Lorenzo River? Because we've seen, like many of you have, what a thriving urban river front does to a community. It adds economic vitality. It means cleaner water, improves water literacy so we know where our water comes from. It's better habitat and it's safer parks and public spaces for people to enjoy. And so that's what part of this, that's what this is part of. Our effort is to get 2,500 kids to the river this year. I'm wearing a watershed ranger badge. Some of you have been sworn in officially as 2,500 kids have. So we bring kids to the river and we want the river walk to be a place for every kid and every family. We want every square inch of river habitat to be restored. We were just this morning with Coastal Commission staff along a part of the river walk restoring habitat. And we're working on that throughout the year and then every drop of water. So every kid and every family member, every square inch of habitat and every drop of water are focused. And we believe if we focus on the lower river so that that vision that we've heard the community wants of a thriving urban river front, if we can succeed doing that in the lower river, then the entire 30 miles of the river will benefit. The entire 137 square mile watershed will benefit. So that happens a lot with city parks, city public works, the water department and others, and through partnerships. So then when we bring arts in, it just gets more fun. It gets more dynamic. It gets more interesting. People come in through the side door into science and learn about the river that way. And ebb and flow is a perfect example of that. So please join us at ebb and flow at the tannery on June 7th. And thank you for your leadership. And I know that even the agenda has other issues related to the river. And just this agenda for City Council today is a perfect example of how many ways the river touches this community and how your leadership includes the river. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation, your advocacy and work and sharing with our community and us the upcoming events. I won't go into the where as is because you were able to cover that in the wise. But I will say the final statement which is that I, Martin Watkins as the mayor of City of Santa Cruz, do hereby proclaim the month of June 2019 as San Lorenzo River Month. And encourage all of our residents to learn more about the San Lorenzo River and to participate in the river festivities throughout the month of June. And especially during the ebb and flow River Arts Festival on June 7th, 2019. So I'll go ahead and come down and bring you the proclamation. Thank you. Thank you. Michelle, who did your photography? Those really, really nice pictures. Several people, but mostly Crystal Burns. Thanks. All right. Well, thank you very much and we'll go right on to our next presentation which is a proclamation declaring May 20th through 27th, 2019 as National Beach Safety Week in the City of Santa Cruz. And our fire chief, Jason Hayduk, I think, is he here? We're looking for him. We could go ahead and pause this presentation and move on to the next while we wait. Okay, let's go ahead and maybe do that. So we'll come back to this one and we'll now move on to our third presentation, which is the Mayor's Proclamation recognizing the week of May 14th, 2019 as Public Works Appreciation Week. And we have Mark Dettel, Director of Public Works here with us. Mark Dettel, Director of Public Works. I'd like to invite Josh Banger, Senior Civil Engineer with the City, as well as Rodney Cahill, who's the President of Local Chapter of APWA up here. National Public Works Week is an opportunity to thank the employees that provide you the daily services that typically you don't think about if we're doing a good job. You don't think about your trash being picked up or recycled. You don't think about the streets being swept. You don't think about your wastewater going down the drain and going away. It's almost where the magic happens. And I'd like to thank the employees. There's a lot of work that goes behind that to make that happen. And if we're doing our job right, we're not interrupting your daily lives and we're actually making it better. And so this is really a week just to recognize that and just acknowledge the effort that goes into that. It doesn't happen automatically. There is a lot of work behind it. And we have a lot of people that put in a lot of hard work. It also includes water department. Water is a public works, you know, provider. We just separate them in the city. But I'd like to embrace the water department as well in this effort. But I'd like to turn it over really to Josh to say a few words, as well as Rodney to make a presentation. So, and then I have a closing statement. Yeah. Mayor murders the city council. I was up here last year as member of the board of APWO, which I still am. But this year we're fortunate to have our president here for the local chapter to address you. And I'm really just here to hold the poster this year. Thank you, Josh. And thank you, mayor and city council for proclaiming next week to be public works week. This poster is a, it's a game, game board concept. And it shows the many responsibilities of public works professionals who design, build and maintain and manage the city's infrastructure. And Santa Cruz is very fortunate to be served by an award winning public works department who have engineering design, traffic engineering, stormwater management, streets, resource recovery, waste reduction. Wastewater management, flood control and parking just to name a few. And the city staff are enthusiastic, knowledgeable, smart and innovative. And their service to our community improves the safety and cleanliness and quality of life for our citizens. And it's my honor to present this poster and thank the public works team for their work. Thank you for your presentation and for the poster. I do have a mayor's proclamation and similarly I won't read all the where as's, but I'll just sort of briefly cover the final statement. Which is that as mayor of the city of Santa Cruz, I do hereby proclaim May 19th through 25th as National Public's Week, Public Works Week in the city of Santa Cruz. And encourage and urge all citizens to join with the dedicated employees of our public works department in activities and events. Celebrating the important projects and daily services of public works professionals, and to recognize the substantial contributions that they make to protecting our health, safety and quality of life. So I'll come and give that to you. Thank you very much. Just one opportunity to participate in that. We want to remind people on Wednesday, May 22nd. Between 1215 and 1245, we are having a ribbon cutting of the new San Lorenzo River Trestle Bridge, the pedestrian path. Just a few months ago, we were in the groundbreaking and it's already been completed. We're getting ready to open it, so please join us for that ribbon cutting. It's a great event. There's free parking down there right by the beach area. You can just say you're coming to the ribbon cutting and it'll let you park. But please join us for that ribbon cutting. It's a celebration of a quick success, which we're very proud of. So I don't see our fire chief here quite yet, so he's on his way. So we'll go ahead and move right along and we'll have our next presentation. And before we do, I'll just, if I could, bring your attention to the poster to my left. And the students that were here visiting City Hall and our fire department yesterday created a poster for us with symbols that they felt reflected the city of Santa Cruz. So that's their images that I promise to share with you all, with the community. And if you have a moment to take a look, please do so. Really lovely symbols there. Okay, so right now we'll go ahead and move on to our presentation. And we have our climate action plan annual progress update. Thank you, Mayor. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members. I am Tiffany Wise-West, the sustainability and climate action manager for the city. And just waiting for my slide deck to come up here. Okay, so we do have a lot to get to to share with you today on our progress on the climate action plan. I wanted to note that this is the 10th year that the climate action program is in existence and to thank you for your continued support of the program. All right, to start out, just to orient you to the plan and what it contains. So our climate action plan, we are trying to achieve 12 climate action milestones. They are tracked through 13 indicators or target metrics from a baseline year of 2008 and the plan sunsets in 2020. And in order to achieve those goals and those targets, we have 254 actions specified in the plan. The plan of course spans energy, transportation, water conservation, tree canopy and waste reduction. And there are a number of folks that help to implement the plan. First of all, I wanted to mention that we meet every other month with department heads to review major work and decision making. Notably, a department head subcommittee is participating in the health and all policies endeavor where sustainability is one of the three pillars. So you will be hearing much more on that throughout the year. Second, our community climate action task force consists of members of the community that are interested in this work as well as vice mayor Cummings. Our new task force was just set at the beginning of the year and some of the notable contributions from that committee for 2018 include our keep it cool energy conservation campaign, an anti-idling campaign, some work on that in promotion. A lot of work from this group on supporting our climate adaptation plan update in terms of testing activities and providing some assistance at outreach. We have a new working group as part of this group that's looking at green leases and rentals. And they continue to participate in the scoping of our climate and energy action plan 2030, which we will be embarking upon next year. We also have an internal employee sustainability team. A few things that this team does regularly is prioritizes and awards carbon fund projects and we give out about $63,000 per year. We also, as you probably have noted on your budget, we also complete an evaluation to determine which CIP projects implement the climate action plan and for the first time this year the adaptation plan. And you can see there are a number of other things that this internal team has worked on over the past year. I also just wanted to share with you some of the key divisions throughout the city that we work with to implement the plan. And then outside of the city, in addition to our task force, we collaborate with the Green Schools Committee, the County Commission on the Environment. I chair the Central Coast Climate Collaborative and we are active participants in the Monterey Bay Regional Climate Action Compact. Okay, so these symbols that we've developed are what tells you at a glance where we're at with each target. Green says that we have achieved the goal. If we're on track to meet the goal, it's orange and if we're not on track, it's red. We should be, if we're assuming a linear pattern since 2008, we should be at at least 83% progress on any of these goals at this time to be on track. We have three milestones that we have achieved, targets rather that we've achieved, five that are on track and five that are not on track. And of those 254 actions, a third have already been completed and another third are either ongoing or in progress. I think it's really important to mention at this point that when these goals were developed, because of our environmental ethic in Santa Cruz, the baseline starting points for these metrics were very high and the goals are ambitious. So as you note, we aren't necessarily going to achieve all of our goals. All right, so let's jump right in and there's a lot here, so I will go quick, but I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have at the end. It is unfortunate that I need to start with this slide because we have had to use different sources of data to track this particular milestone that are not exactly apples to apples. So you'll see some decreases, some increases here. So I'm not very confident in the data, but I did want to present this to you and what we're looking at here is a reduction in municipal energy use, but that's for buildings only, so it does exclude wastewater treatment, water treatment and conveyance and straight lighting. We do spend about $3 million a year on electricity. I will show you that breakdown in just a moment, but I want to share with you three major projects that potentially could get us to our goals, and that is our California Energy Commission Loan Project, so those are energy efficiency projects. We have not yet realized the savings from those yet in 2018, so this year we should realize those. We also have the California Energy Commission Grant Project that is installing advanced building controls at both the Annex Building and the Police Department. Again, haven't realized the savings on those yet. And lastly, our Public Works Facilities Division is finalizing some on-bill financing for some additional energy efficiency projects throughout the city. And here's what the breakdown looks like in terms of costs. I will point out that between wastewater treatment, water, wastewater collection and public works, that accounts for about 75% of our costs of about that $2.8 million, $2.9 million. And as we continue to make investments in energy efficiency, we may not necessarily see a commensurate reduction in the costs because there are escalators on our utility costs year to year that we are experiencing. I do want to highlight a couple awards that the city is receiving for its energy efficiency work. We've learned that our Facilities Division of Public Works and notably our work by our energy project coordinator, Andy Shatney, that the city will be receiving a 2019 Clean Air Leaders Award. This is the second of such an award. And that's due for primarily our lighting retrofits that really aggressively were pursued last year. Secondly, I'm really proud to mention that for the first time the city will be achieving the 2019 Full Beacon Award. So this is an award that recognizes an agency's holistic approach to addressing climate change. Participating agencies are required to complete each of five elements to win a Full Beacon Award. This is our sixth beacon, but not only the first Full Beacon Award. So again, big props to our Public Works Facilities folks for really being aggressive in taking advantage of the low-hanging fruit on energy efficiency and some of the not so low-hanging fruit. All right, our next one is to expand energy efficiency programs to 30% of homes and businesses. So those are households and businesses. And we do that in three different ways. We track the number of permits that go through the Green Building Program. We track Central Coast Energy Services jobs in Santa Cruz, so that's a low-income weatherization provider. And for the first time, we're including Keep It Cool, our energy conservation campaign for businesses to keep their doors shut when they are running AC or heat. And so you see, this is a difficult one for the city to really make some real impact on. We did have a nice uptick from the Keep It Cool campaign last year where we had 215 businesses sign on. And again, our Climate Action Task Force and Santa Cruz Climate Action Network were very instrumental in the progress with Keep It Cool. So we're looking at about 1,700 homes and businesses. Our next metric pertains to solar, and there are three targets. First is to achieve 5,000 installations of residential solar. Last year was our biggest year. We had almost 500 installations. This year, that was cut in half. And it's not entirely clear why that is the case. I am expecting that PV installations will increase because the 30% federal tax credit starts to step down at the end of this year, which is pretty significant. I also wanted to note that in 2020, the new California Energy Code will require all new single-family residences to be installed with solar PV. So that is something that will also help us, although we are almost to our sunset year. One other thing here is that we are finalizing the contracts. I believe they are just inked with grid alternatives, who is a low-income solar provider. And there are six installations that will be installed through that provision of our CDBG funds for that purpose. The next one is to increase solar to 500 businesses. Again, last year was our banner year with 10 systems installed. And this year, in 2018, we only had two systems installed. I should mention that the source of both this and the residential data is the California Solar Initiatives interconnection database. And again, really hoping that we'll see some uptick here with federal tax credit going down. Next is to provide 33% of municipal building load. So again, excluding wastewater treatment and water treatment and conveyance as well as streetlights with renewables. And how we have defined renewables is both our electricity from methane that's produced at the wastewater treatment facility and goes through our cogen to be produced into electricity and our electricity from solar. You can see on that pie chart on the lower left side kind of what our breakout is, what kind of fuel we use in terms of natural gas and electricity as well as renewables. And you can see that we have been chugging along with solar installations. Our last one being at Bay Street Reservoir in 2017. In 2018, we just realized the first impact of that, so you can see an uptick. We are also in the process of developing power purchase agreement, RFP, for expanding our solar facilities at the corporation yard and the landfill. Couple really good decisions made by the city to enable those really highly impactful projects. Number one, the city applied for the best solar rate that's ever existed in 2017 and was able to get grandfathered in for these two projects. And number two, one of the limiting factors at the corp yard was the installation of a transformer, which through our 16 level two stations that are in development, we're getting that transformer upgrade for free from PG&E, which was estimated at about $100,000. So some good decisions made to help us to achieve this goal. And if we do get those two projects installed, we should be very close to achieving this target. Sorry, wrong way. This is one of our goals that we've achieved is to partner with UCSC on 25 sustainability projects. We're at about 31 right now. A number of different projects, many of them pertain to the Green Wharf. There's been some tree plantings and some new collaborations with the Coastal Science Policy Graduate Program on our Resilient Coast projects and collaborating with the Sustainability Office on their staff sustainability leadership certificate. Next is to ensure the rail corridor supports bike and ped use. And how we track this is through the percentage of the 3.5 mile trail that is within the city limits that's funded either for design or construction. And so we have about 92% of that funded. There has been no change since 2017, so this has stayed static. But as Public Works Director Mark Dettel shared with you on the 22nd, we'll be having a ribbon cutting for the Trestle Trail, which is a major improvement in achieving this goal. Next, with respect to water conservation, we do not have specific metrics for water conservation, but we do point to a few different, a couple different things. On your left, you can see residential per capita water usage. The green line is Santa Cruz, red is Central Coast and blue is California. And as you can see, our residents continue to use much less water than other scales. And on the right-hand side, we track what is our annual water savings compared to 2013, which was when we were released from our emergency rationing. And as you can see, we continue to conserve water about 21% for 2018. So again, big kudos to our community for continuing to conserve water without really having to. Next is achieving 75% total waste diversion and maximizing organic waste. So we have had a decline after many years of an upward trajectory on this. We're at 65.5%. Again, we're trying to get to 75%. Our refuse division indicates that that decrease is most likely attributable to a pickup in the economy, more building and construction debris, and maybe very minimally China's national sword policy. But that is not the driver of this just decrease according to refuse. I think it's also important to note that the state most likely will require food waste collection from both commercial and businesses and handling of that in 2022. But we are waiting for the final version of SB 1383 to determine what will be required. And there's been a lot of conversation on what that looks like. Next is to increase bike ridership to 12% of local commutes. We had a 10% target that was achieved in 2016. We then up that to 12%. How we measure this typically is by the five-year rolling average of the American Community Survey. That shows right now it shows a decrease over the past two years. However, the Census American Community Survey was done on a one-year time in 2017, so not the five-year average. They occasionally do a one-year point count. And that showed for 2017 that we're at 13.2% ridership, which would mean we would achieve our stretch goal of 12%. As you know, we've been implementing significant infrastructure, green lanes, the jump bikes, which isn't reflected here yet really, and transportation demand management programs that are going to be coming online later in the year. This does give us the second highest bike commute mode split in the country right now. And I think you all know it's bike month. You have two and a half more weeks to get your five rides in and get a chance to win 7500 bucks. Just had to plug that. Next is to switch 20% of cars to low carbon fuels. So what we're talking about here are electric vehicles and hybrids together. They represent 8.1% of cars. 1.2% are electric vehicles. And contrast that with the state, which is about 4.7% electric vehicles. You know, although we're not going to reach this goal, it looks like there is a lot of activity going on in this space. The city has led two proposals to the VW settlement agreement. Organization electrify America and has been successful in bringing two to four DC fast chargers and an unspecified number of multifamily housing charging to the community. We are having a kickoff meeting on that later this month. Right now Monterey Bay Community Power has generous incentives available for electrification. Both personal vehicles as well as fleet as well as the air district has their regular incentive program going on right now. Another thing that I want to mention regarding this is that the city does have in development. I already mentioned this, 16 DC fast, I'm sorry, 16 level two chargers and two DC fast chargers going in at our corp yard to prepare for the electrification of our fleet. As you know, Governor Brown has set a really aggressive goal and our region will need to do its part to get to this. I also wanted to share with you, I think this came up last week about what do we have in terms of alternative vehicles. And we have many hybrid vehicles, some electric vehicles. And I want to make sure that it's clear that there are not electric vehicles available for every use case that we have here at the city. And we have piloted in the past hybrid refuse trucks, for example, that haven't worked out. So we are moving forward on this kind of thing. We don't have an electrification plan, but that will be part of our climate and energy action plan next year so that we have explicit goals to work towards. One correction here, refuse trucks really should be all trucks and that's 46 of those are CNG and 35 of renewable diesel. And I apologize for the error on that. One other thing that I think maybe isn't clear also is that we actually tax ourselves 5% on our fleet fuel. So on those costs, we spend about $900,000 a year on those costs. And so 5% of that goes into our carbon fund to reinvest in carbon reducing projects. I should mention that that amount that we spend fluctuates greatly depending on what the market is and what the cost is for gas and diesel right now. Okay, moving along we have 175 green businesses trucking along to make that target. This is the first time we've been able to report on urban tree canopy, so we are to increase canopy by 10%. So that the goal is to go from 36.4%, a very high starting point I might add, to 40% tree canopy. We're at 38.2 right now, so moving along on that. We completed this analysis with the Center for Integrated Spatial Research at UC Santa Cruz. And we are in the midst of planting 500 trees from our Cal Fire Grant. And our RFP for a GIS based urban tree inventory is out on the street right now. All right, our last one is to reduce single occupancy vehicle commutes 10%. And you see here we have unfortunately had an increase. And again, this is the five year rolling average of the American Community Survey. It's not entirely clear why that is because if you take a look at our mode split, everything aside from carpooling, we are beating every other scale, whether that's County, California, and US. As you know, the TDM program will be coming online later in the year. And so I think that we will see some improvements in this as we move into our sunset year. Finally, our community greenhouse gas emission goals. We are able to achieve our 2020 goal a year and a half early due to Monterey Bay Community Power. So that green slice that's circled, 59% of that goes away because of Monterey Bay Community Power, where the carbon content is zero. And we are moving along towards our 2050 goal. A couple of things here, it is very likely that our goals will change with our new climate and energy action plan. It's likely that we will adopt a carbon neutrality by 2045 goal to be consistent with the state. And one other thing here is we do have our 2018 greenhouse gas emissions inventory in progress. Not all the data are available for 2018, so we were unable to prepare that in time for this meeting. Okay, just some final thoughts here as we, as I close out and I look forward to your questions is that, you know, the urgency of this issue is very real. And we definitely are going to need to be more creative and strategic going forward in our investments. And in order to address the high impact opportunities, I want you to know that I'm committed to ambitious, yet achievable goals in the climate and energy action plan 2030 over the next year. Developed collaboratively with our community and have the experience to develop tools to be able for us to look at different scenarios of investment and what are their corresponding impacts. Again, I look forward to working with you all on this. Going forward, I think that the health and all policies work that's happening right now will really set us up nicely for that work. Next year and I'll take any questions that you might have. Thank you. Well, thank you, Tiffany. Thank you for the annual update and presentation and just for your tirelessness and work and this issue for our city. It's outstanding. I just want to remind the council that we're not taking any action today. This is a presentation and I'm sure we could go into each of these individual items and topics in depth and for the entire afternoon. But knowing that you're available for us, that if we have really wanting to kind of dive deeper with you, we can maybe set up a time to do that. And if possible, you could email us your slides. Of course. But since we're on limited time today, I'll just say is there any sort of brief questions or comments from council members? Council Member Brown? Well, I do have quite a few questions. I want to thank you for all of your work. This is a great presentation that just scratches the surface of all of the amazing work you do. I just want to appreciate that. And I do have a bunch of questions. I'll make a time to talk with you. But perhaps for the benefit of those who are watching and paying attention, if you want to say anything about the key areas that you see for really getting more aggressive and making progress for the coming years, it would be great to hear that just as an umbrella kind of. Absolutely. You actually are allowing me to mention something, a couple of things that I forgot. So the two major target areas are transportation electrification and next we'll be building electrification. Those are high impact areas. The rest of the region is going to be pursuing that. Monterey Bay Community Power has an electrification plan in development right now that's going to help us to set targets. And then they will be providing incentives and we will work with them on what those incentives look like to make the jump to electrification. As I noted previously, that's already in place for transportation and should continue and potentially be expanded. But those are the two major areas that I see going forward we will need to focus on. Great, thank you for that. You're welcome. I have a brief question. Are there any constraints or currently are there any air quality monitoring programs in the city? And if there aren't, what are some of the big constraints around that? I don't know of any air quality monitoring going on. That's not to say there isn't any going on. The Air District must be doing something, however, because we have disadvantaged communities and low income communities that are designated by their air quality. We do not have disadvantaged communities per that definition in Santa Cruz, but we do have low income communities. So I can check into that and find out what exactly is going on from the Air District. I don't know that. Great, thanks. You're welcome. All right, Councilor McCormick. Thank you. While you anticipated some of my questions, thank you so much. I was going to ask about the relationship with UCSC, but you're on it, you know, getting your PhD up there. I just want to thank you for having those relationships that you built all these years and some of that is panning out. I love it. With respect to the vehicles, thank you for taking that up. We said 20 vehicles out of 800 that was mentioned. What is the possibility of electric vehicles in that department then? Out of all 800, how many could be electric? Yeah, I talked to our public works folks about this. And of the passenger vehicles, there are an opportunity for about 20 right now that could potentially be shifted to electric vehicles. In addition to the 20 we already have? The 20 we have are Prius. We have seven EV Leafs, and we have a number of electric maintenance vehicles and street sweepers. So that would be, in addition to the seven Leafs that we have would be an additional opportunity for 20 more. And the solar, I'm hearing for the courtyard and the landfill projects, how do we make that happen? It's my understanding that public works is working on those RFPs right now. There is a time factor involved that we do need to get those done by the end of the year, and I believe it's their intention to do so. So at least break down by the end of the year. That sounds great. I think the council would share our hope that that happened because that's a really good thing. Yeah, that's the plan. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Well, thank you so much for the presentation in the annual update, and we'll keep at it. All right. Well, indeed. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, so at this time we'll go ahead and go back to an earlier presentation that we have on our agenda, which is the mayor's proclamation declaring May 20th through 27th, 2019 as National Beach Safety Week in the city of Santa Cruz. And as our fire chief walks up here, I'll just also share some appreciation I have for the Santa Cruz fire department who is always willing and open to have students from throughout our county come and experience what they do and thank them for their time in sharing what they do and all the good work they do for our community to our youth. So thank you for that. Thank you very much, and I appreciate you taking the time to be here for today. So as you know, the summer months are a busy time for tourism and just engaging in beach activity, and we want to put it out there in a proactive way that we want you to be safe. We have a short public service announcement that we filmed last summer, and we're going to play it. And then the USLA, which is the United States Life Saving Association, which is the parent ocean lifeguarding organization within the US, they declare Memorial Day to be the kickoff for water safety. So I'm going to play. Since 1965, more than 100 people have lost their lives off our beaches. That's nearly two people every year, and that's two people, too many. Don't be next. Don't be next. Don't be next. Swim with a buddy. Swim near lifeguards. A bay posted signs and flags. Don't be next. So this was a public service announcement that we made in conjunction with MySafeCalifornia, their nonprofit. We also made another public safety announcement about the toilet bowl, and we're going to be pushing this out on our social media as well as to our business partners in the community. And every year, kicking off on Memorial Day is Water Safety Week, and we have a list of recommendations that are in the proclamation, and that's learn how to swim. We have a number of programs within the city that can help you with that. Swim near lifeguard. If the odds of drowning on a beach that has a lifeguard in place are one in 18 million, you're five times more likely to have a drowning incident on a non-lifeguarded beach. Swim with a buddy. Check with the lifeguards for the ocean conditions for that day. Use sunscreen and drink water. A bay posted signs and flags. We have a number of them in the city, especially on West Cliff. Keep the beach and water clean. Learn current safety. We have some handouts for that. Enter the water feet first and wear a life jacket. We have a number of incidents every year where people dive. And unfortunately, a lot of times there are some catastrophic consequences to that, and unfortunately alcohol can be involved. So we put this out there to try and raise awareness. If you come to the beach, go to the lifeguard tower. They know what the conditions are. They can tell you where to swim, where not to swim, and they can offer advice for what to do safely during that day. Thank you, council member and mayor. I'm Jill Bates with Parks and Recreation, and I am the supervisor for the junior lifeguard program. We work hand in hand and cooperatively with the fire department. We share our staff, and this is a very important kickoff to the summer for us. It's prevention. So we want everyone to go out to the beach, but be educated, have fun, and make informed decisions. So we have over 900, almost 1,000 kids registered in a junior guard program. And this organization, MySafeCalifornia, we partnered with last year, and they helped to teach over 200 children in our junior guard program CPR, a hands-only CPR. And we're going to continue that this year. So once again, thank you for your time. And remember, don't be next. Thank you so much. And before you go, I have a mayor's proclamation here, and I won't go through all the where-as-is, but I will say that as the mayor of the city of Santa Cruz, I do hereby proclaim May 20th through 27th, 2019, as National Beach Safety Week in the city of Santa Cruz, and urge everyone using our beaches to enjoy themselves at the beach this year while also taking appropriate measures to protect themselves and their children. So thank you for the work you do to do that as well. Thank you. And also, I have some inquiries into MySafe. We just re-edited this video about getting it into some different languages so that we can reach more of the population that's out there. Okay. So last but certainly not least, we have a couple of presentations from our parks and recs. We'll go ahead and invite Tony Elliott, our director of Parks and Recreation, for a proclamation recognizing Kids in Parks Day and addition a 10-minute walk to the park campaign. All right. Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. Tony Elliott with Parks and Recreation. I'm also with Judy Russell with Santa Cruz Public Libraries here as well. This Saturday, May 18th, is the ninth annual Kids to Parks Day, which is organized and promoted by the National Park Trust. Kids to Parks Day empowers kids and encourages families to get outdoors to visit parks across the United States. The City of Santa Cruz has taken significant efforts over time to ensure that more than 1,700 acres of parks, facilities, open spaces, and beaches are available to residents. In addition, the city has a long-standing tradition of embracing and encouraging a diverse array of recreational opportunities. First recorded surfing in North and South America to some of our unbelievable facilities such as Loudoun Nelson, the Civic Auditorium, our trail system, so on and so forth. Before the City Council today is a proclamation to proclaim this Saturday, May 18th, as Kids to Parks Day in the City of Santa Cruz. As part of the Kids to Parks Weekend, I'm claiming the whole weekend here, the Parks and Recreation Department and Santa Cruz Library encouraged community members to visit Play It Forward, which is on the screen here. That will be at the Loudoun Nelson Community Center again this Sunday, May 19th. So to tell you a little bit about Play It Forward, I'd like to introduce you to Judy Russell with Santa Cruz Public Libraries. Hi, so I believe everybody was passed out a flyer, so I just want to encourage you is to check out this flyer. There's a QR code on here that you can just go ahead, hold your phone over, check it out, and it will pull up the website for all the different events taking place at Play It Forward, Santa Cruz. And so what I just wanted to share just a little bit about is the background of why it is that we're doing Play It Forward, Santa Cruz. So this festival was born out of a vision that was a result of the library for the past couple of years having conversations about having strength-based community engagement and asking ourselves how do we work with the community and look at community strengths and what the community has to offer versus where are we lacking and what don't we have enough of. And so when we stepped back and we kind of looked at it and said, what is it that Santa Cruzans are really good at? There was one thing that stuck out more than anything, it is that we know how to play and that we will do anything to play. We will do anything to help others play with us. And so based on that strategy, we said, okay, so how do we connect that to also serve our community? And we came up with the idea of Play It Forward, Santa Cruz. And to start with, where can we look where organizations are already using Play or their platform of Play to transform lives and strengthen communities? And so the first step to that, once we had that vision and we had the title and we knew where we wanted to go with it, was to put that in action and going to organizations that have that strength and going to the city of Santa Cruz, Parks and Rec, whose logo is Parks Make Life Better and knowing that they have that and own that strength. And so that's where this co-sponsorship came about from Play It Forward, Santa Cruz. And as a result of that, then we moved on, we secured through the city of Santa Cruz, Parks and Rec, Lauda Nelson, the adjacent Laura Park and closed down Washington Street. And we have over 20 community organizations that currently use Play to transform lives and strengthen communities. Anywhere from if you want to take a free karate lesson, waltz lesson. We even have out on Washington Street shared adventures is coming and they're building on site a wheelchair obstacle course. So that people can go ahead and get in a wheelchair and have a fun playful way of discovering what is it like to go through life living in a wheelchair. We have the other highlighted organizations, the Santa Cruz Warriors Organization, the Boys and Girls Club, the Museum of Art and History, the Natural Museum of History, something like that. Laird's Karate studio, we have waltz lessons. One reason why we chose the waltz lessons is we really wanted to make a festival that focuses on all generations, all ages. Oftentimes it can kind of might be considered just a little bit more around one group of people. And so waltz, we recognize that Peggy Pollard, she does waltz lessons and she does social seniors really speaking to senior loneliness. And so that was the criteria we used for play it forward. First we identified the strengths where we're really good at play. And then we said what organizations play that way or use that form of play to then speak to other issues that are important and that people are struggling with. And so we hope that you will make it out and that you will encourage others, that you will share however you wish to share whether it be with a flyer or on social media or smoke signal doesn't matter. But to come out to play it forward to Santa Cruz, there's also going to be a beer and wine garden and live music and a really fun time. So thank you. Thank you. What a wonderful slogan and presentation. Thank you. So I too have a mayor's proclamation that I can go ahead and just, I won't share all of the where as is, but we'll say what the end has and what it's trying to express. Which is that I as mayor of Santa Cruz do hereby proclaim Saturday, May 18, 2019 as Kids to Parks Day in the city of Santa Cruz. And encourage all residents to celebrate by taking their children and their lives to a neighborhood, city, state, or national park. So I'll go ahead and bring this down and thank you for that. All right. I'll go ahead and move on to the next one here. The next one is the 10 minute walk campaign. The trust for public land in partnership with the National Recreation and Park Association and the Urban Land Institute is leading a nationwide movement to ensure there's a great park within a 10 minute walk of every person in every neighborhood and every city across the United States. Recently Mayor Watkins and I in the Parks Direct Team heard from several residents with questions about the 10 minute walk campaign, whether we participated, kind of what was going on with this. So wanted to just bring a very short kind of announcement on a little bit related to the 10 minute walk campaign. So in Santa Cruz we are well ahead of many national standards for parks and recreation. Locally within Parks and Recreation though I would say that our goals are very, very high. We are guided by the city's 2030 general plan, which establishes a level of service goal of 4.5 acres of neighborhood and community parks for every 1,000 residents. While the majority of Santa Cruz is within a one mile radius or a 10 minute walk of parks, we are just shy of our 4.5 acres per 1,000 goal by about 40 acres. So we're shy and we're a little competitive on how we're going to get there to cover that gap, that goal. The Parks and Recreation Master Plan provides a really data rich geographic representation of where we are most and least served with neighborhood and community parks in the city. While our city truly provides world class amenities with some of the best service standards in the United States, the data from the master plan will guide our improvements and actions well into the future. So the city and parks department's commitment to the 10 minute walk campaign is really memorialized by the 2030 general plan and the Parks and Recreation Master Plan as well. For residents and visitors seeking any of these maps or this data, the city's website is a great resource with information on the 2030 plan, the master plan and so forth. So research from the trust for public land indicates that parks boost well-being for the entire neighborhood and for the local economy. And most importantly, great parks foster community where everybody is welcome. So on behalf of Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation, we pledge to participate in the 10 minute walk campaign and encourage residents to engage with us to find their park. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you so much for your presentation and for closing us out on such a high note with the Play It Forward campaign and blending all of our great efforts here in our city and aspirations as we move forward. So thank you very much. We'll go ahead and now close out our presentation portion of our agenda. And I just have a few announcements before we get started. So today's meeting is being broadcast live on Community Television Channel 25 and is streaming on the city's website at CityofSantaCruise.com. Lynn Dutton is our technician for both this afternoon and evening sessions. And I thank you, Lynn, for your work and for being here with us today. All city council members can be emailed at citycouncilatcityofsantacruise.com. And if you would like to communicate with us about an agenda item, we'd like to receive your email by Monday at 5 p.m. before our council meeting. This provides us with an opportunity to review your email and include it with the rest of our agenda packet. Please bear in mind that all items of correspondence with the city and the city council do constitute public records and are generally subject to disclosure upon request by any member of the public. Accordingly, if you have sensitive or private information that you do not wish to make public, you should not include that information in your correspondence. Our rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left, and it's my job to keep the meeting running without disruption. And we ask that you respect your fellow citizens when you're inside and outside of our council chambers. So we'll go ahead and move on to see if there are any council members who have statements of disqualification today. Okay, should I make that announcement now? We'll go ahead and make, I overlooked an announcement. So we have an additional announcement, forgive me, before we go on to the statements of disqualification. So I just want to remind the community and I'm thrilled to announce that our first segment of the Coastal Rail Trail, the Trestle Trail Project, is nearing completion ahead of schedule. And we will be hosting a ribbon cutting on Wednesday, May 22nd from 12.15 to 12.45 p.m. And we invite all community members to celebrate with us at this special lunch hour event. We will assemble at the west space of the San Lorenzo River Railroad Trestle Bridge with free parking and bike valet. All of the details are on our Facebook and website pages, and I look forward to celebrating with you all next week. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Okay, now we'll move on to our statements of disqualification. Is there any council members who have a statement of disqualification? Council members. Yes, all be disqualified from number 28, the downtown library project due to owning property within 500 feet of the lot for relocation. Okay, thank you for disclosing that, and the record can reflect that. Any others? Okay, seeing none, we'll go ahead and move on. I'll ask if our city clerk administrator to announce any additions or deletions to our agenda. We have none. Okay. So briefly, an announcement about oral communications. Oral communications is an opportunity for members of our community to speak to us on items that are not on today's agenda. Oral communications will occur at or around 7 p.m. We'll go ahead and ask at this time if our city attorney can please provide a report on our closed session. Yes, good afternoon. Thank you, Mayor Watkins, members of the City Council. This afternoon's closed session began at 12 p.m. in the courtyard conference room. The following were items discussed in the closed session. The first two were referrals to closed session that was in an open session prior to the closed portion of the meeting convening. Parcels are real property negotiations matters involving a license agreement for the municipal wharf concerning the business that's currently operating there called Paradise Dogs. Second is real property at 605 Front Street, a lease agreement with Carissa Cates doing business as Santa Cruz Thread. Those items are also on your open session agenda this afternoon under consent as items 12 and 13. There was one item of anticipated litigation involving significant exposure to litigation in which the council received a report from the city attorney's office and gave direction. There was also one other item of real property negotiations involving what's commonly known as the Sky Park property, APNs 0227210708 and 09. City of Santa Cruz is the owner of that property and the negotiating parties are City and Scotts Valley Town Greenland LLC. Under negotiation was potential sale of that property. Council received a report from its negotiator, Bonnie Lipscomb, the economic development director, and gave instructions. There were no reportable actions taken on any of those items. Thank you very much. Okay, we don't have a city manager report today, so we'll go ahead and move right along to our consent agenda. And so those are items 7 through 20 on our agenda. All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is polled by a council member for further discussion. Are any of the council members interested in polling any of our items on consent? Council Member Glover. Yes, items 10, 14, 15, 18, and 2. And that's it. I'm sorry, okay, 10, 14, 15, and 18. Yes, please. Okay, are there any other items to be polled? I had a question about 13. Okay, so we won't poll that. Okay, we can go ahead. Okay, so we have items number 10, 14, 15, and 18 polled by Council Member Glover. And we have our Water Director Rosemary Menard to speak to us on item 20 if you noticed. It's quite a large item, so she can answer any questions about that. I know she reached out to us in advance, and then we'll hear your question for item number 13. Thank you, let's see if we can. This is an item for the council to certify the environmental impact report, the final environmental impact report, and to adopt the mitigations, monitoring, and reporting report that came out of that process, and to approve the project for the purposes of starting the clock on a formal opportunity for challenges to the EIR under the CEQA process. The project is a replacement of the inlet outlet structure for the Mill Creek Dam at the existing facilities about 60 years old. The current estimate of the cost of this project is about 75 million, and it would be replaced, the yellow existing facilities in this picture would be replaced by a new tunnel that would go around the right abutment of the dam and create new intake structures in the reservoir. It's a large project, it's very challenging for construction, and we're ready to kind of move to the next step with these actions we're asking the council to take. In addition to those activities, because of not wanting to go back into this area and do additional work in the future, we're replacing about 2,000 feet of the 14 mile long Mill Creek Pipeline as part of this project. So happy to take any questions that you might have. Do any of the council members have questions for our water director? This is item 20. This is item 20. Did anyone pull item 20? No, this is not. This is just, okay, thanks. It's a big project, and I know the council hasn't really done certifying EIR, at least for a water project. We think since 2011 when we did the Belch 12 Well. But this is the beginning of you probably seeing more of these kinds of things from us. So just thank you. Highlighting the magnitude, thank you very much. Okay, Councilor Brown. I just appreciate you being here and thank you for giving us some additional information in advance. So, absolutely. I think that's a lack of questions now, maybe. Exactly, I think that's very true. Okay, so we have the remaining items on consent that we can go ahead and move at this time. So for our consent agenda items other than item 10, 14, 15, and 18. Are there any members of the community who would like to speak to us on those items? Okay, seeing none, we'll go ahead and return back for council action. Second, okay, motion by Council Member Matthews, seconded by Council Member Myers. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously. And so the first item pulled on our consent agenda is item number 10, and Council Member Gleber. Thank you, yeah, this shouldn't take too much time. It was just, I was curious about the fiscal impact because the agenda report says the only costs would be for travel expenses which would be pulled from the City Council travel expense account. And so there is a fiscal impact, I'm just curious as to what those are. So is there an estimated fiscal impact based off of previous trips that have been taken from representatives that filled the position? Does the expenditure need to come to City Council before it's approved or is it just a blank check? And then are we setting maximums for expenses like hotels and travel just to ensure that we're being as frugal as possible since we are in a budget deficit? I'll go ahead and look to our city manager, Martin Bernal, because I think it's pretty typical in terms of council budget. Yes, so with respect to there's a council budget for the purposes of a variety of different council related activities, whether it's to attend conferences, and to participate in various policy committees or organizations. And it varies from year to year because the level of participation varies. I understand from this one, and Council Member Myers might have some more specific information. This is the meetings of this type, they're not generally overnight or long. So it's just really daily travel and they don't happen that frequently. So it's a fairly small cost impact relative to travel, is my understanding. Any other questions, Council Member Matthews, Vice Mayor Cummings? Not a question, but just to point out that the League of California Cities has a number of policy areas where it has representatives from throughout the state, transportation, I can't remember what they are. There's six or eight policy areas and we do get announcements at the beginning of the calendar year. If people are interested, they can notify the president of our division, they can get nominated. So it's a great way to engage and the city has over the years had both council members and staff members on a number of the policy commissions. It's a great way to get involved and we're very lucky when we have people who can really contribute something in these areas. Tiffany was a member of this commission, I think, last year. So it's a great way for us to stay connected with what's happening at state level at a pretty much minimal cost. Okay, Vice Mayor Cummings, then Council Member Glover. I was going to ask if Council Member Myers, if you could just provide a little bit of background on what the League is actually looking forward to working on right now. So yeah, they have a full strategic plan that they have produced for all cities in California. And environmentally, their main initiatives are climate change. And they are also looking at bills related to the recycling quandary that the state is in now with China's decisions. So they're actually looking at potentially supporting measures to actually create industry within California itself so that our products could be potentially sold here within our own state and re-recycled here and used for manufacturing. There's also work on the stormwater bills related to cities being able to actually do fees or support stormwater benefits in a way that doesn't hit the city budget. Air quality, so it really runs the gamut. Water, air, definitely equity, social justice issues. A big platform for the Environmental Quality Committee, so yeah. So it's on the League website, which if you click on policy committee, you'll see all the work. And there is about 10 policy committees doing work this year, including a homeless committee and also a housing committee that's quite active. Great, thank you. Council Member Glover and then Council Member Kern. Thanks, so yeah, I just want to reiterate that I, or maybe I didn't say yet, I understand the scope and I'm glad that everyone else now has the perspective as to what the purpose of the group is. My issue is fiscal accountability with regards to how much money it could or would cost. So that's just a conversation. I know that it's slated to potentially not be expensive. I just did some back of the napkin calculator math to get to and from Sacramento, which is the farthest one, it's about 11 gallons if you do a 25 miles per hour, or 25 miles per gallon car. So are we anticipating taking a fleet vehicle? Are we going to just allocate up to $200 for gas travel? I mean, just so that we can make sure that we have some kind of an understanding about what's happening. I would expect the same thing if I was taking a trip as well, so. I'll go see if City Manager Martin Bernal wants to respond, but I'll just say that generally there is a travel reimbursement sort of process amongst government entities that have a reimbursement rate that is pretty standard. So I'm assuming that that would be applied in this regard, but if you have anything to elaborate on, you're welcome to do so. Right, I mean there's a mileage reimbursement taking the city pool vehicles also an option. So both are available and we get that charge back too. So again, the budget is adequate as I understand in terms of what the costs would be here because it's primarily day travel for a limited number of meetings throughout the year. The committee doesn't meet on a super regular basis. Yeah, so it's very small and with your approval today that approves the Councilor Myers participating in those costs being covered, which again are not really significant. Okay, thank you. I'll just make the motion to approve. Did you, before you do, if you will. Councilor Bergeron, did you have some? So how much is the mileage right now, just standard? 50 cents a mile. I think Council Member Glover was just looking for, when you say small, does it mean under 500, under 1,000, under 2,000? So when you say small, is it under 500? I mean, I can just sort of say, because I've traveled up to Sacramento a lot for my other job. It's usually about $100 or $200 for round trip and you do it by mileage and usually provide backup of a map quest or something like that to substantiate. Yeah, I think it's, or maybe not, maybe it's about, well what is it, about 100, maybe 300 miles per round trip. I have a leaf and I will just drive my own car, it won't cost the city a penny. Okay, and I'll stay at my friend's house, so I think we're good on that. For Council Member Myers, if you would be willing, there's two big issues that we, in the climate issue that you referred to in the League of Cities, as well as I think the bottle bill needs to be reformed too. And I'm just wondering, would you be willing to discuss with them about the elimination of plastic bottles and also raising the deposit fee, which hasn't been raised, I think, since the 70s, I don't know, early 80s? I do know there's a number of bottle bills. There's bills in process right now, and the League's tracking all of those. And they will provide, through this committee, a report on whether cities should support those. So it's a great way for us to just get the information and then we can take action as a council. So I'll be in June, I'll be getting an update on all those before bills are passed in August. So I'll be bringing back recommendations, and I can certainly ask those questions. Thanks, I appreciate that. Okay, so we'll go ahead before we maybe come back to the council. We'll go ahead and see, is there any member of the community who wanted to address us on this item? This is item number 10 on our consent agenda. Okay, and you, feel free to come forward. You'll have up to two minutes. I didn't prepare for this, I'm not quite sure. But I wondered about the League of Cities Environmental Quality Policy Committee about whether that has, they have anything to do with the Neary Lagoon wastewater treatment plan and possible missions of toxic metals and toxic gases from it. If that, because that is an issue that I think applies to these kind of facilities all across the state of California and whether that is something that has been discussed there. We'll go ahead and pause the time for a second. This is an opportunity for us to hear from the community. We don't generally respond to a community member. Okay, well I'm just putting it out there because I made a public record across the ground. And it's being stacked, so I probably won't get the results till six months from now, and okay. Okay, thank you. Okay, please come forward. You'll have up to two minutes as well. Hello, Elise Caspi, I'm just here to talk about this item number. I just wanted to say that in general, I think our country has been just very sadly and quite shamefully politically held back in terms of our environmental policies. We know that the 70s were a great time. That's when the Clean Air Act was established, I believe. I'm just kind of ballparking it. Maybe it was late 60s, but Clean Air Act was established as well as the Endangered Species Act. And since then, we have had what I'm just going to call reactionary because I think the F word that is fascism is a little bit too strong and possibly insulting a word to use. But we have seen an incredible double down by reactionary forces, especially since the end of the Cold War, when certain actors and groups within our government, especially at the federal policy level, realized that they no longer had the excuse of having a major Soviet enemy to use. And so they came up with other ideas as to how they were going to keep their, what they saw as their entitlements to the resources such as the oil of other countries and so forth and so on. And so I consider our environmental policy in this city in particular incredibly important. As activists, we all know that other states do what California does in terms of environmental policy, especially. And I'm looking at Donna because I know that she's kind of a leader in this area. So I just wanted to say that I do consider your involvement on the Metro Board and here. Santa Cruz is a leader within the state of California because of the university here and our politics historically. So I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing your leadership. And I'm glad you have a good background in that, thank you. Thank you. Okay, well, go ahead and return it back to the Council for Action and Deliberation Council member Glover. Yeah, I agree with that last speaker that I think Council member Myers will be the ideal pick for this position because of her experience and knowledge in environmental sustainability. So I will go ahead and make the motion to approve Council member Donna Myers' appointment to the League of California City's Environmental Quality Policy Committee. And authorize the use of city council travel expenses, account to cover costs of travel. Second. Okay, so we have a motion by Council member Glover. I'm going to go with Council member Brown for the second. It was really close. All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Okay, and that passes unanimously. So the next item is item number 14 and that item was also pulled by Council member Glover. Thank you. I just had some questions about the fiscal impact as well as the selection process for the, I'm going to call the shuttle because it looks more like a shuttle than a trolley. So in the fiscal impact it says there is no fiscal impact. The confusion for me comes from the cost that's noted in the agenda report where it says that the plan is to buy two electric shuttles and two electric charging stations totaling $341,000. And then in the description it says that we've secured a grant for $171,510,000, or $701,510. But just doing that math that leaves $169,490. So where is that extra $169,490 coming from? Hello, yes, my name's Amanda Rotella, Principal Management Analyst in the Economic Development Department and the trolley program manager. So this is an item that sort of couples with an item that came before you, I believe it was January 8th where we did a budget adjustment. So this was just some additional language that we needed to add to that. So a portion of it, about 230,000 is coming from the California Hybrid Zero Mission Truck and Bus Voucher Program, or HVIP for short. So we're getting a significant incentive voucher from the state, which will offset a portion of that. And then as previously budgeted and approved in the January 8th budget adjustment, we are putting some redevelopment bond funds towards that as well. Those are the funding sources in addition to the 172,000 that we got from the Air District, which we really appreciate, so big thank you to them. And then regarding the selection process, so this has been sort of a multi-phase process. Back in probably 2017, we began looking at what possible alternatives could look like. So we looked at electric shuttles similar to what the Monterey system has. We actually have electrified trolleys. We looked at could we convert little VW buses and to make those electrified. So we kind of looked at the whole gamut. And really the criteria that we came to with the electric shuttle was that it was the most affordable. The maintenance cost was most reasonable as we're seeing with electric. The fuel costs obviously were greater than our CNG options and then the benefits to the environment. And we went with this provider because of the cost. Given the kind of financial constraints we had, based on the amount of money we were likely to get from the Air District and what we had as a matching grant, we were restricted in that way. We are also really struggled to find street legal vehicles. There was a number of shuttles that are available and you can use them on campuses, but because ours is 100% on California roads. There's a significant amount of restrictions in that way. So we went with Phoenix and this particular shuttle because of cost and because of timeline and their ability to turn around the vehicles within kind of our time frame. Okay, I'll be here if there's any other questions. Is there any member of the community who would like to address us on item number 14 of our consent agenda? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and return back to council for action and deliberation. Councilor Mathews. Well, I'm thrilled to see the trolley shuttle system on track to be up and running and robust, so I will go ahead and move this recommendation. Okay. Okay, so we have a motion by Council Member Mathews, seconded by Council Member Glaver, I'll give it to you next time, Vice Mayor Cummings. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. No, I had a question before, but I can ask it after. It's fine. Okay, so all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Thank you, Council Member Cronk. Yeah, I'm equally as happy that we're going this route. I would just like to put a footnote in that it would be great for future reports to see where the money is coming from. Maybe just make line items. This is coming from redevelopment or old redevelopment money or wherever. It's just helpful for the council. Okay, thank you for the suggestion. Okay, so item number 15 is the next item that's pulled from our consent agenda. Council Member Glaver. Thank you. I just had two questions for the public. We'll start with this one first, because there's another one coming up that is the next one. So just I'm curious, I noticed that there's a pattern of going with William Thayer construction. That's wonderful. I was just curious, are they using union labor? Mike Hopper, Public Works Operations Manager. They do not hire union labor, no, but they do pay prevailing wage for this project. Okay. And how, I mean, I haven't discussed it with our labor folks, but that's cool. That's compliant, yes. All right, cool. I think that is, and what was the justification of the project? I mean, I know that there's the overall wanting to upkeep of the golf course. But with the previous one, which was the restaurant remodel, there was the plan of a five-year return on that money as their financial plan for the $251,020 that were spent that came over 1.4% over budget from the original estimate. Yeah, this is a project that council approved. The contract with Thayer was approved a little over a year ago. We had a lengthy discussion about budget adjustments concerning the overall cost of the project. Thayer was the largest subcontractor on the job and the only one with costs greater than $100,000. And therefore, I need to get a notice of completion to be able to pay him his final payment. Right. He was chosen using a cooperative purchasing agreement at the time this project went out to bid. General contractors around the county were too busy to even look at the job. Thayer subscribes to a cooperative agreement administered by the Gordian Group, where market prices are used to determine a vast number of line items within the project. So they are the selected contractor without going through the bidding process. Okay, thank you for that. And then just was there a price or an analysis or a plan to recuperate the $251,000 on the project during the conversation with the council? Or is that just a loss to the city and a redevelopment of a lodge? No, that's part of the city's responsibility to maintain the building and give it in a condition to the tenants so that they can do their improvements and begin to pay rent. Right, but- Recoup the investment. But as opposed to the restaurant which had a planned reimbursement plan for the city, this was just an expense. Yes, but their rent goes toward defraining that expense. Right, okay, thank you. All right, any further questions? Okay, we'll go ahead and see if there's any member of the community who would like to address us. It seems that there's one. Feel free to come forward and you'll have up to two minutes. The city, according to the Sentinel, is in the red by $3 million. And we have a climate crisis, which we should be reducing our footprint, especially with regards to water. And then the DSAL plan, which has been proposed and still is being continued to desire by certain city staff. Why is the city operating a golf course? We're not Las Vegas, we're not Palm Springs. Why are we spending, how much money are we spending on this golf course? It doesn't make any sense to me, it's ridiculous, it's laughing stock. Why is the city doing this? Why can't the golf course be shut down, the city use it for something else or sell off the land to someone else and basically take care of that $3 million shortfall. All right, is there any other members of the community? Okay, seeing none, we'll go ahead and return back for council action deliberation. Vice Mayor Cummings. I'll just move to accept the staff recommendation. Okay. We have a motion by Vice Mayor Cummings, seconded by Councilor Matthews. Further discussion, Councilor Glemmer. Thanks, I will just make more of a statement. I just want to emphasize that as we go into the budget conversations and we're trying to replenish our $3.2 million budget as reported by the Parks and Rec director the other day at our budget hearing, the city is spending $750,000 a year on water for the golf course. So just with the cost of water for the golf course and the cost of this structural repair for the lodge, which is the golf course that does not produce revenue positively for this, it's not an enterprise fund. We spent a million dollars on subsidizing the golf course. And we're dealing with a fiscal emergency and lack of housing, people on the streets, cutting community programs, we're cutting community programs and we're spending a million dollars to subsidize a golf course. There is something just abhorrently wrong with that and while it boggles my mind and I think there's something that we really need to do to readjust the way that the city operates and prioritizes our funds. Okay, so we have a motion by Vice Mayor Cummings, seconded by Councilor Matthews. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Okay, the last item and our consent that was pulled is item number 18 and that counts in more clever. Thank you. So just to, yeah, so City Hall, Annex remodel, prevailing wages but not union labor. Correct. All right, since it's the same construction person. And did we, I was talking to Council Member Crone, was there the implementation or incorporation of air conditioning in that remodel, what were you saying? Council Member Crone. I just had a general question on what the policy is of the city and its incorporation of air conditioning into building that it does on its own. Because I've just seen, I was here in 982002 and there didn't seem like to be a lot of air conditioning and now there seems to be air conditioning and frequently people are freezing. Instead we just open windows. In this particular case, the existing HVAC system was replaced with a more energy efficient system and it was heating and air conditioning prior. As a general policy, we install air conditioning when it's requested by the people that occupy the building. Did people in City Hall ask for the air conditioning in the conference room and that whole part of the building? I believe so. It got to my office, so it must have been approved at a much higher level. Council Member Brown. We're asking questions here. I'm curious about timelines. The staff report seems to imply something about consolidating sections of planning and economic development departments. And I'm just wondering, is that in phase two that we're talking about there? And then if so, when will it happen? And kind of get a sense of that. Yeah, so the project is divided into two phases. The first phase, actually three phase 1A is the east side of the building, which is nearly complete. We're waiting for three windows to be developed or to be delivered and installed. The windows have arrived but the labor is not available to install them yet. And then we're also working on the west side of the building, adding some walls and sheet rock and then carpet goes in. And then once planning staff moves downstairs and everybody is on the first floor, then we'll start phase two, which is work on the upstairs. Work on the upstairs is much smaller scale project than the work downstairs. Thank you. All right, is there any member of the community who would like to address this on item number 18 on our consent agenda? Okay, seeing them, we'll go ahead and return back to the Council for Action and Deliberation, Councilor Matthews. Yes, I'd like to move this item and note, particularly in the staff report, what it delivers is a real operational improvement, better customer service and some really major ADA improvements throughout every aspect of the physical nature of that function, the planning function. So it's a real improvement in customer service and ADA accessibility. Okay, so we have a motion by Councilor Matthews, seconded by Councilor Glover. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously. So that concludes our consent agenda items and we'll go ahead and move on. Council Member, Vice Mayor Cummings. So I had a question about item number 13 with regards to- Forgive me, okay, sorry, I'm sorry, go ahead. With regards to item number 13, I was just curious about, notice that the rent for the threat lease agreement is tied to the consumer price index. And I was just curious if that's similar across most of the city rented properties. I'm not sure who can respond to that. Good afternoon, Mayor and members of the council. So typically we do tie certain increases to consumer price index as far as increases on leases. There are some exceptions on some of the very long term historic leases, for example, that we have on the wharf and those have pre-existing terms for increases. And some of those have, based on gross profit and different terms. But typically all of our new leases do have some tie to CPI. Okay, great, thank you. Thank you for that. I just like to see that the city is tying rental increases to consumer price index and- I was just going to make that comment. It's a nice practice for landlords within our community. Councilmember Myers, I just want to just recognize for the community the work of the public works department. And actually city managers department in getting the San Lorenzo River Lagoon Management Project funded. It's item number 19 on the consent agenda. And this will greatly increase our beach safety for the coming season as well as improve water quality on the beach, the main beach. And actually help folks who live down in lower ocean and beach flats areas with the flooding that they experience in their basements and their backyards. It's going to be the first of its kind of project in California and it's a really significant environmental achievement for the city. And so I just want to congratulate public works and city manager on that work. Okay, thank you. All right, so I think that then concludes, we have one more. Councilmember Matthews. And let's just add to that. That's a spectacular achievement involving the agreement of what four state agencies and a whole bunch of federal regulating. I mean, getting to that was stunning. And it's going to help the steelhead quite a lot. Win-win. Okay, so we'll go ahead and move on to our general business portion of the agenda. And first up is item number 21. And we have Lee Butler here. Is that correct to speak to this item? Good afternoon, Mayor and Councilmember, Councilmembers. We are recommending that this item along with item number 22 both be continued. The council requested month or so ago that we report back with some information about how to best promote the city's ability to control wireless facilities as much as possible and look at case studies. And our attorneys and our public works and planning staff have been looking at that. And we're recommending that this item be continued to allow for both that information to be fully researched as well as to get the public works ordinance to respond to that potential ability for council to maintain the utmost discretion. And then the item number 22 is connected with this. It actually refers to the changes, you'll recall. It refers to the changes that we're expecting with the public works ordinance. And so the timing of those should align. Okay, thank you. We're available for any questions. I have any questions, Councilmember Clever. Thank you, really appreciate it. And for continuing to do the due diligence and finding out what our different options are when it comes to small several technology, 5G and public health issues. We did want to just point your attention potentially to an article that came out of Syracuse four days ago, where their city council delayed a vote to approve 600 of the wireless towers in their city while they asked for more safety information. And then they also worked in a stipulation that said that the city was also negotiating the right to be able to test the equipment at any time. They would go out physically and then they would be able to test the equipment just to ensure that the numbers were matching up with Verizon. So just something to look into. Thank you. Okay, so the motion that's prevented or the recommendation presented before us is to continue this item. Is there any member of the community who would like to address this on continuing the item? Is that correct? You're not required to, it's up to the pleasure of the council, but you're not required to take public comment on merely continuing an item. The Brown Act requirement is that you allow members of the public to address the council on items before they are, before or during they are considered by the council. Okay. By continuing you're not really considering. Okay, thank you for the clarification. It appears that this wouldn't necessarily be applicable at this time, but you're welcome to come back when we do address this item. So we'll go ahead and ask council member to move the recommendation. Council member Matthews. I will move, actually item both 24 and 25 for continuation if that's appropriate in one motion. Item 21 and 22. Did I get the wrong ones? Item 21 and 2, please. Yes, I'm on the wrong page, sorry. Okay, so we have a motion by council member Matthews to continue both items number 21 and 22 and a second by Vice Mayor Cummings. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. So we'll address that at a future time. Okay. So we now have consent public hearing and now at this time that would only apply to items, item 23. Is there any council member who wishes to comment on item number 23? Is there any member of the community who would like to address this on item number 23? Okay. Seeing item 23, do you have up to two minutes? I don't know if this is totally applicable, but I've been informed by people who are in the cannabis industry that Santa Cruz is the, or staff planning or whatever is basically moving towards the commercialization of cannabis with what's called designer pot. That's genetically modified pot for pot cafes instead to basically get out of the coffee cafe business in the tea cafes and have these designer pot cafes that would cater to tourists and to gentrified peoples coming in from high tech industries coming here for tourism and to be employed. So that's a concern of mine because this genetically modified marijuana has been, as expressed to me and I'm going to be doing research on this with some forward request to the NIH, is that this genetically modified marijuana is extremely dangerous. Is there any other member of the community who would like to address this on this item? And this is item number 23, which is the second reading and final adoption of our ordinance for commercial medical and adult use cannabis regulations to adjust to our state regulations. Council Member Glover. Thank you. There were some community members that had asked me for clarification about what the difference is because they noticed that on the agenda, there is the consent public hearings and then there are the public hearings. So can we just clarify for them the difference between consent public hearing and public hearing? Mr. Kandani? Yes. This is a practice that the council recently instituted when there are more than one item on the agenda that is generally considered routine and is not anticipated to generate a lot of discussion. And so it's noticed as a public hearing, but the thinking was that because, for instance, at the second reading of an ordinance, there's generally not a whole lot of discussion about it. And so the other two examples from today are the continuance of an item that has been previously agendized. Those were noticed for public hearings, but we weren't expecting to have a substantive discussion on any of them per se. And so the consent public hearing gives the council the ability to move on all three of those items by one motion. Thank you. Council Member Cron. Just to follow up, are there any other cities that you ran across that also do consent public hearings? No, but there are some cities that I'm aware of that place those items on the consent calendar. So the public hearing concept really relates more to the notice that's provided than it does to the format of the hearing itself. Thank you. So if we'll go ahead and look for a motion from a council member, Vice Mayor Cummings? I'll move to take the staff recommendations on item number 23. So we have a motion by Vice Mayor Cummings seconded by Council Member Myers. All those in favour, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Okay. So next on our agenda is item number 24. And let's see, we'll have a staff presentation and we'll go ahead and see if any council members have questions at that time. We'll then open it up to the community for public comment and return for council deliberation and action. And we have our planning department here to kick us off. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. It's lost the presentation. This is an item that came out of the last council regularly scheduled council meeting where we discussed the item that was just got its approval of its second reading. And at that time, we had asked direction from the council on a couple of issues, one of which was dealing with the definition of proprietor. The council at that time gave us direction to go ahead and change that definition to basically align with the state definition. And that is what we have done here. So what we did was we added a definition of a cannabis retail business. And we revised our ordinance, basically took out the old definition and added a definition that it's not word for word, the state definition, because we thought we had better words than the state. But it's almost word for word and the intent is totally identical. So this, because this definition aligns with the state definition, any business owner within the city would have to meet that definition anyway, so should make everybody happy. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Any questions from the council? Any member of the community who would like to address us on this item? This is item number 24 in our agenda. Please come forward and you'll have up to two minutes. Good afternoon, mayor and council. Sorry, I just ran in here. I'll have it out of breath. Thank you, staff. I appreciate you guys taking the time and I know you guys have been going through an amazing amount of work. So just thank you in general for everything, okay? Because you guys don't get that enough. And this is a small thing in comparison, I understand that. I think at the step in the right direction, we've accomplished slowly, but surely, putting together an ordinance back in 2017 and then slowly peeling back those layers of the onion. As the state has come forward and put their own regulations in place. So the more we can align ourselves with the state, that is certainly appreciated. And that's something that we want to advocate for. Additional layers at the local level do make it difficult for our industry to just survive and stay compliant. I think that we are headed in a good direction too. It sounds like staff's going to come back in September and revisit this issue with respect to how ownership changes could actually take place. So I just want to demystify a little bit what's happening today. Where the ordinance that goes in place will essentially attach the definition of ownership for prior ownership and the ability to change ownership together. So that 20% threshold is the same thing. At the state level, that's not the case. At the state level, there's a definition of ownership, which is 20%, which again, I'm happy that we're aligned with today. But they have a different approach to how ownership changes can actually take place. And they do have a process for that. Just from a personal perspective, I plan to run and operate kind peoples for as long as I possibly can. But we are operating in a really difficult environment right now. And I would really appreciate the ability to discuss with each of you individually why I feel like we're disadvantaged and having a difficult time competing with not only the illicit market, but also large companies that we can no longer prevent from delivering in Santa Cruz. So thank you. All right, next speaker. Yes, this amendment in this ordinance have been, I haven't heard any public discussion of this and this is really, really important. The city could be opening themselves up to liability by litigation because I believe that it may violate the civil rights of medical marijuana users. I've heard reports from many marijuana users that after marijuana was legalized in the state of California and the city and the county started managing it and commercializing it that the cost of their medical marijuana has skyrocketed. That these, the only people being given permits or who might be considered a proprietor to sell marijuana has basically priced them out of the market. They can't grow it anymore. They're not allowed to grow their own marijuana. So they're pushing the situation where they have to get it from a commercial provider who has jacked up the prices. And so it defeats the whole purpose of medical marijuana because it was supposed to be an inexpensive medicine for people who didn't have access to other kinds of medical care or it worked better for them with less side effects than other medicines. Okay, vice-mayor, can you? I'd just like to move to accept the staff recommendation. Okay, I'll go ahead and. I have an additional recommendation on here though that I would also, I noticed in the staff report that there are additional items coming back to council in September of 2019. And so I just wanted to add to that that staff bring back for consideration retail ordinance licensing and or permitting regulations as they relate to on-site consumption for cannabis retail businesses along with these other items in September of 2019. And just to provide some background on that, we're continuing to see the cannabis industry increase. We're seeing more businesses open. And I think that it's important that we focus on people understanding what they're consuming when they go into these businesses. There are a variety of different types of cannabis products. There's waxes, there's dabs, there's flour, there's CBD, there's THC. There's different ratios of these cannabis products. And many people don't really know what they're consuming and don't understand the effects. And I think that by allowing for safe on-site consumption, people can be in the presence of a professional who's working in this field, who understands the effects and can allow for safe consumption of these products on-site so that people are in the presence of a professional when they're trying something that they're not very aware of, how they might react to it. Okay, so we have a motion by Vice Mayor Cummings. Do you want to go ahead and repeat the language for the additional recommendation? That staff bring for consideration retail ordinance, licensing, and or permitting regulations as they relate to on-site consumption for cannabis retail businesses in September of 2019 with the other related cannabis regulations. Second. So we have a motion by Vice Mayor Cummings, the second by Council Member Glover. Yeah, through the mayor, if I may. I think that given, I love this idea. I think it's great. I appreciate the intent to move forward. I am a little concerned about the timing given some of the other things that we have on our plate, on Catherine's plate. So what I think we might be a little more able to do is come back. So we have not done any analysis of this previously. The previous council wasn't necessarily in support of this. And so we have not done any preliminary analysis related to this to this point. So I think what we would like to do is take that time in September, have gone back, do some due diligence, do some research on the types of things, the best practices out there. Potentially bring that information back to council, and then get direction from council on how you'd like us to move forward. And then do some community outreach as a part of that if that's comfortable. I think that's fine. Great, thank you. So modified sort of language to reflect the staff recommendation as it relates to the timing and the content and process in regards to the intention, I'd say, behind Vice Mayor Cummings' proposal. Does our city clerk have that? Okay, so if I could, I interpreted the difference being as opposed to having really tangible policy coming back to us in September. What most likely will transpire between now and then is a preliminary research sort of overview exploration that will then come up to us in September to kind of accommodate existing workload. Does that reflect your? Absolutely, and then that gives us an opportunity to really dive a little more deeply into it and give the council some good content and some good things to weigh and then give us direction on what you'd actually like us to craft out of that. Absolutely. So that is the modified motion. Is that still accurate? Okay, so Vice Mayor Cummings accepts that as modified language to his motion in addition to moving the recommendation forward for us, does seconded. Accepted. Okay, so any further discussion? Yeah. Vice, Councilor McLever. Thank you. Just out of curiosity, could you let us know what is being done to ensure that medical marijuana is readily accessible and low cost for people in the community as well as for the distributors? Private individuals have the right to grow up to six plants, whether it's medical or not, there's no limitation on that. And I'm not an expert on all the individual regulations because they don't have to do with us, they're at the state level. But my understanding is that there can be designated, I think they use the term caregivers, who can have individual patients registered with them that they can grow the plants for. And so there is a process that medical patients can go through. I do believe it changed with Prop 20 and then Prop 64. And in 2017, there was a new language that was added to the whole marijuana regulation that sort of melded the previous medical marijuana regulations with the new commercial. And it's now called, I don't remember what the acronym stands for, but it's Mercursa. And so the medical regulations did change. But patients still do have the right to grow their own or to have a designated person grow for them. Okay, thank you, because I just want to ensure I share the community member's concern that they brought up about the potential of distributors and or people that are in need of medical marijuana not having access because of the businessification, essentially, of the process. But thank you. So clearly this is an iterative topic as it unfolds in our state and our community. So we'll go ahead and see if we're ready to go ahead and take the vote. So motion by Vice Mayor Cummings, seconded, Council Member Glover, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Thank you. And maybe we'll take just a short, maybe two, three minute break as we transition to item number 25, which is marked at all, I believe, coming forward. Transportation and Public Works Commission bylaws. And we'll go ahead and have public works come forward and. Good afternoon, Mayor Watkins, Council Member Scott Rubble, Principal Management Analyst, Public Works. I believe Mark Dettles and negotiations right now, so I'm happy to cover this item. I also staffed the Transportation and Public Works Commission. So happy to bring to your body these recommendations for changes to the bylaws for the Transportation and Public Works Commission. The bylaws are essentially three main points. They wanted, what they wanted to do to codify in their bylaws one open house per year. So essentially it would be rather than the typical meeting which we have here. And it's very much like the format of your meeting. It'd be more of an open house where staff has tables and projects. And we open up the ATP and talk about what people's priorities. And that's a prospect which we certainly welcome and have done many of those times, there are many of those types of open houses in the past as we're working on various projects as something that we do very well. The board wanted to create an annual work plan, which is actually in the bylaws for some other commissions. And we also supported that. And in fact, on the 20th of this month at the Transportation and Public Works Commission meeting, they'll be hearing and presumably adopting their first annual work plan. So that's also great. And lastly, they recommended increasing the number of meetings from six to ten per year. So we support these recommendations. The bylaws are very similar to your bylaws are kind of the guiding document for that body and for all advisory bodies that are advisory to council. They're not changed very often. The last time this commission had changes to its bylaws was 2010. We have a great transportation and public works commission right now. They're very engaged and very active and very interested. So we're really lucky to have such quality folks on our commission right now. The only exception that we made in our report was our recommendation differed slightly from what the commission had requested in terms of the number of meetings per year of six to ten. And the reason that we would ask you to consider keeping it at six at this time is a number of reasons really. Typically, so I've been the staff member to this body for four years. And the six meetings have typically been enough to handle the business that the commission has before it. I think in three of the last four years, we've actually had to cancel one meeting due to a lack of items. At the end of each agenda is an item called items for future agendas. Typically that's blank so there's not a lot of, it's not like there's a lot of work typically stacked up that the commission wants to see in coming to them in the future. Our meetings started at seven and usually we do a pretty good job of getting out by 10 so again just based on past performance. It hasn't been a problem handling the workload that the commission handles with those six meetings per year. That said, what's the problem? Why not just put 10 on the calendar and cancel them if need be? Well, each commission meeting and I think probably all other departments would say the same about their advisory body. Commission meetings are a lot of work, particularly for staff when they're preparing items and doing research for the members of the advisory board. And the impact that this body has really falls pretty heavily on the Transportation Engineering Division. Even though it's the Public Works and Transportation Commission, generally probably at least three quarters of the focus of what that body deals with usually is transportation related. It's really what most people are interested in, most people are interested in the wastewater treatment system or the refuse collection system. But everybody just want to talk about protected bike lanes and safe routes to schools and those sorts of things and that's absolutely understood. That said, transportation engineering is a staff of five and half people over the last couple of years. There's been at least one vacancy, sometimes two. And the amount of work that this group is trying to get done is just, it's kind of mind boggling. Right now I think we have about $120 million in grants sitting on our table to fund active transportation projects, but we don't have enough staff to get them done. So we try to prioritize them based on what the public need is, what the council priorities are and what the advisory body priorities are. But the amount of work that needs to get done, the staff's just not there to do it. And I think the advisory body agrees with that and feels that. And in fact to that end, the Transportation and Public Works Commission Chair sent your body a letter I think maybe two months ago or a month ago recommending an additional senior civil engineer for the traffic division because they've got so many projects, so many great projects they want to see get done. Unfortunately, the reality of that is that's not, can't happen right now. The general fund can't support it. And the majority of what traffic engineering does is a general fund cost. Sure, some staff time is reimbursable through grants, but by and large, it's a general fund expense. So to make that unit any bigger to handle the workload that we all want to see get done is just not a feasibility right now. So to prepare more for meetings and to create more reports and do more research for this advisory body is something we'd love to do. But it really will come at an expense of project time working on grants, on projects and all the complications that go with them. We're constantly applying for grants, we're constantly working on design for projects, we're constantly bidding projects, we're constantly finishing projects. Doing even after projects are finished, the amount of reporting that's required by grants just goes on and on. That on top of all the public outreach that the division does, reporting, etc. And so that's why we recommend keeping the number of meetings at six at this time. Doing the open houses, certainly, that's not a problem, we can do that. And then again, the annual work plan was also something that we supported and that they're bringing forward at the end of this month. So those are the only perspectives I wanted to share from the staff perspective on bringing this report forward and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you very much. And just for clarity, what I'm understanding is that you support two out of the three recommendations, it's just the additional meetings that you are feeling you wouldn't be able to accommodate at this time, correct? That's what we're asking for your consideration on exactly. Okay, any questions from our council or we'll go ahead and open it up to public comment? Council Member Cron and then Matthews and then Myers. Thank you. What was the vote on the commission? Did everyone want to have more meetings? Yep, it was unanimous support for these changes to the bylaws. I mean, find it interesting that the whole group wanted to have more meetings but we can't seem to accommodate them. I mean, as you mentioned, there's some really great expertise on that commission. So wow, I would really, is there any way we could, can we revisit the adding a senior engineer? Wouldn't the grants help pay for that position? So it wouldn't all be coming out of the general fund? Yes, when the advisory body first asked about what kind of help do you need? We want to provide more help. We want to be able to help see you get the work done that we want as the advisory body. We looked at what a position like that would look like and how it might be funded as a senior civil transportation engineer. And certainly some of it would be grant-fundable in terms of reimbursement. But I think the majority that would still be have been at a general fund expense. And so that's why when I kind of hit the floor here at budget time, we realized that that was kind of a reality. Of course, you make the decisions on where the general fund money's are spent. But that was the kind of situation on that. Also, staff is always available for advisory body members outside of meetings. So I correspond with the chair quite a bit. He frequently will email me questions as he's thinking about things that he wants to do or thinking about his work plan. And I work outside of the scope of a meeting to get that information form and provide the information that he or any of their ad hoc subcommittees might need. And can work with them outside of the formal meeting framework. And I'm happy to do that. So I just want to make sure that that's clear too. And that's frequently common between staff and advisory body relationship. Councilor Matthews, Meyers and then Vice Mayor Cummings. My understanding from speaking with staff was the idea of holding an open house could be accommodated within the existing meeting schedule because the bylaws do provide for other special events as appropriate. So that wouldn't necessarily require bylaws change. Is that correct? Correct. Although I think that the chair wanted to see an open house called out in the bylaws. And I think that from our perspective is also fine. But it does not need to be there. You're correct. The commissions could say, hey, this is what we want to do in open house. And I can't ever see that ever being a problem from a staff perspective. Right. I guess I'm reflecting on our, I noticed that the commission took action on this December 10th, 2018. So quite a while ago. And I am reflecting on sort of our current budget constraints as we move forward. And serving on a commission for many years that was met every other month. That was the parks commission. I did feel like we did have adequate time. And my experience with operating on a commission that was on that schedule was, I felt quite appropriate. So I'm supportive of really evaluating whether or not we should go to 10 meetings. Primarily because of the budget issue and the likelihood that those costs could add up. And at this point, it doesn't look like we'll be able to add any staffing that could offset that. So I like the idea, certainly have a work plan, and I like the idea of an open house as actually a separate meeting from the commission. Vice Mayor, can I? Just a general question about how these special meetings are scheduled for the planning work commission. Sure, special meetings happen as needed for the transportation and public work commission. There's been one to two a year for the last four years. Generally they're related to an appeal. For example, some of the bike share locations were appealed. And so those had to come to the body and there was a little bit of a time sensitivity to it. So those weren't able to wait till the next commission meeting. So we did a special meeting for an appeal hearing. But other special meetings can be called as needed. I'll just, I have a quick question and I guess comment as well. Having served on a commission before, I've also experienced when meetings kind of fluctuate. And I think it's really wonderful that our commission wants to meet more and do more work. I just really want to applaud that and also recognize our constraints. But one of the things that when we sort of shrunk our meeting calendar was we had the opportunity for ad hoc work. So commission members at that time could form an ad hoc to get to some of the issues they wanted to address. Sometimes that was not staffed, but allowed for the process to kind of take place in that way. Has that been discussed or considered as an option? Yes, and thank you for bringing up Mayor Watson, that's a good point. This current advisory body membership, which as they currently are formulated, I think is just beginning their second year. I think they're about two months into their second year has done, I think, four ad hoc subcommittees. One to work on their work plan that they're bringing forward. I think they did one for protected bike lanes or other kind of hardened bicycle protection. And two more on something that is eluding me right now. And that is a great tool for sure for the commission and for all the advisory bodies, quite frankly. And they have done a great job of utilizing that and we're available to meet with them on those. They aren't staffed, you're right, but there's been a couple occasions where we've met with them. They've said, okay, here's what we've got so far, here's the questions we want answered as an example. We will go ahead, Council Member Brown, you haven't had a chance yet, and then back to Council Member Krohn, Glover, and then Myers. Yeah, I guess since we're making comments here, I just want to comment. I appreciate the presentation, I appreciate the expression of concern about staff workload. But I also want to acknowledge that this is an active and engaged commission in a community that is very active and engaged. And my understanding is that the commission itself established one of those ad-hoc committees to develop this, the work plan, and to look at by-laws changes. And to request this increase in meeting schedule, given that the amount of time that commissioners have had to officially work and because of the Brown Act are required to work together in a public setting. Over the years has been diminished with the merger of transportation and public works. I just find that I want to acknowledge their interest in advising us and doing the work that they've volunteered, signed on to do. We have major projects coming before us that are relevant to this commission. And so I would support finding a way to support their recommendation to increase to six to ten meetings per year. If we say six to ten, then they don't have to be canceled, my understanding of the schedule. But it allows for that to happen and if the commissioners think it's necessary, I tend to- Council Member Crone, Clever and then- And if I could maybe just, if we could keep it to, we went to comments, we kind of bled into the comments, I apologize for that. We'll go ahead and if we can't keep it to questions. Transportation and public works commission, they used to be two separate commissions, right? Correct. And how many meetings did each one of those have a year? You know, that happened in 2009 or 2010, I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that question. Yeah, one of the commissioners told me there used to be 12 meetings for the Transportation Commission when it was a separate commission. So even though there was only ten, there was 20, and now we have six. So I think if we went to ten, I don't know. Okay, Council Member Clever, do you have a question? That's a comment, I'll wait till then. Okay, so at this time then we'll go ahead and see if there's any member of the community who would like to address us on this item. And we have a request for additional time that's been granted on behalf of the campaign for sustainable transportation and we'll go ahead and start there. Yeah, thank you, Mayor and Council Members, good afternoon. So this is kind of a small decision, six meetings or ten meetings, but it's in a bigger context and makes it important. The bigger context is that there's really a revolution in design of streets coming out of Europe, but being really embraced in this country. There's Vision Zero coming out of Sweden through the movement to reduce to zero the number of serious injuries due to traffic. That commission also in December, the Transportation Public Works, adopted Vision Zero. So I expect that you'll get a recommendation to adopt Vision Zero as a city. What this means is all of us need to change. It's not just our public works engineers that need to change, it's all of us. It's me, I've been riding my bike forever and I need to remind myself how dangerous certain intersections are for an 11 year old kid. Someday it'll be considered barbaric that we put bike lanes so that kids are in the door zone of parked cars. So that when a car door opens, somebody not only hits the car door but might spill into the lane of traffic, those are really serious injuries when they happen. So with the idea that I've got to change and inviting you all to change in terms of our perspective about what we tolerate in terms of bicycle and pedestrian safety, we need to enlist everybody. And we've got, what is it, seven members of this Transportation and Public Works Commission that want to work harder on behalf of all of us. This is the catalyst that we need to move forward together, better together as my slogan. It's when city staff and elected and their commissioners and the public work together to design a safer street environment. I wish that somebody would have written up in the Harvard Kennedy School of Government journals about our city because we had a bicycle and pedestrian committee that was a model. We had a citizen by the name of Rick Hyman who basically wrote the active transportation plan for the city and the bicycle plan before that. If you've got seven members of a commission wanting to work harder and you say no to that, then what message does that send to them? And what message does it send to the citizens like me who want to participate as well? This community had to take a risk when we put bike lanes on Soquel Avenue because there was a loss of parking. Who was it that went out and did the door to door work to talk to merchants about the loss of parking, you know, with citizens? Staff can't do everything. So let's not be, what is the expression, penny wise and pound foolish? Let's, you know, use the staff time to catalyze this wider movement of liberating citizen energy and let's make our streets safe. Thank you. All right, next speaker. Hi again. I'm also advocating for the 10 meetings of the two groups that have now merged transportation and public works. Rick Longinati is one of my most, I admire him amongst all of the activists that I know about in the campaign for sensible transportation because he really is very mildly spoken. He speaks in a way that's moderate and peaceful and I don't and the way I speak has cost and it costs me a lot. But I think that we're in a time when we need to fight for our future and our right to survive. I think that the, some of the old guard as I call it in the Santa Cruz city government is extremely unwilling to really move into the future. I'm not going to name names here because to be honest, I still don't feel I know enough about it. But I have seen transportation speakers come in who are just some of the most excellent analysts in the world speak to this council about parking. And their recommendations are very politically completely shot down in the most smug way. So I just want to say, I almost got killed the other night at the intersection near where I live at Pacific and Laurel. It's very unsafe. I really did almost get killed. I missed death by about a foot, that person just didn't stop at the red light. But what I really think what I'm trying to talk about is not just personal safety. I'm talking about the safety of our democracy here in Santa Cruz. It's deplorable and certain people should no longer be on certain commissions. This is a political move. Let's keep more democracy happening and let the 10 meetings happen so that we can really look into these issues. Thank you very much. Okay, did you have a question? Thank you, Mayor Wilkins. I just wanted to address a couple of points. Parking in the downtown, the parking, downtown parking district, parking garage is transportation demand. Those are all under the purview of the downtown commission and not the public works and transportation commission. It's an entirely different subset of work. It's a massive subset of work. And that also is work that falls onto the five and a half staff at Transportation Engineering. I'm not sure if there's been an instance where in governance, the answer was more meetings. And has been shown to be more meetings. And lastly, again, there's nothing to prevent the commission from having as many ad hoc committees as they like. And they have shown that they are willing to do that and know how to use that tool. And in some of their previous ad hoc committees that they've had thus far, they've done that. They've gone out and talked to stakeholders and had their own meetings with all host of groups, from organized groups, to individuals, to neighborhoods, to going and talking to individuals, in neighborhoods where there was an item before them that impacted them. So if they want to work hard and bring forward lots of initiatives, that's fantastic. That's exactly what we want to see that advisory body. They don't need more means to do that. They can utilize the ad hoc committee tool to do that and work as hard as they want. Just have one clarifying question, then Council Member Myers and Glover. Did you, if I heard you correctly state that there were times this past year that you actually canceled meetings because of the lack of content, is that correct? In three of the last four years. In three of the last four years, you've had several meetings that you've had to cancel on that record. Okay, okay, Council Member Myers. And I just want to understand the call for a special meeting based on your agendas. It looks like during conversation at any of the given six meetings, there could be a decision made by the commission if needed to call a special meeting. Would that be accurate to? So for example, if you're working on a project that has a timeline that needs to get back to the council, for example. Would the commission be able to notify you, the chair, for the need of a first special meeting to accomplish something like that? Yeah, sure, perhaps the best way to answer that would just be to redo the section on special meetings in only a couple sentences. And this does not change in the bylaws. Special meetings, the chair or the advisory body staff or a majority of the membership of the advisory body may call for a special meeting. Notice of such meeting shall state the purpose or the business to be transacted at such special meeting. Other business may be transacted at such special meeting, other than stated in the notice, and then something that's, you know, just product stuff. So essentially the commission or staff can create special meetings as needed. So for example, when we did the hearings, it was us that said, hey, chair, we need to do a hearing on an appeal at bike share, for example. But they can also do the same. But those special meetings wouldn't necessarily need to be based on an appeal. Could be continuation of some type of public process or discussion about planning process, et cetera. Is that correct? True, Council Member Myers, and if I may, one suggestion that I might have for your consideration could be to have that open house be a special meetings so that you still get your regular six standing meetings and we can schedule an open house outside of that evening format. Because that might work better in some other different format. Certainly not here, it'd probably be somewhere like a Loudoun Nelson where we can really spread out. Thank you. Council Member Glover and then Vice Mayor Cummings. Thank you. So question regarding, people said the number six to ten a bunch of times. And I'm curious, in here in the agenda report, it says changing it from six to ten meetings. But is it possible just to change the bylaws that there will be six to ten meetings? So that provides that extra cushion, it wouldn't have to be a special meeting go through all of that rigmarole to set that up. But then if the commission does feel like they need to do one the following month, they could just at the end of that meeting say, hey, let's schedule one for next month. Wouldn't be a problem, wouldn't hurt the other six that they've already had traditionally. And open up the possibility for those additional ten for four. Feel free to hop in here, Tony, but I think that perhaps the specificity in the bylaws is important to say the meeting is every other month on the third Wednesday. For example, rather than having any ambiguity, I'm not sure that. Do you have any? I guess my only concern about that, I mean, the bylaws could be changed to reflect that. My only concern about that is it sort of leaves open the question as to whether or not there will be a meeting on a given day. So I think it would be up to the chair in consultation with the staff to make that determination on an ongoing basis. Or another option would be for the commission when it meets to make a decision about whether or not to go forward with a meeting at the next potential meeting date. So I just think there's a little bit of uncertainty. But what's got described as the procedure for scheduling special meetings of the commission is generally modeled after the council's policy on that as well. So special meetings could be called as needed by the chair or by a quorum of commissioners. Okay, great. Thank you for that. The reason I ask that is because I just want to remind my colleagues as we talk and discuss this as well as the people in the community that I agree with Mr. Longinati's statement, specifically around the idea that we're in the middle of a revolution. Both of lifestyle and values where we're looking at ways that we're going to be doing things. And as a city, how we're going to be spending money. So I personally feel that we need to embrace change and just with regards to ad hoc committees, I used to be on a commission as well. And while ad hoc committees are great because it allows three of the commissioners to work together, it limits their ability to engage and communicate and plan and do all this other kind of stuff with the other people. Plus all their work is out of the public eye. So it's great that they're doing the work, but when it comes time to report it, if they don't have enough meetings, X, Y, and Z, so there's a lot of stuff. Plus I do want to just say with regards to funding, if we were to cut the water that we use on the golf course in half, we could apply $375,000 to anything that we want in the city. So when the argument comes around, well, we can't increase the amount of meetings because of cost and the budget and not working. I've said it since I was on the campaign trail, we have the money to be able to do it. It's just a matter of how we choose to spend the money to maximize our effectiveness in the city. So I'll be supporting a 10 meeting recommendation. Okay, before we move on, I'll just briefly sort of state. I can't make a motion, but I appreciate both perspectives and really trying to understand the balance of real life constraints and workload and at what cost. Or whether it be you don't give up your workload, but you have an additional workload on top with the aspirations of our community wanting to really move forward with this. So I recognize the real life constraints and how to balance that with our aspirations. I appreciate your recommendation to propose adding the open house as an addition to the six, so sort of elevating that to the seven. But also recognizing that the option of a special meeting could allow for some discretion if there is business that needs to be taken care of. So there is a tool that currently exists that could allow that commission to meet if needed. So that would be my just general perspective. Vice Mayor Cummings, Council Member Cron, Matthews and then Brown. I just want to provide my perspective on this and understand that I know that increasing the meetings can take up a lot of time. But additionally, I do understand that some commissions do want to do more work and that members of the public do want to be more engaged. I think that given the fact that there have been some meetings that have been canceled in the past, but that there's a desire for there to be more meetings that build, if we're able to build in flexibility around the number of meetings that can be no less than six or not exceed ten. And then that can be scheduled by the chair and consultation with staff. I feel like building in flexibility around how many projects are coming can really be useful for the public and the staff to kind of come to an agreement and work together to see how many meetings are appropriate. So I just wanted to say that because I think that including flexibility so that more if the commission feels like it's necessary to have more meetings that they're able to and if they don't, then they can reduce them. Councilor McCormick. Thank you, and I appreciate the information you're providing here. Also, I go back to what Council Member Brown said about this commission is active and engaged and we have an active and engaged community. And it's like we're unleashing our energy. It seems to me that it's up to the council to find you some help. It's up to the council to channel this energy of these seven folks who said they want to do more in the area of transportation and public works in this community. So I'm blown away when I hear that, but it's like they're coming to us saying because what you said about meetings, a lot of people have so many meetings, but obviously meetings are important because you have to talk to other people and plan. And as I understand too, some of those meetings were canceled and some of the commissioners were not clear why they were canceled because there was issues that they wanted to talk about, but they didn't have the ability to cancel the meeting, the staff canceled the meeting. So I'm not beg to disagree, but I've heard from a couple commissioners that I would move this item in its entirety, including the ten meetings. But if we can build in some sort of flexibility, I would go along with that as well. But I really think that we should go with what our commissioners are asking from us. So it's a motion to approve the amended bylaws of the Transportation and Public Works Commission and provide direction on the bylaws article eight meetings regarding the number of commission meetings to be held each year and to increase the ten meetings from the six that they now have. And also the two things below, excuse me, number two and number three include the bylaw changes and include bylaw change responsibility of chair to create annual work plan for the fiscal year. Second. We have a motion by Council Member Crohn, seconded by Council Member Brown, Council Member Matthews. Yes, I want to make a few comments. I also appreciate the commission's interest in this, their desire to both add more staff and meet more frequently. I support the idea of retaining an open house and developing a work plan. I don't support setting the meetings at ten per year, since the bylaws already allow for the possibility of an open house and special meetings. I think it's really important that we respect what we hear over and over and over again. The workload, particularly on the technical staff in public works, we have grants, we have desires, we have projects queued up, and this is the staff that gets it done. And I think if we want to see those projects delivered, we have to listen to the workload that they're trying to deal with, particularly since they're almost inevitably at any given time, short staffed. And these are not easy positions to fill. It does take work to hold regularly scheduled meetings, both in preparation and follow up. I will support the two elements. I have a couple of minor changes I'd like to suggest. I think when you go to page nine, it says, if desired by majority of the commission, one of the ten annual meetings may be a project open house. It sounds like the bulk of the council prefers that we simply state one of the ten annual meetings will be an open house. So, if you would incorporate that. So if I could, we have a motion by Council Member Crohn, seconded by Council Member Brown. The motion was to move the recommendations with a window of six to ten meetings. And the request from Council Member Matthews is to have a modification in the bylaws to reflect that one of those meetings, a regular meeting could be a special meeting. Is that correct? Is that accepted by the maker of the meeting? One of those out of nine? One out of any. One out of ten rather? Six, one out of ten, whatever, one out of- I would accept if it's one out of ten, but not one out of nine, I mean out of six. Because the commissioners actually want that meeting, a special meeting as well as the ten meetings. So I mean, but I'm willing to compromise if you're- But I think one out of ten, just say one of the meetings, one of the meetings. However many meetings they decide to hold, one of those meetings will be the open house. Okay, so that was accepted by Council Member Crohn and- And then I had another suggestion. I think on page eight, the whole section about the annual work plan is probably longer than it needs to be. I would like the language to be inserted there. The chair in consultation with staff shall create an annual work plan for the following fiscal year. And I think then you can just jump to say, and the work plan will be adopted by the full commission. It's got more words. Yes? Okay. Thank you, Council Member. Just to be clear, that is the commission's own work plan. It's what they want to work on, and it's not reflective of what staff does as the commission does not drug staff. So if I'm understanding you, then you're feeling comfortable with the way the language is currently written? Is that correct, or? I just wanted to make sure that's clarified. Okay, okay. You know, honestly, I wouldn't say veto power, but I think it's a courtesy of the commission to work with the staff and say, what's coming down the pipe for the coming year? So is that an additional request for the amendment? It's a request, just in consultation with. Is that accepted from the maker of the motion to make that change? The commission work in consultation with the staff on their work plan. The chair in consultation with staff shall create an annual work plan. And which shall be it. But don't we want the commissioners to create that work plan, too? Well, what it says right now is practically that, just with more words. But it says now is the chair shall create an annual work plan for the following fiscal year. I'm just suggesting it would make sense to say the chair in consultation. No, in total sense. Okay, so that's accepted by Council Member Crown and is accepted by Council Member Brown. And I think those were the only two kind of, they're almost housekeeping. Yeah, and I would ask that we vote on the divide the components, because I don't favor the adding of additional. Okay, so we can go ahead and divide the motion to separate the addition of the meetings, if that is amenable to our council. Okay? Yeah, I appreciate that, when all of you do that, if I don't want to vote on something. Okay, we'll go ahead and do that then. Okay, Council Member Glover. Thanks, just a friendly amendment to add to the motion, which includes asking the Transportation and Public Works Commission to discuss the reforming of the Bicycle Subcommittee. And return back to council. Yeah, I accept that. Okay, so we had a friendly amendment made by Council Member Glover that was accepted by Council Member Crown and Council Member Brown. Okay, so at this time we'll go ahead and take a vote on the recommendation. We'll go ahead and take the three elements, and we'll vote on the two and three in terms of the open house support, as well as the by-laws changes, and then return back to the actual meeting amount. Does that feel appropriate? Okay, so all those in favor of the recommendation items two and three with the modifications, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously. So then we'll go ahead and return to the proposal to increase the meetings from six, a window if I'm understanding correctly where we are, a window of six to ten per year, or was it a solid ten? Well, I would like to go to ten and then one of those meetings be the open house. Okay, so it's just for clarification. Okay, so the motion is to have ten meetings per year with one of those meetings being the open house. Correct. Okay, and is that what your understanding is as the seconder? Okay, we'll go ahead and see if there's any additional comments. I'll just say, I think I 100% agree, as I said earlier, in terms of just the balance and then also the constraints. And I fear that's going to add a lot more workload to our staff, but I also feel that with the option of special meetings, we could meet that window if needed of the six to ten amount, the additional four. So I won't be supporting it for that reason, but understand both sides of the story here on this one. So unless there's any further comments, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Okay, so that passes with Council Member Brown, Vice Mayor Cummings, Crone and Glover in support. Council Member Matthews, Myers and myself, not in support. Okay, so that moves us along now to item number 26, which is the resolution of support and funding allocation for our 2020 United States Census. We have our planning department here to help us understand what this allocation can go towards, but also help our community understand the real importance of the census process. So educational in addition to a policy recommendation. Well, good afternoon, Mayor and Council Members. Thank you so much for having me here today. My name is Sarah Fleming and I'm the principal planner overseeing our long range in planning team here with the city. And I'm here to talk to you about Census 2020. So as most people know, the census is undertaken every 10 years. Many people, I think, look at the census just as a way to count our population, but there's so much more that the census determines for us. One example is that it determines the state representation in our US House of Representatives and our Electoral College numbers, which is critical. And it also determines the amount of federal funding that is sent annually to states for the 10 years after the census. We have a pretty significant risk of undercount here in the county. Hard to reach populations include children, seniors, students, people experiencing homelessness, renters, immigrants, and so there's broad swaths that are a population that could potentially be impacted by an undercount. Statewide, 1.6 million are at a risk of undercount, and then 20,000 of that is here in Santa Cruz County. The estimates for this particular census are anywhere between $2,000 and $3,000 per person, per year that we would lose per an undercount, so it's quite significant. So there's some additional challenges. I'm sure everyone's aware of the citizenship question that is before the Supreme Court right now. They are anticipated to make a determination on that, I believe, in July. So those arguments have happened. Additionally, this is the first time in census history that the vast preponderance of the surveys are going to be done electronically. So for people who either do not have electronic resources or are not comfortable with them or are not familiar with them, it really presents some challenges. So the State Complete Count Committee, this time last year Governor Brown formed a state CCC and spent $90 million in funds for outreach efforts out for various uses in the state. 27 million of that is being dispersed to counties, and in January Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors accepted approximately $111,000 from the state. That's all we're getting from the state, so that's something to be mindful of. And late last year, some representatives from our Santa Cruz County jurisdictions began to meet. Myself, representatives from Watsonville, Scotts Valley, and Capitola to start to strategize how we wanted to move forward with the, and our city manager, Martine Bernard was there as well, how we want to start moving forward in terms of the census. Because there is a lot of planning, even though the census day next year is April 1st. There's a lot of planning and outreach that needs to go into it, really starting from the beginning of this year. So in March 2019, a countywide Complete Count Committee was established. And that includes elected officials from the various jurisdictions, including Mayor Watkins on the CCC, nonprofits, business and labor groups, and others. It's a very large group to really work together to strategize how we want to, as a county, make sure that we are getting the most complete count possible. So that we're able to have fair representation, have all the funding that we need for various services that comes from the feds through the state, and things of that nature. So the outreach efforts based on previous outreach that has happened in previous decades and cost of things nowadays, it's estimated to be somewhere in the range of $250,000 to $300,000. And so each jurisdiction is contributing funds based on our population and the estimated hard to count population that we have within that population. So I put together a table here to kind of show you what other jurisdictions are putting in. So you'll see the state of California put in just over $111,000. The unincorporated county is putting in another $100,000. And if that breaks out, their estimated population right now is about 135,000 people. So that's about 74 cents a person that's going into this outreach pot. We're there in the Yellow City of Santa Cruz. Right now we're estimated to have approximately 65,000 persons population. I'm suggesting that we would put in $40,000 from the advanced planning existing budgeted funds from this current fiscal year. We do have the funds available to do that. Put that forward into this pot, and that would put us at about 62 cents a person. In Scotts Valley and Capitola, both would be putting in about 5,000. All of these other jurisdictions have gone ahead and their councils or boards have authorized this funding, and so we're the one that is next in line. And so again, that would put us at about $256,000 or an average of 57 cents per person being spent on outreach if you're looking at it holistically county-wide. So staff's recommendation is that you make a motion adopting a resolution of support for the 2020 US Census that was in your packet. I believe as attachment two, might have been one, I don't remember. And then approve the expenditure of $40,000 in existing budgeted funds from the advanced planning division budget fiscal year 18, 19, or 19 to be used for census outreach. And I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. For more information, if you'd like to take a look, the National Census website is 2020census.gov. And the Santa Cruz County, we have our own one that is Santa Cruz County counts.us. And as the CCC continues to meet, there will be more information and materials up on the page. One last plug, the census is hiring part-time people to do census outreach. There will be three phases of census outreach that is happening. There's an initial phase that we're recruiting for now, there will be actual counters. And then once the initial counting period is over, there will be people who are going out to reach the hard to reach populations that haven't responded to the census. So that'll be later in 2020. And those jobs, I believe, pay somewhere in the range of $20 to $22 an hour, depending on what you want to do with flexible schedules. So there's that plug as well. I am happy to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you, Sarah. I have just one brief question, and I appreciate the overview and the hard work that's going into this. It's very important. And you mentioned in our staff report that the City of Watsonville is doing their own thing. Thank you, yes. No problem. Is their calculation, is their funding support built into the calculation of the 57 cents per person? Or is that excluding all residents of the City of Watson? Thank you, I completely forgot to mention that. It's a very important point. Watsonville has a extremely hard to count population. And so they've decided that they want to form their own local CCC. They have hired a full-time staff person to focus on this effort. That person was on board when we had met this last December, so they've been very, very proactive in this effort. They are partnering with our CCC in participating, but they have their own funding, their own resources. And they have generously offered, since they do have that full-time staff person, as they create the tools for outreach flyers, banners, direct mailers, any sort of graphics to share that with us that we can then replicate for our various jurisdictions or North County. Well, they're still absolutely working with us, but they're very much focusing on their community. Thank you for the clarification. Absolutely, thank you for asking. Nice example of a countywide process. So any questions for our staff at this time on this item? Council member Mays? A couple of quick ones. I think every dollar invested in the census is a dollar well spent. And you mentioned this allocation is to come from this fiscal year. Do you anticipate additional demands in the coming year? Just a question. The answer is, I don't know. So the current contract with Community Action Board is through this fiscal year, and it's to help them set up the strategic plan for how we want to do the outreach. There could be requests that come forward again for additional funding. Their original request to us was from the county was $50,000, and I did our analysis and felt given our budgetary constraints and resources that we have and our hard to count population that 40 made more sense. Of course, however, it is entirely within the purview of the council. If you'd like to increase that number, I'm sure it wouldn't be turned down. But there may be small requests for funding next year, but I couldn't put a solid dollar amount on that at this point. Only point being, this fiscal year is practically over at this point. So they anticipate that our allocation stand will fund the work. Yes, so we could do it a number of ways, so our council could do it a number of ways. If you would like it to go directly towards the cab contract, which is outlined in the staff report, I believe it's just over $83,000. We can absolutely appropriate it or direct staff. You can direct staff to let the county know that that's where we'd like the money to be spent. If you don't do that, it would likely just go into the broader pot that would be used, either for that contract, for the marketing, or for any of the various outreach efforts that will do countywide. So it's really up to you. Frankly, the reason I requested this fiscal year is because I had the money. And I wanted to make sure that some money got into this pot. If you would prefer next fiscal year, that's fine as well, but my team had the money to put it in this year. We had a little delta left because some of the contractual work we were going to be doing moved because of some of the new council initiatives. So I had a few dollars that I thought we should go ahead and use. Okay, sounds like that's still, I mean, we're going to spend the money. So the money's there, I'm fine with that. I do think it's worth anticipating what we might want to spend next year. I have other questions, but I'll save them till later. Okay, so this is the time for questions, but we'll go ahead and Council Member Cron, I mean, it's Council Member Glover, then Council Member Cron, and then other questions, or we'll return back to Council Member Mathews. Thanks, and then just to clarify, hello, and thank you for that, I love the census. Super important, my mom used to do the census actually, side note. So Community Action Board partnership, they signed the contract with the county. I love Community Action Board too, they focus on incredibly important issues and demographics. You said that if we decide not to put it in with the Community Action Board, then we'll go into the more general fund of focusing on census stuff, potentially. Do you see, personally as a staff member, the benefit of going through the Community Action Board? You know, I think you can't lose either way. Community Action Board, if you were to decide to put it towards that contract specifically, you would have a solid sense of certainty of exactly where that money was going. So if council is more comfortable with that, that's absolutely suitable. If it doesn't go there, the county does have a pot set aside separately that the state money has gone into, that their contributions will go into, and that the other jurisdiction's contribution that will go into that is dedicated just for census outreach. So that could be things like direct mailings and water bills. If you've seen on our city fleet vehicles, there's the street smart signs. We would replace those at some point in the next year with census outreach signs, with potential banners on the polls, website updates, things to let the community know in a variety of ways that the census is happening. So it would still be spent for that, but the actual expenditures would be a little more nebulous in terms of certainty right now in what it could be spent on. Yeah, and also just with CAB and their focus, like I mentioned before on demographics, especially low and extremely low income people, the focus on diverse representation of race and race demographics. And especially since the conversation of immigration and immigrants is on the forefront of this census. I would advocate heavily that we allocate the money directly to the CAB contract. Is there any other questions, Councilman? Thank you. Not to be penny wise and pound foolish as someone else said earlier, because I totally support this, but I'm just wondering why our people in Santa Cruz are worth more than people in Scotts Valley and Capitola. I appreciate that perspective. I don't think it was intended that way. If you look at the demographics in both of those communities, they are somewhat different than the demographics we have here. We do have a larger population of people that are struggling with homelessness. We do have a very large student population, which is a very hard to count population. Just on those two groups alone, we do have a harder to count population than those other two jurisdictions. So for that reason, there was more money going into the pot from our jurisdiction potentially, if Council approves it, than those two jurisdictions. That was the reasoning, that argument. It was partially that, yeah, and so the county came to each of the jurisdictions and made a request of how much money they'd like us to put in. They did not do this analysis. I was curious for my own notification, I like to know the data. I like to understand what our share is. And so then I went and did this analysis so that we could have something to look at and compare. But yes, the request was made both on population and hard to count population in terms of what people would put into the pot. Thank you, and I think that, where's the discussion? Is it already codified that they're going to ask a question about citizenship? So what had happened is last month, I'm forgetting the date, but I think it was at or around the date of our last, your last council meeting. Those arguments were made before the Supreme Court, and so it has made it to that level. The arguments have happened, the statements have been made, and now it is in a point of deliberation. And they are expected, the Supreme Court is expected to make a determination in July. Okay, and I mean, depending on how that goes, I would love for our council if we can have any effect on anything to make a statement about where we stand on that. Yeah, at this point I believe it's with the courts. Okay, we'll go with Council Member Brown for questions, okay? Just real quick, yeah, I share Council Member Lover's love of the census and the Community Action Board and just wanted to ask for clarification. In terms of earmarking the funds for the Community Action Board, which I would support if that means that we're sure they're going to get it and there was some chance they weren't going to get it. But if it's all going into a pot and we're sure that CAB will be the contractor and it doesn't make a difference, then I just would ask you if it's easier to just allocate the funds and let the county take care of that piece. I think the county has provided me at the staff level certainty that if this council determines that they want it to go specifically towards the CAB contract that they can ensure that that happens. The contract's already signed, the scope of work has already been set. So there is a solid contract that is established and this could absolutely go directly towards that. That said, having the money for, it will all kind of, it will all go into a pot. And so if the council is comfortable with the council or the complete count committee and the county not allocating it towards that and having the discretion on how to spend it on outreach, the county would be fine with that too. It's really up to council. Yeah, just to follow up, I asked because I did see correspondence from the CAB executive director supporting this and asking us to support this, but it didn't say anything about specifically making a designation to CAB for it. Yeah, I really think it's up to council what you have a level of comfort with in terms of if you'd like it to be very directed towards that specific contract or broader. It's really up to you. And it will all go to census. I just have one brief follow up question to that. Did the other jurisdictions contribute to sort of the broader effort or did they have any specific kind of allocation requests of how- As far as I know there were not specific allocation requests, they just put into the broader pot. And if I'm understanding you correctly, what I'm hearing you say is that the contract is already set. The work will into the money will eventually, I mean essentially be in the same pot. Yes. It's just how they do that, okay. Yes, and the work is actually currently underway. And the work is currently underway. Okay, did you have follow up questions, Councilor Matthews? I'm trying to get a grip on that. My perception as we talk about this is if there's a signed contract with CAB, they're going to get their contract. Yes. My preference is to throw our money in the pot so that some of it can be used for outreach, yes? Appropriate, yeah. So unless there's no further questions, we'll go ahead and see if there's any members of the community who would like to address us on this item. This is item number 26, and you're welcome to come forward. And you'll have up to two minutes, go right ahead. My name is Lisa Martin, and I actually am a census assistant with CAB. So I can also answer a few questions in terms of the work that we're currently doing. I know Maria Elena Delegars, our executive director, did send an email, encouraging you to support this allocation as well as the declaration. Santa Cruz County has been noted, has several very specific hard to count demographics, including college students, children zero to five are historically undercounted in most jurisdictions. And obviously unhoused, and those facing housing instability, those are real target areas as well as immigrant and those lacking in English proficiency. So deviating a little bit from my comments, but just maybe to address this, is that CAB currently is working on a strategic plan. This is going to be submitted to the state, I believe the first week in June. It's a living document and we have engaged in a lengthy process over a number of months to make sure that all stakeholders, government, business, really all sectors of our county here are having a process whereby we're getting feedback to figure out not only where these hard to count populations are, we sit in our office and look at the maps. And it's down to the neighborhoods trying to figure out where we need to really invest resources. But also just to have a strategy so that when we do begin to roll out, and this will start the middle of March, we have a very clear cut strategy to be able to reach these hard to count populations. Dollar for dollar, this is a very strategic and good use of money because there are two counted people that maybe would have gone uncounted, you have paid for that $40,000 allocation. So we're working hard and I guess the last thing I would say what's really nice about this is that in working together to make sure that everyone is counted in this county, it's brought together a lot of people. That's great. Thank you. And thank you for being here and we'll go ahead and let you know if we have any additional questions specific to your role. Okay, go right ahead. My name is Nicholas Whitehead and I'm a volunteer with an organization that has a large proportion of undocumented immigrant families. And for that reason, we don't put anything on computers. Security is important. As a city, we've been very careful instructing our police and as a county instructing our sheriffs, not to cooperate with things, federal matters that might endanger the security of some of our residents. I think we should be very cautious about this particular census in view of the nature of the national government that we have at this time. I'm not sure. Do people put their names on these, do individual names go on census forms are not familiar? Go ahead and pause the camera. We'll go ahead and, this is an opportunity for us to hear from you. We don't usually engage in a conversation at this time, but we'll go ahead and take note of your question. Yeah, so I would say, yeah, let's take part in it. But let's have a proviso, a local proviso that discourages our census takers from drawing undue attention to that citizenship question, not encouraging people in any way to answer that question. Yeah, that's the main thing. Appreciate that. Okay, next speaker. I hope that I, my name is Elise Caspi, I've already spoken a couple of times though. I'm a little concerned that maybe I didn't even perceive it correctly, because it's just so disturbing the idea that the federal government would be limiting census taking to computers. I'm really confused about that, and I understand you can't pause me and answer my question, but I am extremely concerned about the classist implications of that. And I really believe that right now one of the really undiscussed aspects of our current government and everything that proceeds from it, there's a lot of discussion, I feel, and good for it, discussion on racism. There's in this town, I think, a healthy discussion in our town of gender. One of the things that I do not feel gets discussed adequately is the actual structures in our society that proceed from money. The money that you earn, the money that you receive from your family. The class status of people, whether somebody's undocumented, immigrant, homeless, or a child, or a senior, is so incredibly vital. And we are in such a fierce reactionary form of government with Citizens United, for example. Money equaling free speech. I'm very disturbed about this use of computers to take this census from the fed. Thanks. So that concludes public comments. Okay, Council Member Meyers. So I'm ready to move the item. So let's see. So I'll go ahead and make a motion approving the expenditure of $40,000 from existing budgeted funds to be used for the purposes of census outreach. I'll second that motion. So Council Member Meyers, seconded by myself, to adopt the resolution language. And to adopt the resolution of support for the 2020 United States Census. Thanks for catching that. And I will still second that. Okay. Council Member Glover, Council Member Crohn, and then Council Member Mathews, and then Council Member Crohn. Thank you. So some interesting questions that were raised while listening to some public comments. So maybe someone who's experienced in the census could answer these. Can people have the option not to give their names or names collected on the census? So I quickly looked this up on the website as the question came up. And essentially, yes, you can choose not to put your name on there. But what the census will do then is send out an individual to the actual household to confirm the names. And it says that the reason that they do this is for two reasons. First, we have found over many years of research that's easier for a respondent to keep track of which person they are answering for if the names are used. And the second reason is administrative. In some instances, responses are difficult to interpret or missing critical information. If we have the name and telephone number of the person who completed the survey, we can call to collect missing information or ask for clarification. By having the name of each household member, we can more easily refer to specific information. Without the name and phone number, we would have to send a field representative to gather the information in person. So I think it also helps with double counting as well to prevent double counting. Can those conducting the census and asking the questions choose not to ask questions of citizenship? Yeah, if it's included, it's going to be on the forum. The respondent could choose not to answer. That was my next question. Can the people refuse to answer? Sure. Does that trigger a house visit from a federal representative? I don't know, but I don't know the answer to that. And I could get you that information, but maybe not in the timeframe right here. I see the census representatives head moving back there. So do you mind? If you could come right forward and we'll go ahead and have you answer any questions. And if you could, while you're here, answer any questions around the technology components. I think that'd be appropriate for them. My understanding is that counties and governments want to wait until the actual court cases resolved and then come up with kind of a unified strategy and talking point so that people are protected. Obviously, that's the most important concern. But to make sure we're kind of speaking with one voice to address that, I think the larger concern right now is just the fact that it's a court case is spreading enough fear that it's really creating headwinds for all of us in trying to address the citizenship question. One thing I also know is that if you decide to not answer a particular question, it does not invalidate your census information. So whether that would trigger a visit, I somehow doubt that, given how the information will be coming into the system. But if you choose not to answer something, it will not invalidate your answers. The other thing is there will be an option for a paper ballot. So people who are ballot, a paper census form. So if you're not comfortable, if for some reason you're just not able to do it electronically, there will be another option for you to, you know, be counted. Great. Thank you. And then the last thing is the security of the electronic systems because there was the story that just came out of the 11-year-old that cracked the voting machine in like 10 minutes. So how does that relate to the security of census information and or the manufacturing of data? I think all of us are confident given what we're being told by the Census Bureau that it is as kind of high-tech state-of-the-art in terms of encryption as possible. But I know there are articles out there that, you know, throw into question if this is going to be fine. I think the larger technological question and the concern is as people begin filling out their forms, if the system becomes overwhelmed, I know they're doing a rollout in terms of who will be asked to do the census online. And so I think there's some concerns that should there be a glitch, not so much a security, you know, breach, but any other kind of glitch, will that kind of throw the system into, you know, disarray? And they're working on it still. And I know we're very, very concerned and wanting to make sure that that's going to be done correctly. Well, thank you both for the answers. Thank you very much. So the motion before us is made on the floor by Council Member Myers and myself for the discussion. Council Member, I think it was Council Member Brown, then Council Member... I just wanted to make sure the public's questions were answered and I think that's covered. Did you have any additional? I wanted to ask that as this process unfolds, you keep us... Sure. I think that's the most up to date. And I would ask that we include as part of the motion that the city actively explore inclusion of the census message in the broadest possible range of city communications. Accept that. I don't think like throw it in the parks and rec. I mean, just everywhere you can throw that thing. Ubiquitous. Start up on TV every other Tuesday night. Merging any kind of outreach into existing city media outreach, I think as easy as possible to make sense to me as well. So that was accepted by Council Member Myers. Okay. Further discussion? No. All those in favour, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That passes unanimously. Okay. So we'll go ahead and move right along now to our amendments to the general plan and local coastal program. This is item number 27. And just reminding the community and the Council that we'll have our staff presentation and then we'll have an opportunity for Council to ask any questions, open it up to public comment, and back for action and deliberations. And we have Catherine joining us. Good evening. Good afternoon. I'm Catherine Donovan, senior planner in the advanced planning division, and I'm back again. We have here two general plan and local coastal program amendments. There's actually a total of three amendments. One is related to our, the city's density bonus ordinance and how density bonus and the local coastal program are integrated. The second is to incorporate the local hazard mitigation plan into the general plan. And the third is to update the general plan, archeological and paleotinological, I cannot say that word, I'm sorry, maps. And we're going to, I'm separating these three out because they're all three of them somewhat complex. So I'm going to start with the density bonus law and California Coastal Act. State density bonus law requires that the provisions of density bonus must be consistent with the California Coastal Act. Density bonuses can include incentives, waivers, reductions of development standards in addition to increased density. And those are given in exchange for increasing either the number of affordable units or increasing the levels of affordability. And there were two things legally that happened in the last year, two. One is a case law related to how density bonus relate, it interacts with the Coastal Act. And the second was an amendment that led from that legal case to clarify the intersection of these two laws. So the city's local bonus local coastal program LCP includes specific portions of the zoning ordinance as well as other document planning documents as implementation regulations. They are part of our local coastal program. However, the density bonus ordinance is not included in those, that list of documents that is part of our local coastal program. So by adopting this one particular section of that density bonus ordinance into the LCP, it clarifies how the density bonus and the California Coastal Act work together. And it gives the city some legal protection. We worked while we were drafting this ordinance, we worked with the Coastal Commission. They reviewed our language and proposed some additions, some revisions. And so the language that we have in the ordinance now has been reviewed by Coastal staff and they can't actually approve it because it has to go before the Coastal Commission, but it was revised at their suggestion. And we also wanted to point out that the County of Santa Cruz has also recently adopted a similar amendment to their LCP. Our current density bonus ordinance isn't really clear about how the concessions and incentives apply in the coastal zone. And this amendment would resolve that uncertainty. And we wanted to point out there are a number of projects that are working their way through the process that are in the coastal zone and that may utilize the density bonus process. And so having this clarified before these projects make their way all the way through will be helpful for everyone involved. They include the 314 Jesse Street, 190 West Cliff Drive, 115 Felix Street, and the proposed front riverfront project. And earlier this week we received, or the council received a letter that had questions about what this amendment would do and we wanted to answer those specific questions for you. The questioner asked what exactly were numeric standards. And they are quantitative design standards such as the number of units, parking spaces, setbacks, height, et cetera. And that is opposed to non-numeric standards which are qualitative standards which include protection of public coastal access, environmental sensitive habitat, public views, and things of that nature. So things that don't have a number to them but are protected by the Coastal Act. And then the letter also asked about what a commercial development bonus was. And this is in the state density bonus law. And it increases the amount of commercial square footage that is allowed in exchange for a project providing housing that provides a minimum of either 15% very low income or 30% low income units. And I'm sorry, this is not exactly correct. We revised it and it didn't get into this version. But unlike other density bonus provisions, this bonus, it's not at the city's option but the city can negotiate on this one there. It has minimums and maximums. So we have more discretion on our agreement. It's more like negotiating a development agreement than our normal density bonus process. So the second piece of this three-part project is incorporating our local hazard mitigation plan into the general plan. AB 2140 allows a jurisdiction to be eligible for state reimbursement if there's a declared emergency. If they have a local hazard mitigation plan that has been approved by FEMA and is adopted into the safety element of the general plan. The city's LHMP was approved by FEMA and then adopted by council on October 9th. And this amendment that I have proposed would incorporate the LHMP into the general plan. And just to get ahead of the picture here, we have to revise our LHMP every five years. And once we do that, it has to be approved by FEMA and then re-adopted for us to continue to be eligible for that funding. And then the final piece of this three-piece project is updating our general plan archeological and paleontological maps. So much of the city has potential for discovering cultural resources and the level of care that must be taken when you're doing a development project depends on the likelihood of that particular property having cultural resources in the vicinity. Our general plan 2030 includes an action that requires an update of our cultural resources maps every five years. And so we are updating the maps to because the general plan tells us to and also to ensure the best protection of our cultural resources. And I have, I know sometimes it's difficult for you to find the part in your staff report where it has all of these resolutions and motions. So I've typed them out here. But I'm imagining you have some questions before we get this far. Thank you for the presentation and summary. Now would be the time if any council members have any questions for staff. And then we'll go ahead and open it up to public comment. Good council member. Thank you for that presentation. Just so I have this right, the density bonus, it does not apply in the coastal zone right now. It does apply in the coastal zone. And the changes that we've made are intended to really clarify and give the city additional legal protection as to how that the density bonus ordinance and the coastal approval work together. The LCP. I'm sorry? The LCP. The LCP. Well, no, the actual coastal act. So if you have a property that's in the coastal zone, you can apply density bonus, but it has to be consistent with the coastal act and still requires approval of a coastal permit. But the density bonus, it doesn't supersede the coastal program. Never. The other things I just had. 314, Jesse is the midpen project right now? Yes. It is. Okay. And 190 West Cliff is the dream in project. Right. And the front and riverfront, what is that? I don't think that's come before the council yet, and Lee can tell you. Hi, mayor and council. The front riverfront project is on the east side of front street, just between the river levee and front street. It's right across from the metro center. And they recently revised their project to incorporate the state density bonus before it had, and I'm going from memory here, about 140 units. And they're now requesting about 170 round numbers. And that is in an area where they're using FAR. So I mentioned that in the last meeting where, you know, it's an odd one because it's not confined by dwelling units per acre. It's confined by FAR. Last question is 115 Felix. What project is that? That is at the south end of Felix next to Neary Lagoon. This one is just in the preliminary review stage, but they, it's an existing apartment complex there. The name of the apartment complex is slipping my mind right now, but it's an existing apartment complex and ocean view perhaps. But they're looking at adding additional units into that existing. And they are actually looking to request a general plan amendment to provide additional housing, as well as that state density bonus. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Meyers, then Council Member Gleifer. I just had a question. My understanding and reading the staff report and the resolutions is that the kind of the line is that Colster Commission would be looking at things like setbacks. So, but they wouldn't be looking at the number of units. Is that correct? Is that, is that, is there consistency across all those decisions? So they would not be looking at any numeric standards unless those numeric standards were impacting some qualitative standard. So, we might have a density bonus where they asked us for a reduced setback. If that reduced setback impacted either coastal access or a public view, then it would be in the purview of the Coastal Commission. If they had a building that was within the allowed footprint that did not impact any of those things, and they simply increased the number of units, then the number of units would not be within the Coastal Commission purview. Thank you. Council Member Glover and then Council Member Brown. Thank you. Just curious about how the proposed change in density bonuses, especially around commercial space, would impact the 190 development? So this isn't really, it's not a change. It doesn't change anything that they were allowed or not allowed to do. It simply clarifies that basically the Coastal Act trumps density bonus and any density, anything, any concession that you get from having a density bonus still must meet the requirements of the Coastal Act. Okay, great. And then just in attachment for under, can you just describe what public viewshed means for the community? I don't have the Coastal Commission definition off the top of my head, but it's generally a view from a public location. So it does not include what you see from your bedroom window or from your deck, but it does include what you see from a public road or a park, a public park or the beach. Okay, thank you. And we, I would just add that we have some, in our current local coastal program, which is actually a holdover from our old general plan, one of the things that we're trying to update, there are specific views that are identified as protected under the Coastal Act. And so it is just in the public area, as Catherine mentioned. Thank you. Additional questions? Council Member Brown? I think my question's got answered, but I just for Council Member's information, it's Cypers Point. Oh, right. Yes. So we'll go ahead and let this time see if there's any members of the community who would like to address the Council on this item. Is item number 27 in our agenda? Okay. I'm having a really hard time understanding this. I'm looking at a printed agenda on this item. It's item number 27. There's four parts in print. And then there's the discussion that's happening up there. And although it seems to have been clear, I mean, from just like a, I'm listening perspective, I'm worried. And I'm just going to be totally honest. One of the reasons I'm worried is this city has been unable to follow the ordinance past measure O, which requires a certain amount of affordable housing for each development that's built in the most interesting way. And this is, again, also why I'm very suspect about outreach meetings to the public called open house meetings. The one that I've gone to generally that the governing boards in the city present are loaded with, you know, a presentational sort of agenda. You could call it advertising propaganda. It's not an open house. It's a, hey, we have an idea. We want you to accept it and we're going to present it to you. So I'm very worried. I just, as a public trying to understand what's going here, I will tell you as an environmentalist, I do not want buildings built on the east side of Front Street up on the levee. I think that the most distinctive feature outside of the ocean and our beaches that Santa Cruz has to offer is this incredible natural area that is the river. And so many cities have covered their river in, you know, arguably beautiful but heavily developed, you know, buildings shop, et cetera. I would prefer to have no building along Front Street. So I just want to say there's a lot here and I would like to be a lot more clear on it if this means that the coastal commission's auspices and authority is going to be lessened. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We'll go ahead and return back for action and deliberation and not to oversimplify the content because I think, you know, these often are sometimes complicated. That my read is really this is something that we need to align with policy that we have on the books also that's happening at the state and will actually enhance protection, environmental protection over any type of expanded developments. And the projects that were proposed were simple examples of what's in the pipeline that will benefit from this clarity in terms of our policy recommendation. Does that sort of summarize it in a very simple term? Yes, it does. That was lovely. Okay. And, sorry, this Pieter brings us into compliance updates with multiple benefits for the city moving forward. So I'm going to go ahead and move the full set of recommendations here for the hazard safety noise element of the local hazard mitigation plan, the historic preservation arts and culture, coastal plan consistency related to bringing into alignment the Density Bonus Law and Coastal Act and implementing regulation. That sounds okay. Okay, so that was a motion by Council Member Matthews, seconded by Vice Mayor Cummings. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Okay, so next in our agenda is item number 28. This is an item that was brought to us by three council members. So I'll let you lead the discussion at this time. We'll go ahead before we actually jump right into the item. Thank you very much. Council Member Matthews is going to leave the room as earlier indicated that there is a conflict in terms of her position in regards to this topic. So I'll go ahead and see if either Council Member Brown, Vice Mayor Cummings, or Council Member Myers is prepared to sort of introduce the item and then we'll go forward with any public comment. Just a brief statement and welcome any comments also from my colleagues. So we're bringing this proposal for a council subcommittee to investigate alternatives for the downtown library branch project for anybody who isn't reading along with our agenda. And we've proposed this approach in order to what we hope to do is to advance a conversation among library staff, stakeholders, the community, a very engaged community about an appropriate location and configuration for the library. So we recognize this is a really complex issue or a set of issues. And we want to take this very seriously. The voters have demonstrated their support for our library system. It's our hope that this endeavor will help us move forward towards a plan that meets our community's expectations and needs for a beautifully designed, constructed, revitalized, modernized library. And so we're open to looking at all possible alternatives. We truly want to ensure that this is a project that has the support of the community and meets the expectations of the voters and the taxpayers. So I'll leave it there. This is just a process motion for today. And we look forward to working with you all as we move forward. I think I would just add that, yeah, I think this is a great, this is appropriate sort of, I won't say step back or step forward. But just again, to gather more information, to talk to our community, to include the stakeholders. And I would anticipate that we would probably come together with some kind of a work plan and a set of meeting dates, things like that. And so that people really understand what our subcommittee will be doing and we certainly will make those available to people. And yeah, I just look forward to working again a little bit further on this. And I look forward to hopefully working with my colleagues on it. Any additions on this? Just saying, I'd just like to say that I know that there is interest in the community to move forward with coming up with alternatives. I know we've had a lot of other issues that we've been dealing with this year, but knowing that there's also a clock associated with the use of the funds. And that if we, the longer we wait, the more expensive the project potentially can get. And since we have a limited amount of funds, it's in our best interest to start moving forward now with figuring out what is going to become of our library. And I think that this has been expressed by the community and I'm just really happy to be working with other members on our city council at moving us forward. Councilmember Brown? I'll just add, thank you Councilmember Myers for raising the idea of presenting a work plan and the process and steps along the way. And we will ensure, make sure that that information is provided and is accessible to the public so you can follow along as we move forward. We want to make sure this is a very transparent process and that people get to be heard along with that. Thank you for the summary of your agenda report. At this time, it's an opportunity for questions. Councilmember Kern, do you have questions? Thank you. Just wondering near the last paragraph of the report says significant, there's significant confusion in the community about the specifics of the proposal as well as the possible existence of viable alternatives. Does this mean that you're asking that the council now consider finding alternatives to the original parking garage project library that was approved in September of 2018? So if I'm understanding your question, you're asking for clarity if there's sort of this pre-determined assumption that there will be an alternative as opposed to an openness around the current existing consideration of the current library. Does that seem reflective of your question? Do you have, my read of it was that it was encompassing of all options at this point. Does that feel accurate or do you want to clarify as a subcommittee? That is the intention to look at any and all alternatives to have that conversation. So a range of alternatives, that's the intention here, yes. And the alternatives could encompass the current location. Okay, thank you. But the alternatives don't encompass what was approved by the council in September of 2018? Well, that's not an alternative. So, but that's still in the, I mean, that will still be part of the conversation, I imagine, because it's currently on the table until further action is taken. Okay, so just really exploring everything that could be possible here. Okay, do you have further questions? I think that's my understanding too, is that we are not taking that project off the table, but looking at alternatives and opportunities. And I just would speak from my personal understanding and involvement in talking to folks. I mean, I think that there is a perception that there is a design, for example, a designed building, and that is one thing that we stopped short of. So I think that's an example of some of the confusion in terms of understanding exactly what we're working with. And so I think that's, for me, that's one of the main reasons to kind of do some more work and involve our community in more conversations. So if there aren't further questions at this time, well, did you have an addition? Okay, by the way. Yeah, I was just going to say that what we really want to do is get this moving forward. And we want to make sure that we bring more options to the table at this point in time. Because currently we don't have any. And I think that what we really want to try to do is start working on bringing forward alternatives. And some of these alternatives may cost more money, they might cost less. But I think the point is that we want to get the community and we want to get the city moving forward with trying to figure out what this new library is going to be and where it's going to be located. Okay, thank you for the clarification. I don't have a question, but I'll have a comment. But at this time, we'll go ahead and see if there's any members of the community who would like to address the council on this item. If you could please come forward to my left and we'll go ahead and give you up to two minutes. You say up to two minutes? That's right. Good afternoon. I'm Sandra Nichols, I'm a trustee on the Santa Cruz County Board of Education and I'm president of the People's Democratic Club of Santa Cruz County. I'm a grandmother, that's my other job, a grandmother of two local preschool age children. And I'm here to speak as an individual on the issue of the downtown library location. I know you're seeking input and I'm glad to go first. In 1970, I moved to Santa Cruz County and one of the first things I did was I got a library card. My library card I carry with me today because it's such a treasure. It's made out of paper and it has my name and address and phone number typed onto the card. And I carry it in my purse for good luck. It has a four leaf clover on the back and I'm lucky enough to be a resident of Santa Cruz City at this time. I voted for the library bond and I support the project put to voters as a substantial remodel of the existing building across this street from City Hall. The building has a plaque stating that it is one of the Carnegie libraries. I was charmed when I saw that sign and I did not vote for our bond money to be mingled with other money to enable the city to build a multi-story parking garage and to put the library into the parking garage's bottom floors. The proposal to move the library has become a big fat bait and switch. I'm glad you're taking another look. I'm glad you're stepping back and you formed a subcommittee who is taking input from the public. It takes advantage, let me talk to you about the bait and spit switch. It takes advantage of the goodwill that the people of this community have toward their downtown library and their support for the substantial remodel project and switches it into an ill-conceived plan that puts cars above readers. Now, I know- Your time is up but I want to also just offer you the option of being able to submit your comments to us for further consideration or to email us at a future time. Thank you. Well, that was the fastest two minutes but I know I made a few extraneous remarks. Okay. So you can go ahead and read it if you have time. Hi, Jane Barr, Eden Housing. I'm going to talk really quickly, hopefully. I think you've taken a comprehensive look at this opportunity. I believe the current project reflects the multiple needs of the city. Newable library, expanded in size, with the state of the art equipment furnishings. It can be the flagship of the library system. Parking, the city is looking to address possible loss of other parking as public and private lots are developed to house community members. It's smart to plan for the future. Our argument can be made that rightly that car use is changing. However, less ownership for cars doesn't mean less cars in Santa Cruz. Cars on demand either clog the streets while driving or they need a place to park. Plus, you've got a lot of tourists here who come. The business they bring is very, very important. That sales tax is very important as you look at budget deficits. So I think you have to remember, you've got to take that into consideration. Housing, there's only enough housing both to address the current and deficit future needs. Will the city be able to address homelessness over crowding and skyrocketing, rental costs this can assist? With development of parcels public and private, including current parking lots. And in order to develop the most units possible, parking may need to be offered off site from some develops. Finally, the farmer's market, I know that's a large concern and it's an identity of the city. Other cities block off a street, one block of a street once a week. It's done, it's understood, people drive around it. There's no reason that this development of this site means you're going to lose your farmer's market. So the project as proposed addresses all of these concerns for the library, parking and housing. Pushing back the timeline of the project has risks, running out of time to use the bond and being subject to increased construction costs. I can tell you I used to build apartment complexes in 12 to 14 months. We're now up to 20 plus months and the costs are going up every month. So it's good to recognize that. Please proceed with all due speed, whether with another committee or not. Keep in mind that this project does not and must not just address the library. Don't fritter away this opportunity. Thank you. Okay, all right, next speaker, you'll have up to two minutes. Good afternoon. I'm Satya O'Ryan, I'm sorry I got here late. But I liked everything I heard you saying, the three of you that sponsored this. Thank you so much. I'm not going to go ahead and say all the things that I've said before about why I think it's a good idea to keep opening up to other possibilities. There's lots of great suggestions on the table. I've heard the community talk about two speakers ago. I just heard her say, this isn't really what the community envisioned, a parking garage. We envisioned remodeling the library that's already there. And I've heard, like I said, all sorts of amazing ideas. I hope when you consider who you're going to listen to in the community that you include Jean Brocklebank, who has done tremendous amount of work on this, and I think she's probably here today, and creative ideas. I've seen lots and heard lots of creative ideas. I've seen artwork of possibilities for the farmer's market as a community center, possibilities for the library itself that haven't been talked about much, but they all sound viable to me. So just opening the doors to possibility. I don't think it's ever a good idea to rush into anything. I've learned that in my life. If it's still undecided, it feels undecided in the community. And I like the idea of more inclusion in everything we do, including more dialogue. I think there's a danger I see in division getting us into very alternate us against them kind of scenarios. And I don't like that trend that I see happening. So anything we can do to bring more discussion on any topic makes me happy. So, thank you. Thanks, Speaker, can you come up? Thank you, Vice Mayor Cummings. And my name is Elise Kazbin. I want to speak to the democracy issues that have been at play or the lack of in this particular issue. It cannot be overstated enough that the voters voted on a certain set of words. Those did not include other types of words. For example, it did not, absolutely not include anything about a garage and a library being combined, whether the garage is on the bottom and the library's on the top or where the library is compared to all the rest of the parking. It really isn't about electric cars or lack of cars in the future. It's about the public's right to not, as the former speaker called it, a bait and switch. That's really atrocious. We haven't talked about that enough in our public venues. And one of the reasons we haven't, and I want to add something here, it's very distinctive that council member Matthews is not here right now. How many previous meetings on the library garage was she still seated on the council when she had a conflict of interest? I think she's been at all of them. And I want to say that she has been a driver in this bait and switch. And I'm not going to get uglier than that, but that is actually just a fact. And so I'm not really being ugly. What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to point out the democracy issues, and I've really only talked about one. So I'm going to talk about another. Martine Bernal and certain power brokers in our city council hired people at very high salaries to push this and direct this through. Some of those people are in this room and others are not. The staff at the library have been influenced and strong armed, and I'd like to see that all stop. Thank you very much. Council members and thank you to council member Brown, Myers and vice mayor Cummings for coming up with this motion for a library subcommittee. My name is Vivian. I'm with the Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries and the friends want to tell you that they are in favor of this motion. What I hope for you three is that you receive the space and time needed to move beyond the community uproar over this subject and be able to have the space to review the important and thoughtful work that already went into all the options. The friends also share their hopes with you that you can provide this community a much needed library that has an incredible amount of community resources and yet also opens up opportunities for vibrant downtown. We also realize your subcommittee will be going through a lot of reviews on a very tight deadline. And if there's any way that the friends can help you, I hope that you'll reach out to either me or my board members. Thank you. Good afternoon, I'm Brett Garrett and I feel like so much of the past discussion on this issue has been based on the idea that the only way to have a nice library is to build a large parking garage. So I appreciate that the subcommittee is going to move forward with more creative approaches and with public involvement. I just think we can be more creative and we can get along better as a community if we don't have, it's either this way or that way and the two sides don't get along. And I do want to give council member Matthews some credit. I think she has recused herself from many of the past discussions on this issue. Just for what it's worth. So I'll keep it short. Thank you. My name is John Hall. I too want to thank the council members who brought this proposal forward. I think this very much needs reconsideration. I know that the measure S funds deadline is a consideration, but I think it's also important to recognize that once you have a project in motion for renovating or constructing a new library wherever it is, that if you are making substantial progress on it, it is, as I understand it, likely that you will get permission to carry funds over even after 2026. So I don't think that should be an overriding absolute concern. What's most important here is that this is obviously an issue that galvanizes the entire community, that there are many different interests at stake. And I think that it behooves the council to find a solution that works for everyone. We want a great library. We want a great farmers market. We need parking. Once again, I came downtown today, as I often do, and I found parking within a half a block of where I needed to go. That happens to me whether I come in the morning, at noon, late afternoon, at night. I always find parking. So I think it's not the concern that some people would tout it as being. But I think you have a puzzle to solve, and you have more than just the stakeholders of people who want downtown parking and people who want a garage. You have citizens at large who want to see their money well spent, who want a vibrant park and downtown commons and farmers market in the center of downtown. I hope you will include all people in the city as stakeholders, not just a narrow group. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, council members. My name is Jean Brocklebank. Thank you very much for listening to us today. I want to address the motion before you and the council report that came with the motion. I want to suggest that as you look at this motion, you will consider two amendments to it at a minimum. And those would be, number one, to clarify that the alternatives are, it was called the library project. But I know that we're talking about the original project, which was garage library that was presented to a former council in 2016. That is the project that the council in September of 2018 passed. So it should be clear that that's the project that we're talking about alternatives to that. The second thing is, ooh, there might be a third. The second thing is there is a lot of confusion and there is a lot of concern that one of the reasonable alternatives, a viable alternative, is renovation and revitalization of our existing downtown library right where it sits. Making a modern, revitalized. I hate to use the word vibrant. I'm not going to use the word vibrant. Santa Cruz is already vibrant. But I want to make sure that in the language, it's very clear to the public that that's one of the alternatives that will be looked at by this subcommittee. And it's not clear right now that that's the case. The third thing is that I think that the public should be allowed to observe the proceedings of the subcommittee. I'm not suggesting Brown Act. I'm not suggesting that we be allowed to even speak, but the public has to be able to observe the proceedings. We'll keep our mouths shut. Thank you very much. Tim, we'll be speaking for affordable housing now. We submitted a letter to you. I hope you read it. I'm going to highlight a couple of things for you again. But I just want to say in the context of this that this committee is very important because there are so many pieces to this. You can't take any one project or any one lot by itself. They're all interconnected. So the farmers market, the library, affordable housing, parking, the life of the downtown business community. They're all connected and any decision for any one of the solutions is going to affect all the others. So it's very important that this committee really look at all of the information and think carefully about it. There is a lot of misinformation out there I can tell from some of the previous speakers. I just want to highlight again that the city owned lots are the best chance to have low income and very low income housing. It takes that kind of city subsidy to have those two low levels. And so downtown lots are the few city lots that would be or could be available for that. One of them being the existing library site. So anyway, for affordable housing now, we're here for affordable housing. So we hope that will be part and a great deal of the discussion of the committee. Thank you. Good afternoon. Again, council members Rick Lunginati with the campaign for sustainable transportation. One thing that I haven't mentioned here is just your role in protecting trust in government. You know, there's so much cynicism now in this country about government. And on the local level, there's could be a vicious cycle that develops where people lose confidence in government. And then they stop voting for bond measures and sales tax measures and stuff like that. We nearly came to the brink, I think, on this issue on that with the loss of probably a majority of the people that I've talked to anyway, who were really skeptical about the city spending money on a garage. So I'm really happy about the move towards reexamining this issue. I think you are doing your job in protecting confidence in government, which is a much bigger issue than even than the environmental issues at stake here. I just want to say, too, since the last speaker talked about housing, since we know that, you know, one of the things that I can never understand with people saying, well, we need more parking in order to have more affordable housing, we have probably 2,000 empty parking spaces in existing garages overnight now. Why do we need 600 more in order to have affordable housing? On the contrary, every dollar spent on a parking space from the revenue of the downtown parking district is taken away from the potential of affordable housing. It really is house people or house cars. That's not just a slogan. Good afternoon. My name is Bob Morgan, and thank you for letting us speak during public comments. We appreciate the time. I want to thank also Ms. Brown and Ms. Myers and Mr. Cummins for initiating this motion and for forming the subcommittee. It is critical. I'm so excited that you're going to take an extra look and a long look at what is a very contentious issue for Santa Cruz. I understand that there is concern about parking here, particularly seasonal parking, and I often mention that there are many, many satellite parking lots, which are surface lots, which are available during the tourist season. I think of the outbuilding. I think of UCSC. I think of all of the high schools with all those open parking spaces where shuttles can ferry tourists to and from Santa Cruz. I also am a county resident. I don't reside in Santa Cruz, but I come here often. I utilize the library often as do my two sons. One goes to Santa Cruz High. We love this downtown library. I voted for Measure S, and when I voted for Measure S, I voted for the library facilities master plan, which was produced in 2014 and has a window of 2014 to 2023. That master plan had a wonderful vision for the current renovated space or for the current space to be renovated. That was my Measure S vote, not for anything else. The last thing I would just like to mention, let me see, is that there is new information. We have new information regarding how we can spend parking revenue. We can support a renovated library if it is shy of funds. We can put those parking revenues into the general plan to support other things besides parking. I just hope that we use our current resources, our current surface lots within a mile radius of this city hall. Thank you. Good afternoon. The city of Santa Cruz wanted to know what to do about parking, so they hired a consultant for only $100,000 pennies for a broke city. The consultant did a report and it said, forget it. You don't need more parking. You got 80% maximum fill as it is. So the city did the appropriate thing, of course. They hid the report from the public for two years. Another expert comes up recently from the university. Same conclusion. So what's the city do? They have this downtown library, committee, whatever farce that takes their final vote before the last public comment period. That's listening to the public, isn't it? So what are we doing? You've heard twice from experts you don't need the parking. Sometimes people are driving around looking for parking places. Why don't we get an app, like in other cities, where you can find out where the empty spaces are instead of spending $50 million on spaces we don't need? Now, this measure S that people have mentioned and confidence in the city. I believe it's four times, three or four times we had let's save the library, let's raise the sales tax, save the library. Well, then we had measure S, what maybe some fine print cleverly crafted by the attorney. Nobody thought they were voting to build a new library, except perhaps the people that were behind this scheme. We don't want a new library and we don't need a new library. There's plenty of money to fix the library we have. It's like, what will happen? We'll have to shut it down when we renovate it. We shut it down before we renovated it. No planets left the orbits. You know, the oceans did not flood the town. It's a bunch of BS. There's no reason we cannot fix this library. You lied to the people and like the guy said, I will not vote for any more increased revenue for the city of Santa Cruz after being repeatedly lied to with these measures to save the library that actually were not to save the library. My name is Nita Hurtel and I appreciate that you are revisiting this as a committee and I appreciate your emphasis on transparency because nobody that I talked to knows where the hell this parking garage came from and how it got attached to our library that we voted for. So we're all confused and it's like it came out of nowhere and we're thinking, okay, who's to benefit from this? I would like to see what's behind it. Anyway, I think of the lot that's available that we're talking about. Building is the heart of downtown. It really is the heart of downtown. The last thing we want is a big block of parking right there. Most cities that are thinking futuristically and are just thinking about viability and to try to be attractive and appealing, we'll put parking on the edges and have people walk into a vibrant downtown that's more pedestrian oriented. We don't want a bunch of cars driving around and around and around our city center. We want people to be able to walk around and move easily and we want to be a beautiful place to be and I support also expanding our ideas about what could happen at that lot, making it a commons that would draw people for all kinds of festivities and all kinds of activities and that's what tourists come here for is for the atmosphere. They don't come here to find a parking space. So I say separate the two once and for all and let's move forward and make it a beautiful place to be and so that the public that lives here can really enjoy it and appreciate it, not building it for cars. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Michael Lewis. I'm pleased to see that this is up for reconsideration by the City Council and I hope you can come up with a plan to spend our money wisely. The DLAC in its weeks of meetings never did analyze the remodeling option. It was something that was tacked on at the last minute. It would never analyze. There was no floor plans. There was not even a prioritized list of the things that needed to be done to the existing building to bring it up to modern standards. Nobody knew. It was never told. So there, it was no discussion on what could we done with what then was $23 million and now is $28 million. Think of that, $28 million. That's a lot of money and that can do a lot of remodeling for the existing building. I had designed two buildings for major universities and I never spent more than $5 million doing that. I know you can do this for $20 million. Also since this is our money I would go along with other people who have asked for transparency and I insist that these meetings be open to the public. We don't want to get in there and bother you. We don't want to ask questions and tie you down with things like that. We just want to be there to observe, to watch the process, democracy, and action. We're citizens. We're engaged citizens and we want to be part of that process. I encourage you to allow those meetings to be open to the public. Thank you. Hi, my name is Kim Arcula and I just wanted for the record to note that it looks like you're approving the work for the De La Vega Gulf Lodge Structural Repairs Project. We'll go ahead and pause that. We're actually on item number 28, which is the proposal to form a subcommittee of council members to revisit the next steps for our downtown library. Oh, okay. So I'll make it relevant to the library then. You have comments on that topic on item 28? Okay, so you're saying it has to be in reference to the library? It has to be in reference to the agenda item before us. We had already covered... Oral communications. Oral communications for items that are not on today's agendas. That will take place at 7 p.m. So right now we're just currently considering the proposal of our downtown library project and the council subcommittee. If you have a public comment on that item, you're welcome to speak to that item. If not, you're welcome to come back at 7. If it's not an item that's not on our agenda. At 7? Okay, great. Okay, thank you. Good evening, mayor, council members. I just want to go ahead and... Well, first of all, my name is Robert Singleton. I'm the executive director of the Santa Cruz County Business Council. And I just want to express my support and my organization support for the establishment of a city council subcommittee to further review the library mixed-use project design and concept. The reason why I would love for you guys to have some extra effort and energy to have a very public and thorough process in looking at the facts is because I feel very confident that we will arrive at the similar conclusion that the D-LAC, the library commission, the library advisory commission arrived at in that. And looking at the facts of the case, the funding streams available, the current state of the existing library, and the alternatives analysis that they did perform in looking at renovating the existing site versus other sites, as well as the future of downtown in terms of our vision for having a lot of affordable housing downtown, hopefully reducing the parking requirements and being able to buy into a consolidated structure and use the inefficient surface slots we have downtown. I would urge you to go ahead and move forward to this committee because we feel strongly that when looking at the facts of the case, you'll arrive at a very similar conclusion. This is the best project. It'll help us best address our current and future parking needs with 600 new residential units of housing, 200 loss of spaces currently to private development, and then an additional clinic, which is going to see about 45 people in the future parking needs. This is the best way forward, and we happen to get a world-class amazing community center in a new public library. So again, please support the Council's subcommittee. Thank you. Hi again. My name is Rina. And over two years ago, the Old City Council formed a downtown library advisory committee to study the options for the downtown branch. And I was privileged to serve on that committee with nine other people with diverse and exceptional projects. After a lot of research, we unanimously came to the conclusion that the only realistic way to have a downtown branch library that meets the needs of the community is by including it in the mixed-use project. This project is not unique. There's been... I think a lot of people don't realize that communities all across the country and all across the world are doing mixed-use projects with libraries. Our project has been in Canada, Virginia, and other states. They've done mixed-use projects with parking structures. Milwaukee and Chicago are both rebuilding their branches with affordable housing. They're combining the libraries and affordable housing all across as a purposeful thing that the city has requested them to do. Other cities like Washington, D.C., even San Francisco is doing some amazing things with mixed-use structures and libraries. The current downtown library is a mess. It's got plumbing issues. It's got air circulation issues, electrical wiring, inaccessible bathrooms that are not ADA compliant. And the voters in Santa Cruz have overwhelmingly voted to support libraries. They voted to tax themselves to have a library that is going to serve the needs. And serve the needs not just of 60 years like the current library is not even quite doing but libraries of today that's including electrical wiring for free Wi-Fi and for a lot of other kinds of issues that modern-day libraries can address. Libraries are the most progressive aspect of United States society today. So thank you. Okay, next speaker. Before we do, I want to remind you if you're holding a sign up to please make sure it doesn't obstruct those behind you in their vision. You'll have up to two minutes. Greetings. Mayor Watkins, esteemed city council members. I wrote this down because I did this last minute. Hope you don't mind. My name is Doug Erickson. I'm executive director of Santa Cruz works. I represent 5,000 members supporting Santa Cruz entrepreneurship and local businesses. Santa Cruz works would like to express our support for the creation of a city council subcommittee to further review and expand the opportunities enabled by the approved library mix use project. In particular, we support the exploration of affordable housing as it greatly impacts the ability for entry-level workers to live and work in this great community. The median income of employees at local companies in Santa Cruz such as Looker product ops in Amazon is only $80,000 and that's per glass door as of this year. That's only slightly above the median household income of Santa Cruz County at $74,000 and that was 2017 Monterey Bay Economic Partnership. Renters are spending 62% of their income on housing. Homeowners are spending 42% of their income on mortgages. This is crazy. For our community to thrive, we need more solutions for affordable housing. Please support the creation of the subcommittee. Thank you. Mayor Watkins and council members thank you for your time. My name is Lisa Ekstrom and I just want to say I'm very much proud of the forming of this subcommittee to look at these questions and look at how we might go forward with building the library that we want and deserve in this community and also taking care of our commitment to, for example, the issues we have with the environment and climate change. I'm very excited that you'll be looking at alternatives and ideas that have come up since the DLAC recommendation. Thank you so much. Good afternoon, mayor and council members. I'm Chip. I'm with the downtown association of Santa Cruz and I want to express my support as well for forming a subcommittee. I think there's an extraordinary opportunity or many opportunities in this project or sets of projects that we're looking at. So a fair amount of opinion and information and misinformation. So I feel like a subcommittee can help kind of call to understand what the opportunities are, particularly as many have mentioned for taking an aggressive stance at affordable housing in our downtown, which is a crucial, crucial need for our community and this opportunity allows for that in a number of levels, as well as all the other aforementioned of the art new library, which is key to the success of downtown. Many of the fake downtowns around the country that are building private developments are looking at putting in libraries because they are so vital to building community centers. So that tells you something about the importance of a good library and community center. So I support this project deeply. I think the opportunities are vast. I think there's also a lot of details to work out in the opportunities. I encourage and support the idea of a subcommittee to look at this. So thank you all for your work. Are there any additional members of the community who would like to address us on this item? Good evening, everyone. Michael St. with Campaign for Sustainable Transportation. I do support the subcommittees plans to go ahead with this resolution. Also my comments are already in the record, so I won't take up any more of your time on that. Just make it very short. I do agree with Jean that those other three amendments should be carried forward into that subcommittee. Also, I live in Aptos. I come down here for these meetings quite often. And the reason I do, people say, what are we doing down here? I want to stay in Aptos, but basically I'm hoping you can set an example for the rest of the county and try to continue plans and all kinds of things that you do here that actually mitigate climate change. I've just one comment about climate change during this whole discussion. I think it's the primary goal. There shouldn't be any type of projects that do not take that into consideration first. Also, I'd like to also ask you for obligation once again for setting the example, and I've been keeping score sitting back here with all the people coming up. And in general, it's 14 to 3 that support the subcommittee. And there's, I think that's a good score. So good luck and thank you for doing a good job. Bye-bye. And I believe you'll be our last speaker. Hi, I'm Susan Martinez. I'm speaking in favor of keeping the library where it is. Making it a vibrant library. I know Rena was saying how there's so many libraries in the world that are following the model that you hope that the DLAC people hope to follow. But I'm telling you that there are even more that have decided to make what they have strictly library. If you've ever been to the Amsterdam library, you would agree with me how it is the most vibrant library in the world. It's just incredible. It is all library. Floor after floor after floor. It's what we can do here. We can put that money into what we currently have. We do not need another garage. I also want to say that one man was representing 5,000 people in the business community. I'd like to say that I am one of thousands who voted for Measure S that did not vote for it because we wanted a garage. We voted for it because we wanted the library, the library that we know. The library that is there now. The library that we hope to see revitalized and made into something that we can be really proud of. And I think that's the message that you need to take home with you, not how many business people can get things out of the garage. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a library, not a garage. Thank you. Is there any additional member of the community who wants to address us on this item? You'll be our last speaker. Hi. Hello, everyone. My name is Josie Buchanan. I represent the Santa Cruz County Business Council. I would like to speak in support of forming a subcommittee project. I believe this is a really no-brainer project. It brings a library and it brings us the ability to have better housing downtown, better mix use projects, a better community. Things like this always face opposition in the beginning and I just, I really think it's important to the future of our downtown and the future of our businesses or employees. Everyone will benefit from this project. I wish we could search sooner, but I think if this community is necessary, it's a really good idea. Thank you. Did you want to speak to this item? Okay. You will be our last speaker today then on this item. Okay. Good afternoon members of the council. My name is Martin Gomez and I was a member of the downtown library advisory committee and we work very hard and want to thank you all for supporting this last round and I want to encourage you to do whatever you can to keep the momentum going, keep the progress process going so that we get this library built sooner rather than later. We all work very hard and it was a volunteer effort and we appreciate all of your support for the library. Thank you. Okay. That closes our public comment portion of this item. This is item number 28 on our general business. I will go ahead if I'm vice mayor Cummings but before we do, I just want to make maybe a few comments because I can't make a motion but what I just want to thank this group of council members for coming together and proposing this being on the council at the time this came forward I think there was a lot of undone kind of efforts underway and community awareness. I also want to thank the D-LAC because I know that they did a lot of work as well in terms of really considering the option so I'm hopeful that the work that you're about to embark on will incorporate some of the work that's already been done and I also just hope that as you move forward or maybe this could be if somebody will make a motion a friendly amendment to that and I could do that at the time but as we move forward with the health and all policies work which is really looking at public health and equity and sustainability that as that work is also underway for our city that it's incorporated into your work as well because I think in many ways they're very much so aligned with a lot of overlap so at this time we'll go ahead and see if there's action and deliberation and that's where we're at in this process so we have Vice Mayor Cummings and then Council Member Myers and then Council Member Brown. I'm going to move the recommendations brought forth by myself Council Member Myers and Council Member Brown and include the two amendments that were brought up the first to consider alternatives to the project presented in the fall of 2008 with one one of the alternatives for consideration to be a renovation of the downtown library. So we have a motion by Vice Mayor Cummings I'll go ahead and second that Council Member Myers and then Council Member Brown actually I'll go ahead and pass Council Member Brown and then Council Member Glover I was going to make the motion so I'll pass too but I do while I have the floor also want to appreciate the work of the DLAC I went to some of those meetings not all of them and I know that you spent an extraordinary round of time reading, engaging asking questions and engaging with the community and so absolutely will incorporate all of that previous material and work and look forward to drawing on your knowledge as well as we move forward. Council Member Glover. Thank you so there were a couple things that were brought up from some people one of them was the title of the project or the group because the agenda report specifically talks about it being the downtown library project and Council subcommittee I just want to make sure that that I make that statement that it was brought up that there was a concern about the potential misleading title with regards to looking at because I know that the conversation the subcommittee is going to be about the library specifically but the issue of there being the library garage and how it's portrayed not a huge deal but I figured I would just make that statement so that it's there and see if there's any interested changing of language the other question I had was what is the outreach plan for the subcommittee how are you going to ensure maximum engagement and engagement of the stakeholders what does it mean when you say concern stakeholders does that mean people have to approach you as a concern stakeholder or is there going to be an outreach effort so we'll start there I think that step one is to get the committee approved because if we didn't get the committee approved then then we wouldn't be moving forward with this action at this time so once We'll be having a meeting to set up and determine who are the stakeholders. We have some sense of who some of those people are, because they've reached out to us at this point in time. And so we're going to narrow that group down and try to figure out what's going to be the most efficient and effective way of, and this is all coming from me personally because we haven't, aside from trying to put this committee together, we haven't meant to discuss those details yet, but once the committee gets approved, we're going to move forward with trying to bring together those individuals, determine what the process is going to be. I think, my side more, was that a- I don't know if she had a, did you have additional responses? I can wait and respond to all the questions at once, but yeah, I mean, I think perhaps because it is pretty open ended and we didn't want to establish a work plan and constrain the realm of possibility in that way for this item. But I do think, and maybe it would be helpful if it makes people more comfortable to include a report back from the committee by a certain date. I think what would make sense if it were- With some additional information. And we have our committee kind of subcommittees and ad hoc report outs. But at that time, I think it's a really appropriate place for you to report or update us on any kind of work that's happening. But only if, but it would be great if that happens, but I want to make sure that it does happen before anything moves forward. So I appreciate your suggestion, Mayor, but I even more so appreciate what Councilman Brown was trying to communicate. I think about including that in the language intentionally so that there's the expectation that there will be a return back with a report before the subcommittee moves forward with their outreach plan. Okay, so I think that could be, it's a both and, I think it could be both the suggestion and it could fit within the existing context of us reporting on subcommittee work as well as outside and inside internal committee work. So, if I could. Let me make her the motion. I'll just say that I do know that the community wants us to be moving forward on this. I think that would actually delay us moving forward because that means that if we come together, let's say in a week and we're trying to be communicative with the public and get this moving quickly. If we continue to wait for more meetings, then I think it has the potential to continue to delay the process. I totally hear that and respect that perspective. My response would be, well, if we were worried about delaying it, then it would have been great for you to come with an outreach plan. So that there would be clarity and transparency in what's going to be expected. Because there's the consistent message from the community that they were left out or felt left out of the downtown library advisory committee process. And then also, there is the question of will the public have access to your meetings? Now not Brown acted with listed agendas, but being open to allow them to observe the process. And I don't think that's been answered. And I was disappointed to see us move so quickly into a motion when many of the questions and statements made by the community have not been addressed. So would you be at the subcommittee be open to allowing the public to view and oversee the subcommittee not interacting or engaging, but to be able to observe the process? I'm willing to make an amendment to this, which is we'll bring back our process to the committee. I'm just going to put it out there, though, that this will likely delay the work that will be done on this. And I know that people have been wanting us to move forward on the library, so. Yeah, I don't want to delay it. I just want to understand what the perspective is. I mean, if I don't ask you now, then I won't know. So it's good to know that hasn't been broached or hasn't been looked at. So this kind of correlates with that. So how will you ensure a diverse chorus of voices, especially low income people, people experiencing homelessness and working class people? Is there a plan? I don't know, you don't know. So those are things that, questions that came up to me with regards to the structure of the subcommittee. Also, so yeah, and I don't want to delay the process because I want to see this move forward just like everyone else. And I want to make sure we don't lose access to the funds. But the next time that we come forward with a subcommittee, I would appreciate it if we could have some more clarity as to the structure, the outreach process, the insurance of how we're going to be getting diverse representation, and the access of the public to those subcommittees. Okay, so as a seconder of the motion to support this action, I just really want to reiterate, I think, the original comments made by Vice Mayor Cummings. And that this is really just the first step to form the committee to begin to the conversation. My also interpretation of the item is really, it is 100% about community engagement and community outreach. So I have no question that that's going to be sort of the priority as this group moves forward. So for me, I think in terms of really relying on the subcommittee to figure that out, I feel comfortable with that as opposed to sort of prescribing what that might look like at this time personally. Okay, Councilmember Cronin? Thanks. And just I spoke to two of the members and they both were looking forward to a vigorous conversation today at the council because we couldn't talk. So here we are in public because the three can't really speak to a fourth. And so they said, sure, let's have a vigorous conversation and I'm taking them at their words. I'm wondering if the, I mean, I would like to make a friendly amendment that the public can observe the proceedings without necessarily having to come back to us with, and lose a bunch of time. But would you all be just, we can do some amendments right now without having to come back to and have this conversation and hammer it out. I mean, that's what doing the public's business in public is. So, well, I guess they're very different logistical arrangements that would need to be made depending on how these meetings go. So I mean, I would like to get a sense from staff and I'm not sure if that question would be who we would ask about the possibility of using a facility that is accessible to the public for. How about the room upstairs, the library? I have just maybe a suggestion that as this council subcommittee forms that they explore the potential of their meetings, if necessary or if appropriate, is potentially a public meeting. But having you do a little bit of that work and then bringing it back to us if you think that's how you would like to frame the outreach efforts. That sounds to me like it's really in the infancy stage, so as opposed to trying to design that here at this time. Yes, yes, I agree. Councilmember Glover? I think what the, I mean for me at least, and I kind of want to speak for anyone else, but for me, the issue here is that we've heard clearly that there's a lack of trust in the processes of this body. There's a lack of transparency in the process of the city and that they would like to participate. And Councilmember Crone is just asking to make it so that the meetings are available for people to view and came up with even a location. So the fact that we don't even want to talk about it right now or explore how that might be a possibility is troubling to me. And it completely disregards all of the statements that we heard from people that felt they are not represented, that their money's not going where they voted for it to go, and that there's no transparency in local government, so it's concerning. Okay, we'll go ahead and have Vice Mayor Cummings respond to that and then go ahead and move over to Councilmember Crone. I still have the floor, I finished my questions. Okay, we'll go ahead and have you finish your questions, and then we'll go ahead and have you go ahead. A couple of questions, one was for our city attorney. The library facilities master plan, this is what somebody brought up. Are we bound to using Measure S money to remodel the current library where it is and not have it move somewhere else and use the same funds to build somewhere else? Are we bound to that as a city or did Measure S spell that out? From the text of Measure S, that's not the way I read it. Okay, and I had to- Can I also just to clarify, the master plan calls for three different options with respect to the library. It talked about various ways to implement, including a brand new library. So it didn't specify, even the master plan didn't specify that it had to be a remodel of this existing branch, just to be clear. Two questions for Ms. Dubin and Mr. Gomez. Did the D-LAC ever analyze renovating the existing library that was brought up? Okay, we'll go ahead and have, since you're here, thank you for being here. We'll go ahead and have you step up and answer that question. Would you repeat the question? Did the D-LAC ever analyze renovating the existing library? Yeah, this was something, one of the very specific things that we considered. And I'd be happy to explore that with the subcommittee if it's form. And I could tell you more information about it now. And when the D-LAC talked about mixed use library, what did they mean? What was that like in the conversation? We were looking at all the options and we, as part of one of the options, we were looking at combining it with parking structure and possibly affordable housing, specifically affordable housing. Okay, thank you. Can I add to that, with respect to the option that was looked at with respect to remodeling the existing branch, one of the options that the D-LAC asked about specifically and actually the engineers and architects' developer proposal was what can be accomplished within the existing budget? In other words, how much can be remodeled with the existing budget? So that's actually one of the alternatives that's available and was completed. And I also want to say, if it's a friendly amendment, could we come back at the second meeting in September with the decision rather than waiting till October? I think the timeline that we're under, especially because we're going to have July off. We're going to be trying to put in as much work as possible. October's the latest, we'll come back with this. But we're going to try to come back with it sooner. But there's a lot of pressure that we've already put on staff, other work that they're going to be required to do during this time as well. And so I think that one of the things that we can do is we can develop a work plan and we will bring that back in terms of how we're going to engage with the public. And we're going to sit down with staff, sit down with stakeholders and actually look at the timeline. Because this is the currently proposed timeline, it might have to change. But I think that this is an initial first step at this process. I appreciate that. And again, you don't have to bring it back for council approval. You're just bringing it back to show us the timeline. Yeah, okay, and I'm worried about moving this forward. So that's where I'm coming from and I appreciate you thinking along the same lines. That's all I have, thank you. So there's a motion by Vice Mayor Cummings, seconded by myself. If I could just echo my original comments that in the motion language, I have accepted that it also really look at how it can align the work of this committee with the health and all policies work. Okay, okay, any further discussion? Could you repeat your two amendments, Vice Mayor Cummings? Yeah, thank you. So the original recommendation that was made. In addition to that, the two amendments that came up to look at alternatives to the project that was presented in the fall of 2018. And one of the alternatives for consideration to be a renovation of the downtown library. Okay, so all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously. Okay, thank you very much and thank you all. So we'll go ahead and move on to the last item before our break at seven. Yeah, I know, I know, you can say wow. It's true, yeah, it's a wow moment, it's a wow moment. So item number 29 is the next item on our agenda. I'll go ahead and ask the folks that are ready to get going to make your way outside of our chambers so we can just finish up our final item. Thank you, okay, all right, I think we're good. So item number 29 is our review of the meeting calendar and it's attached. And I'll ask if our city clerk has any updates. The only thing is the June 4th study session for the Health and All Policies. I have that on your guys' calendar, so. So we have an addition that's the June 4th Health and All Policies Committee. Okay, so we'll go ahead and maybe wait just a second as the people who are in the chambers clear the chambers. Okay, I never mind, no problem. Okay, so we have one modification to our meeting calendar and that's the addition of the June 4th study session on Health and All Policies. Okay, Councilmember Glover? So because it was not put on this agenda and it was voted on on February 12th for a 90 day turnaround. I would like to, and I also submitted an agenda report trying to go through the normal channels. And that agenda report did not make it onto the agenda. I'm going to ask and make a motion that we direct the city to return back with city staff and provide the data and analysis for the camping and sleeping ordinance, the trespassing ordinance, and the yearning and defecation ordinance on how it could be disproportionately impacting unhoused people. And to ensure that our ordinances are in the spirit and the letter of the Constitution. But in addition to that, return with the data that was requested on February 12th with a 90 day turnaround, which includes conduct in parks, obstructing sidewalks and benches, obstructing sidewalks and benches after dark, sitting, lying, 24 hour stay away orders, smoking bans in public places, dogs downtown and elsewhere, arrest three infractions without a warrant, authority of the city attorney to reduce misdemeanors to infractions to avoid due process, open containers, parking garage loitering, median loitering, safety enhancement zones, youth curfew laws, aggressive solicitation and vending licenses required for handcuffs. Okay, so we have a motion by council member Glover to agendize that item. Was that a motion? It was a motion to agendize it for the following to this next May 28th meeting. If I could make a comment really briefly. Okay. A couple of things. There were two motions made by the council at the February 12th meeting concerning homelessness. The first was a report on basically implications of the Martin versus Boise case on the ordinances that council member Glover mentioned. That is an analysis that is underway by my office and I don't have a problem having a discussion about that with the council on the 28th because Martin versus Boise is or the issues arise in the context of litigation brought in the U.S. District Court concerning some constitutional issues would be my preference that that be a discussion in closed sessions so that the council consider potential liability implications of the issues raised. Second, I have to just fall on my own sword here and say that we got a late start in preparing the assembling the data that was requested by the council due to a number of sort of intervening issues that you're all aware of. And so I'm currently working with the police department to assemble meaningful data for the council to analyze. There are there are a couple of sort of complicating factors. One is the lack of a time frame for the for the information. So I think the the the real critical question is to look at statistically the impact of the various ordinances on on homeless people generally, but also examine the specific information that was requested concerning the the nature of the citation. Racial or ethnic background of the of the person cited gender, age, location where the citation was issued and all of the different factors for I think a dozen or so different municode violations. We've had to narrow the time frame, but in order to do so in a way that provides a meaningful set of data for the council to consider, we're looking at a full year of of data. And the year that we're looking at currently is 2018 because that will provide you with both information that was pre Martin versus Boise concerning citations for camping violations and post Martin versus Boise when the police department implemented its administrative policy of not citing people for 636 violations. Due to the way their records are organized, what that literally means is doing a manual examination of individual citations for for probably thousands of records. And we're working on assembling that as quickly as possible. I'm not saying it's unrealistic to have it by the 28th, but if we could put that to the first meeting in June to give us more time to to work on it. And what I'm doing to sort of foster the process is lending my administrative staff to the police department's record staff to to assist in compiling the data. And so so that's the current plan with regard to that. I'd be happy to adjust my motion to have that secondary data that he's referring to come back on the first meeting in June. Second. Okay, we have a motion by council member Clever, seconded by council member Cron. I'm hesitant to say that we have a specific date. My understanding was that this effort was underway. We have a number of items coming back to us before the remainder of the year. So that is just my hesitation in trying to figure out how to best manage these meetings. I appreciate your explanation of the work that your office has been under. I realize that you've also been under a number of different efforts in gathering this data. So to do your best to get it back to us at a reasonable time, but to say that it is at a specific date, I don't feel comfortable. We will make, we will commit to using our best efforts to have the data available. As far as when it comes back to the city council, I think the normal process can be used to deal with that. But as far as the legal analysis, that is essentially complete. I just need to finish writing it out. Okay. I've done the analysis, but I have to refine the language of the memorandum. And it will be available for the council to review in closed session on the 28th. Okay. A motion to call the question. There's a motion to call the question. Is there a second? Second. Okay. All those in favor to call the question, please say aye. No, all those against say no. No. Okay, so that fails with council member Glover and Crone voting in support. So we're back to the original item to adopt a calendar. We're on the city council meeting calendar for 2019 and there's a motion on the floor by council member Glover, seconded by council member Crone to have the information that's been gathered by our city attorney in partnership with our police department in regards to specific laws and ordinances to return back at the first meeting in June. That's incorrect a little bit, Mayor, if you don't mind. Please restate your motion. It was to return at the next meeting with the information that Mr. Kandadi said would be available by then, which includes the camping, sleeping, trespassing, urination, and defecation analysis and how it constitutes. But that will have to be, it sounds like, in closed session, which. Yes, but as far as the availability of the analysis, it will be ready for the 28th. Thank you. I'll report about that analysis on the 28th and then to return on the first meeting in June with the additional information items A through Q in the minutes from February 12th. There's a motion by council member Glover, seconded by council member Crone, Vice Mayor Cummings. I just wanted to ask the city attorney if this seems like a reasonable timeline in terms of the physical data that you have to gather with the members of your staff and the police department to get that collected and analyzed. Is this a timely, do you think that this is a timely manner in which to bring this forward? I believe that it's a realistic timeline, but I don't know if I've identified all the potential roadblocks that we might encounter. Because the request does list quite an array of information. I'm not sure that we'll be able to check every single box on the list of, on the categories of information. But we'll be sure to include that, that we maintain and provide as much meaningful data as we can in response to the council direction. Okay, so again, I'll just state that I think we already had this as direction. We knew that you were working on it, we'll get it agendized as to the best of our ability as a reasonable time. Okay, council member Brown. Yeah, I support the motion. I do want to make a comment though because it is quite an array of municipal codes. And I think my interest when I originally supported this and support it now was to really try to get at information about the ordinances, which we see or we have knowledge of unhoused people most commonly getting cited for. And so I have a shorter list and those are the ones that are really of most concern to me. And so I just want to make it clear that what I want to see is this list, it's 13.04, 0.010, limitation on access to use of public property. Sit down on the sidewalk, those are 9.501. I'll send them to you, Tony, because I don't want to actually include this in the motion. But I just want to be clear that if we need to prioritize, these are the ones that I'm most interested in. It's sitting down, obstructing movement in public spaces. Conduct on public property, setting up a campsite. And then in park after hours, the trespassing one, which seems to be what I am hearing is what people are now being cited for to get around boys. I mean, there is a contention that that's happening and that's of concern to me. So that's what I'm most interested in learning about. I want to put that on the record. And if the A through Q makes it harder to get this information a timely manner than I'd be open to hearing what we can get and prioritizing these. I would just say that identifying the different code violations and the number of citations that were issued is simply running a search through police databases. And so the list is available. The question is, did we note the racial or ethnic identity of the person cited? Did we? Tony, if I can interrupt you here, just because we're on the council calendar. So it seems appropriate as to whether or not this is going to be agendized at a certain time. So as far as going too far- I guess I should be saying that to you. I appreciate that, okay. So council member Glover and then we'll go ahead and take a vote on this. Yeah, and so I appreciate council member Brown and her statements. So if there is a short list that you would prioritize council member Brown, because we get the other in formula short list and then send them to you, Mr. Kandadi and make it so that those are the ones that we absolutely need for June, the first meeting in June and then the other ones are subsequent. But the whole point is getting it on the agenda for the next time. So we can even talk about it and vote on it, right? So that's the key. Yeah, I did have another comment, but I will defer that until we actually have the agenda item. And I'll just, for the record, just express my concern about having agenda items set this way, because we have about three meetings prior to the end of our break and a number of really big items that are likely to be on the horizon. So I have hesitation in this way, so I won't be supporting the motion in this way. Council member Myers. Yeah, I'm not going to support the motion this afternoon. Mainly because of that reason, we have a $3.2 million budget deficit. We want to make sure that we have enough time publicly to discuss that. And I understand the urgency by some council members to understand this data. But just fitting this in on top of really urgent and necessary public process around the budget, I feel is a little pushing things a little bit. I just make one final comment is that as to the scheduling of the council discussion, I defer totally to the city council on that. The council has given direction and I don't think the council needs to provide any further direction. When I spoke to council member Glover last week, he reminded me of this council direction. And I did confess to having let that sit on the back burner for a while, while I thought over the implications of Martin versus Boise in a different context. But the council has given direction and we will adhere to the council's direction. So can you manage your burden on the council? Yeah, I was just going to say firstly that the council already provided direction on this. It's just a matter of, again, being able to put the data together and bring it back to you in a fashion that's realistic for one. And with respect to items on the agenda, I just want to point out that your next council meetings are going to be extremely packed. We've got budget, we've got the housing task force that you have, a large number of items. So I think it's going to be very difficult to add more items and so I just want to point that out as well. I'll just add that we can, if it works, and that's the ability of being able to help manage and balance the items before us. Councilmember Glever and then we can go ahead and take a vote on this. Two things, one, there was the mention of the process of how things got on the agenda. I was asked to go through the usual process of getting things on the agenda. I made a motion, it was adopted by the council, we gave direction. The time came for it to happen, it didn't show up on the agenda. I even submitted an agenda report through the normal channels. It didn't make it onto the, after speaking with Mr. Condati we could have talked about the boysy implications of the camping and sleeping ordinance today. We could have talked about it and the fact that it is 5.30 and this is the last thing on our agenda and our next thing starts at 7, we could have spoken about it. But the fact that even in my attempt to try and follow the procedural requests of the mayor, the agenda item still did not appear even though it was co-sponsored by two other council members. So the reason why I'm going this route is because I have been left no other option on how I can make sure that these items get on the agenda and are addressed. And with regards to the issue of time and the amount that we have between now and the end of the break. If we don't address these things before the end of the break, that will be another month and two weeks before we even get to address it. So the logic is lost on me with regards to talking about time and compaction of meetings and the need to focus on budget when we could be disproportionately criminalizing the most vulnerable people in our community. And there is already, as been mentioned, council direction to have this data presented. So it's just really frustrating to have to continuously say this kind of stuff. It's a big moment. I'll just say that, okay, this is the time for council deliberation and action. I'll speak to the process. It's not the mayor's process, it's in the council handbook process in terms of how we govern our meetings. Council, city manager Bernal and I spoke about the items that were requested. And city manager Bernal spoke with you as well as I believe the other council members in regards to this item. As well as original direction that had already been provided and the existing efforts underway. And so my interpretation in discussion with him is that there was an understanding that this was already the work that had been directed by the council that the city manager, the city departments as well as our city attorney, were already working on and therefore would be coming back in that way. So to re-agendize it for further discussion, if it was already a previous council action didn't feel appropriate at this time. I'll let you add if you'd like to city manager Bernal. Only on it just to kind of very quickly summarize sort of the process with respect to what agenda items are requested. We typically, in order to assist council members, do a preliminary review in order to again to identify any potential issues or questions that might be of importance to the council member in terms of bringing the item forward. And for example, in this particular case, council member Glover submitted two requests, which I forwarded to the appropriate departments in one case to the city attorney. To see if they had any questions or comments about it. And again, to be helpful to the council member. Again, as an example, the item that was on today's agenda related to the historic preservation commission that went to planning. Planning had some comments about the timing relative to when the commission meets. That feedback was provided to the council member that was fine and it went on the agenda. With respect to this particular item, again, there was confusion about what it was intended to do because it seemed to replicate what was already directed. So that was a follow up and there was not sufficient time to revise the report. Again, it wasn't an intent to not get in the agenda. I think given that the report originally, there was some confusion about exactly what was intended behind it. Because it seemed to replicate what was already presented before and the report needed to be revised. There just wasn't time to do it in the timely manner for this agenda. And that request was made if that would be okay. And so again, there was no intent to try to delay items or anything. It's just a matter of just trying to get the reports done in a timely fashion that were clear and provide clarity. So that's all. And again, the direction was already given and so his attorney pointed out we're working on it. So in any case, so there was no delay as a result of again clarifying the report and making sure that it's a clear report. Thank you for the clarification. We have a motion before us by Council Member Glover, seconded by Council Member Crowne, Council Member Glover. So just to respond to City Manager Bernal, I'm not insinuating that there was an intentional slowdown. I'm saying that because of, and this is where, I mean, you have to look at how everything's connected, right? So the city attorney was busy and so he didn't get a chance to compile the data. Because he was busy filing an ex-partee action that we as a council did not approve. And then that then allowed the forceful removal of people from the Ross camp, which then dispersed them out into the community and now have put them in the crosshairs very literally of all of these ordinances. Then now we don't have the data to analyze because we've been so wrapped up in a court proceeding to remove the people from where they were being able to live. So it's just the connection of everything and having that, excuse me, having that be a reason as to why it's not on the agenda today. And then saying that the agenda report seemed like it was duplicating it. There is a feeling that, at least for me, that there is a skewed priority in what's going on. Shouldn't we be focusing on why our laws could be disproportionately impacting people? Then anyway, we can't talk about it right now. I just really want to say that. We can't talk about it now. I didn't want to interrupt because I was the topic of discussion, but you really need to limit your discussion to- Okay, so there's a motion to agendize it. So we have a motion to agendize it. All those in favor at this point, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. Okay, that passes with council member Brown, vice mayor Cummings, council member Crone, council member Glover, myself and Myers voting against with council member Matthews Absinne. I don't know if this is the right time to do it. I had a conversation with the city manager about it. It doesn't seem like there is a rule in our procedures that governs the issuing of proclamations. And I'm just wondering whether one supports the proclamation or not. I would like to agendize a conversation about how proclamations are issued and maybe what the parameters are for that proclamation. I think it would be appropriate for you to work with a council member or other council members or our staff to go through that process for a future agenda item. But to have that as a content item under our meeting calendar does not feel appropriate to me personally. But not to preclude you from being able to move forward in that way. The topic is an appropriate topic for the council to discuss. Just to nip this in the bud, however, I would suggest that council member Crone bring a motion. I would offer in the alternative that staff could report back to the council on that process. And then there could be a discussion about whether it should be agendized for council consideration, but it's up to the council. Again, the purpose of this part of the agenda is to enable the council to discuss the calendar, place items on the agenda if there's a motion to do so. It's not to debate them. I would make that, that's what the kind of clarification I was looking for. I'll move that we agendize or that we look for staff to get back to us on clarification of how proclamations are issued in the city of Santa Cruz and if we need to, after clarification, we can agendize it. And I would suggest that the council doesn't need to give direction. I think Martin could certainly provide, or my office could certainly provide that information to enable the council to, or a council member to propose that it be agendized for council consideration. If I could, I'm going to intervene here. I feel like that the meeting calendar in terms of specific meeting dates, so if it's not related to a specific meeting date or the meeting calendar, for me it just doesn't seem appropriate. That seems like a work plan discussion that we're talking about. That's a fair point. I'm confused about how you are interpreting the meeting calendar process in terms of agendizing items, the level of depth of conversation that goes into potential items that could be agendized, as well as the ambiguity of the setting of the date. It's a good point. So until we get clarity on that, I don't feel comfortable with this conversation and suing any further. And I'm going to go ahead and ask that you please sit down. This is on an item that we are not having public comment for. You can go ahead. I was told that we'd be having public comment about this item and came down to it. You can take this. Go ahead and ask that you please stop and you're interfering with our meeting. So I'm going to give you an opportunity to sit back down or else I'm going to ask you to leave. We have an opportunity to sit down at this time to let our conversation ensue. And then if you aren't interested in doing that, then I'll ask you to leave her. I just want to read one brief thing. Okay, we'll go ahead and ask you to leave. Thank you for exploring this. I appreciate the intention of the organization, FUNA bombs, and feeding those in need. I also recognize that the time the FUNA bombs is suing the city and just- I'd like him to leave. If he doesn't want to leave on his own, then you're welcome to leave him. Okay, you go ahead and look. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and have you- Okay. Bring a motion. So I'm going to read those. We can't read it. We can't read it now. Okay, so, Mayor, I would make a motion then to agendize how proclamations get written. So we can have a conversation about it, not about any particular proclamation necessarily. But it would be great to get clarification and the city attorney enforcing. That's the only way to do it. There's a motion by Council Member Cron. Is there a second? Seeing there's no second, we'll go ahead and, there's not support for the motion at this time. Okay, so we'll go ahead and conclude the meeting calendar portion of our meeting and adjourn until our 7 PM session. Which will begin with oral communications and 730 for our evening session. Okay, we'll go, good evening everybody. Welcome to our 7 PM session of the May 14th, 2019 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. I would like to ask our clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor, Council Member Cron. Here. Lever. Here. Liars. Here. Brown. Here. Matthews. Here. Vice Mayor, coming. Here. And Mayor Watkins. Here. So I just want to make a brief announcement. If you're here to speak to the public hearing item for user chargers for wastewater services, a five-year increase, please note that we will begin hearing that item at 7.30 PM. Now is the time for oral communications. And oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not listed on today's agenda. Are there any members of the public who wish to address the council? If you are, please line up to my left and I will ask that you, if you're interested in addressing the council very briefly, I will give you an opportunity to do so in one minute. For those that are interested in addressing the council for two minutes, you're welcome to do that. But we'll go ahead and hear those that want to briefly just share their perspective with us. If you have an opportunity to sign in and you'd like to sign in, please do so. But this is not required. And I'll ask that out of respect of the public. And so many of folks who aren't actually accustomed to speaking in public to please maintain decorum and it's my job to ensure that everybody who comes to our city council can speak to us in a way that is free and allows them to voice their opinion without intimidation or discomfort. And I will maintain strict decorum in that regard. So we'll go ahead and start with any folks who want to address the city council for one minute to self-select and please come forward and you'll be able to meet to come first, Councilmember Glover. Thank you, Mayor. I was just informed by a community member in the audience that they are someone that has a disability and aren't able to stand for a long period of time or sit for a long period of time. And so I don't think they'll be staying for the majority of the meeting, but they were hoping that when it did come time to speak that they would be able to go sooner. Is this member of the public here? Okay, would you like to come first? Did you want one minute or two minutes? I think I can give you one minute, but if you're going crazy over it, that's fine. So I was here this afternoon, and when there was a proclamation about the kids to parks, it really angered me. It really angered me because false claims have been made against my sister and I that we sexually harassed children at the Neri Lagoon Park in a campaign to drive us from the park. And some of the park workers, or at least one of them, and Ranger John Rose Kelly, because we got the letter that he wrote, we're part of this. And it's just terrible that this is going on and everyone, all the city council, you've all been gotten my emails, the city attorney, the city manager, and this has been allowed to continue to deprive me of my civil rights and also to deny me access to public facilities. And when they talked about getting more children in the park, that scares the hell out of me. Because that means more children than these parents who are running this campaign, this defamation campaign to try to run me out of the park. Basically, I lived in Section 8 and I was a prisoner in my own apartment. And you're welcome to send us an email voicing your concerns as well. And we're happy to accommodate you as our first speaker. Okay, any other members who want to speak for one minute, you're welcome to come forward. Good evening, cut to the bottom line. Why are we spending over a million dollars a year on outsourcing for city attorney services as we have for decades? If you don't know how to change that, there's a building right over the bridge on Water Street called the county. They've been having in-house attorney services for decades. There's a heck of a lot of savings to be had. I know the issue is coming up about the defamation of Councilman Glover, but I think that should be the bottom line and the solution to the problem right there. Thank you. Thank you. For one minute as well? No. For two minutes? Okay, and I'll just remind that we usually have oral communications for about 30 minutes. So we'll go ahead and, since we got started a little bit late, we'll go ahead and extend it to 735. But keep that in mind in terms of getting through everybody. Okay, you'll have up to two minutes. Mayor Watkins, City Council, Steve Plage. Civility is a word that has echoed through this chamber recently and resonated out into the community. Civility demands at a minimum that we be respectful and honest in our public discourse. Had Fortune smiled on me in any one of my City Council campaigns, I may be sitting on that desk myself. And I would have been experiencing much of the same appropriate that's being leveled at Councilmember Glover. But I'm comforted by the fact that where our positions reversed, he'd be standing where I am, speaking in defense of my good name. In our efforts to serve our community, we all have failings. There are none of us who are perfect servants. But in my opinion, Councilman Glover is as honest and courageous and forthright a public servant has ever been my experience to work with and to know. And I thank you, the community. I thank this community not only for putting him in office, but for putting me here so that I could speak to what I believe are the values of our community. And the value that I believe that Councilmember Glover is tendering to our community now and in the future. Thanks for the opportunity to let me express my opinion. Good evening, Council. My name's Damon Bruder. Last week I dropped off an informational packet for each of you, and according to at least one Councilmember, it hasn't been given to you, unfortunately. Ms. Mayor, thank you for your multiple proclamations earlier, including San Lorenzo River Month, National Beach Safety Week, Public Works Appreciation Week, and the Kids in Parks Day. In keeping with that spirit, I implore all of you to take a public stance concerning the application for certification of the harm reduction road show. This program, as stated in the application, intends on performing needle distribution in Harvey West Park, Elton Cover Bridge Park, and two other locations in Watsonville. There is no requirement for needles to be returned. There is no requirement for medically trained personnel, or for accountability or transparency to the public or any local health services agencies, and no requirement or ability for oversight by any local city or county entities. The community has worked hard for several years with the county run syringe services program to refine and improve the practices of harm reduction for both IV drug users and the community as a whole. We have made great strides forward. Not only is this proposed program redundant, it will surely prove detrimental to the process we have made and undermine the community's confidence in any harm reduction programs in the future, as well as adding to the needle litter in parks and beaches. Please join Chief Mills, Sheriff Hart, Supervisors Coonerty and McPherson, to save our shores and over 3,200 signees of an online petition opposing the poorly thought out program. I encourage you to investigate this. I invite you to join other leaders in our community in taking a public stance concerning this program. Time is of the essence as the opportunity for public comment on this application closes on May 24th. I implore you, please go on record with a comment so that the public knows where you stand for the safety of our entire community. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Catherine Donovan and I'm here today as the President of the City's Mid-Management Association. The city recently signed a contract with the service employees unit, and we understand that some council members believe that the SEIU's pay increases should be paid by lowering the increases to the other units. Mid managers are the professional workforce of the city. Librarians, engineers, planners, and other professionals who work in every city department. At every city council meeting, it's mid managers who present the projects, submit grants, explain climate change, or bike share programs. Most of us have college degrees and our positions often require experience and or advanced degrees. In the city's most recent compensation study, the average total compensation for mid managers was 17.4% below the survey group, the most underpaid of all the non-executive units. It's 47% of mid managers have worked for the city for 20 years or more. Many of them are eligible to retire. With minimal pay increases, there's little incentive for these workers to remain. And when they retire, how will the city attract well qualified replacements when jobs over the hill are paying substantially more? Younger bin managers who might move into these critical positions are facing increasing housing costs, and many have significant school debt. While they undoubtedly love the city, their lives are ahead of them and they need to make strategic decisions based on economic reality. City council seems poised to send the message that they don't value education, experience, and training. Why would people stay here when they can get better compensation for their knowledge, training, and experience elsewhere? Please reconsider the message you're sending and treat all city employees fairly. Thank you. Good evening, city council members. My name is Rome Norman. I'm the wastewater collection flood control manager for the city of Santa Cruz Public Works Department. And the vice president of the mid managers association, OE3. I had the pleasure to be part of three of the labor groups in the city, service, supervisory, now mid management. I have literally risen out of the trenches in the mud. And I find it disturbing that I have worked so hard and sacrificed to provide for my family to attain where I am today to be told now that I make too much. And that there should be a day of reckoning for this work group and other work groups. I don't think so, that's not right. These people, yes, mid managers people are your professional and technical employees who manage people, projects, budgets, develop and enforce policy and generate reports. Some like myself were on call 24-7-365, responding to calls for service at all hours in the community that we proudly serve and live in. This labor group is faced with the same economic challenges as anyone else in this area. And not every mid manager makes $100,000. All we are asking is to be treated the same as the other labor groups and let the process be a fair one, decided at the bargaining table without preconceived notions or prejudice. Thank you. Hello, City Council. My name is Batobi. I'm the city's arts program manager and a member of the mid managers union. I've been in this role for almost five years and I love it. Whether it's giving a young Latinx artist their first big project or empowering LGBTQ youth to find their voice through a public mural. Or bringing a neighborhood together around a storm drain mural, many of whom had never met before the project was initiated. Or working with the Amamutsan Tribal Band to plan murals that honor their 15,000 plus years of history in our region. The work is meaningful. I always make sure that the city pays artists we hire a living wage. In fact, this was a change I made when I came into this position prior the city was really underpaying artists that we hired. We all know that the cost of living in Santa Cruz is high. Not only do many of our artists struggle to make ends meet, but city staff too often have to get creative with our living situations, roommates, etc. Per the city's last two compensation studies, a large percentage of our mid managers, including my position, are paid 25% less than the industry average. 25% is significant for those of us that want to stay in Santa Cruz, have families, and maybe want to buy a house, or maybe just a condo someday. I believe that the city needs to develop a compensation philosophy or a set of values that include support for our so-called non-essential functions. A set of values that recognizes that many of our quote non-essential programs are in fact, what makes Santa Cruz vibrant and a place we all actually want to live in. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. How's it going? My name is Lynn Sansevero and I'm the library IT manager. And I'm also the treasurer of the mid-management OE3 union. We're in contract bargaining, and to be honest with you, it's not going that great. There seems to be an appetite to marginalize our need for fair wage increases. And I'm here to tell you that personally, this affects me very deeply. I have a special needs child who I adopted from this county that no one else wanted this child, my wife and I took this child. And that child has special needs. And I rely, my family relies, my child relies on my salary to give her the education and the special services she needs. And it's very expensive because honestly there's not a lot of resources for kids like her. I've read the comments by some council members that it's somehow okay to deny the managers a fair raise in order to lift up our SEIU brothers and sisters. And I support our SEIU brothers and sisters. But I'm here to tell you all that I am not getting rich working here. I'm not a rich person. I'm a dedicated, trained, highly educated professional who chooses to work here because I love my community. I'm an IT, and to be honest with you, I can work anywhere I want. And I choose to work here because it means something. Just the same way I chose to adopt my child because it meant something to our community. Please understand that only three members are not rich, and many of us have stories just like my own. Consider this as you go through negotiations. I have to go ahead and say, but you're welcome to leave your comments. Okay, thank you very much. During the Vietnam era, I was a captain in the United States Army, had an opportunity to practice leadership. And I practice leadership from a position of I never asked people to do things that I would not do myself. As a degree scientist, I learned about setting up pilot plant projects to see whether a project would be worth scaling up. In that vein, I would like to suggest with respect to the way we deal with the homeless, that we set up a chain link fence around the block that the mayor lives on. Put barbed wire on top, put a locked gate, put up hours as to when she and her neighbors can come and go, have her car searched and her neighbors searched, and allow only one visitor at a time for 30 minutes. Now, to me, that would be leadership. The leadership that I see on, and I can see in the mayor's face, she doesn't like this idea. I don't see why anybody would think that the homeless would like this idea. The leadership that I see on this council comes from Mr. Glover. I have known some of you for quite a while. And some of you I've worked with very closely on a wide variety of issues, particularly and successfully on homelessness, 35 years ago, 40 years ago. And through the more recent years, I've known, I know this much about every one of you, that you are sitting where you are for no other reason than that you care, that you love the city of Santa Cruz and the community of Santa Cruz. Some of you have talents that others don't have. I've known Drew Glover probably better, more directly, than anyone else, than I have known any of you. I know him to be extraordinarily honorable. While I was in summer earlier in the year, Drew and I spent an entire week together. I've worked with him in the Resource Center for Nonviolence as a young staff. I'm on the board for many years. I appealed to you to find in each other the degree of genuine care and talent that you know you yourselves have and work together for the genuine betterment of the community. Phil Posner, Co-Chair and Founder of Conscience and Action. I second my dear friend Daryl's comments. I also think that Chris and Drew and Sandy, Justin to a degree, have been very helpful. But I bring this to you, time to go. That was the headlines on what? May the fourth, time to go. I've spoken here a little bit about empathy. Empathy is connected to imagination. If we don't have imagination, we don't have empathy. I ask you to imagine yourselves receiving in the mail or in some other official document the fact that you have to leave your home. Maybe your mortgage is over the top. Maybe you've been evicted because something's gone wrong. And suddenly, it's time to go. Can you imagine your feelings? Can you imagine what it's like to not only be homeless, but leave a camp where you were a resident and you felt at least a part of a community? I'm asking you because you wrote this byline. Jessica's not responsible for this. You wrote this because you decided that it was time for homeless people to go and I ask you where? Where are they to go? And I am hoping that many, many of us are hoping that you are going to use your empathy and your imagination to figure out a realistic place where after June 29th, 170 human beings are going to have no place to go. Thank you. My name is Dennis Outlar. I'm president of the United Nations Association of Santa Cruz County. I'm also a retired instructor at Cabrillo College. And previous to that, I was a dean of students at Five Branches Institute, at Five Branches University. Drew Glover, Councilman Glover, was a student of mine in my class and he approached me asking if I would be a faculty advisor for a student group that he wanted to form called the Justice League. I got to know Drew on a very personal and intimate level during that period. He also lived with me because he was basically evicted from the housing arrangement that he had and I offered him space in my residence. Drew has demonstrated beyond compare his commitment to the betterment of this community and his devotion to the most marginalized members of our community. And it affected me personally to see that the city attorney's office would malign and impugn the character of Drew Glover in the fashion that was done before a federal court in San Jose. Now, I know that there has been an apology tended because of the unfortunate characterization of Drew that was then given. But that's not enough. The council has talked about the need for civility in public discourse. It is the responsibility of the city council to censure the city attorney's office for their unprofessional conduct. Okay, thank you, your time is up. Good evening, mayor and city council members. I am here to lend my support to Drew Glover after he received a vicious attack by a lawyer representing the city of Santa Cruz. Defamation of character is a serious attack which harms the reputation of the receiver. The city must do its due diligence and renounce this attack. Proof of harm to his reputation is evidenced by the negative letters in the sentinel and elsewhere citing this allegation as fact. Making false and defamatory statements is illegal and it is uncivil. This demands a response from our city leaders. Drew is a voice of the people of color, the marginalized working class, rent burden, disenfranchised, poor, and immigrant communities. We need Drew, we need that voice. Thank you for speaking our truth as we move into more inclusive and transparent government. I see three steps that we could take. One, renounce this falsehood. Two, compose a formal apology from the city. After all, the lawyer was an agent of the city. Three, demand a front page apology and retraction from the sentinel and any other publication that ran this story. And know this, how we respond says everything about who we are as a community, decency demands we make things right. Thank you. Before we hear our next speaker, if you have a sign, I'm going to ask that you please do lower it to not obstruct the view of the person behind you. So please keep it below your chest area so that the person behind you can still see. Okay, go right ahead, you'll have up to two minutes. Thank you. Councilmember Glover, I completely support you in every way possible. And I don't want to make my comments exclusively about you, because I think there's a whole climate that I feel happening, which actually is the reason I have avoided politics most of my life. It's what happens in elections when people start defaming each other, looking for things, and they're passed to talk about. Now, the trouble with saying something like this is that even if you make an apology, it's already been said and it's out there and it's impossible to take it back once it's been said. It's still out there. And so there's just so many things like this happening here. I can feel things under the surface that never get talked about. We can talk about civility, but then there's all these undercurrents of your good, bad, this kind of stuff which isn't right and it keeps us separate. And I also feel really badly that seems to be becoming a town of fences and keep out signs and security and the bathroom out here is marked as you can't go in anymore. It's closed, but it's not really because the door opened. So I just have this really bad feeling about what's happening here in our town that we're not talking about. How can we be kinder to each other all the time? How can we, that was said before, how can we find what's good in each other? We just got to be something good in each other that we can see even though we see the things we don't like. How do we find ways to, I want to say, Councilmember Brown, I see you do this a lot. I really appreciate that about you. You seem to be very good at building bridges and it's something I'm learning how to do too. I feel like I have a lot of Sherry Conable coming through me now as a teacher. She's reminding me she was teaching me before she died this and I feel like I want to channel her through me. Thank you. Members of the community and City Council, yeah, it's 179 on June 30th. Homeless folks that will be dumped and there's over a thousand tonight that are still out there without shelter. The city has a homelessness crisis, which is to say a housing, job, and disability crisis. City Council has shown the ugly face of its profound hostility by collapsing, clearing, and dispersing the Ross camp, which was shelter for 200 people while providing no meaningful alternatives. The three shelters offered as alternative did not provide adequate numbers of space. And of course, they evicted or excluded the people who were outside to begin with in order as to provide the pretext for getting rid of a Ross camp created by the chief of police. We sent people there because there was no place for them to go. The phony narrative of replacement shelter is being exposed nightly on the sidewalk, the streets, the parks, and in the beaches. So it falls to the community to act where the council is paralyzed or determined not to. They've got no rent control, there's no just eviction protection, they're going to pursue a costly lawsuit. There's a conscience in action in Huff meeting tomorrow at 11 at the Subrosa Cafe. I invite the entire community to come, council members if they dare. If you'd like to discuss ways of putting conscience into action, come and try and do it. We did that yesterday when we apparently persuaded the Salvation Army leadership at its miniscule campground to revise its restrictive visiting policy and actually allow those dangerous Ross camp residents to have visitors. But the city bathrooms, as mentioned before, are still closed. The health facility, porta-potties and washing stations at the Ross camp are shut down and people are crapping all over town. Guess who we have to blame for that? Your time is up. Thank you. And I do blame you, yes. Hello, I'm Garrett Phillip. I wanted to talk about requiring a more objective method of evaluating grant recipients like I did last time. The selection performance, using the math of defined quantized costs divided by quantized public benefits. And I wrote a few pages about that, and maybe I'll have to get back to that or just hand it in. My thinking is the good old boy and favorite son repeat non-profit or feely-weely they do good work or some guy like the free meals he got. So here's an extra 50,000 they didn't ask for could be done more objectively. Instead, I will comment on the earlier proceedings that disturbed me. It may venture into something of an insult because it requires a bit of mind reading of the motives and bias of some council members, but this is how it appeared to me. I don't consider pretend innocent questions about the use of unions on jobs so innocent, but suggesting a council member favors unions over non-union work even if it is more expensive or not. It seems to forget the council should always stand with the people and the city negotiates with unions and should not be on the wrong side of that. It reminds me of recent events where a council member seemed to be on the wrong side of the people of Santa Cruz against the city, but we don't need to get into that. Some people think so, I'm not right now for me. Seems like fishing for votes. I would also remind if unions had their way, we'd still be building cars by hand. I don't consider pretend innocent questions about how the city raises rates on leases as suggestion. CPI is the end all of justifiable rent increases and justifies rent control and express favorite bias. I don't consider wink wink co-conspirator further directed admonitions of for profit landlords that they should also use CPI and something to learn from the city's methods, any less genuine or more blunt but equally less genuine and actually illogical. The latter I remind the council member, the city is landlord and for profit investor rental landlords do not play on the same field. The city does not have to make a profit. The city isn't going broke with a single bad decision. Your time is up, thank you. You're welcome to leave your comments. At least before we get started here with you, I will just let the community know that we have oral communications for up to one half hour. And we extended it about five minutes over 7.30. Therefore, we won't be able to hear all the folks who are interested. But I want you to feel free to, this is an opportunity for us to- I'm going to ask that you, okay, I will go ahead and pause the meeting if we're unable to continue to work. I will acknowledge my colleague here in just a moment, but until I do, I want to remind you that's how oral communications go. You're welcome to email us on items that are not on today's agenda. You're welcome to find times to meet with us as well. We have a public hearing item that's set to begin at 7.30. We extended oral communications. I will allow for this to be our last person. Allow for our city clerk to accept any input that they'd like to. And we can have, I'm going to go ahead and ask that you, you've been warned. You've been warned if you continue to disrupt the meeting. Okay, we'll go ahead and ask that you go ahead and leave or that's your warning if you continue to go out, you're going to have to leave. I'm with you, Mr. Norris, that's your warning. I'll go ahead and acknowledge my colleague here, Council Member Glover. Thank you, Mayor. So I do want to note that we started four minutes late for the, for the oral communications, thank you. So we didn't extend it by an extra five minutes, we accommodated the late start for the meeting. And then also, since we have a rather short agenda for this evening, and there are obviously people here that want to speak on a variety of issues. I would move that we extend oral communications, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, for another 15 minutes. Okay, there's a motion by Council Member Glover. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Council Member Cron, any discussion? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. That passes, that fails with, if I'm not quite sure, no. With Council Member Brown, Matthews, Vice Mayor Cummings, myself, and Council Member Myers voting against, Council Member Cron and Glover voting in support. At least you will be our last speaker, and I want to remind the community that you are always welcome to. I'm going to go ahead and ask you to leave then. Can I ask our Sergeant of Arms to please go ahead and remove this person? That's fine. Take me out, take me out. Yeah, I'm sorry. I think I've had your in the meeting. That is messed up. Yeah, adjourned, whatever. I've been, we've warned you to please. I drove an hour to get here. You're welcome to. One hour to get here. Go ahead and take a five minute recess. We'll allow you to go ahead and leave. Go ahead, and at least you'll be our last speaker before oral communication. Please go ahead, Sonny. The only one who broke the mic today. It's the third grade as well. We're going to go ahead and call our council meeting back into session. We had one speaker who will be our last speaker for oral communications and then we'll go ahead and move on to our evening item. And you'll have up to two minutes. My name is Elise Cosby. I'm here tonight to speak to the situation with President, known as Mr. Trump. This is a relevant topic because for the last 30 years, we've had a steady progression to as Carl Rove call it. It was the brainiac that got Bush, George W. Bush elected to governor and then president. The problem with you Democrats is that you're hung up on a reality based reality. And President Trump has no problem with a reality based reality. And the reason I'm bringing this in here today is that the question of impeachment is up in the council. The Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and the moderate Democrats you might call them are going to delay and cause just a bunch of stuff they don't want to impeach. Because the impeachment won't go through the Senate. What I'm trying to get to talk about is that we have a crisis on our hands. A crisis of government and it's a crisis of climate change and addressing climate change. President Trump, if he does get impeached will be able to appeal to his base and cry and all this information by the way is coming from Daniel P. Sheehan, I'm just a student. So I can't take credit for like any of this but it is true. And the problem with Trump is he threw the election and he will do it again in 2020 if he's not stopped. He absolutely must be stopped. He threw three swing states at 70,000 votes. If we impeach him on climate change because he has undone every single environmental law or will in the near future. We can at least impeach him on grounds of national security. He is endangering the entire planet. And it is time that the Democrats stood up against this nonsense. And I'm not talking about Nancy Pelosi and the Uber capitalists who have brought us war and famine and climate change. But I'm talking about the justice Democrats are the ones to do it. Long live AOC. Your time is up. Okay, we're going to go ahead and do your time is up. You just wasted 15 minutes of the public. I'm going to go ahead and ask you to leave. Okay, you're going to have to leave. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and ask those stars. This is how you care about the public. You took 15 minute breaks or more and you still- Okay, we're going to recess again. Obviously, you don't care about the public. Obviously, you do not care about what the public has to say. This shows exactly what you think. Okay. I'm going to- Clay pipe there, which much of the city's collection system is made of. And this is newer clay pipe with nice gaskets. Our intent is to replace all of the old clay pipe soon. So we're working on that. This gives an overview of the percentages of the increase. And you can see there that the annual surplus, if we did all the projects we were hoping to this year, we would spend $12 million more than we take in. And that would reduce our fund balance significantly. We won't do all those projects in the first year, but we'll do them year two, year three. A lot of that has to do with the UV and then how long it takes us to design the next large project down there and how we group them together. This is a chart that shows what the increase will mean to the different users. Focusing on the single family and the multifamily user, you can see it's about a $3 a month increase for a single family and a little bit more than three for a single, less than three for a multifamily. The low sewage producer is a little bit less than $2. That's in the first year of the increase. This shows what happens five years of increases. So it's a significant increase after five years and gets us from $47 to around $65 for a single family. That's over a five-year period, so about $3 each year. This shows what the rate increases have been over the last 10 years. So in 2008, we were at $35.50. We had a rate increase, a four-year rate increase that was approved, I think, in 2007. And we delayed some of the increases. This is during the recession. And due to that, we didn't need to raise the rates and we didn't. So that's always an option. In future years, you can always postpone one of the already approved increases. Bottom line in red shows what our increase has been over that 10-year period. So if you look at the whole 10 years, we've averaged about a 3% increase per year. This is how our rates compare to the Santa Cruz Sanitation District. As you can see, at $50, which is our proposed rate, we're $18 a month less than the Santa Cruz district. After five years, of course, we'll be much closer to their rate, but their rate will, I'm sure, go up during those five years. They increase their rate once a year. It's just a critical facility and the treatment plant to stay at the level of treatment that we are, which is secondary. We just have to have that additional funding for capital improvements and maintenance at the treatment plant. It will allow us to keep our fund balance at the right amount, and it is a modest increase when you look at the time period that it will take for all the increases to go into effect. This is the last slide. This compares us to some of the local communities in the area. And I just highlighted the ones in red just, I don't know, because it seems like they're most appropriate. To compare to us, Watsonville has a slightly lower rate for multifamily. It's interesting that they have the same rate for a single family as for a multifamily, kind of odd. But that's what they have. So their single family rate is significantly less than ours. You can see that Half Moon Bay is a little bit higher than us. So I am available for any questions that you have. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you for your presentation. Do council members have questions at this time? Councilor Matthews? I do. Very prosaic. On multifamily, is that per unit or per property? That's per unit. That's what I thought, but just asking. And then that slide you showed where it starts out, negative 12, and then goes down. So we have the rate increase. Is the expectation to bond against those rates? So you get the money up front to pay as you go? Yes, since we built the secondary treatment plant, which was like a $60 million project, we have been able to pay as we go. Now, we haven't determined how big. We have a lot of that long list of projects. And it will depend on how we package them together. So if we package them in a big enough group, maybe we would bond to do that work. But as of today, we'll pay as we go along. We won't do seven or eight large projects all at once. Maybe we'll do the electrical first and then come back and do a mechanical contract or something like that. So we feel that we can pay as we go, and then we save the interest. Councilor Meyers. And is there, are any of these items fundable through any of the water bond remaining funds? Is there any, I guess, yeah, state grants? Grants and stuff. The last, when we did the secondary, we got a low interest rate loan. That was the only kind of program available to us. And I believe that's still true. And we did do some projects in there for improvements to the cogeneration system. We generate a lot of electricity down there, over 1,000 kilowatts continuously. And we almost run the whole plant at times. At times, we do run the whole plant on power that we generate. So that, there was some grant funding there. But waste water is kind of on its own since the 80s. I just have a quick question. If I heard you correctly, did you say that our increased rates will start to match the county rates, or the county rates, or there are already- No, no, what I was saying is that if you look at this chart on the, let's see. That's not it. So you can see that our proposed rate for a single family is going to be $50 a month in round numbers, $50 a month. The county's new rate that they just adopted or will be adopting will be $68.86 a month. So significantly higher than our rate. In five years, our rates, with all the increases that you would be approving, we still would not get to the $68.86. So in five years, I mean, if they don't have a rate increase for five years, our rate will still be less than theirs. Thank you. Other questions from council members at this time? I have a brief comment of it. Council member, I just, so the low sewage generator, I believe we discussed this last time. So that rate at the proposed 2023 is almost half, not quite half, but quite a bit lower, but that rate is determined through a mechanism. So if you see, you basically designate a low sewage generator based on your data, correct? So someone who is striving to get a lower rate, it has that eligibility by just being a low sewage generator. Yes, yes, they do have that ability, correct? Council member Brown. Yeah, as a follow-up question, and I know we did discuss this, and I don't think we discussed this element, is, so it's, people don't use, so you select based upon the data that you have for people who are interested in trying to meet that standard. How do they figure out what they need to do in order to get to low sewage generator status? Well, the rate is displayed and explained if someone's coming in for a new service. If someone has an existing service and they get the low sewer generator rate, and they know it, sometimes they don't recognize it, and then they miss one year, and it goes up, and they go, what happened? Or they get it one year, and they go, wow, this is amazing. So people seem to recognize that they have it. I mean, we do do some publicity because we advertise it, and we advertise this meeting, and we sent out the flyer that explains it and actually highlights it. They get it automatically based on their usage, their water usage in the winter. At the end of every winter, we calculate their usage. And that's how certain people get put into that category. They don't have to come in and ask for it. I guess I'm just, and thank you for that, I appreciate the explanation. I guess I'm just trying to get out for people who will be experiencing the rate increase, who may not be aware. Is there a way to make that information readily available? Make it easier for people to figure out what they concretely can do to achieve low sewage generator status. So I get my bill, and next month or in July, whatever August I guess it would go into effect. It's higher, and I read through the bill and I try to understand. And then I say, I can get this big discount if I'm a low sewage generator. What can I do? I don't want to just call you all up. I don't think that we have capacity at the city to answer those questions individually. But is there just some kind of simple way, could we say go to the website, here are some tips or just anything like that? I believe that we could, we can look at the water department. Customer service, they send out the flyers for all the users. I'm not sure if it's every six months or once a year, but we could do that type of outreach before next winter because you can do all the watering you want in the summer. We're fine with it because it doesn't go to the wastewater system, but we could do that. And I think with the new billing, they might have the ability to put something right on the bill. I have to talk to them about that. I pay online, so I'm not sure. But yeah, so we can look at publicizing that before the winter comes. I mean, I think it would be on the monetary benefit for financial benefit, just a benefit for our system overall. Yeah, that's good, okay. Any other questions? The proposed monthly increase chart. There's some fluctuation in the numbers, and I was just in the amounts that, for example, single family user, multi-family, there's fluctuations in the fee increases. And I was just wondering if you could speak to what's driving that. That is, I'm not sure where you're looking, but that- It was one of the charts that was provided in the- In the staff report. Yeah, you know, that can be rounding. I think the rates are rounded to the nearest ten cents. For some of the categories, it's some of the time, so that might be why it's a little bit different. Also, the rates when they originally were developed, they have a lot to do with how much water or how much sewage the average user in that category uses. So the rates aren't, they don't always go up exactly the same. I was just curious- But it should be pretty close. Yeah, some of these went up, for example, in July of 2021 for multi-family home. The fees, $3.10, and then in July of 2022, it goes down to 280. And so I was just kind of wondering what was accounting for some of that fluctuation in the fees. Let's see, in the one year, we went from a 7% to a 6% increase. But I think other than that, I think, yeah, I think you're right is that that would be based on just rounding. So with the same, yeah, so a combination of the two. Any additional questions from the council members at this time? Kate City's attorney, Kandani. I'd like to just provide a brief, some legal context in which this rate setting hearing is being conducted. This is a procedure that's required by Proposition 218, the 1996 constitutional amendment that restricts the abilities of cities to increase rates and charges for property related fees and charges. Essentially what it requires is that the amount of the fear charge has to be in proportion to the cost of the property related service for which the fear charge is imposed. And this is a procedure that's required in order to adjust those rates in accordance with that standard. And the procedure is that at least 45 days before the hearing, which is this evening, the city mails notice to the record owner of each parcel that has identified that is subject to the fee or charge and the record owner is identified by reference to the property tax rolls. And so the APN of each parcel that's subject to the sewer service charges identified and mailed notice is provided to each of the owners of those parcels. It is also in the notice is information about the protest procedure. So any member of the public who is subject to the charge has the ability to file a written protest objecting to the amount of the increase or to the increase itself. And if the majority of the owners of those identified parcels file a written protest, then the city's not allowed to go forward with the imposition of the fee or charge. So I think it might be useful for the council to just get a little bit more information about the number of parcels that would be subject to the charge and the number of written protests that have been received to date so that you can make the appropriate finding that a majority protest hasn't been made at this point in time. Do you have any insights into that? Yeah, let's see, I don't know if I have the number of how many parcels. I think it's around 14,000. We sent out, I think, 17,000 notices because I think we also, we notice not just the parcel owner, but also who's paying the bill at the parcel. And there were approximately 15 emails at the most that protested the rate. Yeah, so there were some emails that were just kind of had questions. But I would say there's 15 matters when you count on that. Sometimes it looked like there might be 14, but 14 or 15 protested the rates. So close, but not quite a majority. Okay, okay, so it sounds like we're good to go then. All right, well, thank you for that clarification. And right now, we'll have an opportunity for members of the public to address the council on this item. We'll go ahead and ask those who want to speak to us on our evening item in regards specifically to make their comments relevant to user charges for wastewater services and the proposed five-year increase. I'm considering we've had to have a number of recesses to allow us to continue our city business. We'll go ahead and have folks come in one at a time through our side door and they will be allowed in by our Sergeant of Arms. And this is a public comment related to specifically the public hearing on our wastewater services. And you'll have up to two minutes. Hi, my name is Rachel O'Malley and I wanted to bring up one of the things the wastewater services need to support is restoration because the wastewater treatment plant in Neri Lagoon was expanded 30, 40 years ago and there were certain mitigations that were required at that time. One of those was a Jesse Street Marsh mitigation, which was not funded and there wasn't funding there for that. Recently, coming up before you soon is a proposed bike trail through the edge of that. And I would suggest that as you look at the budget for the wastewater treatment plant, you think about the restoration of the habitat that's destroyed as we use water, as we treat water. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I bet you guys have never wanted to pay more attention to what I might say than this moment. Actually, I wanted to speak on this issue because what I want the council to please consider is that we cannot levy this as a tax on the citizens as a blanket fee. The reason for this is that Santa Cruz has gone through just such an incredibly intense gentrification. The people that are hanging on here who are of low income or even a moderate income, just can't afford one more dollar for structural public utility. I really deeply believe that we're at a point where a democratic city with a democratic council, and that's technically what you all are, is Democrats. You're not, for the most part, Republicans. And that has historically meant that we need to tax the corporations, the largest users of waste, the property owners that are extremely wealthy, who own properties that are valued in the six digits, what I'm trying to say is millions here. It should not be an even blanket fee, even if it's just $3 to a single family. And I think you understand the reasons for that. And what I'm just trying to ask for here is we absolutely need to stop this banking approach, fiduciary, down to the scent, and tax that poor person who's struggling to even be here, of which most aren't even here anymore, the poor. So please help us now. Nothing against wastewater structures, infrastructure. We need to be more judicious about this fee. Thank you. Thank you. Wastewater. Drew Grover ran a campaign on $15,000, wastewater. The next runner up ran a campaign of $50,000. Drew still run. He won for a reason. He represented and still represents a majority of our votes in our city. He definitely does not represent the minority who are a lot louder and more organized than the progressives. He stands strong and has not changed any of his values. He stands for the marginalized community, the unhoused, the poor, people of color, and the workers. He hasn't changed his views. I wrote Tony Kandadi asking him to please fire Reed Gallagherly or however you say his name. I'm going to remind you that the remainder of your comments need to apply to the item before us. Several times in the courthouse while fighting several citations I received as an activist. We'll go ahead and have this. I represented myself in court. Unless you're going to go ahead and have your comments relate to the item before us. In court and was very nervous, I appreciate how Tony Kandadi is very professional and honest. You're going to go ahead and have to ask you to leave. I do not appreciate how Reed, it works for your firm. Okay, thank you, you're going to have to go ahead and ask you to leave. I mean, fire Reed. Okay, we're going to again have to go ahead and ask you to leave. This is on wastewater, increased weights for five years. If there's anybody here who wants to speak to us on this item, we welcome your public comment. If not, we closed any other opportunity for those types of comments. And we'll go ahead and not allow you to speak on this item unless it's related to the topic before us. Sounds like there's a little activity going on outside. If there is somebody out there who wants to speak to us on this item, we welcome their public comment. If not, we're not going to be able to speak. And just a note, we did get some correspondence to council members on this letter or two. That's true. Thank you. Okay, we'll go ahead and thank you as Sergeant of Arms there. We'll go ahead and close public comment on this item and return to council for action and deliberation. Is there any interest in moving this item amongst our remaining council members at this time? House Member Matthews, our council. We can pick. I will go ahead and move the package of recommendations before us. And particularly want to acknowledge all the careful work that's gone into the preparation of both the needs and the financing program to achieve this. Over the years, this facility has to contend with, as we all know, increasing environmental quality control, water quality standards. I may have mentioned previously I took the tour that was given. It was phenomenal. And there were probably 40 people on the tour. I took, they came. They were just amazed at what they saw, grownups, kids. They went away so impressed with the reliable delivery of service. The need for continuous improvement, the improvements that had been made, the innovations, and we understand that this has to be funded by user fees. So a wonderful case has been made. I think the fact that there have been only a handful of objections reflects that there was a lot of serious outreach to the community, the flyers that went out, explaining it in advance. So this has not come as a surprise to people and it gave you a chance, I think, to educate the public about what an excellent facility this is. And what I also got from the tour that I took was the really great pride that that whole team took in delivering an essential public service, one that's often taken for granted. But at every level they operated as a team and just demonstrated professionalism and pride and that's something for you guys to be proud of too. So that's my motion. I'll second that and just want to ask if the maker of the motion would entertain a direction to staff to provide some basic information prior to the winter months to help ratepayers understand how to become a low sewage generator. I happily do that. Yeah, we'll do that. I saw you shaking your heads, I just want to put it on the record and yeah. That's great, thank you. And I agree because I think I discovered it paying my bills. I'm like, what is this? That's great. If maybe just for our city clerk, we have a motion to move the item by Council Member Matthews, a seconded by Council Member Brown with a addition to have our city staff notify ratepayers of being low generator. To really optimize notification. Prior to the winter months. Did I capture? The thing is, you really got to know it, you got to promote it before the month that they start counting. I mean, you know this, but do it in the right season. If I could just make one comment, because we did have a member of the public comment about the fees and the inability of low income, the impact on low income ratepayers. And I wholeheartedly agree that there is a disproportionate impact. I'm just made by that. But I think it's worth mentioning that we are actually not able to do that. We are not able to subsidize the rates that are paid by low income ratepayers with fees generated by higher income ratepayers. And if we could, I would wholeheartedly support doing that, but it's just not possible under state law. Council Member Matthews. I'll just finish this statement and get back to achieving that low user rate. It's all tied to water use, so probably could, I'm not saying anything brilliant here, but connecting with Water Department. Giving people enough warning in advance about the water conservation things they can do that they can get rebates for. So they can take care of those before the measuring kicks in. Vice Mayor Cummings and then Council Member Myers. I was wondering if we could get some feedback from staff. One of the people who came in during public comment mentioned wastewater fee support for restoration of Jesse Street Marsh. I was just wondering if you could speak to that at all. And whether or not there's potential for us to explore ways to get more funding to restore the marsh. Yes, it is true that when we built the secondary wastewater treatment plant in the late 90s, that as part of the mitigation was to purchase Jesse Street Marsh, we've maintained it as an open space and to implement improvements there that are kind of highlighted in the Jesse Street management plan, which we also funded. And so that project, we've actually just recently started to look again at trying to design that project. It's a kind of a difficult design. There's a lot of neighborhood interest in it. Parks and Rec is very interested in doing it. But there's some issues there because Jesse Street Marsh, there was severe flooding from the marsh. And so there's kind of like this conflict there a little bit. And so we have to be sure that we're not going to cause future flooding from the marsh. And in the improvements, it seemed like the neighborhood was kind of agreement of the improvements, you know, kind of passive boardwalk type things. So we do have money that we've carried forward for literally 20 years for that project. It's no longer enough money, but there is, I think it's about $100,000 that remains in that CIP project. And I think in the rate structure, I think we're going to budget some more money to try to finish the design. And then we have to go through a potential permitting process. And then we would hope to look for grants because it's a pretty grant type project where we should be able to get grants because it would be improving wetland habitat and doing educational walk through that park. So that is on the table and hopefully within a year we'll be bringing something back to the council. Mr. Kandadi and then we'll come back. Did you have anything to add? Yeah, I just wanted to add to what Mr. Wolfen was talking about. I think it's also worth mentioning that when the city originally designed the wastewater treatment plan expansion project back in the mid-90s, the original design also included the loss of some habitat in the Neri Lagoon. And one of the reasons for the Jesse Street Marsh management and restoration plan was to mitigate for the loss of Neri Lagoon habitat that was part of that original design. However, the design was later modified to eliminate the encroachment into the Neri Lagoon. And so the mitigation measure that was initially designed to address impacts to the Neri Lagoon was really intended to be for the purpose of mitigating that impact, which was never actually resulted in the final project approval. So in part, the Neri Lagoon acquisition was part of mitigation for the project overall. But the Marsh restoration plan was a mitigation measure for an impact that never actually occurred. So I think that is part of the reason why implementation of it has been long in coming. Okay, thank you for the clarification. I think one question. No, no, I was just making a comment. The last piece was just trying to find out the timeline for when that restoration project would be coming back to us. Which you said it should be coming back. The plan should be coming in about a year, that's correct. That's right. We just hired the consultant to look at a couple of alternatives for the Jesse Street Marsh plan. We have a preliminary plan right now that we presented to the neighborhoods. We're going to look at a couple of little options with digging out more wetlands, creating more wetlands. But we wanted to look at that a little bit, we're going to look at some of those alternatives first. And then hopefully at that point we'll have more public meetings and hopefully we can come back within a year with some sort of plan and the next step. And I'm a little confused on what type of permitting we have to get to do that. It is in the local coastal zone and so, but that would be the next step after that. Are those plans currently public or could council members receive? Yeah, yeah, that's very possible that I can get you guys the draft plans that we have. Thank you. Okay, council member Mayer. I just wanted to just point out that before the Monterey Bay National Main Sanctuary was designated over 25 years ago. We had a number of sewage treatment plants that really weren't at the level that many of them are. In fact, that was one of the reasons that many of the plants have been upgraded. And I just noted in the paper today, and I think largely this is because of the Monterey Bay. I mean, our tourism is now contributing about $34.8 million to our county. And we're the third most visited wildlife area, I think in the country now. And so these investments to clean water into the Monterey Bay Sanctuary are certainly worth the environmental benefits. And I think those come back in ways that, in jobs and other things that. So taking, in this case, taking care of our environment greatly benefits their town. And so this is kind of a win-win all the way around. Because we want to have a clean bay and that's actually paying us back through tourism and other ways. So I think it's good, it's all good. Here, here, council member Matthews, to mention health and all policies. I just can't resist that. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. But you mentioned flooding and I do remember at some point some pretty spectacular flooding in the homes adjacent. Is, was that an exceptional year and a high tide sort of a thing? Or is there some sort of, is our river mouth modification going to help that? I'm just wondering how that figures into the management. You know, we did not have a, a lot of the water in that area used to have to go through the marsh to get to the river. And then when it got to the river, it couldn't get out the river because the marsh is lower than the river. So then it gets a pipe down to a pump station. So that long route that it takes could not keep up during those rain events in the, in the 90s. And so we improved the storm drainage system in the lower Ocean Street area to take some of that water directly to the pump station. So it doesn't have to go through Jesse Street Marsh. Probably part of the Jesse Street Marsh project will be to divert some of that water in a safe way to the marsh. And that's the tricky part to be sure that everybody feels comfortable with how we're going to do that. And we, and we obviously cannot take a chance to have the kind of flooding that happened in the 90s. So it's a little bit, we, we want to have a really fail safe system to divert that water to the marsh. You know, when it's possible and safe. Okay, so we have a motion by Council Member Matthews, seconded by Council Member Brown with the further direction that I think was captured. Any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously with Council Member Brown, Matthews, Vice Mayor Cummings, Meyers and myself voting in support, and Council Member Cron and Glover absent. Okay, I'm going to. And I'm going to say for the record that I'm a bit disappointed that two of our council members are gone because this item pertains to something that we voted on earlier. And I would have appreciated their input because I respect their approach on items, especially those related to homelessness. But I wanted to bring back and reconsider the vote that we made earlier on the two items because I needed some clarification after speaking with them. I do, if I could, just to make sure that we're following a process. So if I'm hearing you correctly, you're making a motion to reconsider. And I'm assuming it's on the item as it related to the calendar and direction around homelessness input, is that correct? Yes. Okay, so there's a motion to reconsider. Is there a seconder of the motion? I will second that motion. We vote on the motion to reconsider at this time, Tony, and then discuss. You may discuss before a vote's taken. I just want to be clear that the Vice Mayor Cummings voted in favor of the original motion because a motion to reconsider can only be made by someone who voted in favor of the prior motion. Okay, so before we take a vote on that motion, we have Vice Mayor Cummings who prior voted in favor of the motion is now bringing it back for a motion to reconsider in adherence with our Council Member Hanbuck. We will go ahead and debate that prior to taking the vote. I should have said by a member of the majority of the vote that was previously taken, so if the. So by a member of the majority of the vote that was previously taken. I also think it would be appropriate to ask the clerk to read back the motion so that we're clear on exactly what it is we're discussing. Before Vice Mayor Cummings, do you want to go ahead and read that, should we pause the discussion until we have that read, is that your suggestion? I think it would be appropriate. I quite frankly got a little bit confused about what it actually was myself at the time. Okay, so we'll just remind those watching at home. This was under our calendar and our meeting calendar and a motion made by Council Member Glover and seconded by Council Member Cron in regards to agendizing something at an upcoming meeting. And we'll just get clarity from our city clerk on what that vote was before we proceed. And Council Member Matthews. I'm going to ask, should I abstain from this vote here? Because I was not present when that item was discussed and voted on, but I'm here now. I don't think it's necessary to abstain if the motion is read back, then you'll have an opportunity to consider what the action was and then you can participate. We'll go ahead and have you reread the motion. I can tell you what I got, but it was long and. Confusing. Very quickly read. So he, Council Member Glover moved seconded by Cron to direct the city attorney to return at the next meeting and provide data and analysis for a campaign trespassing urine and defecation ordinances and how it's impacted the unhoused. And then return with data on June 11th. Following ordinances to allow Council and the community to monitor. This is language I took from February 12th, his original motion. To monitor the potentially disproportionate impact on residents without homes. It should include addresses, races, gender, and the churches. And then the list A through Q of the many codes that he wants to report on. Thank you for that. Okay, so we have an understanding of what was voted upon. I just want to remind our council that this is not an opportunity to debate the content of that item. This is around the agendizing and the calendaring of that item. And so as it relates to the calendaring and the process around having that calendar at either the next meeting or the first meeting in June is the context of the communications that we have. A point that I utterly failed to bring to the council's attention earlier this evening that I apologize for. Councilor Ramirez. But what we're voting on at this vote is simply whether or not to reconsider. That's correct. Okay. Okay, and then we decide on whether or not to return to the calendar. Okay, so we have the motion to reconsider. Let's go ahead and take that vote at this point. Are you okay? Okay. Was there a second? I seconded that. So there was a motion by Vice Mayor coming seconded by myself. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously with Council member Crohn and Gleaver. So now we can move to reconsider the item in discussion around the topic of agendizing at a future meeting on our calendar, on our meeting calendar. Correct? Okay, Vice Mayor comes. So this has been a really long six months of getting items on the agenda. We've spent a lot of time focusing on homelessness. And I extremely care about supporting homelessness and I care that Council members Glover and Crohn have both been expressing and wanting the city to address homelessness. I do have concerns with the next two meetings that we're going to have, especially because one of them is going to be the budget, which is going to be a very long meeting. The other which is going to be a number of items that we put on the agenda related to the rental housing task force among other items. And what I would propose as a new motion is that we reconsider the timeline of bringing those items back. However, I do think that it would be good for the council members to receive an internal report that would be public. It doesn't have to be an agenda item, but a report back on the data and analysis of the data that was requested by council members Glover, Crohn, and Brown. Okay, so the motion is now to essentially reconsider having it being scheduled in an upcoming meeting. And if there is any information to be shared in the form of a memo or other type of communication on any of the data that could come forward at any time. But not necessarily tying it to either the May 28th or June 11th meeting, I'll go ahead and second that. I was going to say that it should come back before, if there's data in a memo that we're to receive, that should be coming back before June 11th. I don't think that we should take action on it, but. Okay, so in terms of the content, in terms of the prior council direction, just to make sure that we really don't go down that slippery road of having a discussion around the content that I don't really feel comfortable. I know that there was prior direction, our city attorney expressed his progress with that based on that prior direction. But to have that discussion here during the calendaring does not feel right to me. So we'll go ahead, acknowledging that there was prior direction to have that information come back to us. We'll go ahead and assume that that's the case without any further discussion, but it sounds like if I could, that would be the case. Okay, any further discussion council member Matthews? What is the motion? The motion is by Vice Mayor Cummings to not include having the earlier recommendation be agendized in the form of having to be agendized on the 28th or the 11th given that we have a number of items that are coming at that time. But that if there is any information that could be provided to us that we would welcome that, I mean if it doesn't necessarily tie it to an agenda item is my interpretation, is that correct? Okay, seconded by myself and then Councilor Brown. Process question, I think we're supposed to just be voting on the previous. If it's a reconsideration, does that mean a new motion? You have voted to reconsider the item. You may get a different direction at this point. Okay, so this is, okay, additional direction for the calendar item. Can I ask the clarification question? So as I understand what you're saying is there's no longer a requirement to bring it back by a specific meeting. However, let's proceed with doing the data analysis and as soon as it's available, make it available to the council for you to have and to review. And then it'll be scheduled as we are able to schedule it based on the items and agenda. The data should come back to us and that data should be informed that we are able to, that data and analysis that we can then consider the impacts of these different items that have been brought forward to us. And then at that point, we can bring these items to the public at a later date when we can put it into an agenda. This is not going to be as packed because these upcoming amendments- So schedule that as we're able to, but provide the data as soon as it's available. Okay, got it. Okay, any further discussion? So are you agendizing it, or do you want it in the form of like an FYI? No, we're not agendizing it, but if there is the form of an FYI, and if and when it is appropriate for it to come back, we will bring it back, but not necessarily tying it to a specific date or meeting. But that data in FYI should come before June 11, or on or before June 11. And that was said to be available or likely to be available. The data to be on or before June 11, does that- I believe that to be the case. We'll do our best to get it by the 11th. Okay, so their best of their ability. Okay, any further discussion? Okay, I'll just say that as I stated before, we have a lot of different business items that we need to be addressing related to transportation, climate change, housing, among many other items. And I think that we will have an opportunity to revisit those municipal codes at a later date. And I think it's important that we do review the data that's been collected, and we take the appropriate action. But I think that these next two meetings, we need to focus on a lot of other business that we need to take care of. I agree with that. I appreciate that. I appreciate the motion to reconsider. Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously with Council Member Cron and Council Member Glever absent. Okay, at this time we'll go ahead and adjourn our meeting.