 or streaming device once you call in and listen through the phone. Mayor Cummings and council members and those who nominated me I'm deeply honored by the recognition if been and will continue to be my honor and privilege to serve this community. I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to acknowledge the hard work of those done this year by the entire city council. Beyond the 1989 earthquake I cannot think of another time in recent history where the city has been tasked with such a quandary. COVID-19, the CZU complex fires and the civil unrest brought on by the blatant revelation of our nation's culture of white supremacy and systemic racism have challenged you incredibly and you have treated each issue with the greatest priority. I am particularly impressed by how your ability to show our community that you plan to do the work to make sure that Santa Cruz is part of the culture shift and the anti-racism work and the work to dismantle systemic racism from within through policy change is nonpartisan is a nonpartisan issue and by leading by that example you express to the people of this community that it is not black against white rather it is all of us against racism and I appreciate the message you've sent by your vote mostly unanimous vote that you want to be and you want to and you want Santa Cruz to be a part of that change rather than its perpetuation. When we look back several years from now it's likely that few will really recall the work that we've all done this year but we will know and that's what matters that we will know and we will know that people are enjoying the community in a really amazing way and that the work that we've done to experience so that others can experience new levels of safety and equity will have a lasting and impactful change for Santa Cruz. Thank you very much. Thank you Mayor. Thank you Council. Thank you to God for letting me be here this morning our afternoon I guess. I want to say a few thank yous because I have had some time hanging around with you all and there's a lot of people that I have met that are really making a difference in our community and I'm honored to be involved and have a seat at the table. I'd like to thank Susie O'Hara, Megan Bunch, Fred Keely, Candice Owens for being such great supports during my time as co-chair with the Community Advisory Committee on Homelessness. I'd like to thank thank and congratulate Sonia Brunner for introducing me to my friend Carter Lieutenant Carter Jones of the Santa Cruz Police Department and she's coming in to be a City Council member which is very, very exciting. Huge thanks to Chief Mills for everything. There's not a lot of words I could say for the partnership that we came up with for the past several months. It's been a whirlwind and it's been wonderful and he's a courageous person. I'm really happy that we got to work together, Mayor Cummings. Really sad to see you go. There's a lot of us that are here today and just so honored and so thankful for your leadership at this time. This has been a crazy year and we're really glad that it was you. So stick around. I'm glad you're going to still be in City Council. Martine Watkins, I have to say thank you especially as well for your leadership. You have been a big inspiration to me. I hope that you know that. Also to a huge bow of respect and praise to the Santa Cruz County Black Coalition for Justice and Racial Equity. You all are doing some big things and I'm really honored to be at the table and have your ear and partnership. Also to my spiritual mentor, I'd like to say thank you to Reverend Deborah Johnson for keeping me in check and reminding me to be humble. Lastly, I'd like to just say that it has been a really big learning curve getting involved in civic politics. I think I came in a little naive and I've luckily had some people, you know, this is what's going on and it's been wonderful. I've been happy to serve this community and I want to continue to do more. I look forward to all the incoming City Council members and the new mayor and continuing to do good in my community. So thank you. This is a big honor. Thank you very much. I second that. I couldn't see myself before, so I now get to address all of you City Council members and Dustin, Mayor Cummings, it's been such an honor and privilege to work with you and Council member Watkins. I mean, just a whole other level of getting to work with you in this way. And I look forward to getting to know the other Council members as we continue this work. And I just really applaud all of you and Chief Mills as well and everything that Todd said and Todd, I wouldn't have been able to do this without your support too. So I want to thank you. Likewise. Thank you everybody. I'm so honored to work with you in the future. Just the beginning, guys, along with me, you know, they jumped and rose to the occasion. So certainly the shelter would not have been possible with all those people. So thank you. And finally, I just want to say I'm really humbled to be honored with it doesn't look like it's playing. Yeah, but was it my desktop or was it the video? You know my desktop? You can see the current changes subcommittee. In particular, I'd like to acknowledge the Parks and Recreation Department Superintendent Rachel Kauffman and also to provide their domain head in Jones, who along with subcommittee members have worked hard on this presentation and the virtual event we will be having with our Shingu partners on the subcommittee members, Adrienne Harrell, Barbara Perman, Chandra Duffy, Gail McCollum, Steve Bauer and our current co-chair Andrea Rosenfeld. And that I will turn it over to Chair Rosenfeld. Today we're honoring a sister city relationship that has produced many years from both cities, enriching the lives of hundreds of students who have participated. Dozens of adult cultural and business exchanges involving hundreds of community members and city leaders have taken place, providing numerous opportunities to learn from one another and to build lasting and meaningful friendship. Now I'd like to introduce Linda Snook, my co-chair currently on the Shingu subcommittee. Linda Snook. Thank you Andrea. The relationship has involved many members of our community and I'm very honored to introduce an important one of these many people to discuss the origin of the Shingu story. Welcome to Linda Holiday, founder and sensei of Aikido of Santa Cruz who will share her memory here and thank you Mayor Cummings and the council members and all the sister city people who are here. So I'm Linda Holiday. I'm the chief instructor of Aikido of Santa Cruz, which is a nonprofit educational organization here in Santa Cruz since 1982. And it's just a great honor and pleasure to share with you the origin story of the sister city connection with Shingu. It's a story of youthful adventure and Shingu has become like a second home to me over all these years. When I first went to Shingu, it was in the spring of 1973. That's the year before the formal relationship started with the city. I was 20 years old. I was a student here in Santa Cruz and I went to Shingu to deepen my study of Aikido, which is a Japanese martial art of peace and reconciliation. I had no idea how much this journey would impact the rest of my life or how many hundreds of people would follow me on this journey over all the years afterwards, 45 years, 47 years, I guess since 1973. I had two companions on this adventure, two other young people from Santa Cruz, Richard Ravor and Jakwata. When we were in Japan, we were taken to Shingu by a woman named Mary Heiney, who as you'll see in just a moment is the person who actually started the relationship with Santa Cruz. She formally introduced us to the Aikido teacher in Shingu, who's Michio Hikitsuchi and he was one of the highest level Aikido teachers in the world. He invited us surprisingly to study with him. The three of us became the first Westerners ever to live in Shingu and study Aikido there. Our presence was a shocking and wonderful experience for the people in Shingu and for us. It was a really different era. It was 1973, no internet, not much of anything like that. We didn't even call on the phone. It was too expensive, you know, and so it was a very remote area. There was nobody who looked remotely like me anywhere in the area and I threw myself into studying the cultural study and the study of the Japanese language and culture and the experience for me of being welcomed by people on the other side of the world from a culture that was so different and being part of the world family with them was just life changing. So I lived in Shingu for about three years in the 1970s and then moved back here in 1976 and have been teaching Aikido here ever since. So how did this unusual experience lead to the formal sister city relationship? Well, Mary Heine made it happen. She moved to Shingu also in 1973 and then when she heard us describing Santa Cruz, the coast, the mountains, the beautiful beaches, the size of the city, and of course the Aikido in both places, she was impressed by the commonality despite the different countries and cultures. And when Mary Heine moved here in 1974 to teach Aikido at UCSC, she then proposed to the city council and facilitated the formalization of the sister city relationship. That was 1974. And she brought the first cultural exchange from Shingu in 1974, the Aikido master teacher, Heiki Tsuchimichio Sensei to Santa Cruz. He gave a demonstration on the second floor of the library. He taught seminars at UCSC and as they say, it's all history since then. Such wonderful exchanges. I've led many Aikido groups to Shingu since then and brought my teacher here many times to Santa Cruz and what an amazing cultural exchange it has been. And that's how it started 1973. I return to Shingu every year except this one. May we all return to our normal lives next year. Thank you very much for allowing me to make these remarks. Thank you so much, everyone, for supporting this connection. Linda, thank you so much for sharing your story and for your part in helping foster this relationship. I understand that shortly after this time, Nancy Aitem and others began exchanges between Little League baseball teams. It's been such a rich and varied history. Now I'm going to do a short slide show. Today, as we celebrate 45 years of friendship, we would like to acknowledge some of the many people who have helped nurture and grow our friendship through the years. With the ongoing support and commitment from the city of Santa Cruz, countless citizens and civic leaders have engaged with our partners, both here and in Shingu, in exchanges of all those of young people have traveled to changing opportunities. Behind it all are the people who keep these programs going through their tireless efforts, among the many people to whom we are indebted for keeping these programs vibrant. Today we want to acknowledge and thank Roxana Gohan and Taku Iwasawa for their many years of dedication to this program. In Shingu, Mr. Iwasawa and his team worked tirelessly on our behalf. Mr. Iwasawa's calm and friendly presence has served as the essential backdrop for decades of successful exchanges. We are thankful and honored to know you. Roxie led 20 delegations between 2000 and 2014. To Roxie and her husband, Ron, we cannot thank you enough for all that you have done for this program over the years. All of the students and families you helped guide or host owe you a debt of gratitude. Thank you. From those of us now guiding these programs, we thank you for caring and now passing the torch to us and we promise to honor the incredible legacy you have left us. They could not be present with us today. Here is a video presentation from our partners in Shingu. I don't hear sound Bonnie. I don't either. I could try it from my desktop if you would like Rachel. Andrea, I'm going to try again. I can try to Rachel if it doesn't work for you. I'm so sorry there seems to be a problem with the video. We'll have to skip then the end of the video and we'll be sure to give you the link to this. I believe it's posted on YouTube so you'll be able to hear the end of the mayor's speech and some nice comments that follow that. I want to thank our Shingu friends for sending us that the energy they put into creating it. Now before Mayor Cummings shares a proclamation on behalf of the Shingu subcommittee, I would like to present a gift that we have commissioned to honor this 45-year milestone. I need to do something here. Can you see that? Okay, local artist Ron Salinas has created this art piece as a symbol of our ongoing friendship and it will be presented as a framed piece to both cities. So with that, I'll stop sharing. Can you mention that for others who'd like to log in or help groups instruct you? Yes, thank you. Thank you Cynthia and thank you for all of your support and participation over the years. We've really appreciated it. We do have a virtual event we're holding with our partners on December 13th at 4 p.m. It's going to be an interactive Zoom call and all of you will be receiving an invitation to participate if you haven't already. So we'd welcome you. You can either participate or just view it through a live feed that will be on the Parks and Recreation Facebook page. Thank you. It's a small correction that the live stream will come from the Santa Cruz student public as well. It's an opportunity to travel to Shingu last year and to really get to understatality they showed us and we'd be glad to do the same for how loving and welcoming they are to Santa Cruz delegations as well. So thank you for the presentation. Thank you, Andrea and Linda. I just want to just acknowledge, you know, I just just an extraordinary thing that I think our cities do and especially in today's world. So I just want to really acknowledge the work that you guys have done and everyone before you. I had a privilege to participate in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Memorial when we did that on Zoom this year and the relationships I could see actually between people even over Zoom. I could tell that these relationships run decades and you all care very deeply for each other. So thank you for dedicating so much time to maintain this wonderful relationship and congratulations on 45 years. It's great. There's no further comments from council members. I just like to thank you all once again. Thank you so much. Thank you. The legal council concerning liability claims, the claims of nationwide insurance, Gilberto Mora Enriquez and the claim of Christine Elizabeth Jacobs. Those three items are also listed on your consent calendar this afternoon as item number 13. Council also received a report from and gave direction to legal council on two items of existing litigation. First item, save our big trees versus the city of Santa Cruz. Second item, regions of the University of California at all versus the city of Santa Cruz. There was no reported action on those items. I wanted to do an update on the latest state home order that was issued by the governor. So I'll turn over my screen to a PowerPoint presentation. Okay. Can you see my screen? Thank you very much. Most everyone has heard the governor last Thursday announced a new state home order that is regionally based and the main reason for it is has to do with just the increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases and in particular the hospitalizations that occurred throughout the state and the concern that we will reach a capacity of ICU units. And the order took effect on December 5th and it organizes the state into regions and basically dictates that where intensive care units that capacity is less than 15% then it becomes effective. And so basically prohibits non-essential activities by individuals and requires that businesses either close entirely or modify their operations to remain open and I'll go over those specifics in a second. So these are the five regions that were created. They're very large. We are in the Bay Area region which includes 11 counties and this also shows the ICU capacity as of yesterday. Can I stop you for one second because the slide that we see just says we might be looking at a difference. Present your view not presentation mode too. Oh, okay. I don't think I'm beginning again. Can you see me? You see that these are the three I'm sorry the five regions that were established under this new order. They're very large regions. Yes, we're not the right slide. And you'd have to say, you have to click on slide show. We're seeing all your notes or the yeah. That's what I'm doing. Bon is going to help me here. Sorry about that. That's what I've been doing. Exactly what I've been doing. Can you see it now? Yes. Never mind. I saw the little click. The youth presenter view somehow was quick. Okay, this should work now. Okay. I didn't click on it. I don't know why. There we go. Can you see it now? All right. Okay. For some reason it was defaulted on presenter views. Start over again. I noted the recent stay home order and the rationale behind it and the 50% threshold. These are the five regions, Northern California, Bay Area, Greater Sacramento, San Joaquin Valley, Southern California. They're very large regions and include multiple counties within each region. We are in the Bay Area region, which includes 11 counties all the way up from Napa, Marin, down to Monterey, and most of the Bay Area counties as well. And the other regions are very large as well. The Southern California one, for example, includes all the way from San Luis Obispo down to LA and then around towards the eastern borders of California. And these are the latest ICU availability rates in those regions. So the way the stay home order works, it's all based on availability of ICU beds within a region, which they can vary by counties. In our county, the most accepted data information is that 25.7%. Now, the order was issued in anticipation of expected rates that would reach below 15% in basically the entire state of California. For our region, that expected rate was expected to be reached in May to late December. However, five counties within the Bay Area region elected to go early with some variations, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Contra Costa counties, theirs became effective on December 6th, Alameda County, theirs became effective yesterday, and the Marin counties became effective just a few hours ago. And then others are considering in our case, Santa Cruz County is expected to make a decision sometime today. Perhaps this afternoon is my understanding as to whether we would go early or wait for the 15% threshold to take effect, in which case we would have to then move to the latest conditions. Regional stay at home order, its purpose primarily is basic of what it does is instructs Californians to stay home, stop mixing between households that can lead to COVID-19 spread. It allows access to critical services and allows outdoor activities to preserve California's physical and mental health. The regional stay at home order is intended to help stop the surge and prevent overhoming regional ICU capacity. So under the order, there are sectors that are allowed to remain open with safety precautions, and those include critical infrastructure, medical and dental care, and childcare, and pre-K. With respect to other sectors, there are modifications that are required in addition to 100% masking and physical distancing. The significance is the outdoor recreational facilities and essentially allows virtually all outdoor activity. People can still go on hikes, can go on walks, can go to the beach, and do exercise activities outdoors. So those are still allowed. Overnight at camp, however, will not be permitted. Retail allows indoor operation at 20% capacity, so that's reduced from what currently exists with entrance metering and no eating or drinking in the stores. And in addition, special hours should be instituted for seniors and others with chronic conditions or compromised immune systems. The shopping center that allows indoor access at 20% capacity also with entrance metering and accommodations as well. In lodging, it allows for COVID-19 mitigation and containment measures, treatment measures, provides accommodation for essential workers, or providing housing solutions, including measures to protect homeless populations. So it's allowed, but it's very restricted. Restaurants will have a major impact on our community in our restaurants, particularly throughout the city and our downtown, but it only allows for takeout for delivery. It allows remote only, except for critical infrastructure sectors for remote working is not possible. With respect to places of worship and political expression, it allows outdoor activities only. And then with respect to entertainment production, industries, studios, and other related establishments that provide content for professional broadcasts can operate without live audiences. That doesn't really apply too much to our region. And then in any region that triggers a regional stay home or because it drops below the 15% the threshold operations in the following sectors must be closed, except for those that fall within the critical infrastructure sector. So this affects us as well, indoor and outdoor playgrounds, carousel lawns and barbershops, personal care services, museum zoos and aquariums, movie theaters, except for driving, wineries, bars, breweries and distilleries, family entertainment centers, card rooms and satellite wagering, limited services, live audiences in amusement parks. So this will affect the boardwalk specifically here in our community. Other major provisions to highlight, and I alluded to this earlier, just with respect to hotel and lodging, it is really limited and reserved to essential travel. And so hotels are not allowed to make reservations for non-essential travel. So that's the limit that the idea is to really limit the travel and exposure of individuals from one region to the other. And then finally, the terms of the order will remain in effect for at least a week. And then it'll be evaluated in the California Department of Public Health will then look at the projections and then decide whether to make a change after that. With respect to our own operations, as I noticed, the order will have a profound effect on the individuals and businesses in the regions and in our community. However, it does exempt critical infrastructure sectors as noted, which includes government operations, and that includes the city. And so the order should not affect public employees that are performing essential governmental functions. We'll continue to do that. And we will continue to ensure that city worksites and facilities are healthy and safe workplaces and that employees who are able to telework are committed to do so as operationally allowed. We do have limitations there in some operations. And then those employees that are unable to telework shall be provided with all the necessary requirements and PPE and will apply all the health and safety protocols to ensure that they are not exposed to the virus. So that concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. We also have other department heads here who can answer additional questions. Thank you, Martine, for that great update. And I'm just out of curiosity. Do you know how many ICU beds we have so we could, you know, with the percentage we can calculate roughly what that would look like? My understanding, and Jason may have some more specific information, is that we have about six beds remaining as of yesterday. She don't have a large number. I mean, in total, like normally not remaining. In total we have about 26 or 25 in that range. Part of the challenge really with ICU beds is the staffing. We have limited staffing. So we actually have additional rooms and equipment, but we don't have the staffing. I think the staffing is in the mid 20s range is what we have. And those are between Dominican and Latino community hospitals. My understanding. 24 beds is what I just got confirmation from. And the staffing is a challenge. Yes. If the capacity reached in one region, then they'll transfer patients. I don't think it's occurred very much yet, since we haven't reached 100% capacity, at least within our region. But that's the idea to sort of manage beds from a regional basis. So if our capacity, we would be able to do that and vice versa. These people getting ill and then having to go into the hospitals and really, they're really just intended to try to keep that capacity as open and as available as much as possible. And so that's why they're put in place. And then to manage as best as possible without really knowing specifically exactly what's going to happen. I imagine that if it does get worse, there could be additional measures. But the hope is that the, and it's hard to say because we're experiencing, I think the surge that's opposed to, so the fall surge, we still haven't seen, I think, the Thanksgiving surge. There may be an additional surge post the Christmas holidays. But so we don't know exactly what's going to happen. But I think the idea, at least at this point, is to try to get ahead as much as possible and try to keep that capacity available as much as possible. I think if it gets to a higher level, there is in our state or within regional assistance that could be provided. But the hope is that we wouldn't really get to that point that the regions could work with it within, the families who work within the region to accommodate the needs for beds. There's a bit of controversy too because, just to note about this, as far as the exposure and the virus spread, a lot of it has been caused by congregation of individuals at private or public events that are more like weddings and funerals and that sort of thing. And not so much from exposure at retail establishments. So there is some controversy about how effective that might be. And that's why we see some counties take a slightly different approach with respect to when they begin their order, the state order that everybody has to comply with. And that's what our own county will have to sort of decide. Although, again, we're expected to reach that capacity between mid to late December. But for a lot of retail businesses, this is a really critical time for them. So I think many businesses should hopefully that it can be extended as long as possible so that they're able to operate and also restaurants operate as long as possible during the time where they make a significant amount of their revenues on an annual basis. So that's a bit of a controversy at this point. But we'll hear from what the county decides. And ultimately, the health officer who decides, but as I understand, the county board of supervisors is discussing and is already discussed. I haven't heard the latest today and the health officer will make a decision about whether to begin early or not. Yeah, Martina, it's my question or comments are directly related to the to the governor's order. But I thought maybe just for the public watching, my understanding is I did see some communication from one of the newsletters I received. I think there's legislation potential to extend render protection through December 31, 2021. Now, and I was wondering if you have been tracking or anyone on staff has been tracking that legislation. And then similarly, I believe Bonnie Lipscomb's team has put together some really great information about at least the the business assistance that recently was announced by the governor, I believe it was where we're extending additional there's additional resources available for local businesses. I don't know, Bonnie, if you have a minute to just where we can point people to, but I think having at least that state stimulus available. And then, Martina, I don't know if it's Sousio Herrera, whoever's tracking legislation, if there's any clarity on on render protections moving ahead. Yes, we are tracking that and I'll let Bonnie answer your questions about the and the governor in his announcement also pointed to some additional measures to support businesses as well as protections. But Bonnie, do you want to comment on afternoon, mayor and members of the council? I was just pulling up the documents that actually Rebecca unit our business lays on prepared in response to the latest. So let's see if I can go ahead and share my screen. Thank you for you guys to your department and Rebecca to, you know, I think you produced those within a few hours of these programs being available. So I want to just recognize Rebecca and your in your your group on getting these things out as quick as possible. Rebecca has been amazing. And I just, you know, I'm always in awe of her technical and digital and graphic design skills. So this is Rebecca's one of her work products. And this obviously you can see the Bay Area mid to late December. Obviously, we're already considering an earlier our county's considering an earlier similar to some of the other counties in the Bay Area. So we're just, you know, on sort of pins and needles waiting for that. And then we'll be poised to update this. And then we are also working with Santa Cruz Community Foundation on Spanish versions of this. We just one came out today from the Community Foundation. So we'll be updating this in real time. And then Rebecca additionally pulled together and sort of a combination of the latest financial resources and links to all of this is available on our ChooseSantaCruise.com. When you hit the button at the top, it says you can click on COVID-19 resources. It's all there as well. But as you can see, there's a variety of immediate sort of financial relief resources that are available from, you know, automatic filing extension for taxpayers, payment plans, tax credit. I think the most interesting thing we're all waiting for to find out is at the bottom, which is a small business relief grant of grants up to 25,000 for small businesses and nonprofits. So there you can see on this form all the circle that you they don't have all of the information about that program yet that you can sign up to get direct information for when it's available. So again, this document I'm showing you now is available on our ChooseSantaCruise.com website. If you click on COVID-19 resources, and then additionally, we included some of the resources on rental assistance and additional resources. So that's all on our website. Thank you, Bonnie and Mayor. I just would note maybe for council members, if you have a personal Facebook page or what have you, it's great. These are PDFs, so they can be, you know, they can be, they can be whatever the term is shared on your Facebook very easily. So just wanted to just those are great products and keeping people informed. There still is money available. There's still help out there. So people should should know and be, you know, actively trying to whatever we need to help people, especially people who are with their businesses right now. So not all bad news. Can you give us an update on the little democratic group is having a face-to-face meeting with Jimmy next week? And I know staff, you talk with the federal people, but if there are particular things that we want to get on his agenda, if he could let us know, also just to reinforce that message that we're trying to work on both planes. Yes. And we have been in constant communication with Congressman Panetta. He's been actually, you know, really great about reaching out and wanting to hear. And he's very, very, very aware of our needs in the fact that the last cares package was really insufficient and inadequate, particularly for city like Santa Cruz with the needs. And so we're keeping a close eye on what may happen. It's hard to say at this point it's been some movement, but no guarantees at this point. We're hopeful that something will happen that will include local government assistance, but I don't know for sure whether that's going to be the case or not. Regional Transportation Commission, you saw folks who are watching saw that we have a ribbon cutting on Thursday. We encourage folks to zoom in for. In addition, many of you have probably heard, but I wanted to formally announce that the RTC has received a substantial grant from the California Transportation Commission for our multimodal corridor program. So this is going to provide, you know, over $100 million, $107 million to the county transportation needs. And that includes everything from working on the rail corridor to three road repairs, pedestrian improvements, a lot of alternative transportation, bike and pet infrastructure is going to be made possible through this. And so it's just a really great, you know, it's just really great news we're thrilled to be able to really put some money behind our programming. And I think it was also, you know, a real indication of California CTC, the CTC is, you know, being pleased with the directions that were going at the RTC. So thanks to everybody who helped make that happen. And we're looking forward to seeing the projects move forward. And I'll just add, because I think this is really important for folks to remember that being, you know, having passed Measure D and being now a self-help county for funding transportation really makes us much more competitive for grants like these. Oh, I'll leave it there for now. An AMBAG meeting, and it was mostly procedural dealing with some transportation issues. And then I did the county, countywide integrated waste management task force. And with that one, we discussed the debris flow planning phase of the hazardous waste removal, and it's done. And they're moving on to phase two, and they're getting ready for that and diverting that waste outside of our county. There's also this thing that was really shocking to me that a new rule starting in January is that no pressure treated or chemically treated would. So just, you know, they kind of have that green and it was like the kind of almost like the staple looking marks in it. They can't go into our landfill. It'll be considered hazardous waste. So messaging is being worked on from our city public works and outreach and things like that so that the community knows folks won't be allowed in our landfill after January. And another interesting thing was the discussion around SB 1383. And there may be a regional approach to keep track of food waste. And I was surprised to learn that there's 97 food rescue resources organizations in the county and that actually the second harvest food bank is actually ahead of the state in doing a lot of this work for us in the county. So that was exciting. And then finally, council members, well, mayor Cummings and council member Brown and I met with some students at Santa Cruz High School and I thought that was a really cool opportunity where they shared some of their talks and things they love about Santa Cruz and things they felt like we could be working on and working towards doing better. And some of the things that they talked about was the excess litter and the frequency in which waste baskets get emptied along the beach and West Cliff and they talked about cleaning up downtown and they had ideas for more festivals downtown in more open spaces instead of along the cliffs. And then they were really interested in that type response. They also suggested this hot topic of more parking downtown. And then they were concerned about homeless individuals. And I don't know if I left anything out mayor or council member Brown to add to that. And they sent a really cute thank you video to the three of us that I shared with Bonnie. I don't know if she has a second if she has it and wants to share it with everybody, but it was really sweet. Do you mean me or let's come? I mean you. I think I sent it to you and just didn't. I didn't get it. I didn't summer. I have it here if I could share it, but I don't know if that's allowed. I don't know if it's gonna let me. Oh yeah, it is. Okay, I'll try it. Do you guys see a teenage girl? Yeah, well, I'm up. I'll push play. Yeah, it's pretty short. It's only like 45 seconds. I'll show you on it. Can you guys see it? Thank you so much for coming to our class and letting our voices be heard. We really appreciate all you do. It was really good to be able to talk to you everything that you guys do women were a little camperside, but that was sweet of the young ladies from out. I'd be happy to help organize it. And I know I sent the text out to you guys and it was like 30 seconds. There was three or four of you that were like, I'll go. You know, so it was great. So thank you, everybody. I really appreciate it too. We have been working hard on putting together extensive cleaning procedures with regards to providing a safe experience for all bus riders. We are doing some analysis on the budget. We did receive a care substantial cares contribution. We've been working from that, which has been very, very helpful in keeping operations going. But we'll be looking at an interesting budget future, I think in a year. And we're hoping that obviously with a change in leadership nationally, we might again realize some stimulus coming, coming towards transit. The other thing I'll report is that the metro is receiving its first all electric buses. And we have done a complete re retrofit where all the maintenance and storage and facilities for our buses take place. We've installed the charging stations and council member Matthews might remember the number off off off hand, but I believe we're receiving our first six to eight buses, all electric buses. So that is incredibly exciting. We have more on order. And so that's a huge, huge achievement for Metro. And aside from that, looking at my notes, I think those are the main things I wanted to point out for members of the public. And yeah, I think I think I'll oh, and the only only other report I have is the I just want to recognize that the cows working group, which was the group that worked to get Cal's Beach off the beach bummer list this year, was awarded the Seastar award from Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation on Sunday morning. And Nick Strong, Kabetich was there to accept the award on behalf of the Cal's Beach, Cal's working group. And his words regarding city staff's contributions to this effort were really appreciated. And yeah, just a really good, a great example of city and nonprofits and environmental and science is working together. So that was a kudos for for the efforts of the Cal's working group. And I think those are my two main updates. Thank you. You know, it is fun to go out and speak because I mean, this is this is the 21st century. Thank you, much. And this is a pretty arcane thing, but it's a PMD assessment to go for a period of years. So they just now put together a committee hoteliers and lodging operators to work out the next formula going forward. So this will this will take a bit of time, but it's part of their ongoing looking forward to provide for funding of tourism marketing. And as you can imagine, the whole visitor services area is just on a whiplash ride right now. I don't know how many do get this. If you don't, I would suggest you sign up because it does give you a picture of this big, it does give you the big picture of what the industry is going through, just practically day to day trying to figure out what are the restrictions, what can we do, what can we not do while still trying to do things. And I have to say our local, the Sanctis County really has set a model on this marketing. You've seen the messages that say above everything. I have to really give them credit for that. And the Green Inn was another winner of the C-Star Award from the Sanctuary too, for all the good work they do with the Green Inn in supporting sanctuary awareness and protection. Other than that, most of the others haven't been at major meetings, but I would hope in the coming year, you know, we've transferred, I believe the downtown association that has a new second contractor and the downtown management corporation is working with a new grant for his hospitality staff. And so I think that might be good to have a presentation from those two, just to kind of refresh for council and for the public, but the significant and good changes that are happening with our downtown, that's it. I have a comment on item 12. I don't know, can I make that comment now? 14 and a comment. I see hands up out there in the audience. So my comment is just that I totally appreciate and support the collaboration between the Capacity Capital and City of Santa Cruz regarding the training of their lifeguards. And I think it's, you know, wonderful partnership. But moving forward in the summer of 2021, which seems really far ahead from now, I'd love to see to the extent possible us run a junior guard program, even if it's smaller. I know that last summer when Capitola was able to run their program at a reduced capacity, and you know, it really, it caused a strain on our families and children. And I just know it's such an integral part of the community. And so I just wanted to address that. And I don't know if Tony wants to say anything or if he can't say anything, but that's my only. I totally agree with council member Golder. It's obviously a crucial part of our community. It's a program we hope to run the summer. We've got really close collaboration with the other cities and agencies in the county and throughout the state. So we are going to do everything we possibly can to run the program this summer. The boosters are heavily involved at this point as well. So we've got good momentum. Just another plug on COVID safety, keep safe and stay healthy. So it gives us the best shot of running a program this summer. But hear your message, council member Golder, and appreciate that. Thank you. I'm 14 and I actually have a question on 16. Sorry, I didn't compensation schedule for a number of so I'm going to just say perm attempt. And I just want to make a note that we are doing this in order to meet the minimum, the state of California's minimum wage guideline. And so when we talk about the cost of living and how difficult it is for people to live here, you know, I just think it's incumbent upon us to to think about how we as a city as an employer is addressing the serious challenges that city workers have as well. And, you know, this is an issue that I've been working on for, you know, over 20 years now. And, you know, I just wanted to highlight that because I think it's, you know, it's a statement that we have to follow the state to raise our minimum wage here in a, you know, extremely high cost part of the state. And then I have a question on 16. Is there anybody else who is going before on another item? You know, the question. So we got this is about this is a Pacific Avenue second street in front. We did receive in our packet included action minutes from the Transportation and Public Works Commission meeting, suggesting that they had unanimously approved this. And this is, you know, this is a challenge with our action minutes. And it kind of comes up from time to time that they don't really capture the nuances of conversations that are had. And we did receive a message from one of the commissioners asking us to consider the parking on second street and trying to morph that into protected bike lane. As we have on Water Street, it's, you know, super like it's lovely and it's working really well. And I believe we're nothing but positive things about it. I understand that there are issues around the number of parking spaces that we need to have in that area. But I'm just wondering, and I think Chris Snyder is here, perhaps you could just say something about that because I didn't want to ignore the communication from our Transportation and Public Works Commission about this. Works Commission about removing more parking to provide for a protected bike lane, just on that one block. But the commission unanimously approved the project that was before them. And so they that recommendation is included in the staff report. We're already moving removing five parking spaces. If we removed another eight, obviously there's another impact because the meter revenue and citation revenue goes into the general fund. So there's a fiscal impact. It wouldn't pretend it would delay the project. We've been issued a coastal permit through the zoning administrator. It has not been appealed. If we were to move forward with removing more parking, we'd have to re-notice and do another hearing before this zoning administration. So potentially there's appeal of the coastal permit, which can go as far as the Coastal Commission. It's going to take more staff time and, you know, potentially a significant amount of time. We're sort of in this opportunity window to get the project out to bid. If it gets delayed, then it gets wrapped into other projects that we're working on there, trying to get out to bid some more delay. What we did tell the commission is we'd look at a larger protected bike lane project in the future along this corridor potentially providing an adjust on one block doesn't really do a lot. It's really a small piece. There's also a bus stop at that location that would not be protected. The bus would have to be able to get in and out of that location. The collision data that was provided, we evaluated five years of the collision history. There were three bike pedestrian accidents and two pedestrian collisions, none of which would be correctable by the protected bike lanes. So, you know, they were, you know, as often they are a mix of reasons and places that they happen, but it was based on that corridor from the roundabouts to the roundabouts. That's pretty much it. We do have a budget. We received grants. We're using Measure D. We're using Transpation Development Act monies and some other money. We have, we believe, enough money with the budget adjustment to complete the project this spring before the summer season. Great. Thank you for sharing that. I really just wanted to get some additional information that we didn't have available. And I, like I said, I support moving forward. And I just want to say, you know, I think that our community has been pretty outspoken about its desire for, you know, protected bike lanes and, you know, additional protections for bike and ped infrastructure. And so, you know, I just hope that we really are taking that seriously and prioritizing those kinds of projects. I'm thrilled to hear that there may be an opportunity for an action, a major, a project for that corridor in the future. So thanks for your response, because I just wanted to understand. But I would add that this is not a main thoroughfare and there are, I can think of many, I would love to see more protected bike lanes based on, for commuters in particular. But this is a very, very high traffic area. There are people who are riding bicycles, renting bicycles, you know, when we kind of are back to open and having, you know, a lot of people are coming through during the tourist seasons and stuff. I mean, it really is an area that could use this kind of infrastructure. So while it's not, certainly not the busiest or, you know, fastest moving of our, it's not a corridor, it certainly is a high traffic area. And given the number of collisions, it just feels like attention to that would be, would be really wonderful to see in the future. So, but thank you for the explanation. Good afternoon. Hi, can you hear me speaking with? Yes. Good afternoon. Hi, I'm calling because I filed a claim with the city a few weeks ago, because I had a really bad altercation with a police officer. It was really unnecessary. It involved threats being made to harm my pet and myself, and I was injured by this officer. And I'm really sorry to hear that. I had been really supportive of the police up until that day in question. And I would like some justice to send about it. I didn't really do anything to him. And he injured me and he almost caused my dog to get hurt, and he was threatening my pet and myself. And I've never had anything like that happen. Again, I'm very disappointed with the way I was treated. You know, I'm 50 years old and I don't, I wasn't going to run away from him. He approached me really unprofessionally, and I was afraid of him, afraid for my safety and my animal. And that's not something that I, you know, feel is appropriate for someone in authority to be using the authority to like, kind of abuse people because he was threatening me the whole time. And he was saying, I didn't obey him. I didn't obey him. And it would have went a lot smoother if he would have informed me his name and his badge, who he was, with an unmarked car, you know, we were frightened by him. And it was all over something totally ridiculous. And he tried to find all kinds of charges on me. He had handcuffs on me. He threw me around. He had my hands so tight, I couldn't feel my hands for about 30 minutes. And it just was not professional. I mean, I've done a lot of psychology classes. I do daycare. And he has been trained how to deal with the public. And I'm harmless. He had no reason to be so aggressive and forceful and violent toward me. He was very out of control. I know I'm bigger. I was a little bigger than him. That might have played a factor in it, but there was absolutely no excuse for the threat. He tried to get me in trouble with the DMV. And the DMV called me back and met with me on the phone. And they're not going to put any charges on me. They felt that it was really ridiculous also. And it all sorted from a woman laying in her horn. I'm going to have to cut you off. Thank you for your comments. Oh, yeah. Hi, this is Garrett Phillips. That's the item number 10 meeting minutes. A problem exists that has repeated itself many times in the last two years concerning the clerk's mischaracterizations of what I say. It says, Garrett Phillips spoke in opposition to flight pathways avoiding the land of the Amamutsan Tribal Band. First, it hasn't been their land for centuries. But I will admit, I have spoken in the past that argues the council should stay out of being a megaphone special interest mouthpiece tool for the Amamutsan. But the actual speech I gave in the 11-24 meeting contained only one sentence mentioning that I thought planes flying 10 to 20,000 feet disturbing tribal ceremonies stretched believability. Then I went on to mention a new justification actually in support of the flight avoidance idea based on the Amamutsan proclamation and then went on for about 80% of what time remains speaking about cultural assimilation. Garrett Phillips spoke about cultural assimilation would have been accurate. Also in the 10-27 previous meeting where it was written, Garrett Phillips spoke regarding privilege and in opposition to affirmative action. I only mentioned affirmative action once and it was in regards to it being a form of privilege only. While it is true I oppose affirmative action as the majority of Californians also do, as shown by their sounding defeat of Prop 16, unlike out-of-touch Santa Cruz, that was not stated in any way in that speech, which was mostly all about multiculturalism, how different subcultural beliefs and values have consequences, and also differences relative to the made-of-culture of E-pluribus. U.M. does also with privilege a tiny part of that. I request for correction, but better yet, don't have the clerk characterize what the public says in oral communications at all and let the audio-visual record speak for itself and less directed to much like the council does. I recall Chris Crowd remarked about the need to suspend characterizations of what the council says in deliberations, stick to verbatim motions and votes, and I don't see why that shouldn't apply to what the public says for similar reasons. There are many words applied, even the council is misquoted occasionally, for instance, in the midst of the Cuban medical cooperation item, which will act the reordering of paragraphs and specific mention of the county board of supervisors as directed by the friendly amendment. Tommy, if it went out correctly, let those events were also not accurate. Causing a peace officer to arrive expressing no other reasonably necessary contact reason or by expressing materially false information with the content to do any of the following listed below, motivated by any of these personal characteristics on the basis of a person's actual perceived race, color, ethnicity, etc., as written. Further, section two in specific intent should be changed to, number two, unlawfully discriminate against the person. These changes are intended to allow free speech where conditions and facts exist act and then necessarily be justified and to explicitly be reasonably unnecessary or untruthful to be a violation. Everyone needs to have the same rights as others in reporting unlawful behavior or in a valid emergency situation and the actual violation description needs to assure that if a language cast too wide a vague net, a reported remove this man in my back alley at 3 a.m. reads as a violation. So this is not the same as prohibited speech as direct bodily harm threats inciting a riot, inducing mass panic. People must not be deterred from necessary contact and using protected free speech merely describing subjects. Elation was specifically prompted by police. The addition of motivation elevates the necessity of showing some motivation exists derived from the protected personal characteristics to suggest mention of them. The addition of unlawfully to discriminate recognizes that there are many lawful discriminations such as in shared housing decisions and areas of law in which they vary as to what are protected classes against what kinds of discrimination. Both motivation and unlawfully are languages used by the similarly proposed California State AB 1550 law. AB 1550 also states a range of compensation between $250 and $10,000, not $1,000 to unlimited. The suggested changes are similar to future AB 1550 law and make it less likely frivolous lawsuits will be brought damaging the reputation of the accused. This has theoretical but practically finely honed and not a blind to consequences cop cat ordinance with no real history of similar law to judge its merits. The rest of this is a little, you know, take it for his just interesting opinion on my part. The House of Racism was burnt to the ground in the 60s. Now the BLM sits to ashes, tosses gas on it and lights it. The national polls indicate majority thinks the BLM has worsened race relations in the United States. The idea of billions of dollars in vandalism, arson looting, provocative assaults and murders are justified by the unfortunate yearly 14 to 20 unarmed police killings of black people, not all particularly proven to be motivated by a race. When many thousands of black people are murdered and shot every year by mostly all violent black criminals, I think that's what motivates this ordinance. I know you're not going to want to hear it. This is Robert Norris. I'm working with a group called House Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom and my concern is that this particular ordinance it's lacking that's something one fundamental category. While the general intention is good regarding racial discrimination and making sure that false complaints are not filed about this and that if they are there will be a penalty for that, there is no such provision for the really egregious situation for those who are let's say outside and homeless or poor who receive false complaints in a similar way. So there should be something added to this ordinance that isn't there already having to do with class and having to do with false complaints generally and in fact requiring the police department to advise people who are making complaints that a false complaint is in fact a misdemeanor and therefore that if someone calls in and says I don't like this vehicle in front of my house you know this suspicious looking character who's got a maybe a dark shade of face coloring he's been parked in his vehicle in front of my house for quite a long time. The individuals who are making these complaints and drawing police resources and taxpayer dollars should be in fact advised by the police department will be happy to research this if it in fact you have specific ordinance problems that is to say violations of the law which we need to correct or at least to document but you cannot make a false complaint without being responsible for it. I also would say that there is a consideration here to of when a police officer does take a complaint whether it's for racial discrimination or what I think it's also a broad problem of class discrimination and the person who's being not take those complaints they will in fact give an audience to the person complaining rather than the person complained about and both individuals should have the opportunity to file a complaint and if necessary to file a charge they will be responsible if the charge is a false one but the police need to facilitate an equal balance here and I hope the community has something about it because I'm pretty sure this council will not and I'm almost certain the police department will not because they've been advised of this for the last several years and Andy Mills has declined to take any kind of action so it's up to the community as usual to take action on these issues where legislative bodies will do nothing and we are left with a grim situation here in the midst of the winter no winter shelter and police officers taking helping to arrest people being driven away with no recourse in this new law thank you. Councilmember Byers thank you mayor I did not raise my hand quick enough I thought I had turned it on on this item on my no vote on 19 is I feel that the policy I'm not against affordable housing or striving to get to as high a percentage as possible I continue to have concerns that this may be a disincentive and may not be accomplishing the goals that we'd like so I look forward to seeing if this is successful and just wanted to state for the record it is not an intent to deny affordable housing or try to reduce the amount of affordable housing I have concerns about whether or not the policy will be effective at the 20% thank you. Thank you so there's no further comments. Councilmember Byers. I'm the ordinance project manager program manager for the outdoor expansion program and primary author with Amanda Rattella of the program and Rebecca is available today to answer any specific questions but I'm giving a brief presentation today so with that I'll go ahead and share my screen through an emergency ordinance of the temporary outdoor expansion program first I just wanted to draw your attention oh weird things are happening first I want to draw your attention to our website and you've seen this page before but just a reminder the two Santa Cruz dot conclash there's a button there coronavirus all of our available resources we put resources from around the county for you know for businesses in response to COVID-19 as well as new updates coming from the state through with our partner economic the ERC economic recovery council we put documents there as well as information on our partners spdc and others as well as our own current city of Santa Cruz program so it's a really great landing page for you to find additional information I also just wanted to draw your attention to kind of where we are you've seen this before I've presented this three stages of resiliency support that we you know at the city and economic development and working with our partners are really are implementing and we're really at this point you know we're sort of still on the verge I would say at times when things change a feeling like we're still in the survival rescue mode but at times we're also in the stabilization you know obviously we are waiting you know right now to hear what's going to happen as far as the regional stay home order and that impacts for businesses which is immediate so the planning for that takes some time and we're you know trying to be as responsive as we can as we can be I will say we've made some progress I've mentioned before that we do have a county wide over 2.5 million that'll be leveraged up to 6 million plus county wide SBA through the Economic Development Administration a revolving loan fund that we are working on now with our partner National Development Council and our jurisdiction partners as well and so we are working on some of the recovery and rebuilding some of the permanent working capital fixed assets largest needs and if you have any questions about that happy to answer that towards the end of the presentation but right now we are clearly still in trying to provide some resiliency and stabilization for existing businesses and this completely challenging environment what you see on the far left graphic is you know what I showed earlier today which is you know a document put out by the ERC and we're working closely with them on making these resources available which both have the latest information on from the governor on the regional stay home order which we will update as soon as we get the additional information from our county health officer today and we're also having this translated into Spanish but we're also participating with the downtown association on a shop local specific downtown program and then we're doing a citywide shop local program you may have heard some of the radio radio ads and then we're also really supportive of the county wide effort to shop local this holiday season through the shop Santa Cruz County dot org where you can buy gift cards the second sort of ride out effort of the ride out the waves and really just recognizing that shopping locals holiday season is so critical it's always important but it's so critical right now with the holiday season being the season for many retailers of where they make the majority of their funding and during this year of COVID it's just now more important than ever so today we are talking about the temporary outdoor expansion program and just as way of background obviously the photo on the light is a photo of Hulu's and the partial street closure that we have on calf cart down downtown right now the city manager in his capacity as emergency services director issued two executive orders the first in June and the second one in July 30th enabling eligible businesses to apply for a permit to expand the commercial activity into the public right of way another outdoor spaces so some of these are private spaces some of these are public right of way including streets on street parking spaces and some instances are public alleys and public parking areas and some even our sidewalks so it's pretty extensive our department and working in conjunction with other departments and I really want to say this is an all hands on deck so from planning public works of fire department police department parks and rec every department has really been instrumental on making this program successful and making it work and being responsive in looking at the permits and being able to issue in some instances even within the same day so it really is a all-team effort and I just want to make sure I'm fully acknowledging the other efforts around the city since June just to give you a little bit background information on this the city has issued 83 permits citywide under this program you'll see the majority of them have been downtown which isn't that surprising but we have 40 downtown 14 on the west side 12 in the warped beach area eight on the east side four on ocean street three on river street and two on the harbor and again not surprising uses of outdoor spaces while the majority of these are dining 76 of those outdoor dining we also have issued some permits for outdoor fitness of barbershop when there was that period where you had to be outside I think we may be going back to that so I expect we might get some more applications for outdoor services a driving comedy show and retail import perl alley outdoor dining permits just so that you have this background of 30 has been on private property 21 in on street parking spaces 14 on the public sidewalks seven in street closure areas two in public parking and additional retail and dining and frazier loose lane of the 83 permits that we have issued two businesses have closed so while that's really distressing I think it's also is reflective of what a lifeline particularly for restaurants this can be to be able to provide this dining outdoor during this period which leads us to where we are today and the recommendation and discussion and consideration for you of extending the date and basically decoupling it from the emergency health declaration so that we have more time and so that our restaurants and businesses participating eligible businesses have more time to operate outdoors and this may extend beyond it should most likely extend beyond the actual declaration of a local health emergency we've been in discussion with the downtown association most recently with the downtown commission subcommittee set up for this purpose and with businesses citywide about the need to continue this program on the current anticipated declaration of health emergency and you know as I just mentioned you know we don't know at this time exactly when the local health emergency will be lifted you know related to a vaccine but we do know it's going to take a considerable amount of time for businesses to recover and we want to be able to give them all the help that we can related to this businesses particularly right now some have already done it at at high risk and are nervous about it we're trying to take away some of that uncertainty for our businesses they're investing now in winterization and other outdoor investments to accommodate customers so throughout the winter they can come to their spaces but some of these investments and they range depending on the business and the outdoor space that's being converted for dining and other uses some of these costs are high are high and it's going to take them some time to just recoup that investment in the outdoor space so with that in mind and in consultation with the other businesses and organizations that I that I mentioned we are recommending that the city consider adopting an emergency ordinance which authorizes the temporary use of these outdoor both public spaces and the private spaces through our permit program that are impacted by indoor business closures related to the pandemic until October 1st 2021 and ordinance includes additional information which also says or as extended further extended maybe further extended by the city council in consideration of the date at this point we feel like that we may want to revisit that in a couple of months but at least get this through the full winter the summer season and allows us to work on some other streamlining and program updates and guidelines that we've been working on with these groups and internally at the city so just briefly recapping sort of where what we see for stage three as we're moving into December January and going forward on the recovery rebuilding is that commitment and we'll see what's in the federal stimulus package if there's anything particularly that we'll be able to provide to our local businesses but also looking at what resources we have going forward we want to work on this is the temporary program before you today but we do have an existing we call it the parklet program but what we're would really like to do is work on creating a more streamlined version of that program and call it the permanent outdoor expansion program so that's something that we're discussing internally and you know cross city departments and in consultation with our business partners we also have been working on partnerships with foundation tech and I would say our other business partners in the area the growth Santa Cruz recovery loan expansion program made possible through the recent EDA award investment in capital projects some of those are coming forward to you some have previously been forward and with that as well I would mention some of our major affordable housing projects going forward in the next year the creation of housing all these will be really critical in some of our commercial areas and then we have been working on an ED strategic plan and it definitely took a step back in order to take a step forward to finish a draft that included a COVID recovery element to that as part of our overall strategic plan and so we're hoping to be able to bring that to you at some point in January and it dovetailing with the interim recovery plan that you were working on as well so next steps related to the temporary outdoor expansion program we are constantly doing program evaluation and improvement we're looking at some of the hours for some of the temporary permits and trying to make that work for all businesses even those adjacent businesses regarding some of those unused parking spaces we've been updating the program's guidelines I mentioned Rebecca at earlier our business liaison she's been working directly with the fire department who's been pretty incredible and being very responsive and making sure that we updated guidelines taking consideration outdoor heaters electric heaters you know propane heaters and tent canopies to make sure that these spaces are safe for our businesses and and those who are visiting the restaurant patrons and then finally as I mentioned next steps is also spending this next you know month or two to really work on streamlining our development of our parklet program for our outdoor expansion program and potentially with some incentives to make that more of a program that really can stand the test of time as we go forward in this new environment so that concludes the presentation I'll leave you with the recommendation before you as I mentioned the city attorney drafted the ordinance before you today and Rebecca unit is also available to answer any specific questions you have about the existing program with that I will stop sharing my screen thank you Bonnie for that presentation tell dining we have some periodic retail in Fraser Lewis Lane we do and we do have some retail in Pearl Alley let's see we had four outdoor fitness one barbershop that did sense clothes because it went indoor but we might get that application again the one drive-in comedy show and I don't know Rebecca if you have anything that may be in the works that we don't have permits yet but those are of the existing permits that we've issued that's what we've done those 83 76 are for dining purposes but we do have a few others yeah funny I would just add to that Rebecca unit says this lady's on we have had about four retailers to get bands of the program just with the nature of like out onto the sidewalk it can be a little bit cumbersome for them and retail has had a little bit more flexibility easier for them to sort of control the flow of traffic in their stores but we've seen some awesome activations in Pearl Alley with stripes and kinship salon there they've got some makers into that space and have really used that creatively and then we've also seen the makers market downtown in the 1100 block closure they've been able to bring retail out onto the street as more of a I think they do it every month activation so we're definitely encouraging other retailers or other businesses to take advantage if they can but the dining has definitely been the most popular to date councilmember golder and then councilmember Matthews I just want to super thank Bonnie and your department for working so hard on this I know this has been something that I've been wanting in some permanence for years and so I think it's interesting that this pandemic has brought it forward and I hope it's something positive that comes out in the end and I was just reflecting like that is because I spoke to a bunch of business owners over the past month and a bunch of them commented that they felt like it had made kind of a festival feel downtown and it really like buoyed people's spirits and encouraged people to come and feel safe and welcome and and I think I love the outdoor heaters but we are kind of huge babies like all over the world like people are out there and you can just pundle up a little bit and you'll be fine you won't you're not going to freeze you you'll be fine doing your business so remind people just get a puffy jacket and and then they won't have to waste all that gas and electricity on warming up our little heighties up the dinner table all right thank you extensions of the timeframe would be simply a resolution it would be the whole ordinance change that you're envisioning it I think what we would be doing is bringing back an amendment to the ordinance sometime in probably uh August since I'm going to have the role of historian it was prohibited in the city ordinances to have outside eating on the sidewalk yeah our businesses uh as we kind of navigate that we don't know how long we we hope it's only a three week period right now the commitment is for a minimum of three weeks so we'll have to continue to watch that closely I think um you know the focus during that period will be on takeout and delivery you know for restaurants and so again being able to support that you know we had there'll be more probably more pressure you know the council you considered and and passed on the takeout fees and putting the cap on that so we'll see we'll see where that is we'll be looking specifically on how we can particularly provide some support in this area for as long as this period lasts but I think our our goal specifically with this is the assumption that you know until we hear from the county that we're entering into uh this regional stay home order we want that certainty for our businesses and that's why we have that October first date um and whether they're investing in you know um you know a number of propane heaters some of them are investing into more attractive dividers you know uh safety precautions instead of some of our k-rails where we're appropriate planting um canopies you know those are some of the major investments that businesses are making that decision do we do it do we not how long are we going to have does it make sense to to to buy these things you know they're looking at their bottom line and will this bring people down uh downtown you know across the city to our restaurants so we're we're you know in touch with our businesses regularly and with our association and just listening we're doing a lot of listening this year and trying to figure out where we in local government can actually help so we'll continue to do that um we're also following obviously closely the federal legislation for a stimulus bill to see if any of that will trickle down um as part of our ed strategy we will be coming forward in january with some more recommendations we are working with national development council right now um actually rebecca since she's on i can i can i can mention her name she's actually working on an mou for our jurisdictional partners right now um for the program um we're providing a pretty big match so that we can leverage that 2.5 and to considerably more out in the community as far as major capital uh loans that could be available you know we're really hoping for another round you know the ppt loans and what that means that we want to be available and be nimble enough you know to be flexible enough to fill a need that may not be met in the larger community community by what's being offered at the federal government so or even at the state level so that's where we see our role and sort of connecting and making sure that um our businesses are aware of all the resources in a timely manner because the information as you always have noticed changes every day so um we're here um and you know we're always up for great ideas so send them our way if you if you have some bringing this forward keeping track um always being ahead of the great ideas you know and you guys are already doing them by the time people you know are asking for them so i just want to thank you um for staying on top of all of the things that your department is doing to try to help our local businesses so um and just i know during the during the presentation i just wanted to make sure bonnie um that it's clear some of the images were from downtown but but but this is quite city-wide so i just think it's important to make sure that people the public understand that i know you guys talk with businesses every day but just to make sure that um everyone knows that this is a city-wide policy that's right and just really hit that home we have 83 permits currently issued 40 of those are for the downtown so we have 40 elsewhere around the city and i'm i did show a breakdown of that in one of the early supplies yeah and we can post that if anyone's interested in in seeing that that's great thank you so much there are no further comments or questions from council members we'll go ahead and open up public comment so if there's any members of the public who like to speak to us on this item which is item number 21 on so already once you've joined the meeting please press the HUD 2020-2021 substantial amendment for cdvg cv3 allocation so cdvg cv3 is special coronavirus funding related from the CARES Act that is also cdvg eligible so this is in addition to our regular entitlement funds that we receive every year as a city or that we're seeking council approval of funding for the 2020-2021 substantial amendment and also the corresponding budget adjustment that goes with that funding earlier in the year we brought our regular year cdvg and home funding to council for approval and we received our first round of CARES Act cdvg funding um so in back in may we um had final approval to award all of that funding and after we submitted that to HUD we received additional cdvg cv funding so it's referred to as cdvg cv3 but it's actually the city's second round because cdvg cv2 went only to the state of california and we received about 561,000 of funding that brings us to today where we're discussing the substantial amendment to award that funding those that we awarded funding in the first round only three of those programs which are all food programs have spent all of their money to date these three programs are the community bridges meals on wheels program which in the time period that they were using our funds we were able to deliver over 25,000 meals the Santa Cruz community farmers market which had 30,000 in funding was able to fund 450 new families in addition to those that they were already serving with their existing market mesh program and then the second harvest food bank has been serving about 3,000 households weekly within just the city of Santa Cruz because of increased food insecurity that people are experiencing everywhere so we have some statistics for the county that we've seen food bank visits have gone up from 50,000 monthly visits to 88,000 monthly visits since the pandemic began and second harvest one of the the recipients of our first round of funding is serving now about 40 percent of Santa Cruz county residents so about 100,000 people so it's a really large segment of the population that are needing these services now thousand in funding we have 20 percent is set by HUD formula for program administration so we have about 449,000 available for allocation and staff is recommending that we fund homeless pandemic response activities with about 375,000 so since the pandemic began the city has worked with the county in a supporting role to provide additional shelter and place resources these have included additional shelter beds hotel rooms non-congregate shelters increased outreach services mental health response and case coordination but there's still a lot of need and there's some critical homeless pandemic related activities that are city specific that would be cdbg cv3 eligible and these include establishment of additional hygiene infrastructure encampment sanitation and safe parking programs and then we're also recommending that we allocate an additional 75,000 of cdbg cv funding to those food programs from the first round that have used all of their funding so again our goal today is that we're seeking council approval of the budget for the action plan amendment based on whatever budget is approved today we'll submit that substantial amendment to HUD and we should know and get approval and the funding should be available starting in january i am thrilled that we're actually getting some additional funding to meet some of these really really pressing needs for our community i am wondering and i appreciate the list of what the money might be used for almost services almost in response and these are all areas in which i've been advocating heavily so i'm i'm really glad to see this happening i'm just wondering if there is if it's possible for us to get additional information like i mean i just it's a it's a pretty big chunk of money and there are multiple ways that that can and will be spent and i would love to just for the council to be able to know what you know what the decisions were that were made and you know how how the money was distributed so it's perhaps you have more on that right now but if not it would be great to get a report on where that money went related to homelessness and the pan during the pandemic and that that's really you know it's it's just again hygiene infrastructure all of those things are so important and i think make a huge difference in people the quality of life people's experience in our community both housed and unhoused community members so you know just kind of having a little more information about you know how we're putting that money to work would be great yeah thank you and and we haven't used the funds yet so we're seeking approval of the budget and right here is on the line the city manager's office has been coordinating both of the homeless response so i think she can give more details better than me thank you tiffany's good afternoon councilmember brown and councilmate members shizio here i'm assistant to the city manager appreciate the question and as tiffany mentioned we have not gone through the list of priorities at this point and identified specific projects that we would be supporting but as tiffany mentioned um there are very city city-centric needs um for instance as the county shelter and care doc continues to manage the surge and are providing hotel rooms and shelter and other programs for folks that are unsheltered in the community if the numbers are spiking pretty significantly not necessarily in the homeless population as of yet but we have to kind of plan for that and their focus is really on those that are most medically vulnerable that have either an exposure or an assumed exposure and so for us as a city you know we have a very diverse population of unsheltered individuals and for us to meet the needs especially folks that are chronically homeless in some of our open spaces in areas that potentially are subject to flooding we have debris flow considerations this year we really need to be able to diversify who we focus on for those resources and have city-centric response so as tiffany mentioned we are focusing on a diversion program that allows for Santa Cruz PD to as they engage hopefully with outreach workers as well that either provided by the county or through this this round of funding to ensure that folks that would be potentially subject to camping violations or other municipal code violations would have an opportunity to have on-demand shelter that's different than what the county is providing for instance and we are in the in talks with afc about expanding our safe parking program partially in response to the significant increase in RVs that we're seeing on the far west side in addition to that just a huge amount of hygiene and sanitation resources that are required particularly in our open spaces for folks that are sheltering in place so that kind of gives you a flavor councilmember brown of what we are proposing but as of yet there's so many needs it's really hard to identify what will rise to the top but make no mistakes these funds will be utilized very well and they are very much needed in addition to that work on coral street to improve social distancing for housing matters and hphp we're really working with the county and nelson studios on that on that as well so hopefully that gives you a flavor of what we're talking about absolutely thank you i'm really glad to hear all of those things and um you may remember that i tried to get some funding uh directed that way towards the coral street um uh area uh recently and was not successful but i'm so glad to see that we have some additional resources now so thanks a lot and thanks for all your work to make it happen okay i uh jumped the gun um i know you need to go out for a public comment so i'll uh i'll wait till after good afternoon mayor and city council members it's lisa burkowitz community bridges program director for meals on wheels um am i coming through are you able to hear me yes yes we can hear you that's great thank you um i want to thank you for your recommendation to provide meals on wheels with additional cdbg funding to uh help support the food needs of seniors in our community beginning on march the 16 the 58 unhoused seniors who were regularly attending the dining site at louden melton um found themselves suddenly without a significant source of support they counted on us for a daily hot meal for a shelf stable meals for the weekend and a safe space to meet with their peers and all of this was suddenly gone um in these extraordinary times um meals on the wheels felt it was really essential to try to continue that provides support to those unhoused seniors um the seniors being advised to stay at home to protect their health and life we knew it would be we would be able to help provide support to and a lifeline for the seniors who have a home that we could deliver meals to and um initially in may we began to hear from many of those seniors that the need was even for more food than we were providing so we've uh addressed that by providing a second meal a breakfast back to all of the seniors who we are able to deliver to their homes so we're we responded to the request for meals by providing over at this point 27 000 meals to seniors just since the first of july but um how does successfully provide for the needs of the unhoused seniors presented a much more difficult challenge and the first few months were really tough and frequently our staff were meeting up with each week i mean on my time's up is it yes unfortunately but thank you for your comments thank you so council um this is nicole's on calling from the santa cruz community farmers markets can you all hear me okay yes good afternoon good afternoon um again my name is nicole and thank you for providing a space to speak we appreciate your recommendations that you just spoke to to provide additional funding to continue the market match double up program at the downtown farmers market for those who aren't unfamiliar this program matches the customer's first 10 ebt dollars so that they swipe that market with an additional 20 of market match no additional costs to them so ten dollars ebt becomes 30 dollars at the downtown market and i'm sorry that's a combination of existing matchbook we have and your matching dollars um and so this matches these for fruits and vegetables only uh encouraging nutrition food buying at the market so we received a 30 000 grant for from you all and i think it was tiffany who said stated some of the impacts of that um it represented 2900 ebt and market match transactions over a four and a half month period um over 450 uh of those were new uh participants in the program and uh we've seen a tremendous increase in ebt youth at the market since the inception of the program it's been really amazing to watch uh between june and august when the program was running we had about 129 participants at an average market that was an increase from um prior to the the program spreading 30 individuals per market again between the first of october and in november the average became 168 so it jumped from 30 to 129 to 168 at an individual market so we've seen like more than a quadruple in participation um and this experience can be life changing for residents it's not just currently it addresses accessibility issues for healthy food and then establishes new habits that can be long lasting so thank you for the recommendation to continue the funding um we hope to we hope that we it will continue and um i was going to state some testimonials i've heard that time went off so maybe there's a way that i can share some of those uh with the council yes you can email if you can email us those testimonials that'll be great and we can um get those on the record okay i'll follow up with that thank you very much this is homeless united for friendship and freedom organizer robert norris calling back again it's winter and temperatures are nearing freezing we're at uh in a situation where i'm told the uh i don't know how many what dozens of people in the falker street area are going to be forcibly forced to move tomorrow morning and i'm wondering about the cdbg funding is there anything in these funding that will allow for the what has been the traditional opening of the winter shelter which apparently is now being left out to dry or i should say the homeless are being left out to freeze uh also of course needed is our resources for the san lorenzo area which is now extended to about a hundred tents according to a report i saw recently on facebook from brett adam you need a working bathroom that is actually open you need potable water you need shelter for these folks at least a guarantee they're not going to be moved to to nowhere and that's what apparently falker street people are not being given any real destination while brett adam and keith mckinry try to struggle to address these shelter and food issues you are not providing any kind of assistance in these sites and department gets a huge amount of money to go after homeless people instead as i mentioned earlier this evening i should say this afternoon i mean what kind of covid outbreaks among the homeless are you going to have to wait for as it spreads to the house population we've seen that growing in this community 44 deaths up to now at least i don't know what the current total is now for you to take action to end for example the group shelters and instead open up individual action now i the community has to act on this since you won't thank you to provide the funding from the cdbg um extra funding to uh a resolute let me just read it um to move the recommendation for the 2020 2021 hud ap substantial amendment for cdbg cd3 funding allocation um this is a resolution amending the 2021 2021 action plan and directing staff to submit the substantial amendment documents to hud authorizing city manager to design an application for federal funding assistance for the program year for cdbg cd3 and authorizing the city manager to execute program project grants loan agreements contract amendments and related loan documents with community development block grant sub recipients as identified in the staff staff presentation and contractors in connection with the consolidate plan activities proposed in the 2020 2021 action plan substantial amendment there is also a second resolution appropriating funds for the fiscal year 2021 budget and approving the 2020 2021 action annual action plan budget adjustment thank you mayor thank you city council members uh let me share my screen here my name's tony elliott director of parks recreation um and today i'll give a brief presentation regarding the city's mission plaza park and the mission bells and santa cruz uh mayor justin comings uh amamutsan tribal band chairman val lopez and california state parks historian for the santa cruz district martin rizzo will also join me uh in the presentation a little bit of some of the background here in the summer of 2020 the mission bell marker uh was removed from the city's mission plaza park uh located near holy cross it's kind of a before and after photo here uh at that time the state parks mission uh santa cruz and the city park were also vandalized it was kind of during the summer of uh of protests and social unrest this past summer full of the bell catalyzed a conversation uh in santa cruz about what to do next in light of the missing bell and it created an opportunity for the parks and recreation department uh to engage key stakeholders uh in the community including our tribal leaders holy cross state parks the museum of art and history uh and a number of others the stakeholder group's objective was to begin developing ideas around how to convey a more complete and accurate history of the mission hill historic area including mission plaza park and to make sure to include the indigenous voice and the experience in a way that hadn't necessarily been done uh before mission around mission bells in the history of santa cruz indigenous people is not a new one santa uh state parks um the santa cruz mission state historic park uh offers education and immersive programming and exhibits related to mission santa cruz and the indigenous experience the santa cruz museum of art and history and museum of natural history each has important roles in conveying and educating on the history of santa cruz and 2019 mayor comings and ava mootson tribal band chairman val Lopez uh and ucse worked together to remove the mission bell on campus uh additionally at the october 13th 2020 city council meeting the city council unanimously endorsed the community effort to update the narrative of mission plaza park in the mission hill area historic district to the more accurate depiction of the history of the indigenous people of the area is included uh and then most recently the city's historic preservation commission unanimously supported uh removal of the mission bell the remaining mission bell and advised that the bell be used for interpretation and education so the proposal today before the city council would continue to take steps forward in collaboration with the community uh so before the council is the the written request i'll just read through this year um the the matter before the council is a proposed resolution authorizing the removal of the remaining mission bell from the city of santa cruz and directing staff to work with the mission plaza community uh community stakeholder group rather to incorporate multiple historical perspectives and details and historical interpretation uh and i'll just say from the perspective of park's recreation and on behalf of the community stakeholder committee the goal really remains the same as to what was proposed to the city council back in october and that's not to replace one aspect of our history with another rather to work with the community to acknowledge and include the indigenous voice and convey the history of santa cruz in a holistic respectful and immersive manner uh with that um i'd like to send it back to mayor justin comings i believe we also have chairman val Lopez on the call and uh with state parks martin rizzo as well but mayor i'll send it back to you first we recognize that the history of the mission bells is very complicated and the bells themselves have meant different things to different peoples over time and so we are working on a online exhibit which we hope to unveil and release on the uh the mission santa cruz state historic park website uh in early in 2021 and this exhibit will explore this history look at the controversy it'll uh show what the mission bells have meant for the franciscans what it meant for native people at the missions what it meant for people 120 years ago when women's groups and the triple a decided to put the mission bells up and down the state of california what it meant more recently to groups like the almond watson and so anyway i just want to let people know that uh our intention is to show this history but to show the very different angles and uh things that these bells have meant to people um so i want to assure people that there is a plan to uh to do something with this and to show this complicated history okay thank you very much for your time thank you invite val Lopez you know i managed to find the unmute button sorry thank you merecomings park director tony alia and the full council of the santa cruz county santa cruz city council i apologize my name is valentine Lopez and i'm the chairman of the almond watson tribal band our tribe is comprised of the descendants of those that were taken missions santa batista and santa cruz personally i have two direct descendants that were taken to mission santa cruz which is recognized as the most brutal of all california missions the removal of the bell is an item that has been a goal of our tribe for a very long time and we first talked to the city of santa cruz in august of 2018 about removing the bell until we're very grateful and very thankful that the day has arrived where the sherry can be held and hopefully we can make the the the decision will be made to to have the the fight the last boundary moved the true history of california indians has never been told and this is especially two of the californian missions the last part of the precedente of the californian mission system his name is mariana pañedas and um when i was determined about the mission we'd be closing he wrote to the superiors in california and told them we need to find a way that to explain what has happened here in cal in california along the coast all we have done is baptized the indians administered some sacraments and buried them there are no indians left along the coast that is especially that is entirely true in santa cruz um over 98 99 percent of the the indians people died as a result of their mission up to that kind of road that we're taking to the mission that is a death rate of that mission and um and the priest there father kentana and the other priest they're almost brutal as well the story of the mission to start the truth of the story where the mission started to come out the book called the cross of course was published in 2015 published by alias castillo and they started telling the true uh history of the californian missions and that was followed by a book that was uh an article that was published by benjamin madly the world on the american genocide the catastrophe of the california indians and he titled his article california's first mass incarceration system and he talks about the brutality of the missions and also though martin mentioned his book that's a very important piece of of literature of work of the history of the california people we're very grateful to martin for that we definitely believe that the bell should be removed because the bell just glorifies a false history of the history that glorifies the mission period that glorifies the spanish period um the bell represents alchemy now which is the highway of the gods or the highway of the king rider and and all of those all of those highways are the the trails that they followed in the alchemy now the pertola explanation that they followed trails the pertola expedition they followed trails and those were all the vigorous trade walks that had been established for thousands of years and all they did is come and use our trails and put their name on it and then they get and then they glorify them for that period of time and and and the communities now they use the missions they use the symbols of the mission that you saw the sierra father in emperor sarah they use them and the bells to just glorify that period and to bring them tourists you know to attract tourism to the cities and to the mission and to make them money makers to verify a a false history and the destruction of indigenous peoples of culture spirituality's environment and and there's humanity and and and it's time to to stop that and santa cruz is showing is showing tremendous leadership and leading the way and doing that and we're very thankful when that bell is made and removed from mission you should leave from you see santa cruz that was picked up by newspapers in australia canada throughout europe and many other countries it's picked up by the new york times and the washington post it's time for that history to change we're thankful that santa cruz recognizes that and we hope that all of california recognizes that and removes those bells thank you very much thank you to val and to martin for for your comments because i think we've received a couple of emails and on a racing history and that and that to that vein i just want to say we're not a racing history we're making history making new history here and i just think that i was told my students that like history is just old news so here's the news and that was moving these bells and i appreciate martin working with that virtual exhibit and i'm just wondering and i heard totally mentioned something about where will when it's removed where will it be removed because i picture you know fast forward 20 years from now people going gosh they used they were here they're gone why did we remove them how do people's thinking change and that kind of thing so is their place are they they're not going to be destroyed i am assuming they'll be put somewhere but as like a reminder where they will physically the reason on the state court committee that we have included uh museum of art and history and others we wanted to we wanted to make sure that we have a landing place for the bell and that we have an opportunity to tell that story and and provide that education i think we've had a lot of conversations about where the bells can go or what should be done with them i think this is very much in in the spotlight of the community stakeholder committee about how to use these is it a rotating item that goes to different museums but but i think collectively whether it's at the state's historic mission incorporated as part of the virtual exhibit in some way or rotates between the Santa Cruz museum of natural history or the moth we want to use those venues and the experts that we have in the community to help interpret and convey that story so we don't know exactly yet but this is part of the work that the state court committee is really charged with doing moving forward but i just yeah thank you so because it's basically like at this point in history we're acknowledging that that genocide and enslavement happened and it wasn't okay and we're not going to forget about it by removing the bells in fact we're kind of helping change like the mindset and i think it's really this moment is very important also to acknowledge so thank you everybody yeah i do i just wanted to express my thanks mayor for your leadership on this and um council member boulder so i won't repeat it that was sort of part of my i guess one question i have um because um to the comment that that chairman lopez mentioned um there are a number of people who traveled around of the um from the camino you know the reality that kind of came up through california i know a number of geologists and actually people who study rivers who actually use that trail to actually really understand california's watersheds and geology and many of us who work in water um are exploring that as a place where we can look at potentially examples of historic habitat areas and this other thing so i guess my question is my understanding in looking doing some research is that the bells were partly it was part of a project born out of los angeles and several women's clubs with the idea that this would be you know the bells basically are a one-day walk between each other um and that that route um was symbolized and sort of marked throughout california so i guess i'm just curious so i really like the idea that people are actually walking this not potentially some people i'm sure do walk it for the meaning of whatever it is that they're doing it could be the you know the missions many people do do that as well but i just curious how are we going to um but i'm very fascinated about this idea of you know people walking california to really understand the environment the habitats the animals um really looking at the changes that have occurred how do we it says we will put up a plaque but i'm just kind of curious what is that plaque going to be on the ground is it going to be in a i'm just curious about not losing this geographic marker that extends the you know across the you know most of california all the way to sonoma at least not not north of that but i'm just curious if you have any remarks about that and what what these things okay thank you mayor um yeah i think that was a good question just to give a little historical because it's correct in that history right it was the idea for the el Camino Real was born out of the early 1900s a bunch of women's clubs and automobile club part i wanted to kind of have a little more context is it was it was a myth from the inception of it um this idea that the that they were one day walking distance well that's if anyone's actually traveled to them it's far from one day between them but this is the idea that was put out in that early period not in el Camino Real but there was many different routes between them the missions kind of sprang up basically around the idea of kind of where could they get the indians as a labor force for spanish settlement so it had less to do with uh this kind of romanticist's idea that's come out around el Camino Real i also want to point out that that while there are many people who do walk uh el Camino Real today for many different reasons and i wanted to say that there is uh for example in 2015 there was a native family totavium from the totavium tribe of LA who are mutual friends of valomine who actually walked from mission to mission uh to what they call the walk for the ancestors um to kind of honor the ancestors native ancestors who had walked there and they met with tribes all along the way uh to this process so they're many different people they were also walking in protest of the canonization of sarah uh as that was a very hurtful moment for native california so i just want to point out that there are many different people who walk these for many different reasons uh as well so um just to give a long context to that as far as putting things up to commemorate i know val and i have begun to me uh to discuss this and at this point there's a little early sort of i know there aren't really any decisions and ideas that have really been put uh kind of solidified but i know that uh you know there are lots of conversation discussions about you know how can we tell these histories uh in a more holistic way you know in a way that actually honors um the the you know the tough histories of what native people endured um through this thank you very much i appreciate that um clarification and um yeah just very helpful i guess um my my only other comment would be um i think that the um santa cruz museum of natural history would be a would be an excellent partner i know director elie you've mentioned that a few times they have had one of the longest running exhibits in in santa cruz county uh regarding the first peoples of santa cruz they also have a number of artifacts and german lopez has consulted with them as well as others in the native community so um and what's nice about their site too is that there is a native garden and some other things going on the interpreter interpretation um the possibilities there i think are a great and many of the of the uh great you know i think it's second or third grade um officers come to the museum as part of their as part of their regular curriculum so i'm just going to put a little plug there that they might be a nice partner to um provide um an outdoor site that actually includes um a number of the other cultural aspects of uh native of our first peoples and uh so just wanted to put that out there thank you and thank you for everyone's efforts in mind are that removal of historical artifacts does not in any way change out of what variations of interpretations might suggest those are called historical opinions is calling the alcabella a mythical trek because it isn't exactly on a very real alcabella requiring bell removal was mission santa cruz also an off-the-path myth are the historical interpretations of the mission bell's colonial settler racist symbols that glorify killing generalization and so forth are going to include which planet that idea is from i totally reject the idea bells or glorification symbols of that except to people who wish to invent and promote that idea it certainly didn't come from those who put up the bells or the state who contains a hundred of them i'm not talking first grade history but any idea adults do not commonly know colonization brought world disease treasure religious conversion and then a massicated falsehood any idea the amalutans pension for taking a fence will be satisfied by removal never to be offended by the next next and next thing seems unlikely it is also unlikely they bring any new historical revelation that is an already part of the cited scholarly historical account you present none but it's so grandstanding destruction of an artifact isn't that is renaming mission street or tearing down a holy cross church as a glorification symbol coming next with a social narrative include the admission that judging long ago past people who existed in different times with different rules and laws than today is actually quite wrong this reminds me of the current awful leftist anarchist race based preoccupation of tearing down monuments and the 1691 project truly offensive attempt to rewrite the history of the United States from an ancient time before to the present and only the most singularly racist possible terms including a hard white racism those historical factors don't look more like jail any other members of the public would like to speak to us on this item if so please trust me i do want to thank a good deal of respect on this and if it's enough and new on and um really this is the point in in thailand all over the country people are i think we get about the meaning of monuments and symbols and so forth so it's really timely here um also uh it's clear that um understanding history is continuous and and evolving we see that um and i'm really pleased that it has come to us in this way as an issue certainly as we mentioned in the questions of others many details are made to be um worked out but i think we have really good people involved in this process and they they are uh committed to uh given all that i was recommendation before us regarding the removal of mission bells and it's a good thanks to all the partners that have been involved in this discussion and who will be involved in the future in uh developing the interpretive program now i second that motion um and i if i could just make a couple of comments now i um you know i'm really really pleased to see this coming before us i'm um you know i'm just you know really really pleased about the the community the collaborative effort that's been made to to move in this direction i um you know i think that you know there's much i could say but you know have it's not a reinterpretation or uh you know erasure of history that as council member boulder suggested this is really about um recognizing um you know these cultural artifacts these symbols of you know a genocidal settler colonialism of spanish empire in the america that is just what that is that happened that it's just actually true and so um when it comes to uh you know telling the story and it's actually fourth grade uh that yeah california california history he has um that you know i really hope that um efforts like these begin to um you know really really push uh uh evaluation of the the curriculum in the schools i mean we you know students in my classes we i teach about uh you know uh native american genocide in one of my courses and students come in and they have it's just shocking to them i mean they're you know call it they have to go to college to to learn about this and so i'm i'm just really thrilled that we're um taking the step today i look forward to seeing what um the community comes up with uh to um to really help flesh out this story um and and tell it in a way that's authentic to the experience of the people who live here for tens of thousands of years uh look for uh spanish uh i also just want to ask if um if the uh in terms of the intention i actually this is a question i'm just trying to figure this out um the uh in terms of the intention to continue with the group that has been working on this um are you intending to keep that group together and perhaps in my other then i just want to make sure you know i know may are coming this has been uh really um important for you and i want to make sure that you um kind of continue you're able to continue to participate in the official capacity with for the city um if you're interested in doing that um and so i just wanted to set about that in an in a motion or if that's just so i wasn't suggesting that sorry i it's sorry if that wasn't clear i was agreeing with you okay cool and i also wanted to say that like our forward thinking you know teachers here in santa christ city schools and in bonny i remember like i said my fourth grade teacher at bonny doing elementary and i'm not going to date myself but it was in the 80s um we covered this as as as i mean i may be kind of had her for multiple years but it was like it was compared to the internment of the japanese americans in world war two it was compared to the concentration camp of the jews during world war two and so it was compared to other mass genocide events to me as a student and and it's been like that for decades here and so we are pretty forward thinking here i think in the city and county of santa cruz and so i think that this is exciting news and i think hopefully that this ideal will spread to the other missions and i know some of them like i said in past meetings are owned by state parks and some are owned by the churches and the narrative when you visit them is very different and so i hope that someone studying california history that that didn't grow up here would be able to you know see both sides of the um of the story but it's in different places anyway thank you thank you mayor councilmember sexual ideas that no longer exist today's negatives in an ideal clinical environment where the common goal is mutually agreed upon incremental positive progress we will offer ideas for change and conservatives put those ideas in an extreme test against the status quo and that's only positive compromise can be achieved it's difficult to improve on easy to destroy there are no progress don't hope for the better to shred the really awful ideas but that doesn't seem likely in the cards in santa cruz where they really are hopelessly run for office it's my belief many of santa cruz's problems can be traced to that it is my hope for the new council that they won't duck act just asking the hard critical questions and make the advocates prove their case it is my hope for the new council they will follow their own vision only if it is also the pervasive will of the people i don't think for a moment that the progress is drowning and dogmatic agenda consider what any different opinions offer meaningful reason critical arguments if any carry no weight and no longer ever see those negative consequences and i hope to time in the coming years the ability critical considerations is a valuable asset to for instance the full-time uh starting next election has some merit along the lines of you get what you pay for four minutes for this or the transitional can overwhelming majority of homeless people outside massaging the grim homeless narrative so it sounds less outrageous where will homeless people projects is closed down a ringing response was made which i'm now going to play since it speaks more eloquently than i could this is former council member drew glover blocked slandered and finally removed from the council when he kept publicly embarrassing Watkins Cummings majority of that year and i'm trying to find it but i may have a brutal problem here hard to catch from the archives but we're going to try anyway um while i'm looking for it i'll point out again that up in san francisco thousand rooms for homeless people outside when i'm again referring to some with spacing inside the group shelters but nonetheless group shelters he has recommended community needs to keep repeated requests has made it clear it's just not interested in acting on this it won't provide the funding it won't provide the action it won't uh i don't know provide the joint action with the county we have one very expensive county campground uh not adequate to cover the situation and that of course is a concern i continually bring up because it's real and this council is about to go on vacation and take off while the rest of the homeless population sits outside and here's what i was going to play the boat is against the close of the camp but now the king camp is on main beach which has been exacerbated by the coverage in the press which i think was rather a response to do to alleviate having to have this conversation again in two months because i love seeing all of you but i think we'd be talking about much more productive things and we could be using money in a much more productive way to offer much more productive services so i'm really torn on this decision because if i vote no then people are going to say that i am for crashing beaches and that i don't care about kids safety if i vote yes then i'm going to displace or be a company to displacing people without any guarantee of shelter or without any knowledgeable place of where they're going to go because as the staff member just said everything is completely hypothetical at the moment so i'm at a moral crossroads as we all are on this dais and i'm really concerned about the direction that this is going because the people that i would have assumed would put at least more of a conversation around what we're going to do made one comment and then opened up into emotion so that's really disconcerting as far as the way that we move forward it's the fault of our city i totally agree with you council member said that they were on the beach when they were in high school i also had that same experience except when i was in high school i thought it was because they were familiar on december 21st and you can see the results of these policies throughout his skateboarding journey um and he hopes that he can do the same so here in sanikers um sanikers as jeffson said has a really rich skateboarding history and raven's honored to be a part of it so thank you very much thank you bernie and congratulations again for the sanikers for 27 and a half years certainly this election that we had in november 2020 was historic it was my dream election voters were excited and engaged and everybody was talking about voting voting with pool and all the innovative programs we did to ensure great voter turnout were exceptional so i want to thank you the mayor thanks the council members all the voters of the city of sanikers and i'm happy to become a vocal and active citizen of our community so thank you so much for commitment to uh you know making sure that voting system is open and transparent that um that folks know and feel very confident in you know our voting system and it's it's i mean it's just amazing i you know i've been there i've been down to um watch the votes being counted on different elections and you know and it's just and you know i think we weren't it back in the day when we weren't able to um you know get returns online and we just show up at the county building and you know you were there and like cheerful and and it's we take it for granted i think at least i have that um you know because we have such an amazing team there and you're in the elections at the clerk's office and um we will miss you and i'll also know that you have uh you're leaving behind a an amazing group of people there to take take over and um look forward to working with you on community endeavors thank you thank you so much just thank you um i mean voting is a proud badge that people wear in Santa Cruz because of your enthusiasm and uh the energy you bring to democracy so i wanted to recognize you for that and thank you for all your work over the years i think the vote mobile was uh is brilliant so um just the fact that you know you're bringing the opportunity to vote to people is um so important and so thank you so much for everything you did for this election and for all elections and uh yeah enjoy your at least probably brief time to uh to relax i have a feeling you'll dive into something very fast thank you the positive energy that you bring uh and just said an awfully high bar uh not only in the confidence of our system here advocacy for participation and i think of what you thought reaching out to high school students and and going above and beyond your position and being a very vocal advocate for civil liberties civil rights justice and so forth so you really have uh have given it the full picture thank you the great thank you have a great evening a lot of things on the court you mentioned the 2015 title last moroccan and not 95 consecutive sellouts in Kaiser Permanente arena dating back to 2016 um but i think we're even more proud of what we've accomplished off the court you mentioned the you know obviously a lot of what we've done with the kids and with Kaiser Permanente's help in the schools but over 1500 community events since we came here all the youth that we positively impacted and i i know we've probably made a bigger impact on kids in their endeavors off the court with reading and math and learning and what it means to be a positive community member than we have how many people will eventually grow up to slam dunk um but i think i want to also thank a few other folks um first i think this is not uh sanikers warriors honor while we're super excited to receive the key and place it somewhere um this is an honor for the next community the way we see it like for eight years you guys have supported us um ultimately you guys have supported us so much welcomed us with open arms when we came to the community eight years ago not a lot of people thought this could be a professional sports town and wow did did all of you and us as the warriors proved them wrong this is a place we're really excited to be you know we want to thank all of our our sponsors that have been with us um that that helped us out all of our season ticket holders that many of them have had tickets since day one several of them on this meeting right now that i can see on screen as well um you know obviously we want to thank the gold state warriors for the not only bringing the team to sanikers in the first place but the never-ending support we want to thank c dub nation who all are fan base that continues to support us and um we definitely want to thank the city of sanikers i mean all of you guys everything that you're doing long before covid and fires and everything that 2020 is thrown at us you guys have all been phenomenal allies and partners to the warriors in since 2012 and we're really honored to be in this um in this with you as we we hope to figure out a way to to be in sanikers for a really long time to come so thank you so much justin and all the members of council and everybody that had a role in making this honor uh happen we're excited to proudly display the keys when we physically get them and can gather together again in times of permanent area 2008-19-12 i can and and they watch the they keep track of the warriors and they're very proud and i'm proud definitely to have you here and that i'll put it up with my grumpy relatives years have made a huge impact on the youth in our community and i've said before basketball isn't my sport i'm not even five feet tall but um but the kids are super inspired by the athletes coming to school and all the outreach you guys have with your maverick mascot and we really appreciate the times you've given out tickets to the games as incentives and the merchandise you've given out as prizes and it's just created this like something for everybody to rally around in the uh youth community and um with the parents as well so thank you thank you rene academic research institution we always want to find a way to help our community and to help our world and we were faced with a very clear problem and situation when this pandemic broke out back in march actually prior to march the rna biology group at uc santa cruise got together to start discussing the impact of the novel coronavirus on the world and our local community and very rapidly turned to an idea of whether or not we could make a local impact by developing diagnostic testing and it was really the champion the very strong willed championing of jeremy sanford and some incredible um i think luck as well as positioning of our university over the last couple decades of basic biological research that put us in a position to be able to make this difference in really only a six-week period of time so if marm wants to share anything really quickly i will then share my screen and go through a little short presentation slides load off so uh really as i just stated really back in in late march early april our mission was really to help the santa cruise community by increasing the testing capacity and not only just increasing the testing capacity even back in april we were starting to hear about really long turnaround times and the lack and this really the quick the short the lengthy turnaround times impact on the ability of making the correct medical decisions to understand the spread of the virus in a local and regional communities so we really set out to not only increase testing capacity but do it in a way where we could help make instant medical impacts for our community um so overall in addition to really the basic science and the ability of developing diagnostic tests during the covid pandemic we really wanted to focus on the the most in need and in particular those that didn't don't have insurance and don't have access to readily available medical care including diagnostic testing so the really large part of from the very beginning of what we wanted to focus on as one of the largest employers and also one of the largest residents in santa cruise county the ability of understanding and making sure our campus was safe we felt was going to have a very dramatic and important impact on being able to keep the entire santa cruise community safe and lastly i think there was one last really important aspects that we felt could emerge from the work we were doing in the molecular diagnostic lab and that's really forging a long-term mutual beneficial partnership between the uc santa cruise community and the greater santa cruise community that includes santa cruise public health the santa cruise community health clinic solute parla hente the santa cruise community foundation santa cruise county sheriff's department as well as a long list of other partners that we have established over the course of this pandemic and we feel like this is these are associations that are going to not only provide help during the short the hopefully um the the pandemic that will end at some point in time but also extend into the long-term mutually beneficial associations that can last decades um i i do want to say a few things though about the challenges associated that we were faced with in establishing a kovat 19 clinical diagnostic lab you know uc santa cruise doesn't have a medical center um we have a small um student health clinic but that's the extent of what we have from kind of a medical infrastructure perspective and what we were really having to face with the situation of was converting from a bunch of scientists jeremy sandford michael stone olenovoske are all truly amazing scientists that were now needing to switch and go from doing their research laboratory to developing a clinical laboratory and i'm not going to go through all the steps on here but it's a very different world and a very different process uh that to go from a research lab to a clinical lab and we are quite fortunate in this particular process that olenovoske um in her her everyday world of running a research lab does uh um pediatric tumor genomics and in the process of working with these incredibly um important pediatric tumor cases she developed the skills of being um a clinical lab scientist in order to do the sorts of studies that are required to run a clinical laboratory so we're really able to take advantage of her expertise in pediatric genomics and be able to turn that into a situation of doing testing for COVID-19 so over over the course of the last nine months we have had an absolutely incredible team of young scientists and other leaders on the UC Santa Cruz campus that have made this entire process possible i'm not going to be able to read all the names on this slide or the next slide but i think that there's some really important names that i do want to mention dr elizabeth miller is the medical director of our student health center and she has been absolutely critical not only for the establishment of the molecular diagnostics lab but for the safety of all the UC Santa Cruz students as well as the safety of many members of our community and she's really been a hero on our campus throughout this entire process i want to read the names of all of the young scientists that really have motivated and kept the really kept everybody moving forward when this process could have fallen apart in so many different ways in the very early days so the lab technical team of namreta dylan joeen draper taren chang animal newbie savannah randy barkina peterson maize knave a new fan denbaut avon basket scott lawn natalie gallagher molly mccabe taren sanchez chris calziano elin caphart and tail agelhofer all were absolutely critical to the success of this process and we wouldn't have done what we could do without their absolute dedication innovation and really willingness to make every do everything possible to make a difference in our community this is just another small list of names that haven't haven't had a critical impact on making sure this entire lab functions properly these are the people behind the scenes that don't get any credit for what we've been able to do and they've they've really allowed this process to move forward uh i do need to make sure i mentioned chancellor cindy larive and our cpvc lori clutzer by chancellor scott branch by chancellor sarlaitham and abc gene reed scott who have been critical to making sure this whole process works and both uh chancellor larive and cdvc clutzer were behind this from day one when they knew it was going to be incredibly expensive they did know how we would do it but they got behind us from day one and really gave us all of the strength that we could they could to make sure this was going to happen i just want to um go through a few more slides and really this entire slide um can be accredited to jeremy sanford back in march in april when he wrote down what it would take to scale up a covet 19 testing lab in santa cruz and what it would take to help the community and these are all a series of different steps that we were going to have to undertake to make this entire process happen and they did um every step along the way different people got involved to make sure that we could do each one of these different steps to get the process done to get to the point that we're now doing a thousand tests a day there's one really interesting story and this is where joe ben beaver comes in and that's on process number five about a hands-free processing to make this a very automated process i'm going to show this slide not to go into the details of what tests we do and how we do it but there's one instrument this is the process that we follow in order to automate the entire system to do a thousand tests a day there's this robot right here called a bravo it's sold by a company called agilent it's a big company in the field of scientific equipment but it turns out joe ben beaver um so most of you know is um founder of joe v aviation in a previous iteration of a company joe ben actually designed and was the engineer to build this bravo instrument and in the in the situation of a small world joe ben and jeremy sandford lived near each other they became friendly and as they started talking about what we were trying to accomplish on the santa cruse campus joe ben on his willingly just decided to come in and volunteer his time to dial in this bravo instrument and make sure that it works and he did it better than any agilent technician could do and really helped establish the pipeline that allowed us to do this testing on the sort of scale that we are really set out to accomplish in the very beginning so joe ben has been a really important contributor to this entire process and what they learned from this have they taken on to actually start a company called summer bio where they're now doing hundreds of thousands of tests for a lot of different communities so um we're really grateful to joe ben for the help that he was able to provide to make this all work with that i'm going to turn the floor to mom to patrick who is an epidemiologist that really has helped us understand how to make this whole process work and understand the data to be making the right smart decisions for the entire community thanks a bunch guys wanted to say one or two quick comments about really the impact that the testing lab has had through their efforts so as both justin and john already said there's been this giant need both back in February and March but unfortunately through the current day for adequate testing capacity and most importantly adequate testing capacity where we get results back in a timely manner and the reasons for that are twofold one is what's already been said about enabling us to identify patients that actually have COVID-19 to get the best care from their doctors but the second part that's really critical is that if we can actually test people and find out who's infected with this virus and then actually uh basically contact these people get them to be able to safely isolate and then find the people that they might have infected through contact tracing that actually enables us to have this really effective public health response to COVID-19 that cuts off chains of transmission and releases transmission in our community and saves lives so um the data on this graph here just illustrates some of the testing the amazing amount of testing that the lab has done over the past I don't even know how many months it's been now it seems like it's been years but it's probably just been six or eight months or something but the really key part that I wanted to focus on is the fact that over this time the lab has been able to provide about 7,000 tests for the community as well as a huge number of tests I think about 25,000 or so as well on campus and really importantly the testing especially for the greater community and particularly for the Palma Valley community and some of the less absolute members of the Santa Cruz area have identified actually about 1200 infected people and by identifying these 1200 infected people we've been able to get them to be able to safely isolate and most importantly find their contact through they might have infected um and basically have them quarantine and get tested and basically break these chains of transmission and by doing so I'm basically identifying more than a thousand cases of COVID-19 in a timely manner and getting results back in just 24 hours or less most of the time that enables really the public health apparatus to really get stepped in and break the chains of transmission to stop people from getting infected and sick that the testing lab has played um and finally just to wrap up to say that unfortunately the need for rapid testing is ongoing and now actually more important than ever thankfully the testing lab led by Jeremy Sanford, Michael Stern, Alina Vasky, Isabel Bjork and John McMillan are honored to be able to contribute to this global public health challenge. Thank you. Leaving for leaving speeches by those who see local government as a necessary environment too is not enough that students require a path, we require sensitivity and foresight to permit development of our city but not at the expense of the quality of the life of the people who live here or of the sense of place that our neighborhoods provide. As I leave office let me brief thanks to those members of the public who took the time to engage, construct opinions with me or have done a commission. Your involvement enlightened me and challenged me to do my very best. I'm grateful to my universe of friends, old and new, for your encouragement and your assistance. Your help is invaluable to me and a force of my life. I'm grateful to our city staff and employees. You render valuable service to the council, appreciate it as public. You remain indispensable to keeping the city running and running at will. Your job has become more challenging, more complex and more difficult in the pandemic. Every one of you, and I mean every single one of you, the employees of the city are definitely my heroes. Thank you all. And finally, I want to wish my colleagues on the council well. Thank you for having the courage and the stamina to serve the public. Thank you Mayor Cummings and thank you council member and welcome to the new council members. I'll say it again. The same election business has changed. It has been such a council member for the city. To fall into this, I had been pretty active in the community for a couple of decades. We're getting recovery from the 89 earthquakes that motivated me to run for council. And specifically the experience of serving on vision Santa Cruz. But they were both a common goal, one another and think creatively and come together with the recovery. Now the earthquake is not exactly parallel to a COVID epidemic, but the parallel can't be missed really in bringing all our resources together. What that vision Santa Cruz taught me was the absolute importance of partnership. That in order to get important things done, we have to combine our public sector, our private sector and our nonprofit sectors, all the passions and skills and resources to really make progress. And certainly over the period of almost 30 years that I've served on the council, the issues we face and the community priorities change. It may be at one point in time environmental protection and then maybe there's an economic job and then a community tragedy mobilizes us in a different direction. So there's definitely change over time in what the community feels is important. But I do throughout all that safely as a community recruitment in that I think that are very broadly held values. Certainly appreciation for our environment, a beautiful environment and environmental protection, our commitment to social justice, our belief in our practice of community engagement. People get involved here. We are collaborated by nature. We are supportive of the arts and creative community and we believe in our local businesses. Whatever the issues are, I think those are pretty common threads that help us. One of the challenges that you have to spend time often to ideas that are not glamorous words on really long-term projects. What will our water supply be? Transportation could come up that you never thought would happen. A third place in COVID epidemic, for example, all of a sudden pivot shift here to order. And then it's really important that things, and particularly as a council member, to support just the pattern of community life, being there for the community celebrations and celebrating the non-profits that do things at school. What are the things that make people feel that their local government is paying attention and cares about what they do? And that's, I think, what builds community. So that's, without mentioning specific projects, it's too vast. So just some general observations over a pretty long trajectory. I do want to thank all the city workers. I have really loved working with our community staff who are so dedicated and to public service, to their work, and we absolutely depend on them. I want to thank the community that can be engaged in pretty much infinite ways. But we are lucky for that. I certainly want to thank my fellow council members for this council and previous councils that, over time, were pretty congenially together and respected. And I especially want to thank my family and friends, my long-suffering family and friends who've been celebrating many meetings and so forth. So with that, I have real confidence that the new council will bring a new set of strengths, new energy, that they are committed to working well together and they will help us into a much better new year. So I really want to thank you all for this thing. Organizing, Cynthia, for all you've done, both of the self-tax measures and finally Measure S, thank you. And congratulations. And while she figures that out, I have to say, help me get into my study while I was having dinner. And she and her friends put all these things together. I didn't know how modest it was, actually, but I wanted to volunteer. And after this rambling building with Rowling for Cynthia was, and we did not know each other, and I told her my idea. And like so many of my ideas through the years, Cynthia trimmed it up a bit to be on the Planned Parenthood Board, where I had no idea what I was going to do. It was full of professional people, and I had a second-hand store. I don't know what contribution I'm going to be able to make here, but Cynthia saw some possibilities. And at that time, we had a governor of California, Governor Duke Magin, who was not only hostile to family planning, and he tried to eliminate the funding for all the family planning clinics. And Cynthia thought that I might be bold enough to go stand on street corners and gather petitions, and then, which I did, and I proved to be pretty effective on street corners. So I kind of got, I did find a role for myself. I went on with Cynthia's support to do 13 years over a dozen years of adult concerts in a women's comedy night at the Colombo. The offer that Planned Parenthood does it. And so kick that, Richard Stockton, had women's comedy night many years ago. And so eventually, you know, I did do other things besides concerts. We had parades together, and I did a lot of tabling. And together, most of the extensive leadership, we organized the Reproductive Rights Network, which has had a Roe v. Wade annual brunch going through last year for over 30 years. And the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we had Sarah Weddington, who argued the case before the Supreme Court. Here to the ground, she knew Sarah Weddington was going to be on the West Coast for other affiliates, and Cynthia lined her up. So we had a very nice event. So when Cynthia decided to run for counsel, we had a very strong working relationship. In fact, Cynthia usually characterized it as our dog and pony show, and there was nobody on anybody's mind, certainly not hers or mine, who the dancing dog was and who the hardworking pony is, because anybody who's had any contact with Cynthia knows that she, there's nobody who works like she does. She just seems to thrive on it. I don't do my chapter dinner. Netflix is good enough for me. But anyway, she's industrious to the limit. So I then proceeded to be her, her campaign coordinator for all six of her campaigns. All of the, but I'm sure you're going to hear more about all the city revenue measures that Cynthia basically shared or was the emphasis for and the hardworking pony for all of those things as well. And I served on all those committees, so I have a lot of political experience with Cynthia also. I admire her more than anybody I've personally ever known, and I'm really, really pleased to have had a chance to be around her and see and work. She's just so observant, so careful, so done. She has a vision and she's just saying she sees how things fit together. She sees how different elements in the community fit together. It's, it's a, it's a wonderful thing to see somebody like that. And I'm really, most of all, really happy to call Cynthia a very close friend and I'm happy for her. And maybe we'll be able to have lunch every now and then we'll talk about it whenever actually happens. If too many meetings. Next, I would like to invite up for Reid. It's a, it's as long as he would expect a John Laird proclamation to be, so I will not read the entire thing, but I will read part of it, but I will say, Carol, I will absolutely pay big money though that you are either doing or putting on. Whereas is here, whereas this is, there's almost no local issue or organization in the greater Santa Cruz area that escaped Cynthia Matthews attention during her 50 year careers of public official and community activists, including the founding and service of the board member and later an employee of Planned Parenthood in Santa Cruz County, serving on the board of the Santa Cruz Historical Society and having founded and been an active member of the downtown neighbors helping create the friends of Wilder Ranch State Park and also serving on the boards of the Museum of Art and History in the Santa Cruz Barber Day Committee, among other things. Let me also say that this is about as true as it can be, whereas no local activists or public official has escaped a phone call from Cynthia Matthews asking for support for all local successful revenue measures in the city for singular efforts allowing the city and our local schools to continue to provide and even expand services to fight despite reductions in outside support. As Tony had mentioned also for our libraries as well and where Cynthia Matthews has consistently taken the revolutionary step of actually reading every city council agenda item, including all the consent agenda items and going out and talking to all the stakeholders on every significant issue. On top of that she's further met individually with many applicants for every city board committee and commission which we know to be true. This is an important part. Her husband Bill, daughter Amy and son Jeremy also deserve similar praise. I also say that it includes the fact that Cynthia ever more than the Brown Act would legally allow an opportunity to decompress over a glass of wine in her living room after lively public meetings or apparently Carol Thor goes there regularly to drink a glass of wine too. Whereas Cynthia Matthews has demonstrated a half century the highest commitment to community and all of its residents and is retiring from the council which means that she's just going to continue her 60-hour work week doing something else. So now therefore this is on behalf of John Laird, California State Senator. Again, this is his very first proclamation as State Senator. Do hereby proclaim December 8th, 2020 as Cynthia Matthews Day in the 17th Senate District and encourage all community members and Santa join him in recognizing the expression for long public service. That is well deserved Cynthia and just on a personal note I know that Supervisor Kennedy is on as well and we did a proper over 20 years there it is. I've known Council Member Matthews and basically all good thing leadership within work. She does so much for those that don't have a voice be it for funding for programs that don't receive funding be it for the construction of the library and other facilities. She's a very consistent strong advocate. What I consider to be all things good. I've admired your work ethic. I've admired your ethics in general and I just admired how success in the 20 years that I've worked with you and Cynthia I'm sorry to see you go from the City Council but thank you for all that you've done. A lot of the things that you've laid the foundation for are going to continue to grow within the city and the community and the county is a better place for me to raise my six year old kid actually as a result of your work. So thank you so much. Thank you Mayor. Congratulations on our many years of service. Congratulations Justin on an excellent year as Mayor and certainly welcome the new council members and returning council members. I look forward to working with you to get us through this crisis and then emerge stronger and better going forward. One of the reasons why we all do that is because of Cynthia Matthews' leadership. Quite simply and I'm sure the Mayor can appreciate this as a son of Chicago. You're the Michael Jordan of Santa Cruz council members. You're the greatest of all time. In ways big and small you've served our city. I've seen you out picking up trash or weeding as you walk home. I've seen you move major policies that impact the schools, the city, built infrastructure, built community spaces, built the kinds of services that make Santa Cruz a wonderful place to have grown up and now to raise my kids and hopefully their kids and your kids and grandkids in this city. We've been incredibly I feel incredibly fortunate to have served with you, to have worked with you. I will say if you need evidence I think anytime my sister or wife have an issue with downtown often even when I was on the city council or even when I was mayor they called Cynthia first to solve it. She's just that effective and I'm just so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with you and you've earned more than earned. A little downtime, a little time off but I am still cognizant. I will be receiving many phone calls well into the future about what the county can do or what I can do to make life better in the city of Santa Cruz because your commitment runs that deep. Congratulations Cynthia. Thank you. Finally we have one last outside council member who wanted to say a few words and so I'd like to invite former mayor Mike Lottiken to join us. So the chance to start Justin Cummings mayor, Justin Cummings for allowing me to make some remarks. First of all I want to congratulate Catherine on her service during this recent period and recognize that she was willing to step up. It's not always easy after being off the council for a while. We get back into it again. I do appreciate our service to the community. I want to congratulate all of the winners in the last election the two incumbent Sandy Brown and Martine Watkins and certainly the two new council members that have been elected Shabir Kalantari-Johnson and Sonia Greener. You've got some work cut out for you and I'm going to take my moment here not to list all the wonderful things that Cynthia Matthews accomplished. There's not enough time to do that quite literally. I mean you couldn't even do the highlights really in the time that we have. What I want to do is talk about how Cynthia from my perception how Cynthia Matthews was able to accomplish the things that she did and so this is kind of advice to new council members and I'm not implying that all other council members didn't do several or many of these different kinds of things but I think Cynthia is the only one myself included who did all of these kinds of things that I'm going to mention pretty quickly here. So she understands the systems that make the city work. She meets regularly with department heads and other city employees to ask questions about council agenda items and other issues. She has a realistic acceptance of the limits imposed by personnel, time and budget constraints. She does her council preparation including reading staff reports and letters from the public before the meeting is not during the meeting. Cynthia understands how the city interfaces with county, state and federal governments, the school district, nonprofits, other public agencies. She looks outside the city where priorities are the lap of other entities, nonprofits, private interests. She develops partnerships and that's been a real key I think to her success in moving particular projects. Like a good chess player she looks ahead and she's usually looking five or ten steps ahead. I think most of us are checkers while she's playing chess and I think that's why she's been as effective as she has because she's not just sort of wandering into things but actually planning where she'd like things to go. She follows up on things. A lot of times you sort of get the work done and then you kind of well let it go. It's going to take care of itself and she never does that. She follows up making sure that the things she's worked on are going to actually get accomplished. And finally Cynthia Matthews has a tremendous work ethic. She's detail-oriented. I'm going to give you one really concrete example here. The council, when people apply to be on commissions and boards, the council here is usually three minutes from each of them and we get a brief maybe a piece long application telling them why they want to be on a commission. Cynthia not only goes out and interviews the applicants for these positions she goes out and interviews the people they work with to find out whether they're ready for public service and how they're going to interact with other people on a board. I mean that's so extraordinary and so you know a lot of times you want to appoint people you know or you like what they wrote about themselves in a page but when Cynthia Matthews made suggestions to me about who might be the best person to serve on a board or commission I understood I really need to pay attention to what she's suggesting because she had done that homework and follow-up on it and stuff so we really knew what we were getting when that kind of stuff happened. She often encouraged people to apply to boards and commissions and I'm sure we had people who are the best qualified people serving our city because we have a very active and engaged citizen to make that happen. So I want to suggest that new council members can do worse than to kind of follow the example of Cynthia Matthews. Most members of the public I think believe that it's all the council meetings it's what you say to other people in the meeting it's the speeches you give and so forth of course that's important part of the work the votes that you give but it's really the work behind the scenes to get prepared for a meeting to understand the sort of unintended consequences of your actions to have met with all the stakeholders to meet with the people that you disagree with and ask you know what are their concerns about an issue and then maybe you can shape what you're doing in a way that makes it maybe they still don't agree with you but they maybe feel that you've made some attempt to work their concerns into your final outcome. So that's a bit of advice to new council members and I can't do better than to suggest you follow that model that Cynthia Matthews that I learned so much from in the years that I worked with her on the on the council and I'm going to hope that she runs again in two years if she wants the absolute record she has to do that because I served them an additional eight months on my first term because they moved the election from the spring to the fall and I got a five-year term on my second term because they moved it from odd day even the citizens moved it from odd to even number November so she's and she we share the number of terms and the number of times being made but she really wants to hide it all to herself she's got to come back in two years and run again I'll leave it at that thank you so much for your service Cynthia and I really want to again appreciate all the new council members and I really look forward to being able to support the new council and I hope that you're gonna I believe you will provide our city with the leadership we need to get out of the mess that we're in right now which was mostly out of our own making thank you so much thank you mayor Catherine even though it's been a short period that we've been on council together I just have huge respect for you I learned a lot from you just in the way that you ask questions of the staff that you really have a commitment to really understanding people's concerns what the impacts on our community will be about the various proposals so I just you know respect your comments that I was able to hear over the last eight months and I wish you well and I will see you out running on west coast I'm sure as soon as we can all get back to our normal lives so thank you for for you know sharing sharing this experience with you not not something expected but I'm very much appreciated and and enjoyed your your company and your time sharing as a council member so thanks thank you Catherine Cynthia I'm going to use my few minutes to actually read a in your honor a congressional record that has been put into the congressional record today from Congressman Jimmy Panetta so this was recorded today December 8 2020 into the congressional record of the United States of America the proceedings and debates of the 116th Congress and the second session the office is entitled House of Representatives honoring council members Cynthia Matthews December 8 2020 Madam Speaker I rise today to honor Cynthia Matthews the retiring city council member and former mayor of the city of Santa Cruz California for her commitment to serving the people of the Central Coast of California it is my honor to recognize her as she finishes her final term serving the city of Santa Cruz as the longest serving member of the city council which apparently Mike did beat you on that her services 24 years has benefited countless residents of the city of Santa Cruz and is an achievement that few elected officials experience council member Matthews Mark can be seen in the city of Santa Cruz's protection of its historic buildings and architectural importance the recovery of the downtown after the Loma Prieta earthquake and protection of the Monterey Bay National Rain Sanctuary she has been a leader of the she's been a leader on the Santa Cruz Democratic Central Committee and led efforts to pass revenue measures supporting Santa Cruz City Schools the Santa Cruz public library system and city of Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation programs the community of Santa Cruz has been well served by her dedication to neighborhoods economic development housing social equity and social services and public safety public service is a demanding commitment and she has served with grace intelligence and determination her service will certainly inspire future leaders on the Central Coast as she begins her retirement I have no doubt that Cynthia will continue to serve her community we on the Central Coast are grateful for her contributions to our community and celebrate her successful career and this again is on behalf of congressman the honorable congressman Jimmy Panetta so and I will just add it's been a pleasure again you've been I've learned a lot from you and I won't spend a lot of time you know kind of running through the list but all of us benefit from learning from each other and and I think that that's something for the incoming council members to remember is that we all do better by helping each other do this job it's an incredibly difficult job I know you've had your your your fun times and you're not so fun times so appreciate your dedication to our community and hope you enjoy timing your garden and the bill thanks well here we are this is a you know it's a I think it's Cynthia in your email to the city I recognize that for somebody who with your you know tremendous work ethic and commitment to our city and our community all of the time that you served I can imagine that it's a goodbye I was listening and thinking oh this is the last you know motion to approve the consent agenda in the left you know I was thinking you know what you really will be missed here on the council and you know hope that you station I know it's probably hard with the work ethic that you have in your you know it's been mentioned that'll be hard to slow down but I hope you get to a little bit and have some fun with your family and with your friends and Catherine I am so grateful to have gotten a chance to actually serve with you for these this short time you know I've worked with you as a member of the community during your past terms and so impressed with your commitment to sustainability you know the environment and you know social justice in our community and you know I just and really your commitment to you know open government and transparency and really make you know get including the public in decision-making to providing information to our community about what's happening in the city it can sometimes be pretty opaque and you really try to make it legible for people and I that's just a model that you know I I try to took your mentorship and I'll miss you too but hopefully we'll we'll get to sit on your porch and talk about politics and I'm glad you're going to get back to well you know I know you've been running anyway you've maintained your your regular schedule today running but hopefully I'll give you more time to be relaxed about it and and keep going and grandkids and everyone's going to benefit from and so we really appreciate both of the work that both of you have put into the community over the years and my meeting of the United States the tuition of the state of California that I take this obligation freely and then count member Brown I state your name Sandy Brown you solemnly swear you solemnly solemnly swear that I will support I will support and defend the the constitution of the United States the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of California and the constitution of the state of California against all enemies against all enemies foreign and domestic foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the United States to the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of California California and the Constitution of the State of California, that I take this obligation freely, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation, without any mental reservation, of evasion, or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully, discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter. Congratulations. Councilmember elect Brunner, raise your hand please. You may. I feel like a stand-up moment. Okay, here I go. It usually is in normal time. State your name. I, Sonia Brunner. Do solemnly affirm. Do solemnly affirm. That I will support and defend. That I will support and defend. The Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United States. And the Constitution of the State of California. And the Constitution of the State of California. Against all enemies. Against all enemies. Born and domestic. Born and domestic. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. To the Constitution of the United States. To the Constitution of the United States. And the Constitution of the State of California. And the Constitution of the State of California. That I take this obligation freely. That I take this obligation freely. Without any mental reservation. Without any mental reservation. or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter. Congratulations. Thank you. Hurry, Johnson. I'm here, but I can't record my video. State your name. I, Shabba Calentary Johnson, do solemnly swear, do solemnly swear, that I will support and defend, that I will support and descend, the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of California, and the Constitution of the State of California, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance, to the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of California, and the Constitution of the State of California, that I take this obligation freely, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter. Congratulations. Thank you so much, Bonnie. Welcome. Council members, could all turn their cameras back on now? Did a huge, long-standing council members. You know, I'm looking forward to the coming year, over the next four years, but, you know, I just want to be real quick and say, you know, thank my campaign team, thank our community. You know, I just am constantly amazed at the generosity and collaborative spirit that I see, and I'm really pleased to be able to serve again, and I want to thank the voters as well for their office, and I've served, as I hope we all do, with a commitment to favor and community organizer and activist as a teacher and as a city council member over these past four years. I also recognize that some publics are privileged, all too often privileged, over others, and so I've worked really hard, and I will continue to work to bring those underrepresented voices to the city, to City Hall, in our decision-making processes, to be on issues of concern to them, to all of us, and originally came from, you know, the measure of a society and our community is the most vulnerable. I want people to feel like their government is listening to them, and I want people to feel heard, and I remain committed to that. I welcome hearing from folks about your issues, and I look forward to working with my colleagues, old and new. Congratulations to you all, and here's to everybody. My name is Sonia Brunner, to be here right now, working downtown and with the Downtown Association of Santa Cruz. My time served on the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, all with numerous other boards and committees, have prepared me to define, collaborate with teams, prepare data to communicate with a diverse group of people that have led me to this very moment here, right now. Recently, I was talking to a group about being involved in their communities, and that through simply being engaged as a community member. I've grown with Santa Cruz, it's beautiful mountains, it's treasured, oh, city, and the people that really make this place my place I call home, our place that we call home, and that's why I'm inspired to serve it. Now I get the privilege of representing the same people, and I have the honor of doing my part to make sure that Santa Cruz remains the amazing place that it is for years to come. I was elected because I had many of you working with me along the way. With your help going forward, this is our city, and most importantly our home, and so much can be accomplished when we work together. Thank you for giving me the privilege to serve as your council member, I'm really honored to have this opportunity and honored to serve. It's a great honor coming for your year of service, what an incredible year to see very important people, a big thank you manager every step of the way, and to the committees Simone, Meredith, and Danielle, we did this together. Thank you to all the mentors and current and past council members that were there for me with all my answers and questions created neighborhoods with me to hang door hangers and believed in my mission to my son Miguel for being my rock through this process. You are my love and the reason why. Thank you to the community for electing me to represent you and Santa Cruz with love and respect. Good evening everyone. It is with great honor and gratitude that I accept this role as the first Iranian American city council woman for the city of Santa Cruz. I would like to thank my husband Brian Johnson, my son Daryush and Cheyenne Johnson, my parents and my sister, all my family all over the world were spread out everywhere. My campaign team, my friends, my colleagues, all of you for your guidance and for your support. And to the voters of Santa Cruz, thank you for your support and for entrusting me with this role. I'd also like to thank each of the current city council members, including outlawing council women buyers and Matthews for all your work and dedication to our city over the many, many, many years that you've served. Congratulations to council women Martina Watkins, Sandy Brown and Sonia Brunner. I'm looking forward to working with each of you and with you mayor Cummings and vice mayor Myers. And to the city staff, thank you for the incredible work that you do every day and that you put into maintaining the functions of our city, especially during these last difficult nine months. These challenging months have forced us to pause and reflect and acknowledge what's working and what's missing, both locally and at the larger state and national levels. I am personally invigorated by how much I've learned over the last year, gaining deeper insight about the nuances of our community's culture and the varying perspectives that lend it texture, gaining a more in-depth understanding of our strengths and challenges, meeting incredibly smart committed people who cared deeply about the well-being of our community and witnessing that we can and will can send polarization and unite as a community as we have these last months in response to COVID, the fires and uprising against racial injustice. These experiences, along with my commitment to equity, dignity and compassion for all will guide me as I embark on this new path to serve our community. As we go into this new year and the next several years, we will use our experiences and our ability to pivot, the word of 2020, to move forward with the projects that are in the pipeline, seize new opportunities and confront the issues that lie ahead of us. In particular, I want to focus on several pressing issues. Like many of you have said, the first urgent issue is public health and safety. It is and will be essential as we navigate this evolving pandemic. We'll need to continue to work together and work with our county partners to address health disparities and reach community well-being. The second is building economic vitality and addressing our city budget deficit. Our small businesses are the heart of our city and without them, our workers are displaced. I commit to listening to the needs of local businesses, displaced workers and our nonprofits. Together we can look for innovative solutions and seek outside resources to lessen the impacts on our community. And housing will be a crucial focus for our community as well. Our teachers, our social workers, seniors and young adults, my friends, your friends, colleagues and neighbors, they're leaving the city and many are left unhoused. I'm confident that we can focus on housing solutions that are thoughtful and integrate conscious growth and environmental stewardship. These are just some of the issues that I work on during my time on council. And to navigate the difficult decisions that lie ahead, I will use the lens of equity, health and sustainability, the three pillars of the health and all policies that our city adopted last year. As your councilwoman, I commit to leading with the same values that led my parents to leave post-revolution Iran in the 1980s and embark on a new, challenging, invigorating life in the state, that of resilience and a belief in an equitable society. I commit to leading with a pragmatic mind and a compassionate heart. And I know that no one person, entity or city can do it alone. Now Iranians really love poetry, so I'd like to close by quoting a 14th century Persian poet whose name is Hafez. He says, what we speak becomes the house we live in. Now if that's true, then I will speak this. It will take all of us. And I invite each of you, those who voted for me and those who didn't, to join me in listening to one another and working together to find solutions that bring about the positive change that we all see for our community. Thank you so much for this opportunity to serve our wonderful city for 2021. In the Constitution of the United States, to the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Health, this obligation freely that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation, without any mental reservation, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties. Discharge the duties. I'm about to enter. Thanks, Bonnie. I've lost my, I'm so used to having Jeff and Q everything up. I have a few remarks and then I'm also up to talk to our community. I want to say thanks to my colleagues on the city council for your vote tonight, for me to serve as mayor through 2021. I appreciate your trust in me to continue to guide and support our recovery and more importantly to begin the steps to re-imagine a more equitable future for Santa Cruz. I feel honored to be working with such a great team, the fellow council members, all of whom have stepped up and chosen to serve during one of the most turbulent times in our country. And during a time when COVID continues to threaten more lives, disrupt and destabilize families, threaten economic security for thousands, and have lasting effects that are as yet unknown. Additionally, this summer's wildfires have devastated the lives of thousands, threaten vital city infrastructure, and it is the largest natural disaster in our county's history, but threats likely to continue through many winners. I want to specifically thank all of our city heads of our team Bernal and city department leaders for getting us through this year, as well as mayor coming just and coming for his work and keeping our community informed, calm and stable during this difficult time. I have great respect for his work on police reform and social equity this past year as well as for his focus on local business support and renter protections. I want to thank Dr. Dale Newell and Santa Cruz County leaders for their guidance and support during this talk difficult time. Profit leaders serving on the countywide economic recovery council for their help in assisting local businesses, identifying those most in need and delivering food and essential services and needs to families in our community. I want to thank Santa Cruz City School Superintendent Chris Monroe, the district's teachers and staff and the City Schools Board of Trustees for their leadership during the pandemic, and wildfire meeting critical school meal availability for families and for trying to do the impossible with online learning in one of the toughest situations to face modern education efforts. I also want to thank lastly Chancellor Cynthia Larise and UCSC leaders for their remarkable contributions to COVID testing and research as well as for initiating a virtual campus this year to keep our community and UCSC students safe. Your partnership is what I value for helping our community recover from all that has happened this year. Finally I want to thank my family, my wife, Bertie and my friends and colleagues for all your support over the past two years. No one can do this work, just in daunting for our community as well as for the state of California and as we move forward. But I know that I have a remarkable team in this City Council to help lead this community. Their knowledge and perspectives on how local government can and should be effective during this time will be instrumental over the next year. This council is made up of educators, public health and social service experts, advocates for children and youth, housing advocates, climate change experts, and small business and economic development leaders. Who wouldn't want that team right now going into the year ahead? It's just an outstanding group of people and I'm really lucky to be working with all of you over the next year. I would also be remiss to not also mention that your city council continues to be a diverse group of community members. The historic all women's field of council candidates this past election was truly inspiring. You have also just elected your first openly lesbian mayor in Santa Cruz history. In fact, we have in place on our city council with many communities around the country seek to achieve. We have racial and ethnic representation, LGBTQ representation, gender and age diversification. Not to mention dog lovers, moms, surfers, sailors, artists, scientists, teachers, farmers and gardeners here because we love Santa Cruz and I know that we will be all working together to do the best that we can for this community. We're all here to work together to serve for the greater good of all Santa Cruzans as we face the unprecedented economic, environmental and public health challenges that way ahead. Actions and decisions we make this year will decide the foreseeable future for existing businesses, how we will stabilize families, how we will keep residents in their homes and how we will move forward to a better future for all. I see a future that is based in the green economy that has been built over the past decades by so many inspirational leaders and hardworking community members here in Santa Cruz. Even before the term green economy became popular. They were protecting land and forests that help preserve our water supply and prepare for climate change. They were protecting farmland and local food sheds. They were demanding affordability and housing and they were building bike trails and purchasing a 30 mile long rail line for future rail trail transportation. They restored our coastal habitats, streams and rivers which will help heal our mountains now. They created one of the largest rain reserves in the world, our Monterey Bay National Rain Sanctuary. Now one of the top three visited rain areas in the world. And they declared our coastline from pleasure point to natural bridges, a world surfing reserve recognizing the heritage and uniqueness of this place. This work and future work like resilient coast Santa Cruz will marshal hundreds of millions of dollars worth of green infrastructure investment to help us recover and reimagine Santa Cruz for the next decade and beyond. Our success relies on this green economy now and it will into the future. In the months and years ahead, we'll have to rehabilitate the thousands of forest acres that have burned, protect and rehabilitate our water supply systems and water supply watersheds, safeguard our coastal areas from sea level rise and lessen our carbon footprint by creating housing in areas where people can walk, ride public transit and their bikes to work in school. It is vital that we also build housing for those who need support in gaining back their lives and those who work here. We are well on our way to this goal. Just this past month, the city has approved over 200 units of housing for low and very low income residents and supportive housing for those in need. These investments are a win for our community, especially when combined with supporting essential services like medical and dental clinics, child care facilities, business incubator spaces, healthy food and grocery stores and access to parks and open spaces. Many of our neighbors in Watsonville, Capitol and Scott Valley and broader Santa Cruz County share this common vision. Together we can move all of our communities forward to re-imagine future defined by shared prosperity. These actions have and will continue to create good paying jobs, opportunities for new workforce training and additional investment in Santa Cruz and our local businesses. That investment will in turn support the services we all expect from our local government, public safety, parks, vibrant neighborhoods and thriving business districts. There's still much problem solving ahead and I look forward to tackling the issues that are most pressing need. No solutions will happen without trust and teamwork. I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to work with colleagues who are ready to go to work for a bright future for all of our residents. So in summary, my vision is a green economy that is equitable and makes room for everyone. A community that values diversity of opinion, age, ethnicity and income. A community that helps one another and treats one another with respect, kindness and patience. That protects our environment and prepares for the future while acting on the needs of today. We are a very strong community and I know we will continue to pull together now to help each other. I am hopeful we will respect one another even when we have different views. I know we can move forward together in a way that is inclusive of all residents and enhances everyone's sense of belonging and value. I'm hopeful we will hear from more and more people within our community about what their visions are for the present and future of Santa Cruz. There are 65,000 unique people living in our city. Let's pull together and see what we can accomplish together. I think the future is bright and the possibilities are enormous. In closing, I want to thank you for your trust in me to do this work as your mayor. I wish all residents of Santa Cruz a wonderful holiday and please help those in need this holiday season. Of course, please be safe and most importantly wear a mask and I wish you all a good night and thank you for coming for a great night and a great last meeting. Thanks very much. I really appreciate everything you've done this past year, Justin. Next, Bonnie, we'll go ahead and you will, so we don't need to, you don't need to swear. Councilmember Brunner in? Okay, Brunner, I'd like to invite you up next to share your comments with the community. Thank you, Mayor Myers. Re-evaluate priorities and make some important choices. As we start to work on this next phase of our economy and what our community will look like, I'm really excited to start the role of vice mayor and work on ways that prioritize and support investment in our city infrastructure and ways that support housing, economic rebuilds, public safety, and all social determinants of health. Starting today, action is needed on a community scale that includes public, private, and non-profit partnerships working together to provide resources and ways for COVID-19 recovery. We have proven we can all work together to make an impact and support our community. I know it will take courage and commitment. Today I'm making that commitment. A commitment to making decisions that support our community and help our city navigate towards policies and initiatives that produce effective and equitable outcomes. Policies that reflect a shared vision of Santa Cruz as a healthy, safe, welcoming, and inclusive place for all of us. This is not going to be easy. It takes discipline. It takes teamwork. It takes soccer. I'm ready for the challenge and this leadership and support role. Santa Cruz, thank you for giving me the responsibility to serve you. To my fellow council members who are working with you, let's do this. Okay, thank you, Vice Mayor Ruder. We're both getting used to these titles, aren't we? We have reached the end of our evening. Again, I want to thank Mayor Cummings. It's just a crazy year. Nobody could have ever invented a year like this to have you come in and do what you've done. I really want to thank all of the council members. We, I feel like, have really just leaned in and done the work that we needed to do. As we've all stated, we may not agree on everything every time, but that's what democracy is about, and that's what makes for an engaged community and hopefully good policy. So I wish you all the best of holidays. I wish you much time out in our beautiful environment and outdoors and hope all of your families have a wonderful holiday. And we will basically all see each other at the start of the new year. So congratulations, everybody, everybody, give each other a hand. We're going to be a great team. And yeah, be safe, take care of each other. See you soon. Bye, everybody. Good night, everybody. And I'm here. Good night. Congratulations, everybody. Any members? Everyone have a great holiday.