 Well good morning everybody welcome to our 11 a.m. Public portion of the closed litigation session of the September 24th 2019 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council and this part of the meeting the council will receive public testimony thereafter the council members will move to the courtyard conference room for the closed session I'd like to ask our clerk to please call the roll here counter members crown present lever here Myers here Brown here Matthew here vice mayor come up here are there any members of the public who would like to speak to us on our closed session agenda seeing nobody here other than our staff we'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting to the courtyard conference room where we'll go into our closed session okay now we're extra loud here we'll go ahead and get started let's call to order our afternoon agendas so good afternoon everybody welcome to our 1 p.m. session of the September 24th 2019 Santa Cruz City Council meeting and I'd like to ask our to please call the roll thank you mayor counter members crown here lever here Myers is currently absent Brown here Matthews here vice mayor coming here here I'd like to ask our clerk to please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance all right so at this point we get to meet some of our new employees and so we have the introduction of the new employees to the council and the community and I'd like to first start with our interim acting director of finance Cheryl five to introduce her new employees I'm happy to introduce Ross Brandon he's a principal management analyst for the finance department risk management risk division he's a long-term resident of Santa Cruz and spends the majority of his time surfing frequently frequenting the east side from Pleasure Point to Capitola he comes from his last position as regional manager for Pete's coffee and the San Francisco and Monterey Bay area he has a bachelor's from UC Santa Barbara in history and religious studies he's married has two children and his daughter is heavily involved in Santa Cruz roller derby his son plays soccer and baseball and Ross has a privilege of helping coach the teams he regularly travels to Mexico to surf and he's also travels abroad with his family mostly spending time in recently spending time in England Ross says he's excited about serving the community in which he lives and we look forward to his development in his career and benefiting from his commitment thank you Ross welcome Ross thank you so now we'll go ahead and invite up our interim assistant city manager director of information technology Laura Schmidt to introduce her new employee come on thank you mayor that's what that's a mouthful isn't it so can't you ding it I've been rehearsing her name all week Kendra DeGirolmo is our new business systems analyst to in our information technology department she comes to us most recently from neighboring Driscoll's where she worked for 11 years as a business systems analyst prior to that she worked as a senior EDI analyst in Minnesota we very much lucked out getting someone with such relevant experience to help us with our varied application projects and analysis work that we do here at the city her roots her roots are deep in our community and her family has been in the Monterey Bay area since the early 1900s starting in commercial fishing at Canary Row they moved to other parts of the Bay including my mic is dead I'm obviously alive Kendra's great Aunt Sally Sally was even once the mayor here crazy is that the latest offspring of this great family of hers are her two boys Cade and Jack they keep her busy running around at ages eight and one and a half she's pretty well consumed being a super working mom she sits here at City Hall along the wall of our IT folks so please stop by and welcome her to the city welcome Kendra welcome Kendra so we have last but certainly certainly not least director of public works Mark dental here to introduce his new employee afternoon Mark dental director of public works and it's my pleasure to introduce Eduardo Ruiz he's our new engineering technician and it's an existing position he was born in Mexico was brought to the US as an infant grew up most of his life in Salinas and after community college moved to Sacramento and worked on his bachelors in civil engineering he's currently living in Salinas he graduated from San Francisco Sacramento State and he's worked full-time as a staff engineer he's also his focus was land development road design flume work surveying before he transferred to Sacramento State he worked for Monterey County as an intern and he worked in the Public Works Department doing calculations of superstructure inspections rebar placement abutments another construction in the Carmel Valley he graduated from Hartnell College transferred Sacramento State graduated with a bachelor's of science in civil engineering in 2018 when he's not working he's a soccer fanatic he loves to play walk watch it talk about soccer 24-7 he also likes to do outdoor activities bike riding hiking riding off-road power vehicles aquatic power vehicles and other fun activities so and he really likes to see new places and travel in the US and internationally so please join me in welcoming a Duarva welcome so we had a presentation that has been canceled for today but we'll have at a future time and then we have another presentation a proclamation to support the global youth climate action strike but that will be heard at a time certain at 3 30 when some of our students can join us so I just have a few announcements at this time and then we'll move on to our regular meeting so today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and is streaming on the city's website cityofsanacruze.com our rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left and it's my job to keep the meeting running without disruption and we ask you respect your fellow citizens when you are inside and outside of our council chambers I'd like to ask any council members if there are any statements of disqualification today okay seeing none we'll go ahead and see if our city clerk has any additions or deletions to but there was an update reflecting it but in the event you aren't aware the presentation was removed and then agenda item 8 which is the firefighter tentative agreement was removed okay so I have an announcement about oral communications oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on today's agenda oral communications will occur at or around 7 p.m. this evening I do have a note that I'd like to let the community become aware of oral communications at our October 8th meeting will occur immediately following the afternoon agenda items but no later than 6 p.m. ending by 6 30 p.m. and in observance of yon kipper per council policy so we'll go ahead and now turn it over to our city attorney to provide a report on closed session thank you mayor Watkins members of city council four categories of items discussed in closed session this morning and afternoon closed session commenced at 11 a.m. in the courtyard conference room item a were public performance evaluations of the city manager and city attorney item B is a liability claim of Louis Anthony who guard day that is also listed on your consent calendar this afternoon as an open session item item C involving significant exposure to litigation specifically this item was a threat of litigation under the California voting rights act which was communicated to the city by a letter dated July 8th of 2019 which demanded that the city adopt a resolution of intention to transition to elections by district within 45 day period that's the the time period specified by the voting rights act in upon receipt of the demand letter my office was able to negotiate extension of that 45 day deadline to the end of this month to provide us with an opportunity to do further analysis of the claim council considered that analysis in closed session today and based on that has declined to take any further action in response to the claim at this time item D was labor negotiations involving fire IAF local 1716 and executives council met with and gave instructions to its negotiators there were no reportable actions on other otherwise on those items today thank you mr. condoning so the council meeting calendar is the next item and it's an opportunity to see if there's any revisions and all the electricity clerk to see so that moves us on to our consent agenda and that's items number 4 through 13 on our agenda with the exception of item number 8 that item has been removed from today's agenda as previously mentioned by our city clerk so all items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion so I'll ask my colleagues if any of you are interested in pulling a consent item council member current I have a question about number five I don't want to put and I would like to pull number nine okay are there any other consent agenda items to be pulled okay seeing none do you want to go ahead and ask your question about item number five at this time sure I'm very happy that it's in front of us and I'm glad that it mentions it talks about the launch of the downtown employee eco pass program which I understand is happening on October 2nd and then I see a partnership with the city schools and creating idle free campuses this is on page two of the staff report I wonder frequently what our policy is in Santa Cruz about idling vehicles is there a time limit if you go behind the catalyst for example I saw two buses huge buses just idling for a while and I'm wondering what is our policy around that and if somebody can maybe respond to the idling vehicle issue good afternoon council members and mayor Tiffany wise for sustainability and climate action manager yes the city does have an ordinance that idling within the public right-of-way for 90 seconds or more is prohibited so we are utilizing that in this campaign over the summer we actually been working for a year on this campaign with the city schools over the summer we installed signs public works inside installed signs in the loading zones that cited the ordinance and has a very graphic image of children with exhaust kind of coming out of a tailpipe with a no next to it and we also provided signs to the schools to install in their parking lots and worked with the schools on putting out on their social media and in their parent teacher newsletters a blurb about why we're doing this why it's important and so those went out just within the past month of September so does the 90 seconds in a public right-of-way does that include parking spaces I believe if they're public parking spaces yes so these buses often idle behind the catalyst in the city lot for hours and I assume I don't I don't know what the deal is that people are sleeping before their gigs or something is there anything we could do about that you know I would have to defer to the police chief as to how they enforce that ordinance I know that there is some interest in a second phase of this anti idling campaign that is more targeting downtown down people who frequent downtown businesses there's interest from the Santa Cruz climate action network to take that up that's what I know at this time thanks you're welcome thank you Tiffany thank you are there any other questions about any of the consent items councilor Matthews let me just speak to that one I I think I remember when that one came into an effect and it was because idling along pacific avenue is generalized but if in fact it can cover parking lots as well as rights-of-way covers public lots we could just do the signage would seem so yeah I should actually maximize the impact under the existing ordinance okay any members of the community want wanting to address the council on our consent agenda it'd be for items four through 13 with the exception of item eight which is not on the agenda has been removed and item nine which has been pulled there any members of the community wanting to address us on that okay seeing none we'll go ahead and return back to the council for action I'll move the consent agenda items with a motion by vice mayor coming seconded by councilor Matthews any further discussion seeing none all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously so item number nine was pulled from the agenda and councilmember crone I'll have you go ahead and thank you bear this has to do with state route one and nine improvements so it is called state route one and nine improvements acquisition of real property and we're the recommendation is the manager enter into acquisition agreement to form in a form provisional manager for the purchase of three real properties in the right in the form of rights of way and temporary construction easements required so my question is and I'm asking this for several community members who have contacted me from two different groups I'm being told by community members this work is being done in order to facilitate the widening of the highway one bridge over the San Lorenzo River is that true mayor council members christeninger assistant director of public works no it's not true this is for the highway one and nine intersection improvement and it is completely separate from the highway one bridge widening or replacement and that's being considered will be considered in the future okay thank you thank you okay is there any member of the community who wants to address us on item number nine on our consent agenda okay seeing them we'll go ahead and return back for action and um any kind of motion to move item move item number nine second so if a motion by council member Myers seconded by vice mayor Cummings all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously all right so we'll go ahead and move right along them we're on item number 14 on our agenda and we'll go ahead and turn it over to um I think we have our city attorney Tony Kandadi introducing this item and um we'll go ahead and have any presentation on the item by our city attorney followed by questions public comment and then action yes thank you mayor Watkins members of the city council the impetus of this item is several major infrastructure projects primarily at this point contemplated by the water department coming in the next several months and years involving fairly large expenditures of funds for which the city will need to um provide some sort of financing in the form of a bond issue or multiple bond issues currently and and by the way it's being recommended by our outside bond council chick atoms from jones hall and under our current system in order for the city to issue revenue bonds it's necessary for the council to adopt an ordinance providing for that which takes a couple of months and the disadvantage of that my understanding is that when you are prepared to do a bond issue the underwriters will take a very careful look at current interest rates and current interest rates trends and there might be a fairly narrow window of time during which you can take advantage of adjustments in interest rates in order to lock in the rate that will be applied to the bond issue since we have to do it currently by ordinance it slows down the process and so we possibly would buy would pass pass up opportunities for favorable financing rates so the recommendation is to adopt a new ordinance amending chapters 613 and 1626 of the municipal code chapter 613 deals with the city's refuse collection garbage collection regulations and chapter 1626 deals with water sewers and public services so it would essentially adopt two identical ordinances in two separate chapters of the municipal code to authorize the city to approve a revenue bond measured by resolution as opposed to by ordinance so rather than a first reading and a second reading and waiting out the 30-day period you would be able to take an action at one meeting and have it take effect immediately so that's the recommended action I see the water department director is here who can provide some more detail and of course director too should the council have questions but um that's the recommended action okay any cancel question council member crumb um the only question I had I'll move it but I guess we got here from the public but um why did it take so long to do this like why now rather than like a year ago five years ago good afternoon mayor and council um and you may recall in 2016 we moved a charter amendment that actually changed the provision of chapter 16 to allow us to pledge revenues from the water fund or from enterprise funds and so we changed the configuration of the revenue bond initiation and issuance process and this ordinance is actually now replacing something else that was in another part of the the unicode with the very specific things related to revenue bonds for enterprise funds refuse wastewater and water so that's the timing so it was a really we haven't done a revenue bond since well we issued in 2014 under the old arrangement and then we made the changes to the charter in 2016 and we're getting ready to do a revenue bond sometime in the next calendar year I would say any other questions from the council is there any member of the community who would like to address us on this item seeing them we'll go ahead and return back for action and I would move the item and I think it's a good thing because it's it's actually put us in a better position to get these bonds as I sat down with the city attorney the other day and he explained it but I mean it's seems like a real positive thing for the city okay I'll second the motion so we have a motion by council member crone seconded by myself all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously so we'll go go ahead and move on to item number 15 and that item is our cannabis consumption lounges license transfer restrictions hours of operation temporary events and ordinance revision removing requirement for the new cannabis retailer license when the manager changes so we have a whole slew of things to talk about so welcome good afternoon council I'm Catherine Donovan senior planner with the advanced planning division I have with me Sarah Fleming our principal planner for advanced planning and as the mayor stated we're bringing you a whole slew of items trying to use our time and your time more efficiently we've brought forth four different things that we are asking for council direction and then one relatively minor ordinance revision that we're bringing today is to introduce for publication and the four direction requests have to do with cannabis consumption lounges retailer license transfers which we brought in May but got delayed because of the length of your calendars or agendas and then expanding the hours of operation and temporary events and the ordinance revision has to do with allowing a change in manager so to start with we'll talk about the consumption lounges this is an idea that we discussed very briefly when we first adopted the adult use cannabis ordinance and at that time city council was not ready to consider that we wanted a little more time to see what was happening in the world of cannabis but we were asked to bring this back by vice mayor Cummings and we've done a little research there are several communities there was sort of an expanding number as I was writing the report and I would say probably under a dozen but close to that San Francisco and West Hollywood are being touted as the example San Francisco is sort of the premier ordinance and West Hollywood is kind of an up-and-coming has a different approach and the questions we had for you first of all whether whether we want to go forward with this or not but if we do do we want to exist do we want to limit this to our existing retailers or do we want to allow standalone lounges and if we allow standalone do we want to limit the number or do we want to have an unlimited number knowing that our distance there's a buffering so the buffering and the allowed zoning would be a restriction in and of themselves we also wanted to know whether you to consider allowing them downtown we did not allow our retailers downtown but this may be a separate animal and then some of the other cities have multiple permit types and we wanted to know whether you wanted to look in that direction or to simply have one type and then each individual business would be specific and moving on the retailer license transfer this we've discussed several times we've made some minor adjustments but it continues to come back as the retailers continue to push to allow the retailer licenses to be transferred and this time we've kind of looked at a couple of different options what we have now the competitive process maximizing maximizes our public benefits because when people are applying for a license they know they're in competition and there are a number of factors that we list and so they're they're trying to do better than the other guys but the retailers want to be able to sell their businesses and they also want to take on partners who would own a larger percentage than we currently allow in order to raise capital for their for their businesses one of the problems is that the current limit on the number of licenses creates an artificial value in the license itself kind of similar to what taxicab medallions in say New York or Boston do hopefully not with the really severe crimes that have been associated with those taxicab medallions but this similar process so it's some of and there are multiple options and these this was just sort of the the widest range we could give without exhausting ourselves so we considered keeping the cap of five licenses and allowing transfers without the factors in the process this option would limit our ability to obtain greater public benefit than we currently have and then there's the what they call the golden ticket issue which is that because of the limited licenses those licenses are a golden ticket for the people who hold them and they can sell them for a lot of money and because of that artificial value it provides an incentive for those businesses to sell to the top dollar which you know one of the things we felt from the start is that we want to limit that we want to encourage our local businesses and keep large corporations and we always seem to use Philip Morris as the example out of the city a second option would be to simply remove the limitation on the number of licenses or expand the limit so that we have more licenses and under that scenario we would allow people to obtain licenses who probably realistically couldn't find a location but that would allow a competition for the sale of an existing license so so people could sell their business to people who had obtained a license but didn't have a location so that would give more flexibility for the seller and for the buy and more certainty for the buyer and it might increase the number of retailers it might not because we noticed with just our limited five two of those five had difficulty finding locations so so there is a finite number of people not even in terms of business competition but just in terms of locational characteristics there are there's a limited number of locations and willing landlords or sellers of property the third choice that we are presenting is to just do nothing and leave the ordinance as it is it provides uncertainty for a retailer who wants to to sell their business because their buyer would not necessarily obtain the retailer license but that's the process that we set up at the start so this is not something that the businesses went into thinking that they could sell and then being surprised they knew this from the start so they they understood what they were getting into the third thing we're requesting some direction on is our hours of operation state law allows businesses cannabis businesses to operate up to the hour of 10 p.m under our original medical marijuana ordinance we were restricted to 7 p.m and then when we adopted the adult use ordinance we expanded that to 9 p.m and we've had some requests by retailers to expand that up to 10 p.m now we still would each of these locations requires a use permit and during that use permit process we review the individual characteristics of that specific location and limit the hours accordingly so if they are in a location where every other business around them closes at 6 p.m they will most likely be required to close at 6 p.m even if our hours extend to 10 p.m so just because we extend the hours to 10 p.m doesn't mean every business would be allowed to stay open that late and then our final area that we're asking for for some direction is for temporary events and this is something that is allowed by state only if the local jurisdiction specifically authorizes such events and at locations that are expressly approved for these events and so the direction we're asking is first of all whether you want to allow these events and if so do we want to limit the number of events per year and the location or locations many jurisdictions allow only one or two locations that allow events and then if we want to allow these events do we want them to be for the sale of cannabis only or do we want to allow sales and consumptions and then finally do we want to limit this to our local retailers only do we want to allow anyone or somewhere in between because there's a lot of options there and then finally our ordinance revision when we made changes earlier this year to align the definition of proprietor with the state definition we had some unintended consequences there's a word missing there so we need this revision to allow the retail businesses to change managers without requiring a new license because as it stands now a manager is defined as a proprietor and you can't change proprietors without requiring a new license and we have prepared a draft amendment for this so that we can have our our first reading today and Sarah has reminded me that at the time that we came to the council on the transfer item we were also the finance department had come forward with the cannabis tax issue and that was delayed until September also however the finance department has had the director move on and so they are not prepared at this time to come forward with that item so our recommendation on the revision item is here and then we are just asking direction on those other items and if you'd like me to move the slides backwards if that would help just let me know thank you Catherine and I think when we get to the place we're probably making decisions looking at the various options that'll be very helpful as we go through them at this time it's an opportunity for questions for council members and then we'll go ahead and open it up to the community and then return back for action do we have any questions at this time okay seeing them we'll go ahead and see if there's members of the community who would like to address the council and now would be your time please come forward and you'll have up to two minutes to address the council is it possible to request three minutes considering how many issues are being considered no we have two minutes for we have actually we already have one request for four minutes that's been approved I saw I see that person coming forward now so you can go ahead and have your four minutes but at this time it's two minutes per person okay thanks so I'm Nicole Lagner I'm an attorney with Clark Newbert we represent cannabis businesses and do policy work across the state of California since I have limited time I will stick to the most important issue the proposed change regarding manager is not a the appropriate fix what has happened here is that you all took the definition from owner from the state regulation of MACRSA the reason that that definition works is that they cast a huge net the state's purpose is they want transparency and disclosure so they define owner which really just means an interested party as broad as possible so they can get as much information as who is involved however it's very easy to change who those people are knowing that these are corporations LLCs corporate entities which are fluid so what you need to do with this ordinance is match it with the state so you basically went halfway so if you're going to say all of these people anyone with 20% or more anyone who is an officer or a director you have all corporations and LLCs here officers and directors of a corporation change so there's a there's a definition issue here where you're kind of confusing the term proprietor with the term original license applicant and the easy fix would be to have some threshold likely 51% so that you know the one applicant holds control of the entity any changes of more than that get reviewed by the city manager's office and they can do a live scan and they can consider the 14 criteria which were part of the original grant of the licenses this is what almost every jurisdiction does including the ones neighboring santa cruz county capitol you should not increase it to unlimited licenses number one you're going to have an issue with undue concentration on the state level and number two that's not solving any of the issues that are present here thank you good afternoon my name is jim kafas i live in ben lomond before i begin i want to express my appreciation for to all of you for your willingness to serve your community god knows it's uh a lot of sacrifice and um you have to suffer a lot of slings and arrows that are cast your way and there's not many of us willing to do that so you have my sincere appreciation for stepping up and taking this on i want to focus primarily on temporary events and um we could start by saying what is a cannabis what is a temporary cannabis event and i think we all know what events are we have sporting events entertainment events educational events commercial events all kinds of events and we have uh processes and rules and regulations that need to be followed in order to conduct uh any number of any type of event currently now what happens when you add cannabis to an event well if you intend to sell or consume cannabis at the event you would be required to have a state license and before you can get that state license you would first have to have an event organizer license so there's two levels of licensing that goes on at the state before you can get a license that would allow you to hold an event that would permit other licensed businesses to participate in that event so that could be a business to business event or it could be a general public event there's a variety just like their your time is up thank you excuse me thank you okay next uh pat maylo um i'm on the wamp board of directors um and first thank you for coming back with these issues i think they're all really important and steps forward i would like to take one second to acknowledge what wasn't on this agenda which is a tax rate reduction i think we've been working on that and we've had some sort of consensus that the number needs to go down but where that number is is what we're supposed to be talking about with the county and the rest of the jurisdictions and i don't know if that got lost in the the transition of financial directors and markets and things but i really hope that that can come back because there's a fledgling experimental industry the stakes are really high as you know making sure that it works out for a model for other places and displaces the unregulated black market so to speak and so i think those goals in mind we need tax rate reduction and then we also need these you know pieces of the ordinance to get ironed out and then i think going forward on this consumption thing is really important um and then from the wamp perspective we have a little bit of a different mission but these things affect us almost more critically and the ownership model is really important to us because we might be in a situation where just by changing boards of directors um we might have to go through a whole you know unintended consequences with that that other people have spoken specifics on and then also we have a model that we're trying to get to to um you know form some sort of multi-stakehold or worker directed cooperative which might get really really complex with this kind of thing so and then also you know the tax rate reduction for other businesses it's life or death for the entity for wAM a lot of the time that extra tax rate is going to translate into um you know medicine for people who can't afford it who won't get it because we're trying to pay tax rates and things and this there are a lot of the problems not just with the you know local situation but state in general so thank you yeah okay forward and you'll have your four minutes that you requested i appreciate that miss walkins are there any other before you get started are there any other members of the community who want to address the council on this item okay seeing none you'll be our last speaker okay okay perfect are you in the are you planning to address the council in the front sir no actually him you not today okay just checking i'm begins thank you council members thank you mayor walkins i appreciate the extra time um i support uh much of what has already been said here today but i'd like to start with presentation and give you a little background into kind people's jobs and economic stimulus so we currently employ about 90 people 80 percent of those folks are full-time those jobs just came out of thin air in the last five years since we were founded all of our employees do have living wages many of them go much much more beyond that 40 participate in our company subsidized medical insurance plans and just to give you an idea of the burden of the cbt it's about five times what we pay in rent every month and people's is a hundred percent committed to any reduction future reduction in cbt uh going towards increasing wages of our hourly employees first topic of ownership um much of what nicole said i am in support of but um currently we are only allowed to augment our ownership by 19.9 percent uh that's simply unworkable for us in order to maintain our relevancy and grow our business and continue to be the stellar employee employers that we are ultimately speaking we just don't want special rules that don't exist anywhere other than the cannabis space so we can continue to innovate and scale and drive economic growth in santa cruz but we really don't want to get left behind with our other competition in the neighboring unincorporated area and city of capitola we're looking to be able to modify our businesses structure and diversify our ownership at will um we feel like that is the best way for moving forward retail on-site consumption is the next topic uh here's a picture of our ocean street location as you all know proposition 64 doesn't allow anywhere for people to actually consume cannabis except in the privacy of their own homes which doesn't really work if you're in multi-tenant housing or if you are a tourist to santa cruz uh so in this regard we can provide a really memorable and educational experience for for residents and for tourists to like it's also an alcohol-free zone so we can bring people into a space and actually have a social environment where alcohol doesn't exist imagine that in colorado the ui case has actually dropped 15 percent and this is all about education so bringing people in asking them hey what's your experience with cannabis and really getting them to understand the nuances of the new regulated world of cannabis and of course increasing tax revenues is always a bonus as well for the city here's a little rendering of what it would look like from the outside these were done in conjunction with our original design it wouldn't actually be seen from the public right of way and we'd like to be included in any future discussions on best practices for a cannabis lounge i know that there is a lot to it and we don't want to rush into it in terms of making sure that we prevent access to youth making sure that um that we provide proper education and dosaging guidelines for consumers that you know may not have tried cannabis before or are just jumping back into it after a long after a long time uh also ventilation is very key you know i think of a hookah lounge and i want to do a 180 nothing like a hookah lounge this would be a very safe space a quiet space a clean and fresh space with a lot of air movement and getting an hvac system that moves all the smoke in particular out of the air for both our employees and our customers we would also be able to provide food and snacks for our customers and we would love the opportunity to participate our recommendation is to allow the existing five retailers the opportunity to have on-site consumption and then open it up in the future once we have a successful program in place thank you so much i really appreciate it hi my name is grant palmer i'm ceo of canikers collective we're down in ensign all street over by cosco um we're i think the longest running active retail dispensary currently up and running and we are just slowly dying um we're losing share to the illicit market every day the illicit market makes up about 80 percent of the cannabis market in california the legal market only 20 um because we are essentially our costs are so high we can't provide competitive prices to people and uh that's not necessarily your fault but it's not the state's fault either or the federal government it's just a snowball of different taxes and fees that are that we get hit with i had to pay $150,000 in just licensing fees last month alone and that came onto me as debt basically i had no way to pay that money because i get hit with surprise expenses every day now all of a sudden everybody thinks we're rich because we're in cannabis so they want to take more and more and there's simply nothing left for us to take um either we would really like to either be able to move to a more competitive location like cvd zoning downtown or please then let us sell if not otherwise we're just going to go out of business and i'll lose my house and all our employees will be fired please help us thank you i'm jacob lagner um owner of reef side we recently opened on ocean street and i just want to address i think a lot has been addressed today um i wanted to address the concept of the golden ticket and um the value of the of the licenses um the all we have to do is look into the county um where transfers are readily available those businesses are not selling we're not seeing philip morris come in um we're looking to for strategic partnerships to raise capital um to operate like a normal business so um i think you guys have the information uh what nicole presented is basically reflects what the state is doing what our neighboring jurisdictions are doing and we basically ask for the same treatment um it is a difficult business and we need all the help we can get so thank you afternoon mayor council my name is robert singleton the executive director of the santa christ county business council i also want to speak in favor of treating cannabis businesses that are locally owned and operated as any other business in the city in terms of their restrictions on yes there may be a limited number of licenses available but in whether you look at the state definition or the county they all allow for license transfers they all allow for these businesses to operate like other businesses in terms of being able to raise capital sell sell off stakes in their company which is essentially what businesses need to be successful um we're facing a very competitive environment i don't need to reiterate a lot of what a lot of the other folks have said in the room it's extremely competitive the black market is still very much existing and putting a lot of pressure if we want our locally owned and operated businesses to be successful we have to make sure that they're not competing in an environment where they have one arm tied behind their back they need to be able to raise capital they need to bring on partners they need to build a finance expansion and right now the way the licenses are regulated at the city level um is out of congruence with what the rest of the state and a lot of the other surrounding counties and jurisdictions are doing so just want to further echo that sentiment please treat these folks like other businesses allow them to be competitive because they are locally owned and operated and they're facing a very steep market right now um and they need all the help we can get if we're going to make sure that we have safe quality access to recreational cannabis and not be relying on the black market so thank you all right we'll go ahead and conclude public comment at this time and return back for council action um we'll go ahead and have maybe you if you want to to put up some of the slides if we want to move through this I think this will probably be a multi-motion um type of um item because there's so many components to it is it possible to get it the um the slides back up oh thank you okay so we have the consumption lounge topic as our first point for discussion a motion was handed out to um the council by um vice mayor Cummings I believe and did R.C. Clarke receive that motion okay so do you want to address the motion that you prepared to make sure yeah I think that um having spoken with folks in the community and to members of the cannabis industry it's really important that if we're going to move forward with these consumption lounges that we do so in a way that's really careful so that we make sure that we're taking into account um what it can be some of the unintended consequences um if we move too quickly and so um I wanted to direct staff to bring back recommendations for a pilot program for on site consumption at current retail sites so really starting with our local current local providers allowing them the opportunity to have on site consumption and being able to see you know what are some of the challenges that may come up um if we implement this and be able to address those before we offer it um at a larger scale and just just to uh for staff um some of the recommendations should include but not be limited to the types of consumption ventilation requirements visibility from right of way uh separation from retail space so somebody's going in just to purchase that they're not walking into a room that's um heavily filled with smoke um educational and public safety requirements among others and then a retailer application process which includes best practices proposal from retailers on how they address the uh aforementioned issues and I can provide a copy of this if you all need it. We have a motion by vice mayor Cummings is there a second of the motion? Okay so I heard a council member Crohn's first so we'll go ahead and have a second by council member Crohn. Further discussion from the council? Question council member Mathew? Yeah um I've been pretty direct with the various um current businesses um I'd prefer to go more slowly on this um I'm not going to fall on my sword but I'm I'm not ready to go this distance so I have a question if I could for staff and then I'll go ahead and acknowledge council member Myers if this was the work that you were going to be researching and doing what would be the opportunity costs associated with that given our limited kind of planning department capacity? Sure um so Catherine's workload right now um the uh committee uh community advisory committee on homelessness has started meeting and um we are getting ready to start some um subcommittee meetings with them on the transitional encampment ordinance so based on the work plan uh direction that we had received a about a month ago um this item uh word that to pop up would um take precedence or precedent whichever one of those is correct so um and so right now um that is Catherine's main focus um followed very closely by the downtown plan updates which are also time sensitive so um I would request if possible um that council consider that in terms of what the timing would be for us to return with this um because those would one of those two things if we wanted this to come back most immediately would need to shift okay so I um I'm fine with researching a little bit further some of these things particularly as a pilot but I wouldn't necessarily want them to kind of this particular specific thing to um consume some of the other public interests and bigger kind of policy work that you're doing so in terms of time frame if there's not a timeline associated with it um but was um something you're further exploring I'd be comfortable with that I'm going to council member Myers did you have a question then I'll go back to vice mayor Cummings yeah my question I guess is um how would we sort of I mean we'd have to have a public process I'm assuming as well and so specifically to even if we were working with the onsite the read the current retail sites um do you have sort of a picture of what that would look like in terms of I mean is that just regular noticing and holding a public hearing with through these improvements or outreach to specific areas where these existing retailers I'm just I'm just curious about what that would like sure um you know so there's a variety of methods that we could use and I think it really depends on what the scope would end up being definitely we'd want to work very closely with the industry folks to make sure that we're all on the same page with what they're interested in what their needs are and then what the city is interested in and what our needs are and I would expect also that we would have some outreach to um the the community as well to make sure that they are informed and also buy into this new type of industry here in the city I I just want to add to that that since we enacted the original uh cannabis ordinance in 2017 that went into effect in 2018 um there hasn't been a lot of public input it just seems to be something that the industry is interested in and not so much I mean you can tell by the audience today we didn't have any non-industry people speaking on these items and we we have reached out before and it's just they're willing to go along with whatever we do so we would do we would do some outreach but I wouldn't expect it to be as intensive as we would on some of our other items that are are more of interest to the entire community that said however if we did find through this process that there was an increase in community interest and involvement then of course we would recalibrate our outreach process and do a little deeper dive if it ended up needing to be the case for sure okay vice mayor comings and then councilmember crone and then I have I was just gonna ask like what would an appropriate timeline look like because I think that even folks in the industry understand that there are some items that can probably come back a lot sooner than others and this one obviously would take a little bit more extensive research you know looking at other city ordinances around um on site consumption sites so I just want to get a sense from you all today sure so um candidly it's a little bit of a challenge since to give you a solid time frame if we had nothing else on the work plan this is probably something we could do in maybe three to five months depending on the scope again and that would be the full process from meeting with the groups developing a pilot program developing an ordinance doing the community outreach and going through the public hearing processes that would be needed for that given that this isn't the only thing on the plate next year or later this year I know that this council will be looking at your three-year work plan and providing more direction to staff on what you'd like us to be doing in terms of our work plan specifically our AP team for us I think most critically next year is the local coastal plan and program update and finishing the downtown plan update both of which are on Catherine's list so this would need to weave in with that I wouldn't expect given the work plan that has already been assigned to us that we would be able to start in this until maybe in earnest until maybe January and then from there we could probably be back sometime in the late spring if you wanted us to take a jump on this but she'd also be working on the lcp update as well did that answer the question okay okay okay um I have a couple of proposed maybe for consideration as a friendly amendment to the motion um if if this is the direction the council goes to explore a pilot program I would propose that the the staff not make it number one priority given the other items that are coming up so within you know a reasonable time frame of a year or so or as it reflects maybe in our three-year work plan to have the community prevention partnerships who are working on youth access and social norming campaigns and a work around prevention weigh in to see how something like this fits with any kind of public health implications particularly if we have a California smoking on site workplace law how does that I'm not quite sure and familiar on how that could be reconciled and then if there's really major HVAC kind of ventilation impacts that that be considered in terms of how we maybe be able to have some of the carbon offset fund to be accessible for some of those so high kind of those kind of costs associated with that I would accept those I would just sit with the timeline I think that it'll be good if we could have it come back in like late April since they'll give us some time I think that that would be if I would accept those with that just with a record with having them prioritize this as a recommendation by late April within the six so having them at the cost of us not working as closely on the downtown plan or on the level that's but that's sort of what I'm hearing is that correct if late April would be the time frame so what I intended to say was that I would expect us to be probably wrapping up the downtown plan if we were to put this on the shelf and not start on it until the beginning of next year we would be able to make that progress on the downtown plan and the transitional encampment stuff over the next few months and get those in a spot where they're ready to move forward and come before planning commission and council or whatever bodies they need to go to and then we could start on the picking back up the lcp update and then the this cannabis item and we could come back we could aim to come back in April that might be a little aggressive but we could at the very least come back with an update for you with the aim of having something fully fully vetted and fleshed out but just to be candid it may be a month a month later than that or but sometime in that spring period okay so with a spring update or potential recommendation if you're there yes if that's suitable to the council okay so is the friendly amendment acceptable given that okay the city clerk can receive that okay councilor matthews again it's really not a priority for me really concerned about the hvac i mean just looking at the graphic that was shown at kind peoples that it looked like it just ventilated right out to the sidewalk i mean i personally don't like just walking downtown and being hit with a cloud of pot smoke you know so consider that and also just again a consideration a pilot program is not just going to be a simple adjustment it will involve a significant investment capital investment for those businesses that choose to do it so it's not going to be an easy flip a switch or not pilot got to be something to take in into consideration councilmember current um i think what i'm hearing also i don't know that the folks present can weigh in it they'd like maybe for the summer season you know if is there any chance of this being ready for like next summer given that with the timeline that would our aim would be to have something based on the the prioritization here have something ready to go by the late spring that said the caveat there is if uh once council meets and you do your prioritization process you know the reality is is that this could shift based on some of the other things that we have going on in our community right now in some of the other direction but we definitely could make that our aim and i would expect us to be able to um assuming that no other priorities come up or anything else changes on catherine's work plan be able to do that by the spring and could you explain what the neighbor like notification process is that you'll be using um i can give you kind of a high level because again it will depend on the motion that's made in the scope of the project um but i think typically what we would do is uh we draft some potential language we would work or potential pilot program we would work with the industry and coming together with some ideas and then we would likely hold a community meeting uh maybe a couple of community meetings again depending on the scope where we would present the potential options potential language whatever it is that we've drafted the potential pilot program to the community get feedback we may also decide to do some use some other tools like some online tools some surveying things like that um and then take that information and incorporate uh that feedback into what the final proposal is that we would bring forward to council thanks and i just wanted to respond to council member matthews um one of the reasons to have these smoking rooms is to divert people from but what you just pointed out was Pacific Avenue because i i share your you know hesitance of having people just smoking all over when it's all when it's blatantly illegal you know according to the law so i that's some of the support that i'm you know i wanted it to be where um it's uh legal i just have one additional consideration that are two actually additional considerations that maybe could be built into what you would explore um one would be to consult with our PD if we're having people consuming and then driving and then to um to uh understand the impacts of uh edibles and then the time framing and such like that so um you know in terms of delayed impact or whatever i i just want to say that um i didn't want to go into too much detail but really wanted to point out you know like public safety ventilation and have those so that um you know we allow some flexibility but absolutely i think that it's extremely important that even when this pilot process is moving forward that um our retailers and whoever you know receives these permits that they're working closely with PD to kind of assess how well this is going what are the impacts i think that um types of consumption is is you know trying to get to that like do we want to consider edibles um or the different types like dabs, tinctures, all the different considerations so that we understand how to do this in a way that's safe that's my bias yeah and i guess i would just add to the to the conversation i just want to make sure i know a lot of the um uh retailers are here today um that this is a pilot and the so those capital improvements kind of goes without saying but please make sure that you know as you are seeking investment that this certainly will be a pilot i would imagine for a while so i know it's it's really difficult to spend the the resources to to develop you know something that's really attractive and hopefully helpful to your business but just caution on that thanks all right if there's no further discussion on the consumption piece we'll go ahead and take the vote all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed yeah okay that um passes with uh council member matthews voting against okay so the next um topic before us is on the retail license transfer retail license transfer um do you mind putting up the options again um where's the city clerk we have it up thank you so much thank you so i um just to sort of orient those who are newer to the council on this one when we moved forward with this originally the five was never sort of the idea of sort of a stagnant sort of solid only um kind of concept it was sort of thinking about wow this is coming how do we respond um what do we want to do to have some sort of management over it coming forward i um i'll just personally since i can't make a motion just sort of share my thoughts on this i recognize the challenges around um sort of the ownership piece i a hundred percent prioritize um or want to see and will my values are to stick to local and increasing minority and women-owned businesses and so however uh we modify or adapt our policy moving forward those three areas have to take sort of front and center in my opinion as we know um that although we want to have opportunities for business owners to be able to sell their business naturally that there is an industry coming in there is big business coming in and we want to maintain local local control local ownership and support our local community in and that way um and i i do feel what we have here is very similar to a new york city kind of medallion and that they become these really coveted licenses and and my my hope my hope would be how can we reconcile sort of the the opportunity for businesses to be able to sell their business if they want um us to also ensure that we as a council and a community are really prioritizing local business and increasing minority and women-owned businesses because of the past um you know history around the criminalization of of cannabis and communities of color and the lack of access sometimes for those populations to engage in the in the field um and then um so i have what's sorry i'm going back and i forgot so local sell priority for local ownership not having big business in and then also to have an opportunity for us to um in some way kind of manage the space which we already do in terms of our land use so my preference would be to modify the um i guess it would be the option two here to kind of look at how we're expanding the limit using our land use as sort of the driver similar to how i think the county does it but then also allowing for us to factor in the areas of um of priority of local and women and minority own businesses while also trying to address the issue of transfer and business sale um i guess so that would be my preference i don't know if thought if there's thought on behalf of the staff on that one and then we'll see what my colleagues up here um want to want to say on that yeah um i think when we look at the uh the applications received received originally many of them had um women and or minority members on on the uh the boards or as part owners um and then sometimes what we found is we had a conflict between whether they were local or whether they were women and my own already owned and so we had a lot of trouble uh weighing the different factors involved um i think we've came up with a good mix and i would hope that we could continue to come up with a good mix um but it that's something that we don't have control of you know who who wants to be here um is an unknown and and when we get the applications then we see and i'll also add while these certainly are not the only three options um we had a lot of internal deliberation and really felt that these were probably the three most viable um i think change nothing um does nothing to really address the needs of the industry um i think that keeping the cap of five but allowing transfers um doesn't really allow the it creates that artificial value which um when the industry would sell they would the the holder of that would be the beneficiary and not the city and so that raises concern for me um so i would say um from a staff perspective probably option two would be the best compromise um because it does remove that artificial inflation of that license while also giving the industry an opportunity to be able to sell the business for the business value without tacking on the artificial inflation of the license and this way if we maintain the factors then we're still able to kind of go through that vetting process for a better term uh a lack of a better term in order to make sure that we are um getting the type of local retailers that are really in the best interest of the community and paying a living wage and all of those good things all right thank you do any other thoughts councilmember clever's thanks yeah so i'm just uh i've just keep harkening back to the statements made by the representative from canna crews about the impact that certain different variables are having on the businesses and the fact that he may lose his home if we don't change some of the uh some of the stipulations around whether it be the license transfers or not um in capitolah because that gets consistently referenced with regards to license transfers has there been any notable transfers in the last two or three years of large value they they're very new i don't think they've even a lot i think it's less than a year that they've been there what's that the county has had transfers yeah we'll be very we this is the time for this so have there been any transfers within the county that uh have taken place in last my understanding is out of it's either 11 or 12 that they've had two two and then were those large trans large purchases that were to and out of that i don't know so that would be because i mean if we're looking at president and you know the potential of the inflation or the perception of the costs with regards of the licensing or the where the benefit lies i would love to see the information about what's been going on the county and those two transfers because if there's a history of large or big business coming in from outside the area and spending millions of dollars to acquire a local business then that should be troubling for us and direct our our decision but if not and they've only had two small local transfers that have remained locally owned and are still benefiting the community then it seems if we go with item one in that case and you know worst-case scenario can and crews had to sell their business but not lose their house uh or you know just trying to find a middle ground so that we're taking care of the the people that are in the industry especially those who are there in the beginning and help to form and structure all of these different guidelines and our our pain into our community heavily so yeah figure out ways that we can acknowledge that i have heard that there has been interest expressed by large industry but but not Philip Morris as much as large um pharmaceutical well cannabis businesses and actually i heard a major canadian company was looking just they were sniffing around um so i i it's a reality it's it's but what happens is is up in the air yeah the only thing i think i guess if i could add and weigh in and then i'll go ahead and acknowledge councilmember brown is i think it's such a new industry in general and if we are sort of hoping that doesn't happen but we don't have any constraints to make sure it doesn't happen i think what will risk is um having an opportunity for big business to come in and buy up our little businesses essentially um and we lose control over how we're able to vet having local ownership having to prioritize minority and women population so even though there may not be precedents or maybe there is and we just don't know um i think even um potentially opening that up as an option allows it to to be that potentially and then well let's go ahead and have councilmember brown and then we'll go ahead i'll go right back to him councilmember brown yeah um thank you and thank you for the uh staff report and all of the work that you put into trying to sort through um how to approach this new um new industry new set of regulations uh you know it what we are doing here for the um the risk of stating the obvious is trying to come up with a set of market distortions that um uh which i'm okay with i mean that you know regulated um industry regulated markets is is okay with me but we are trying to come up with a set of market distortions that best um kind of help us achieve our goals and i don't know um that these do i'm i'm persuaded um having had many conversations with folks in the industry locally that this may not be the best way because if we are um saying that we want to support local businesses but we are also constraining them so much that they they may not be able to continue to exist then there's a problem there and so i think that um you know i'm also persuaded i don't know all of the details but having looked into this that what's happening in other um communities where we had there are kind of motivated local businesses who are looking for capital um to be able to expand to be able to um continue to keep up with the tax burden that we have placed upon them uh and other things i you know i think that um at a certain point we just have to we do have to have some faith that um our local uh businesses are going to do their best to maintain those principles and i think we also have the ability to um include some uh requirements that help us ensure that is the case while providing them with the flexibility to be able to um be capitalized at uh you know rate that allows them to pay living wages provide health insurance etc etc um so and i think that the motion that is not been read yet but um that um we have that we received related to um uh the change in the transfer removing the prohibition on the transfer of cannabis retail license and i'm not sure that and that exactly gets at it because this is about investment in the business sale of the business without losing the license so it's more about the business than the license itself although the license is clearly a factor but um you know requiring some kind of annual audit process which is the second part of the proposed motion i'm looking at here there it is um that would require that um business current business owners um ensure that their investors are um also going to be in maintain compliance with those um criteria and that those preferences that we give would not be compromised i mean i think there's a way that we can do we can try to do that um and it's not going to be perfect nothing's going to be perfect um but i'm persuaded at this point that um that we are going to we're going to compromise local business if we don't do something thank you yeah that was the point i was also going to make in response to that is that if there's less restriction on licensed transfers outside of the city and then we have a tighter regulation on it and uh the impact of taxes and also the kind of cost of living here and all these other kinds of things it may have the opposite effect and in fact kill our small businesses as opposed to supporting them and protecting them from big business buyouts or just that kind of feeling within the industry in general so something to be conscious about to be conscious about so thank you councilman around for bringing that up i i guess my thought would be if we release the cap then you're still providing access for them to be able to sell their business to more people or to increase the ownership of their businesses but we'll still have some understanding of who that is and having it reflect our priorities around um you know local and minority and women owned i guess my my hesitation with going this route is if we have years from now um most of our businesses owned by large corporations and we haven't made a priority to have equity and to really sort of in a policy way try to repair past harms and to move forward with uh sort of i think what i don't know i would say it's probably reflective a lot of our our values as a community and as a council to making that a priority if we don't necessarily consider that and they're sold then it then it and hindsight it'd be really unfortunate i think so i i think there is a need to reconcile how to sell your business the ownership and then the licensing and that process again just sort of reminding those who weren't on the council at the time the five was just sort of an arbitrary number sort of to sort of ease us into that so holding on to that as sort of the end all sort of that's the that's the limited amount was never really the intention i think we originally talked about it going up to seven and then and expanding to 10 potentially so um you know for me i think you know like releasing the amount or expanding that to a certain percentage makes more sense if not you still have these sort of coveted high value licenses essentially i don't know if if staff wants to weigh in given the input that's been received by the council at this point um i don't i don't think there's any easy answer if there was i would have given it to you and i think it is um that you have it in a nutshell we have we have our the values that Santa Cruz holds near and dear and then we have the retailers who are hurting now because of you know the high cost of doing business in this industry i think in 10 years it'll be a very different world you know the the federal government is looking into allowing banking for the cannabis industry and that is going to make a fast difference but um we don't know if that's happening we don't know when it is happening and we don't know the details so what we do now may keep our local businesses afloat until some of these bigger picture items get resolved um but again i don't i don't want to open our local businesses up to the big corporations but i want to help them make it through this time and i don't have the perfect solution for that i don't know if i saw him on the edge of his seat and then hi mayor and council members leave out there the planning director and just you had asked for a response to this and there was some information here i think i'd also share that i think with um if there is no prohibition on the transfer of cannabis retail licenses then um establishing that it's a women or minority owned or local um proprietor um would be challenging there may be some way that we could look at there isn't a prohibition on the transfer or regulations related to that that could be a challenging component and um to your other point about the the cap there is a provision in the ordinance that was built in to allow and really facilitate the increase in the number of licenses and that's allowing it to be done through resolution rather than through ordinance it was um you know there were there were different levels that were considered and the council at the time said let's make it easy if we want to do that in the future so that would be an option for you to consider through resolution rather than through uh a typical ordinance change if i could just really quickly for a clarifying question so you're suggesting though if we remove the prohibition on the transfer then we're relinquishing our opportunity to have sort of any kind of control over the minority or women or locally owned businesses i i see that i mean obviously we recognize that as a desire of the council and that is something that we could work towards but if there isn't a prohibition on the transfer then you know that annual audit process if that is transferred to a non-local or to a um a person who's not a minority or woman owned uh or woman then we could come back in the future and do that audit and say are you still providing organic products are you still meeting the green business uh green building and clean energy criteria are you still sourcing local products but um we wouldn't have that ability necessarily to say all right is that going to um a local or women or minority owned so we could look at something like that that's just my initial uh reaction to this as a potential concern if if it's important to the council to maintain those criteria then we can look at that um i just i'm not immediately thinking of how we would do that if there isn't a uh regulation on who that transfers to in terms of the motion for now in terms of option two on the power point we could theoretically remove or expand the license limit but still require the factors retain the same process um it just makes it means somebody could come and get the license maybe not have a location and then be able to go and bid on a business and so um that provides a little more certainty on both ends but the reality is yes it may increase the number of retailers and competition and so i think really it's up to the council to decide you know where where are your values and it's not an easy decision right it's do we really want to stick to our guns about some of these factors understanding that it's challenging right now for the industry or do you want to maybe relinquish that a little bit and take a chance on potentially some of the big guys coming in for the win of potentially helping the retailers now i mean they're like Catherine said there's no there's no easy answer but it really is about where the council kind of sits on those issues i guess i have just one follow-up question and then we'll go ahead um but if you were to increase the number say for example to 50 or so that anybody could apply potentially and then be an eligible buyer or kind of be able to kind of buy into the industry right yeah and i think here with the remover expand the license limit there's a couple of ways that the council could decide to do it you could do it where you keep the factors you could do it where you remove the factors same with the cap of five you could keep the cap of five where you keep the factors and the challenge there is that the the businesses then when a seller comes in there's no guarantee that that seller or when a purchaser comes in there's no guarantee that that purchaser is going to be able to meet those factors to purchase the business and so really there's a lot more uncertainty and risk in terms of that um or you could do it where you keep the cap of five and then remove the factors and then anybody could come in right and just you know purchase the business and then transfer the license so there's there's areas of flux within each of these that the council could choose um we just put forward the ones that we thought made the most sense okay okay I saw vice mayor Cummings then council member Brown and then council member Matthews I'm just going to mention that you know I think part of this is that um what we really want to see happen too is you know if we go the route of removing the prohibition on the transfers that staff work to develop you know this transfer process and incorporate you know a lot of the different factors that were taken into account um my understanding is that you know we have these five licenses many of these businesses have just started or just getting started and just getting on board and are really trying to use this as an opportunity to seek it out investors to help invest in their um their company so that they can you know begin to grow and be stabilized I don't really see many of these these businesses trying to just um you know they just got their license now they're going to sell the company um so you know ultimately I think what we're really trying to do is provide an opportunity for um investment in these companies um so that they're able to stay afloat I do share the concerns because I really want to make sure that we are prioritizing women minority owned locally owned businesses and I feel that um you know by providing direction um you know using the capitol uh using capitol as an example also working with our current criteria that you know maybe there's a way that we can come up with something that is is acceptable by the entire council and is and reflects the values that we share so I just wanted to um put that comment because I share the same concerns I just want to make sure that that's clear and then council well vice mayor Cummings just made my comment but I had a question uh which was a follow-up to um director Butler's uh point about the license transfer and so I'm just if if I could ask the you the question because I kind of made it as a statement but um trying to just figure out an answer to the question um is it is it possible to develop a license transfer programs that that lifts the the prohibition removes the prohibition but places conditions upon that transfer I'm I'm asking I it doesn't seem impossible to do so I'm asking you if how that might work and um why why couldn't we just go that route to say you you can transfer the license but you must meet x y and z conditions up front in order to get approval for the transfer and then have an audit process so it's not simply a matter of going back after the fact and saying oh by the way are you still doing this it's doing what we would do with the business regardless of whether the the license is transferred can that be done so we could potentially explore something like that for example um you know we could say all right if you came forward and you had a woman and minority on business as part of your proposal then you could say well it would still have to be purchased by a woman or a minority individual to to meet those same criteria so so that is one way that could potentially be looked at and I if I could add on to that I think that's absolutely feasible um instead of is so let's say I'm just going to make up a scenario here we have a retailer that wants to sell um instead of taking that license and opening it back up to anybody who wants to apply for it we could have a I don't know if this is the right terminology but you know kind of a right or first refusal for a buyer that they have brought in who would need to go and vet through that process my only concern and I'm not a business owner but if I were I think that would for me limit the pool of potential I'd almost have to go find them as opposed to them pre-qualifying and then coming and finding me which would be option too now if that's preferable for the industry I don't I mean I I think that's it's doable um and we would just you know have to set up the policy such that if a business owner came to us and said we want to sell here's who would like to purchase it have them go through that process it just seems it just seems like maybe it would be it would give them less candidates but what do I know I mean just to follow up questions or clarifications my question I'm not suggesting that it be that it must be a buyer who mirrors the exact composition or you know the exact demographic of the previous owner I'm suggesting within the set of priorities we have established right so that was okay and I think yes it might I mean I'm guessing it would potentially limit or put the onus more on business owners who wish to sell but it also what I'm hearing from the industry is that what they're looking for not right right now is not to just sell and walk away they're looking to get investors more than nineteen point nine percent which is not a buyout it's investment so in that case um the ability to meet those criteria I mean that would be their responsibility but it would give them the option right so I think I think what I'm hearing um and and I've got something that may uh the council may want to consider um I think what I'm hearing is is you're interested in having individuals or corporations be able to compete for a new license if they're meeting certain criteria or certain excuse me if they're adhering to the factors yet they're still concerned about the taking care of the five retailers that we have so you know one middle ground that the council may want to consider could be allowing additional licenses to be issued but not allowing more than five retailers and so that would allow for that um competition to take place and allow for a pool of licenses but would still only allow for those a limit of five actual businesses on the ground it would just basically create a pool of candidates to buy into those retail businesses and as long as they're meeting certain factors then they would be eligible to do that so just something that came to mind as the debate went went through but that's that's sort of what I was gathering is you you still want the ability for someone not to necessarily mirror those factors of the original applicant but to be able to still um have the the same ability to in effect have a license um which would allow them to buy into any existing business um or to purchase that business outright and can I clarify but I think I'm hearing a difference too between ownership interest and business license right so the business license is separate from the ability to buy into a business and you don't have to have a business license to buy into the to buy equity into the business just right now our cap on that equity is that nineteen point nine percent or twenty percent right so to me I'm hearing two different issues one is do we need to increase the ability for equity to be sold which is something we had talked about in March in May um and then there's the separate selling of the entire business and transferring that business license so I just want to it's two different pieces and I think in the May meeting sorry I just wanted to clarify in the May meeting um and Catherine you probably recall better than I do but we did have a discussion about that and I think that the determination by council at that time was to take to take it to twenty percent but it's again it's the will of the council to change that then you know the time is now no time like the present okay councilmember Myers and the councilmember crown I think that um well I'll just comment I think we're um we're trying to create a market that's I mean this is a brand new world and so I think um I want to thank the business owners here today um it sounds like what we really need to get done is to stabilize your ability to bring more capital into your business at least initially that's one of the major obstacles it sounds like to stabilizing your businesses so um I kind of feel like we're trying to do a little too much with some of this in that um I I share the concern for local businesses and I share the concern for um avoiding uh investment from you know folks outside of our immediate sphere of of values and benefits that we'd like to see from the company but I also um acknowledge the difficulty that um not being able to go to the bank and get alone uh is is having on these local businesses so um I guess I was kind of going where councilmember brown was going um in terms of trying to figure out um and again I don't want to keep having the industry keep coming back because we're sort of piecemealing this as it goes um so I I'm moving I initially I was interested in in looking at how do you how could we broaden the license piece in this so that there is potentially more there in terms of getting people in a pipeline that would be able to help with either investment or purchase for example of other businesses but um I think what I'm hearing is that um staying with with who we have now um and really working with those businesses to look at um how these transfer processes may play out along with the audit and the ability to look at at new people coming in maybe the kind of the in between step potentially um so I guess I just wanted to make those comments um but I am just curious how we um uh how we do this um I don't have a proposal right now but I I think I'll just stop with those comments for now and and continue to hear some of the some of the ideas around the dais right now thanks um I was wondering from the city attorney about transfer tax possibly uh that keeping you know another another way of trying to keep it local for longer by having us you know a 10 percent or something transfer tax if you sell a significant part of the business what we have to do to bring that about most likely we would have to have that approved by the voters by ballot measure my sense just from thinking about it briefly is that the tax probably wouldn't come into play very often given the number of businesses that we have right and the likelihood of transfers um I also wonder as to how that would deter an out of say out of the area uh investor versus a local investor so those are just my initial thoughts and do we have the um Catherine do we have the same criteria for would we for this outside invest or for an investor if we go beyond the 20 percent or do we go to it sounds like we're going the whole 100 percent is that is that what i'm hearing um I think somebody at the at the mic said 51 percent uh would we have the same criteria could we have make them a local resident for five years and um I I'd talk to tony very briefly um and he seems to think that we could I there are a lot of steps in the process that are pretty opaque to me so I don't want to assure you that we can do that when I'm not absolutely sure that we can but we could certainly look into having some process where if they wanted to um bring on investors that the investors would have to um comply either comply with the factors that the original applicant had or um be able to bring new factors in um that the idea that um somehow a business could sell only 49 percent and then that would retain local control is in my mind a fallacy because as one of the speakers said all of these businesses are corporations so it's not a single person who owns the business and so would retain 51 percent control it's a corporation with a number of people and if you add one person to the board who has 49 percent and everybody else has there's five other people who have 10 percent that new person now has control um so I think a more viable option would be to require any new investors to adhere to the same factors that the original application provided thanks um and the the five um license limit I think was good policy at the time that the council did it because we wanted to see how this stuff was playing out and it seems to be going fairly well uh and so I think that there is you know that potential to increase as well as to increase you know um well to lower the tax you know on the cannabis and I was just wondering about a transfer tax balancing somehow if we lowered the um you know the current rate that we charge in tax too on the on the cannabis businesses now and I wonder if we could find some sweeter spot for the retailers another sort of consideration for the limited licensing and one of the issues that I have with kind of keeping it at the five is that although we had it in mind at the time which I think you're right was a good way to sort of slowly move into it um was also just to bring legal businesses on on board but if we're sort of limiting it and kind of still also controlling it it also limits our ability to enforce illegal and to also increase more legal if possible so I think for me I think the the fact that we have the limited licenses I'm not sure if I I would say that's probably the best route personally I think having um our land use designations in place with this criteria and then sort of opening up those who are potentially wanting to come on board with their business or you know collaborate or invest in other businesses could be another solution um and sort of more reflective as well as the enforcement piece of it because you know I think that's also a component for those that are operating in the black market um which are then impacting those who are legal businesses so something to think about at councilmember matthews I believe yeah I want to get some clarity um the motion before us which will in some way relate to the um powerpoint here um is to remove the prohibition on the transfer of cannabis retail licenses and develop a full license transfer process and then it refers to capitola um I think um Sarah maybe you brought up the difference between an ownership interest which is equity and the license am I understanding that correctly and um well I guess I'll leave it there yes will you clarify that yes and Catherine please jump in at any point but um the business license is not tied to the amount of equity that is owned by the business itself the license is the ability to operate that specific kind of business and in order to get that license you have to meet a certain number of factors or demonstrate that you meet at least you know some of them there was I wasn't here for that um the vetting process but you know there there was a ranking of applications that came in and those who were did the best job of meeting the factors were the ones who were awarded the licenses that's a different process than when the people who now have that license and are operating that business want to bring in capital because they can't through traditional banking methods they want to bring on another partner and um previously before april we had um a certain threshold of how much it was 10 percent that a cannabis business could sell or equity they could sell and at that april meeting it was increased to 20 by this council 20 but again that is something different than the procurement of the license right I guess my thoughts here are um I favor the ability to bring in a greater degree of ownership investment um I am uh to me the kind of criteria that we have now um don't honestly make a lot of sense there's some criteria about being woman-owned minority and local which are admirable and apparently gave a framework for analyzing the initial applications um it's not clear and what I'm reading do you need all the above some of the above a preponderance of the above which ones are most important etc you don't have to answer that but anyway it's confusing um and I would think other issues that are important when looking for a partner would be you know their um track record their anyway other I would just say business related factors in addition to those but aside from the criteria like gender woman-owned minority etc are um the community benefits and those are those are referred to in the second part here somewhat although vaguely um criteria centered around community health and safety I mean I think that's something that could be built into the operating um conditions for any business um that would have more flexibility um I know you're here to speak but I'll just just say one more thing um shoot well it'll have to come back to me you interrupted my training sorry I'll interrupt you I just want this you know the the second bullet point one of the things that was brought up was that we have um the cannabis retailers fill out these applications stating you know what are the benefits they're going to provide for our community but there's no follow-up yeah right so you can state that when you first receive you can state that in your application receive your license and then begin operating but then if there's no follow-up there's no way for the city to know if you're actually complying with what you said you were intending to and so that's kind of the purpose behind having this and developing an audit process to make sure that businesses are actually you know paying living wages to their employees are actually providing some benefits to the community and so um that's kind of the the essence behind the audit process I am also um you know thinking a little bit more about the 20 investment because um it seems like that's like the biggest thing right now to getting the cannabis industry off the ground is allowing for people more people to come in and invest it doesn't appear to me that people at this moment in time want to sell their businesses and their business licenses now maybe in 10 years from now that could be the case but it seems to me that what is most important is trying to help get the businesses off the ground and allow them to be competitive so um I'm happy to explore that if we don't want to go down the route of changing business licenses because it sounds like a lot of folks are concerned with developing this license transfer process I think I think what if I and I kind of I'll just maybe I'll just sort of share I think there's a lot of questions about what the best next step is with this and in terms of reconciling I think some of the nuances of it I think you know knowing you don't have to be completely rigid on the factors but trying to ensure some kind of lens on how we're knowing who's in town and operating our businesses to the best of our ability and then how helping those that are currently here trying to increase their investors and what kind of areas we have around that and then for me I think just also the artificial kind of market we've created by having these sort of high coveted five licenses and whether or not for me I'm not sure if that's the best method if by land use we could essentially meet the same kind of intention around limited business sort of density and kind of overall kind of you know market control then then I'm not sure if I understand why that needs to still be in place per se and how do you reconcile that if you're removing the transferring kind of thing with the limited licenses so I think there's a lot of areas where I feel I'd like to know more I don't know what the capital license transfer process is so for me I that doesn't I don't know what that means and they came after ours so I'd like to learn more about other types of transfer processes before I I move forward with removing any kind of prohibition on transfer personally Councilmember Matthews did you remember what you were going to say there you go and that was I mean we're going to an extraordinary length here to almost micromanage a fledgling industry that we would never do for example a bakery or a craft brewery or a startup tech or something like that we're just piling on all these expectations for businesses that are actually starting up and so I would prefer to simplify and you know I'm just just quickly looking down the five items that we have here I'm going to just depart you know the consumption lounges well it wasn't a priority for me but that past it'll get put in the queue requested amendments to the license ordinance to allow the transfer of cannabis retail licenses but that's not the same as the expanding ownership which is the thing that's really I think most obviously before us so that's really what needs to be added maybe it needs to be continued expanding the hours sure go for that I'm not keen on cannabis events we'll see where the vote goes on that and yes let's introduce the ordinance so that's kind of where I fall down on that package of things I think we're just way overthinking the details okay so do you want to make a mo do you want to return to your original motion for this particular component of the recommendation or do you want to make a motion in regards to some of the other areas where we might already have kind of council alignment I'd be happy to make a motion on items staff items three and five which is expanding the hours from nine to ten and then the ordinance revising requirements for new cannabis retail license when there's a change in proprietary to exclude change in manager so if there's a change in manager that doesn't mean that it has to have to have a change in that okay so do we want any further discussion on that component of it yeah I'm just seeing the reef side people are shaking their head no I'm not exactly sure what their argument was do you do you get that one vice mayor coming so I understand if I'm reading the ordinances that the language that was in and this item was that it would change it's so that if you if you change managers so if you have a turnover in managers currently those are considered proprietors right and if you change a proprietor you have to you have to amend your license this would allow for a manager who's someone who owns my understanding is 20% or less of the company to if they change if a manager decides to move on then they can bring on or hire another manager and they don't have to change the license that's my understanding when I read it so I think the issue that the reef side people have is that they want that change to be significantly more substantial and it would tie in with the um allowing investment so um in hearing the comments that came from the public I think uh quick um addition that we discussed was um in addition to excluding the manager they could also include an exception that a member of the board of director directors of a non-profit with less than 20 ownership could also change as well as an officer or director of a cannabis retail business um that is not organized as a corporation with less than a 20 ownership interest could also be included in that exclusion to allow for board members on say WAM to move back and forth without that triggering uh license transfer so I think those two would um both be uh supportable by staff to help address some of the concerns raised from the public okay that makes sense to me councilor matthews in which case I seconded your motion but that would actually be bringing back a revision of this proposed change with we could read the language in so that you understand specifically what it is so that that would still remain the first reading the first reading you agree yeah okay okay okay let's sounds good all those in favor on um do you want re-read and I need a second so the second was councilor matthews motion by vice mayor Cummings to essentially move um with the hours to go up to 10 p.m as well as to incorporate what uh planning director um described in terms of the ordinance language do you want to restate that or do you want to restate yours is it the introduced for publication and ordinance revising the requirement for a new cannabis retailer license that part you exclude a manager or a board member with less than 20% exclude a change in manager right so um I can read it in so in uh 6.91 120 license non-transferable um there is the change which says however provided however that the change of a non-member onsite manager with less than a 20 percent ownership interest in a cannabis retail business shall not be considered a change in proprietorship for the purposes of this prohibition nor shall a change in a member of the board of directors of a non-profit with less than a 20 percent ownership interest nor shall an officer or director of a cannabis retail business that is organized as a corporation with less than a 20 ownership interest so including all three of those in with the exclusions that are included in 6.91 point 120 a question or comment like I just said a clarification my understanding from one of the speakers um one of the public speakers was that this language isn't consistent with what the state definitions are can't is that is that the language the language is consistent but the state's intent is different the state has no limit on the number of licenses so they're not when they look at transfers they're not they they're not it's a whole different kettle of fish um so the the speakers what the speaker was saying is that the state's intent with this definition was to look broadly at anybody who is involved in the business and that the city's intent or the city's use of it being that broad doesn't make sense so at the time that we changed it we were trying to be consistent with the state in their definition of proprietor and it had a lot to do with increasing the amount that could be transferred of 20 percent from the 10 percent but by opening up this to this broad definition we got another kettle another can of worms okay mr. conduct yes my understanding is the state the the intent of the state regulation is to ensure that the state identifies who the proprietors are and so a significant change in a member of the board of directors or an operator a manager is reported to the state so for purposes of identification but it's not but the state doesn't restrict the transferability and so therefore while the definitions are same they're used in completely different ways in our ordinance versus in the state law okay thank you okay thank you for that okay are we clear on the motion all right all those in favor please say any opposed okay those components passed unanimously so we still have the areas of temporary events and then the license transfer question okay so where would we like to start i mean i think i'd go to whatever slide you'd like yeah the license chance was like to me i just you know i i think you know i guess i just i'm hesitant with the five being these sort of coveted licenses that you then you could transfer that does feel like it could go into the business sort of sales thing without any kind of language around that that's very specific so i don't have enough kind of i don't feel comfortable with that this time um i also i also would just sort of say like i guess if we think in terms of the foresight if we have you know contracts say for example with jump bikes and we're expecting jump bikes and then jump bikes get spot on by uber right now we don't really have any control over that at this point but i think we're at a place where we do have a little bit of control over the future in that way and so that's sort of just the overall intention that i'm trying to express given that kind of the newness of this industry essentially um so with that uh councilmember brown and then vice mayor Cummings uh well i don't want to rehash the debate but i i um mayor Watkins your your point leads me to just want to re-emphasize the point i was making yeah we um we didn't have control when uber brought jump um but we could have had we had um something you know some provisions in a contract right i'm just suggesting that that is a way to address that concern um and so um you know that i guess that's why i was trying to move towards the idea of having conditions on and i i appreciate i'm actually i i like that idea we can talk about that so i just wanted to kind of reiterate that okay so maybe i mean just in the interest of trying to move this forward maybe that's the direction to go that there's um i don't know if you want to really restate that but i i see where you're coming from in that regard or propose that as the motion i guess um because i don't know what the capital license transfer process is if that if what i'm saying is in that in there then no no okay so um maybe would the has the motion been made i don't even know if the motion's been made maybe before you make the motion may i just offer a suggestion maybe it could be to have staff come back with a potential recommendation to incorporate these considerations before we move with like some sort of specific thing okay go right ahead if that i mean just to sort of preface it as not like we're going to just move this direction maybe have them come back with some further information given this is the direction we want to go so well i can make a motion i can give it a shot which just it's basic so um would the provider of the motion that's you haven't made a motion i know but the provider of the motion that we're looking at here um if i could um okay so then i would make a motion to um direct staff to return to the council with a recommendation to address the transfer of cannabis retail licenses um address um and develop a full license transfer process um or recommendations for developing a license transfer process consist i'm gonna say consistent with the capital a license transfer process and um other possible conditions for license transfer can i and um recommendations for um the potential um business ownership transfer business investment and ownership transfer so it's kind of broader than this but it would give us an opportunity to sort through where we're at on those i mean we're we're kind of talking about them all here rather than just saying here can you give us the options rather than coming up with them on the spot here in this space and then we can decide how we want to proceed to the challenge you know addressing the challenge that we've heard i think i kind of get the gist of what your motion is i think it would be helpful to clarify it um so i'll make an effort to do that okay bearing in mind that when we talk about removing the prohibition on transfers we're really we're talking in in two different ways on this in terms of bringing on investors and the way we've defined ownership or proprietorship in our code the process of bringing on new investors um can constitute a transfer of ownership as we've defined it so i think in essence what the council is looking for is a recommendation for an amendment to the ordinance to permit transferability of a business license in which the transferee is evaluated based on the same criteria upon which the initial licensee was evaluated something along those lines that was exactly what i was thinking that was exactly what i was thinking and you just said it so okay did you second that okay so so i i was thinking the exact same thing that instead of sort of having the capital information it would just be consistent with our license application process essentially right because that sort of that kind of covers that it's independent of that so then for purposes of the proprietary you know the existing businesses that are that are listening to the discussion um what they would essentially do is bring an investor to the city in an application for a license transfer plot process that lays out the new um new structure of the organization to be evaluated in accordance with the same criteria in which the initial application was evaluated right okay that makes that makes sense to me okay councilmember matthews well devil's in the details there is it all of the above or 60 percent or what well that's where our staff can do what they did i i i hope it can get simpler we all do and the language is very confusing because bringing in an investor for the casual listener doesn't sound like a transfer of the license so maybe there's some definition changes i know it's not but and yet it is you know so sounds like some wholesale cleanup yeah i think in a future time i think maybe we could revisit the conversation around how we're designing it with the five only in kind of the industry and then the enforcement component i don't know what that even looks like for our city to be quite honest with you so maybe that's a future conversation but for where we are now i think we're at a place i think we can hopefully move forward as a council browner than councilmember matthews if i could in the motion as stated by tony mr kandadi um include which i remain strictly neutral on that this come back to us by would it be possible to get this at our second meeting in october i'm not sure about it it's i think given the current workload with the council would need to reprioritize um either the cash work or the um downtown plan work so hopefully some in the in the instance my my my goal was to have it come back at the same time as the as the other item from earlier unless i end up with more resources on my team i mean we are um potentially going to be having some part-time help come on but i that's not confirmed yet obviously if we do do that i will do everything i can to expedite this but i just want to be really candid about the resources potentially it could uh we could do it early next year but again then we would have questions about um the local coastal program which is and plan which is also time sensitive and um finishing out the cash work finishing out the downtown plan work so um i'm just trying to be very candid and transparent with you in terms of resources i'm just trying to figure out again this is a question of how much the role is clear how much work it will be not that it's it's one more thing but it's it's one more thing that is you know i mean what percent like how many hours of this one thing versus i mean the local coastal plan is a big sure one thing right yeah i guess i'm just trying to well it all it does depend on the scope because it sounds to me from the motion that it really um we're talking about potentially kind of doing a lot of cleanup and if we're going to be looking at best practices and other jurisdictions and coming up with an entire process that we're vetting with the business community uh it's it's time consuming i mean it's not something that could be turned around and what i mean staff the staff report for the upcoming meeting was due yesterday right so i mean two weeks yeah and so to be very realistic i just don't see anything coming back before the beginning of the new year and that's with us really um shuffling some of catherine's time on some of these other things i mean the cash wants to meet once a week the subcommittee so i mean there there's just a lot of and again i am i this is also very very important it's just about prioritization from council thank you for you at council member kohn and then council member mires and then maybe would you would you take as a friendly amendment that we could explore um a licensed transfer tax and um and and what other cities are doing if there's any other cities who have done this and um if we put it before the voters could it um could future city contracts be included like that when uber bought jump and we didn't get anything out of that i mean can we look at other contracts as well and could if it went to a vote of the to the voters could a lot could all city contracts like that be included that we make deals maybe that's something the revenue committee could i was just going to say that i'm a little nervous about providing that broader direction to staff here because it's not agendized to do that but i i think to i would add i mean i'd be happy to add uh direct the revenue subcommittee to take up the potential for uh license transfer tax business license transfer tax and okay does that and we'll get then that through that process it'll yeah that sounds good to me okay council member mires and then maybe we could take the vote on this yeah i think there was was there a second there was a second council member can we can can it get read again the motion go ahead tell me mr kandadi will you read the motion oh we got it we got lee standing up here let's see if i can find it here um an ordinance amendment to permit transferability in which the transfer is evaluated along the same criteria through which the original licensee was evaluated and i just want to clarify this is are we telling him a hundred percent transfer i know that's more of an ownership question but just wanting to make sure not necessarily would be subject to the council's discretion okay and just to clarify i understood it as business license transfer yeah can i can i make a correction here it's a cannibal cannabis retailer license it's not a business license but again this is different than a transfer of ownership interest right it's the retail license yes as opposed to 20 percent 40 percent 60 percent of the business being transferred it's the transfer of the actual cannabis business license okay five there's only right okay councilmember clever thanks and just in that reiteration of the motion i just wanted to make sure that the amendment that was just added was included in there with the directing of the revenue subcommittee to look at potential transfer taxes and all that kind of stuff just to make sure it's in the record okay i browner if i could um because i so the i guess the reason that i was trying to broaden the direction was related to the question of buying in so now we're we're kind of i think we're reeling it back in and get it sounds to me like um the only goal is to give the opportunity for current business owners to relinquish their license and that is not what i'm pending under our current ordinance if you transfer if you take on a new partner of some sort who has more than 20 interest then you need a new retailer license so i believe that this would cover that because that would be included in the license transfer then the license transfer would um apply to the new business structure as as tony said so that so that taking on a new it's combined capital partner would be included as a license transfer okay okay thank you okay thank you okay i think we're there maybe okay all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes we're not done we have one more on this one and that is the uh temporary events conversation um will you move us back to what uh that had here we are city clerk we're ready for the thank you okay so in terms of the temporary events i guess do we want maybe we could just go through the questions okay i think the question is we've dumped a lot on their plate this is a priority it's not for me i mean let's i think you know i think we could i mean we can give direction i don't know in terms of timeline i mean obviously i mean we have a lot on our planning department and we have big planning needs and especially as it relates to housing and a lot of stuff that is really big i i mean to your point i see what you're saying give him we can kind of give him a sense of where we're at with this and i guess to my mind if it's not something that's fairly significant and we expect a reasonably significant reasonably near term report back let's just table it for lack of a better term come back to it at another time but um you know if we just say we want you to work on this but could be two years it's really not giving direction it's just piling stuff on the work i think from our perspective to know if it's something that we should even have on our radar to potentially investigate would be helpful in terms of when that's done you know if it's not a priority for council we can table it but to know and i think probably some certainty for the industry if it's something that the council might even entertain would at least at the very least be helpful maybe not an action item but the understanding of if it's something of interest i mean i'll guess i'll just basically weigh in and then we can see where we want to go in terms of the prioritization i mean i don't have a problem with exploring what a cannabis event could look like here but i do think we need to understand what those can kind of considerations are how they've looked in other jurisdictions and if it's major and requires major kind of time then you know clearly we have other things that we need to have you focusing on but if if you do are able to understand what that could look like in a limited sort of fashion i guess i would say i mean i'm fine with having you explore that as staff potentially some vice mayor comings i'm happy to mean because i think that um you know we this is a new industry and even if it were you know a convention around cannabis that were to come to town like that will attract you know a lot of people so we think about from an economics perspective around our tourism industry cannabis is something that is you know popping up now and attracts people and so i think that you know it's i think that it's something definitely worth exploring especially if you want to think about how we're going to bring more people into our downtown and into um our business community and how we can better embrace cannabis within our cannabis industry currently kind of trying to get its feet you know into Santa Cruz and so i'm happy to make a motion just kind of providing some suggestions around temporary events if that's you know just so we can provide some direction then we can revisit the timeline around it as well so uh councilmember clever thank you yeah i think even if we don't take action on it i can with direct direction right now and more exploratory stuff i think it is something that's important and should be you know put somewhere up there because we have tequila and taco festivals and we have all these things where people go and they drink copious amounts in our public spaces and alcohol has been proven to be much more dangerous uh when consumed then alcohol as well as people exhibit much more violent tendencies when they consume alcohol as opposed to cannabis uh and also that working to destigmatize cannabis in our community so that people can become more used to its existence and use uh as it becomes more and more mainstream and legal so i i share the vice mayor's perspective with regards to figuring out a way that we can look forward on it taking into consideration the other things that we have to work on but at the same time uh acknowledging that it's important that we start to address this in addition to the economic benefits because i do believe that if we had a uh an amazing expo here focused around cannabis to bring people into Santa Cruz we uh i mean before it was legal that's something that we were known for in the community in the in the world anyway so uh might as well use that to bring in tax dollars did anyone second the uh motion there was not there's not a moment i thought it was okay sorry through the mayor if i may um i would ideally like to bring this back at the same time as we bring the other things that may be already as a part of your motion but at least just a little kind of best practices research and recommendation if that's what you end up proposing that's that's that was sort of the direction i would propose so if somebody wants to make that into a motion okay vice-president i'll direct staff to bring back recommendations to amend the city's municipal code to allow for temporary events with cannabis sales and um on-site consumption identify locations for permitting events and create a temporary event permit process for permits to only be issued to businesses that have a cannabis retail license in the city of Santa Cruz second okay so that'll be built into them okay and then the only okay so we have a motion by vice-mayor coming seconded by um councilmember Glover the only thing i would think about is some of the similar to the kind of the taco is sense of keel like some of the safety constraints and if it's on-site consumption what does that mean in terms of people getting in their cars and driving over 17 or something like that okay so all those in favor please say aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously and then i have the attention of councilmember meyers for another component that i think we lost one one thread in in this work um and i guess my overall comment too is i think each time we we batch all of this it's it's it's really complicated so i really hope that our planning department and the industry can really start to break these pieces apart i appreciate everyone's you know work on all sides but it's incredibly difficult and um i know we're sort of making this as we go so i appreciate your work and i appreciate um the industry's patience as we sort of try to figure this out but i think we lost one important part in all of this so i would like to make a motion to direct our finance department and city manager to initiate the regional tax discussion with the county and local cities i don't believe we okay we lost truck that that was the motion by councilmember meyers seconded by um councilmember crone that was yeah i think you're right that was something that was lost definitely something that we wanted and shared so thank you for affirming that any further discussion okay all those in favor please say aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously so i think maybe we'll have like a five-minute break and then we'll go into the next one which i know is our planning department also she was too much in one i it's too much i mean if i mean we decided last night so i would assume she said it ready all right so we're going to go ahead and come back to our meeting and i realized i'm a few minutes behind it this time but we postponed a opportunity for us to have the mayor's proclamation discussed or read or presented to the community regarding the support for global global youth climate action strike so i do have a proclamation here that i'll just read few of the where as is our and then we'll move forward with sharing that with any students who want to take a peek at it but it's really obviously very timely and incredibly important so whereas human created climate change is the largest single threat to the existence of Santa Cruz and the world as a whole has ever faced by humanity and whereas the youth of today that will suffer disproportionately for the fossil fuel use that is taking place at the present time and whereas when the young people of Santa Cruz do stand up and demand action we appreciate them and we support their initiative now therefore i martin Watkins mayor of the city of Santa Cruz do hereby proclaim September 20th through 27th 2019 as youth global climate action strike days in the city of Santa Cruz and i encourage all residents of all ages to support our youth in taking an action to stop global warning so good luck go forth and thank you there's one student there's a student that's been involved here would you like to receive this mayor's proclamation i'd be happy to give a teal okay okay so that brings us back to our next agenda item and that is item number 16 on our general a meeting business and that is the monthly update on the general plan and zoning ordinance reconciliation effort for the city's corridor and we have sarah back with us hello mayor and council members i don't have a powerpoint so i figured i'd just give my presentation from here if that's okay so at the august 27th city council meeting a motion carried for the termination of the corridors plan and direction for staff to move forward with meeting with the community to discuss the former plan and to seek agreement on possible changes to the general plan and zoning ordinance and so i wanted and then also there was a request that we come back monthly and provide an update so this is our monthly update for september so i wanted to let you know that we have reviewed the city council and planning commission meeting minutes from from the past to identify individuals who had previously commented neither sarah noisy who's the pro will be the project manager on this hi myself nor lee were here for that part of the for the the corridors process originally so we did need to do some due diligence and digging through the previous files and correspondence to identify who some of those individuals were and based on that we have set up a meeting for october 2nd and we have invited representatives from the corridor advisory committee we've invited the chair and the vice chair we've asked save santa cruz to send up to six individuals affordable housing now to send an individual representatives from the development community so we have invited an affordable housing developer as well as a market rate housing developer who had been involved in the process previously as well as a representative from santa cruz yes in my backyard or yinbi and a representative from copa which is the i have the acronym here communities organized for relational power in action so as of now that is the invite list that said again since none none of the members of our team were here if there were any unintended omissions from that group we would love to hear from the council on that and would be happy to invite people or have a second meeting depending on how many people there may or may not be so with that that is our update we are planning to come back on the 22nd as requested in the motion with a further update on the outcome of that meeting as well as any state laws that may impact our ability to you know move forward with this effort and we'll know more about that at that time so with that i'd be happy to take any questions questions from the council council member brown then council member matthews yeah i guess in my so thank you for the update and in terms of the the meeting on october 2nd i guess i have a question about the kind of the format and and structure for that meeting because looking at the list which you know i i understand the composition i would add depending on where other council members are at perhaps an invitation to the brand support action committee um there's some overlap there was safe santa Cruz but there may be they may want to send somebody sure so if i could respond to that um we did some digging and um we were under of the understanding that the bac had been blended with santa Cruz uh safe santa Cruz and um if that's not the case uh that that's great and we are more than happy to have them come there um i think the question is who that contact would be because there's not a name on their website and from the files that we've looked through we haven't seen um any names of anybody who's identified themselves with that group um and with us having not been here for that process we would be very helpful if you could let us know who would be great to contact i can send you an email contact and then you can just see if they're already covered through safe santa Cruz which is totally possible okay i just wanted to make sure that they were aware um but the so the question then that i had was about the um kind of the format for the meeting what the plan is um just to get a sense of what you know what what your goal is i'm hoping that it kind of is moving forward the goal stated in the original motion to try to bring um the general plan and zoning ordinance to alignment yes so i believe so we're still putting together the agenda now um but really i believe what we want the first meeting to be is really a lot of listening we weren't here for that process and so we really want to hear from the individuals invited what how they feel the process went where they feel the process is well obviously we know through the motion you know where council has directed us to go but in terms of what they'd like to see for next steps what the good points were what the bad points were we really just want to be able to listen and then go from there in terms of starting to move forward with the direction in the in the motion with that reconciliation but really i think listening is going to be the most important thing uh most initially for this meeting um okay so i guess i if i could just make another follow-up comment um so i totally appreciate that uh that goal um but i do i do hope that the um the discussion there is some structure provided to help get moved towards people's perspectives on how to best achieve the stated council objectives um which i think were pretty clear in the um the motion that was made that i made um about um you know resolving existing inconsistencies and um the objectives being to preserve and protect neighborhood areas existing city businesses um but also to encourage appropriate new residential and mixed use development specifically including enhanced affordable housing opportunities that is my primary interest in being involved in this and other uh council policy activities around housing is um enhancing affordable housing opportunities so i hope that the the meeting will be uh structured in a way to get that um in you know get get the uh participants talking about those objectives rather than bringing in what they like or didn't like about the corridors and kind of having a a rehash of that sure so we can definitely make sure that we incorporate um that conversation into the meeting um i just want to make sure that our team is really clear and on where everything came from in order to be able to start moving forward from a fresh spot um so i think probably what would make the most sense is if we have maybe the first half of the meeting a series of questions potentially about what had happened and then the second half of the meeting a series of conversation points about what that particular group thinks might be beneficial to move forward does that sound like something that would be uh suitable in your well i mean i'll leave it to the participants in the conversation to to figure out how to steer that but i just want to be clear that um particularly given the time constraints that you are under and the workload that these meetings be productive in achieving the objective i appreciate that yes me too okay all right thank you yeah um so uh there was some concern from community members that live in the east side that um we're unable to go to some different corridor meetings because of life versus open houses for school or the variety of things will this meeting be open to the public to attend and then provide their input for the group to take it into consideration or is that planned into the steps sometimes somewhere in the i would say so this meeting will not be open to the public i think this initial conversation it's um makes more sense to to have that one-on-one um kind of candid ability to speak organically um i think what i would recommend then is when we come back and let the council know how that meeting went we would be looking for direction from council on next steps and i very much expect to this to be a very robust community conversation moving forward will there be plenty of opportunity for input from many many different groups and so while maybe this meeting um isn't the best suited to be public this is will be a very transparent process moving forward right um there was something that councilmember brownie mentioned um about not wanting to go back and rehash the existing corridors plan but and so i'm kind of torn in that respect because i know when we were here last time and we talked about it and we were hoping for a november 2020 kind of return as that was the timeline that you were hoping and they said that that was unfeasible or you know um impossible i'm really interested in uh expediting affordable housing development as quickly as possible so the question then is will it take longer if like what was the drawback that you were seeing to spending time talking about the existing plan and what those that felt their voices who felt their voices were not included if they if they take those considerations and work them into the plan as opposed to starting over from scratch again which could take a long time oh yeah i know i sorry if i could just to clarify i i'm not suggesting um the that the conversation not include you know what is to preclude that from happening i'm just suggesting that rather than spending a lot of time debating and trying to persuade each other yes you know to the old plan as it was no i mean i just i'd prefer to see that more productive conversation before it about well how do we achieve these objectives um that the council has given us councilor mayers councilor mathews and then i have a question as well um i just have a question you mentioned briefly about new state law um and so i guess my question around that uh in terms of how i mean we're we're operating a different world than we were three years ago basically um there's been significant housing legislation that's come down in the last three years so will you be informing these groups of that so that that context is available um just curious how do we you know kind of how do you kind of see that conversation going yes so um depending on what we know um about what the governor either has or hasn't signed or vetoed or where things are by the time we have this meeting um if there is solid information that we can share we will absolutely do that that said i i tend to be a little conservative when it comes to these things and wait till either the signature is on the paper or the deadline has passed for the signature to be on the paper either for or against um this year's legislative cycle has been extended till october 13th where typically it's over at the end of september so we may or may not have an answer particularly on sb 330 um at that time it is on the governor's desk so it has gone through all the processes it's been engrossed and enrolled and it is awaiting signature veto or nothing so again if we have that information we'll absolutely share it with the group if not if you know we we can discuss the potential ramifications i just don't know if at that point it makes most sense to spend our time having that conversation if we don't have the facts right so um but we will know when we come back in october in terms of where that bill sits and we'll absolutely that will be a part of the conversation moving forward okay yeah i hadn't realized that the uh the signature period had been extended so i don't know why but it was this year okay thank you sure councilmember matthews and then i have a question that comes i'm going to work backwards i want to play off that because that's really of interest to me um all the recent housing related legislation and um i just throw it out it might be worth a little bit of an information session at a general council meeting just like everything that's new that's you know whether it's funding but particularly that's all a legacy that would be a good thing probably for us to hear collectively mini study session i don't know how long it'll take but okay um definitely as things um you will hear about them as we come forward with anything that impacts required changes so as an example the adu um there's several adu bills that are in one or another place in the process um so those will certainly have impacts when we come back on the adu discussion uh but we could maybe have a conversation with the city manager's office about at the very least maybe putting together an informative memo or something on that and i'm you know just thinking out loud and i won't take up too much time but it might be something also of interest to co-sponsor with some other community there's so many groups interested in housing and and it's one thing oh we got this little adu cleanup we got this little inclusion you know i mean there's all the little things you get but to get kind of the big picture of the changes and where it's going and what authority we now have or opportunities we have etc so much has changed i think might be good for us as a community to sure and the california league of cities um after the legislative term every year has a presentation so it may be the type of thing where we could pull that resource and do the presentation that way so that it's not pulling from the resources of the team to put something together i'm trying to think of ways to maximize existing resources and even have someone down and cosponsor an evening program with some groups anyway i would appreciate that kind of a bigger picture of the new landscape okay um i was actually around for the origin of all this uh which was the general plan that we currently operate under which was developed over i think a three-year period with extreme engagement of many sectors and a huge amount of the public and the idea of increasing density along the transportation corridors was one of the many many many concepts that came out and was unanimously approved and then the corridors project i'm telling you you know this place was taken as a discrete project to pursue i was a part of that i have to say it was a pretty unsatisfying experience yeah you know it was um and so much time has passed i think the underpinnings of the the theory are lost people have moved on etc so it is basically being dealt with de novo now the the the big picture and all um have kind of vanished from people's consciousness i did feel in the directing staff um directions a and b they're a little bit contradictory um to protect the residential neighborhoods and existing businesses is the highest priority but also encourage new residential mixed use development including enhanced affordable housing at appropriate locations along the main transportation corridors that seemed to me like that was the corridors plan so good luck that's all i can say thank you um it seems to me there's an inherent tension there um it did look to me at um looking at the participants it seems pretty east side heavy and of course safe santa cruz is pretty east side heavy um just throw it out there maybe include someone from santa cruz neighbors which tends to be more city-wide concerned with the neighborhoods etc and someone from one of the major business groups which has a high priority on housing all its many forms so those are just suggestions and those are groups that were pretty involved back in the day thank you i have a quick question and then we'll go to councilmember crowden then we'll open it up for public comment and then return back for any kind of action although this is simply an update i know with input um one of the things that you mentioned at the first sort of um at the first meeting that we discussed this was a lot of the things that weren't being done and i'm wondering if you could provide us with any input on what some of the things that the the planning department isn't working on sure especially some of the adu staff or what are the costs opportunity costs is originally designed sure so um some of the things that we were planning to work on this fall included a analysis of the fees for adu's lowering potentially standardizing those we have on our work plan development of adu guidance materials to try to encourage them and make them easier to develop in the city and help people who are kind of novice developers be able to come in relatively easily know what they need to do in order to be able to develop an adu um we also had on our work plan or still do have the prioritization of our housing strategy to encourage a variety of housing types for a variety of different um types of housing needs so that could include development of junior adu regulations update of our sro and so u ordinance that single room occupancy and single ownership unit ordinances in order to encourage the development of those and standards to allow some of those things on the same lot like a junior adu and a regular adu um those are updates to the ordinance that require the requisite uh outreach and um planning commission hearing and council hearings um we also have uh on our work plan to update parking standards throughout the city to facilitate more housing um there is uh revisions to the overall uh standards and then particularly revisions to single family dwelling unit standards to facilitate adu development and then um obviously i think at the last work plan meeting we talked about the need to update our zoning ordinance to promote legalization of unpermitted dwelling units that that's a a big one that um has kind of been put on hold and then we have a lot of general cleanup work that has been on hold for a while um that um really needs to be done so updating our beekeeping ordinance updating our slope modifying our slope requirements substandard lot definition where there's a centerline setback issue in a particular area of the city so there's just a lot of little kind of like core service general cleanup work that needs to be done so i'd say that's probably the core set of most important things that have kind of been pushed back um in the most immediate if you you know time frame okay okay so a lot of the primarily if i hear i'm hearing you also a lot of the work that we're moving forward with what the adu's has been kind of yes so there will be will be as soon as we know what's going on with the state um we will be bringing forward a conversation on okay um conversation and sara can comment more on this because she's also the project manager on that um but the um state stuff will definitely be coming forward with most immediately but um some of the other stuff uh that i mentioned like the fees and the guidance materials there's just not capacity for that right now okay okay thank you council member thank you um what is i see in our thing what is the cac sure that was the corridors advisory committee that had been um put together when in 2015 when this the corridors process kind of kicked off how uh where are those two people from so um they we invited the chair and the vice chair what which where do they live they live on the west side you saw i have no idea i don't know and our direction i thought at the meeting was about was focused on community groups how did the two members of the cac get involved sure so since they were so intricately involved in the process um we thought it would make sense to have them come especially when we were thinking about framing this really as a listening session to kind of understand given that none of us were here for that we wanted to be able to hear from everybody involved in terms of you know kind of what happened right what happened and where are we so that's why we and invited them well it would be great if you could address the council member um matthew's thing about nobody from the west side it's east side heavy if we remember i believe 14 members of the original group were from the west side and zero from the east side but yet 85 percent of the contemplated development was going to be on the east side this is why we had a brush fire okay occur so if you could maybe get back and let us know if that's if there's um you know there's six i see 12 members on this this group the committee i don't know where the other six are from so there's six invited from uh save santa cruz no no i see that but i don't know where with the residencies are because that became an issue i okay yeah and i didn't even think to ask that that question because again not being here it wasn't for me it wasn't about the east side west side it was about the concerns with just neighborhood protection overall yeah and i hear you though for other groups too that um i think are interested in being um talking about it okay well i would be happy if you have i give you contacts that would be awesome thank you so much thank you thank you let's go ahead and pause for a moment and see if there's any members of the community who want to address the council on this item and if you are here please step forward and you'll have up to two minutes okay set that there uh hey everyone i'm com kelly i'm a father of three in santa cruz and a member of neighborly santa cruz um this week is a global climate strike and i want to see santa cruz play its part as a city i missed out on my ability to comment on the corridor plan because of an open house at my school that's the same for other working families that that also go to the same school some of which are on the east side some which on the west side and we'd love to be included in that in that next meeting that that's talking about it um so my family lives not far from downtown in the wharf and for us it's very walkable and very bikeable uh my three kids are able to join in commuting with zero emissions while enjoying our city that's wonderful like we live right now at a medium density residential area um and what prevents many people here from families to students to elderly uh from getting the same experience as our current zoning it falls flat because of the large amount of single family only zoning people are practically required to have cars in the city when people get groceries do you expect that they drive walk or bike or or take the bus uh so when amenities are closer and more walkable there are more there are fewer cars on the road in order to facilitate that we need dense housing and transit infrastructure um when we prevent housing from being built here we encourage sprawl elsewhere in untouched lands those people then have to commute to our city in order to work um i know many people that live in Watsonville and drive to Santa Cruz for work uh there are people driving over the hill too because higher paying jobs are there across all sectors and income levels um and so you've got to consider how the city's current policies are encouraging this um all of california has a suburban spa problem and it does need it doesn't need to be solved in california at large but also in santa Cruz and we have to play our part um so yeah i know i'm running out of time so we must prioritize transit legalized denser housing by transit and jobs i'd really like to be part of the conversation thank you is there any other member of the community who would like to address this on this item okay seeing them we'll go ahead and return back i don't think you need any action from us it's just to receive an update is that correct okay councilmember brown so um i do have i have another question in a possible i know this is not an action item but i um am prepared to to take action if necessary the um i know that it wasn't included in the original motion but i understand there is interest from planning commissioners to also receive updates about what's happening with this process and um so i'm hoping that we could get this an update after the um october 2nd meeting on the planning commission agenda as well for them to have be involved in the conversation i mean they were involved in the conversation around the corridor's plan initially um the commission and i think this is definitely in their purview so i'm hoping that can happen and wondering what the thought is on that so i have a question for you um and immediately i go to workload and capacity that's right where my brain goes um would it be suitable for us to bring the report that we bring to council at the next planning commission meeting potentially let them know here's the report that we gave let us know if you have any input and then when we do our next report back to you we can let you know what planning committee right and so we're not duplicating work and staff reports but we're able to share the information between uh both recommending and approving bodies absolutely yeah i know i i'm not asking that this be any extra i mean aside from having the having it on their agenda which takes some there's time involved in that you know but however long it takes for that agenda item to occur but yeah that it would be the same information that we're receiving that is absolutely fine with me that that's suitable by the council okay and that doesn't require action that that will happen like at their next meeting okay over okay yeah okay council microne will it would go to their um october meeting so what i would plan to do and um oh actually um why don't yeah i would highly recommend that we do not bring it at the october meeting and i say that because there are going to be substantial issues that this council needs to debate following the uh the outcome of sp3 30 and the direction that we receive from that um debate that the council has is going to inform where we go with this process and so i think having that policy direction from the council will be important to give and to inform any planning commission discussion we may not know um before the account before the planning commission meetings whether um that's what the fate of sp3 30 is and certainly i i would say bringing it back following the october 22nd meeting is a great time to go because then we'll have a full understanding of what we can and can't do and we'll have specific direction hopefully from council in relation to the initial outreach as well as in relation to the applicable state bills and uh if i could add that's why he's the director because he thinks of things like this and um secondly um i think maybe instead of bringing this conversation to that meeting what we could do is a compromise is potentially send them this staff report with an update on the conversation to the planning commissioners so then they're kept abreast and then we can bring back a bigger conversation after we've we really know the outcome of sp3 30 and are able to have kind of a informed conversation with them about what the what the state legislation is all right thank you how's miracle um just seeing since you wrote up senate bill 330 um is that something that the league of cities is opposed to yes they are um opposed to it um i was going to say oppose unless amended but it's way past that point so yes they are um they were requesting a veto is it too late for cities to um you know for us to officially oppose it as well it is on the governor's desk and so um yes and no he could have already signed it during the course of this meeting i really don't know that means at any point it could be signed and by the time council were to agendize that to be able to you know make a determination and draft a letter you could that is absolutely or you're prerogative if you'd like to do that but it may be too late by the time that comes around for the next meeting and individuals in the absence of that are always yeah called i just have one one other thing i want to make a four record comment here just so it it sticks because it's basically reiterating what our direction was last time um that uh the meeting on october 2nd should focus on how staff can best develop a proposal that will quote this is from our our what we passed general plan and zoning ordinance changes as necessary to meet the following objectives a preserve and protect residential neighborhood areas existing and existing city businesses as city's highest level policy priority and be encourage appropriate new residential and mixed-use development specifically including enhanced affordable housing opportunities at appropriate locations along the city's main transportation corridors okay thank you thank you we'll go ahead and conclude that item and move on to item number 17 in our agenda and i'll look to mr kandadi and i believe if that's accurate you'll be presenting this item yes this is the charter members of the city council the item before you this evening is an amendment or a resolution calling for a measure to be added to the march third 2020 statewide primary ballot to repeal article 16 of the city charter which deals with the governance of the sancru city school district and the constitution of its members of its board of trustees as you know late last year the school district received a letter alleging that it that its elections process violated the california voting rights act and demanding that the board of trustees establish elections by district as opposed to the current system which kind of has elections by district but what it specifies is that three members of the board shall be residents of the city of sancru's three members shall be residents outside of the city of sancru's and one shall be elected at large and so in response to that the school district entered into a settlement agreement early this year that put in place a process to establish by district elections for the school district and that process has continued and in the school district is now poised to begin by district elections at its november 2020 election what's standing in the way of that is the city charter provision which while it purports to govern the school district and board of trustees has a practical matter the city hasn't done that for decades so school district has requested that this item be approved by this city council to place on the ballot for for the march third primary a repeal of article 16 in its entirety and that's what's before you today okay thank you unless there are any questions from the council we'll go ahead and see if any member of the community wants to address this on this item this is item number 17 in our agenda packet okay seeing none we'll go ahead and return it back for council action and deliberation council member mires i'll go ahead and move the item second motion by council member mires seconded by vice mayor comings any further discussion okay all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously next on our agenda is item number 18 and we have this as a council member item so i'll go ahead and ask if the council members want to introduce the item before we move forward at the same i'll go ahead and do that this is an item brought forward by council member mires and myself and it relates to a review and update on the county's syringe services program which has been operating for several years the ssp earlier this year presented a report to the board of supervisors and in that process reached out to considering the possibility of a number of changes in their syringe policies and practices they reached out to the city asking us to explore the option of installing some county service and maintain syringe disposal kiosks in the city and we have that letter in our agenda packet here and i want to say in reference to that there's long been a request and and fortunately some movement in the the city's interest in having the county take greater ownership and involvement with the city on syringe related issues so i want to thank them for opening this issue and giving us the opportunity to comment so the recommendation that we brought forward is that we ask the mayor to write a letter to the county expressing our openness as a city to four additional syringe disposal kiosks with locations to be determined by the city manager's office and this is what's important with all costs and labor for the placement and maintenance of the kiosk to be covered by the county and their contractors and perpetuity i will just say parenthetically that as this issue has come up and requests from the public to put kiosks and sharps containers around the city it's always been who's going to maintain them and so here we have a proposal by the county to take this responsibility which is appropriately theirs and then the recommendation also says a number of smaller secure syringe disposal bins may also be appropriate in certain locations to be installed at the county expense so that's the specific message from us back to the county is we are open to this at designated locations to be determined by the city manager's office but also in this motion would be directing the mayor to advise the county that there be no safe injection sites in the city of santa cruz that there be no additional syringe exchange sites without prior city council approval that we do not support secondary syringe exchange and we asked the county to establish a 24-7 needle litter response program so that's the entirety of the item that's coming before us and after we hear from council members and the public i'd like to make that motion is there any questions for the council members who brought this item forward and if not we'll go ahead and open it up to public comment and then return back for action and deliberation questions council member um yeah uh thank you so i guess the you know the county board of supervisors is actually hearing this item today or an item related to the syringe exchange program and they have they are working on kind of programming around kind of community engagement and evaluation of their findings and recommendations which is going back to the board of supervisors in december and so i i get and i feel like this is not a real opportunity for the city to um be uh to partner with the county to cooperate with the county on its efforts and kind of work in conjunction with what they're doing so i guess i'm wondering why this is coming i mean the kiosk piece i get it's in response to the letter but the rest of it seems um a bit preemptive if we want to work with the county on their efforts at you know community outreach discussion it seems like you know we'd we'd want to express that to them and kind of see where they're headed so we can support that i think um for my mind one of the reasons to put this on now was to say as you're moving forward with all your plans these don't include all these other things without even telling us because we have issues with them and you know they will continue with their discussions and the conversations will continue and i think um we can certainly include in the language of the motion our appreciation for the county's willingness to work with us and our interest in working with them but i think this is saying this motion says this is what we're willing to do now we're not interested in the following okay any other questions question thank you yeah so um wonderful to see the kiosk thing i think that's long overdue um just curious about the the statement of no safe injection sites in santa cruz should be established where what do you work can you explain now a little more uh the logic behind that and why the logic from my point of view is that uh i don't think that's a program that the city of santa cruz with our high concentration of injection uh users um can handle i i believe it will become an attractant and i think we have more than our fair share of uh substance abusers using needles um already that's i i know that other communities have done this uh i don't see that it's um something that's transferable to our community um and it has not been without uh the severe problems in those communities as well i'm just asking because i was wondering if there was any data associated with the concern that you just shared or yeah there's lots of studies i'm i'm this is something i've brought forward i think for our community it's it's not an appropriate um the program the institute i just my maybe i missed it did you include that data or those studies that you're citing in the agenda packet so um i would just counter that and just because looking at the data and studies that i found and reviewed it says that safe injection sites have a way of preventing communicable diseases and reducing an overdoses so i i i think a uh data driven approach towards this kind of thing is important and i was really sad not to see anything in the agenda packet i'll say generally and then if we can just open it to the public i i think around all these other items that are listed additional comments um to send to the county i understand that from a harm reduction point of view from for individuals there's a role and it's measurable but i also think um that we have to look at harm reduction for our entire community and we have such a such a huge amount of uh drug use impact in our community which includes needles and a whole lot of other things um that i'm looking kind of at the harm reduction picture for the whole community and i don't think we can add this to it without um without an impact that we're not ready to handle so i know councilmember mires had some things you wanted to add but i think we'll go ahead and do that after the public comments okay so we'll have public comment but before we go to um any any of the individuals i had a request from surge cagno to uh have a group presentation on behalf of his group um so you're welcome to come forward and then is there any is denise ellaric i don't see denise ellaric here so you'll be the only presentation then we'll have it open up to everybody yes hey um so my name is surge and i made a resource directory and it's got all services and it's got the syringe services program on there and we'll get back to that on how many hours that thing's actually open during the week i'll leave you to guess that for a little while um i was a drug and alcohol counselor in oregon certified um like the cad see that they have in california um and i absolutely support placement of four syringe kiosk and smaller disposal bins um because the only place to put put them right now is well people drop them or people put them in trash cans which is a little worse for the guy who has to clean the trash can so absolutely supporting the kiosks and the disposal bins um i would suggest the placement of the kiosk and the bins be included in the cat's work because part of what we're working on on sleep ordinances and where people might be and stuff absolutely relates to where you're gonna put these things sort of solidly into the ground at times um we have and i would and there's the possibility that we may bring recommendations as early as next month so we could try to get the kiosk and bin locations back to you at the second meeting in october we may have some recommendations on hygiene sleep and winter shelter set up and stuff too um and i am not a spokesman for the catch i'm just saying that out there um the in his letter that was included supervisor community uh mentioned the conversation they had had with health services and he recommended and he said that they were talking about the recommendations he didn't mention the recommendations the recommendations actually were for secondary syringe exchanges and stuff the supervisors didn't accept that so that is best practice and is spouted very clearly by me me hall who talked about health in all policies very clearly the more clean needles the more people are using clean needles the less clean needles the more people are using dirty needles less clean needles does not lessen drug use less clean needles does not let lessen needle litter either there is no and on the county's website and there's studies on this too in communities that have lessened secondary needle distribution there's been no lessening of needle litter it's not connected in places that don't even that stopped giving any needles they still have needle litter it has no effect on drug usage the other ways of dealing with it is having a kiosk or having a place or communicating with people and connecting with them and trying to work it in other ways but limiting the supply of needles does not stop drug use at all the board of supervisors they want to put little names on the little thing counties say you got this from the county and stuff to prove it came from some place or whatever people use they're addicted that's what they do they i'm sorry but it's a bias to say that people come from out of the county to use our services or if we had clean like injection sites people would come these are addicted people with a whole lot of challenges going on they're not moving to other cities just because it's legal in one program in one little place in a very managed with nurses and stuff not an open field and everybody using that's not what those kind of programs are about okay so on emeline if you want to get syringes nine and a half hours during the week monday mornings tuesday in the evening for a little bit friday mornings wednesday five hours per week are the only times that you can get clean needles how many people don't want to go to a county building to show that they're addicted to needle addicted to drugs and don't want to go there get needles and they're having trouble with other ways which is what secondary exchange is about and people who are also trying to connect them with services there's nothing to say that somebody that goes to the county is more likely to sign up for janis than somebody who's talking to the harm reduction people so just an assumption okay that's it thanks and you'll have up to two minutes thank you my name's Sharon and i want to thank um Cynthia and Donna for bringing this forward and um i was part of a group that was invited to the county last week or it was earlier in september in regards to the syringe litter i was really touched that i was invited there and i left feeling really positive like i feel like finally we're in some solution um and i i do support 100 more kiosks and i love the idea of a 24-hour service to address the syringe litter and the county being financially responsible for that and i feel that this proposal as it's written um addresses the common welfare of the community and um for what it's worth i'm a recovering drug addict i started using when i was 11 i got clean when i was 28 i've been clean for over 27 years um and when i was in the throes of my addiction i what that looked like for me is i had zero respect for me zero respect for you and zero respect for my surroundings so to make an amends kind of to the planet a couple years ago i started cleaning with the clean team i started cleaning with the levelies and i myself picked up over 300 syringes um and collectively with our groups we picked up thousands and now we have the downtown streets team that is doing that and when i was at that county meeting the other week they said that they picked up 6 000 needles um the last 27 years of my life have been a blessing and i'm surrounded by clean and not clean addicts every single day and it's who i choose to be around something i have frequently i frequently have to ask myself am i helping the addict or am i helping the addiction and i strongly suggest that if you're not asking yourselves that you do thank you good afternoon the goal of any ssp as i understand it should be to get people exposed to services treat their wounds in the meantime and just repeatedly offer them help that doesn't happen in a secondary exchange in a with medical trained medical professionals this is a complex issue it's a health crisis we don't treat that with just folks off the street we treat it with trained professionals now the secondary exchange claims that they refer people to services and if the primary goal of a ssp is to get people in there so they can talk to them i'm looking at numbers here of primary visits to the ssp they go back to 2016 primary visits that's going for yourself not others we're averaging a little upwards of 150 a month prior to the hrc's inception in april 8 2018 when they started the numbers started dropping when we opened ross camp for lack of a better word the numbers plummeted an example would be march of 2018 142 primary visits to the ssp in 2019 the height of the ross camp was 44 uh you can double check these numbers if you want they're all on the internet secondary exchange if their goal is to refer people to services they're actually having the adverse effect they're poaching customers from the ssp and they're treating them in the dirt we got to get these people help or they're never going to get well and they're going to continue to die thank you good afternoon i'm a data driven medical professional as well and i want to throw some numbers at you for the people that are data driven as well so the current ssp report from july 2019 which is the most current numbers we have is 54 530 needles were handed out in the month of july 2019 alone so this kind of assertion that we don't hand out enough clean needles i would ask the question how many clean needles is enough so over 91 clients received over 200 needles per visit this is the county's report you can verify it yourself it's online out of those clients 86 are homeless so to act that these homeless people have no interest in showing up at a county building to maybe take care of themselves maybe interact with a nurse is a falsity these people we need to bring them into the health care system we need to wrap around services so that when they are ready to deal with their addiction we can actually take them straight to a physician who is ready to prescribe them mat treatment to a nurse who is ready to treat their wound on site secondary exchange doesn't do that that's basically like saying here meet me in the dirt where you're at because yeah that's great we don't care about you we want to change the perception locally we want our addicts to know that we care the most and we want them to get services and to be able to do that that's why this proposal addresses that a safe injection site is run by medical professionals not a harm reduction coalition not volunteers who aren't trained and i would argue that if you're allowing secondary exchange to happen in the city where are the records where is the data where is their data of how many clients they've referred who actually have gotten treatment for hepatitis and hiv are actually being seen by medical people there is none afternoon maybe there's my data that's 80 87 so far this year since january and it's been a slow year because i've been really busy haven't been able to walk around much uh my name is Damon brooder i'm a concerned citizen and a recovered addict i've said it many times on the other side of the river at the board of supervisors we need accountability for our syringe services program handing out 10 needles and then weighing a black box that comes back and hoping that it's needles in there isn't one for one i know you guys don't control that i know you don't um we need the accountability we need accountability from the county for cleaning up the messes that gentleman back there he shouldn't have to come and pick up a needle from in front of my house because my nine-year-old nine-year-old grandson almost stepped on it the county needs to take that over your motion that that you're putting forth i agree with 100 we need more kiosks when i was having when i was using i needed a place to put my needles i always went back to the needle exchange which was right over there where the a fellowship is now i can still get what i need same building i needed a place to put them instead of flipping them in the bushes i put it there if we have kiosks people some people will use them the more availability there is and like surge said where they are will help no safe injection sites don't give you a place to kill myself the secondary exchange not the way it's being run if it's run properly with a medical a medical supervision and it's not just a let's bring your drugs your needles and everything you need in a pamphlet how to shoot up to where you're living in the woods maybe the secondary exchange could help harm reduction is important to all of us but only if it's run properly we need harm reduction for our entire community we need harm reduction for the ptsd of the parents of the child that stepped on or found a needle on the beach when they came to visit we need harm reduction for the addict and their friends please vote yes on this thank you hi my name is jane i'm speaking here in my capacity as a public health professional in particular i speak from my experience as a chief of preventive services of the state office of aides and finally i speak in the spirit of health and all policies adopted by the city council which i'm really proud of public health as a field exists to serve the public the goal of public health is to improve the situation of any part of the community experiencing problems that can affect their health that for example is why the dientes dental clinic was established poor dental health including lack of services was a major community problem the positions taken against having any safe injection sites additional syringe exchanges including mobile or secondary syringe exchange in in santa cruz city are criminal by these positions the proposers are saying despite well-known data driven best practices we don't want the county to provide specific services within our city even though they would definitely improve the health and safety of the population as well as the health and safety of individuals rather than relying on well documented successful programs noted on the county's website the drafters are relying on anecdotal experiences of those who have their ear people who assume almost all needle users are homeless and hope the problem of needles will be solved by getting rid of the homeless this is shameful i encourage you to vote against these i'm not an expert on the specifics of syringe management but i accept the research of many dedicated individuals who show that needle exchange and secondary needle exchange will reduce the litter of dirty syringes and spread of needle-borne diseases as a secondary effect is already mentioned by linking these programs to other public health initiatives such as mental health services and low-cost housing there will be a net reduction of syringe use period you're you're coming up and speaking on behalf of the harm reduction coalition you're about you still can have your four minutes yeah sorry denise wanted to be here to do the presentation but oh good yeah we would have had a lot more people here but it's hard to tell when these general business before the break are going to be glad i made it hi there i'm danie drivesdale i'm a representative of the harm reduction coalition of santa cruse county we are the ones who do the secondary exchange work that is being referenced today as well as a lot of other harm reduction services in the community and also i want to point out we're far from the only people doing secondary exchange work it's a really common practice that syringe exchanges to have people exchange for other people so i'm going to go through this presentation really quickly i think the person before me covered a lot of the data that's actually really important before her i heard a lot of falsehoods being thrown around i'm not going to go through and refute each one first just wanted to lay out examples of harm reduction in all kinds of areas so we know what we're talking about things like sunscreen seat belts speed limits so on so forth we are interested in harm reduction for the whole community not just around drug use and things like syringe exchanges safe injection sites actually promote harm reduction for the whole community so this is a document made by our local county health services and this is them comparing the current practices of the county with evidence-based practice you know we heard the word data driven literally all of the public health data points to the left hand column being the best set of practices what we do on the right hand column as you can see is quite different i'm not going to dig deep into that because that's not what we're talking about today but i wanted to make sure we flag that while doing this presentation here is this is a screenshot from a fact sheet that i sent in via email it's public record y'all can go find that in the emails this fact sheet references several studies that show that syringe exchanges actually reduce the amount of needle litter in the community so for here talking about reducing needle litter strong peer-based which is what what we call our secondary services peer-based syringe services actually will reduce needle litter i'm not going to go deep into any of these because i want to move on but this is a heat map of overdoses in the city that we left in here to point out how badly the city of santa cruz does need these services not just the county as a whole and this is also showing that the majority of deaths in the county in 2018 15 overdose deaths were in the city itself and so obviously as a crisis that we need to address moving on i want to say that as someone who spent seven years of my life heavily addicted to drugs in this county it's deeply frustrating to watch the lives of people struggling with addiction be used as political chess pieces again and again um and speaking as a representative of the harm reduction coalition of santa cruz county i want to express our clear or organizational opposition to the following proposals from this agenda item we oppose a ban on overdose prevention sites even though no one's been talking about them before this proposal we do oppose a ban on them uh we oppose a requirement for the council to approve new syringe exchange locations and we oppose the state the the statement of opposition to secondary exchanging as it is a critical link in the chain of harm reduction in our community um i would say that we have waited very long for the regressive policies of previous city councils to be reversed on these issues but given the current political climate it seems we'll have to wait even longer in the meantime though we as a coalition support the strongest possible programs based on the increasingly clear public health research on these subjects uh furthermore it is our belief that syringe litter is a symptom of the housing crisis as well as a symptom of the prevalence of drug use in the community housed people do contribute to syringe litter but the lack of adequate shelter combined with the heavy restrictions on our county ssp means that many homeless people do not have access to the proper ways to dispose of their syringes even when they badly need to by framing the issue of harm reduction as an issue of needle litter the county has already made this debate one that centers on and targets the homeless instead of talking about the housing crisis or the spread of infectious diseases or overdoses we are here debating the low-hanging fruit of needle litter so our ask from the harm reduction coalition of santa cruz county is that the council respond to the county with a simple letter stating we would welcome new kiosk twin city limits and then we ask all the other proposals be taken out of that letter and not be included in it and be sent over to the community advisory committee on homelessness so they can work with us directly to dive deeply into these and bring them back to you for recommendations i believe you'll one more speaker you'll be our lot no i'm sorry you're you're next and then i'll okay good afternoon i'm brett garrett um i claim no expertise aside from a quick google search but uh i my google search matched up with what council member clever was saying about needing more data before taking an efficient position against safe injection sites and the like um so i'm going to agree with the previous speaker um my quick google search included in the npr link that uh referred to research from peter davidson at uc sandiego and uh some of the things that the article talks about are the benefits of safe injection sites especially in preventing deaths among the society's most vulnerable no death has been reported at an injection site a 2014 review of 75 studies concluded that such places promote safer injection conditions reduce overdoses and increase access to health services supervisor supervised injection sites were associated with less outdoor drug use and they did not appear to have any negative impacts on crime or drug use and the article goes on to talk about a specific program in canada called insight um and it says they recruited um that the facility is supervised more than 3.6 million injections and responded to 6 000 overdoses no one has ever died there uh the the research found no signs of a so-called honeypot effect at insight meaning it did not increase or encourage drug use so we probably need more data but it appears to me that safe injection sites provide a very valuable service that benefits the community and i would oppose a position saying don't do it here um i think we should at least be open to the possibility it might help us thank you good afternoon scott graham um i'd like to preface my comments with i am not in favor of illicit drug use my real reason for talking on this issue is that during the AIDS epidemic i lost two very close friends to AIDS and harm reduction is going to keep that from coming back because it would come back if if people don't have clean needles and condoms we're going to end up having AIDS and other diseases come back in a rapid way um i've submitted this uh from the office of AIDS california office of AIDS and in here it says that secondary exchanges actually help they help reduce needle litter and they also help people be able to inject with clean needles each time instead of reusing needles or sharing needles but they are able to use a clean needle each time they inject which is very important um myself i would say yeah let's uh get the uh containers that they're the kiosk um the first three bullet points i say we need to have more data we can't just have a knee jerk reaction that's going to pain us in a corner where we can't take these actions in the future we need data to prove that either these things work or they don't work um i do support the county should establish a 24 7 needle litter response program based on what's going on in san francisco where they have a a group of people going out and picking up needles on a daily basis thank you okay i'm going to go ahead and return it back now to the council councilmember matthews and then i don't know if council member mires okay um thank you and and i again i want to reiterate you know most of my career spent in public health and i i do understand the the concept and the concept of harm reduction in this case i am going to move forward with the recommendation as stated uh changing the words slightly at the first part of the recommendation um that we direct the mayor to write a letter to the county of santa cruz expressing openness to four additional syringe disposal kiosks with locations to be determined by the city manager's office and with all costs and labor for the placement and maintenance of these kiosks to be covered by the county and their contractors in perpetuity a number of smaller secure syringe disposal bins may also be appropriate in certain locations installed in service at the county expense then for the time being as the county revisits its needle and syringe policies and programs uh gathers additional data on the feasibility and effectiveness of other programs we express the following that there be no safe injection sites within the city of santa cruz no additional syringe exchange sites without prior city council approval we do not support secondary syringe exchange in the city and we ask the county to establish a 24-7 needle litter response program i'll second that so motion by council member matthew seconded by council member mayer and what i tried to explain in that motion and and verbalize was that we realized the county is revisiting its programs and some of the shortcomings that we currently see we hope the county takes greater responsibility and invest more in that and the um impression we get is that they are interested in doing so and so i i added the words that for the time being as the county revisits its program and gathers data on the feasibility and effectiveness of programs for the time being these are our statements once member mayers yeah and i'll just add to that and i i fully support the the new language um i think that we this is an opportunity for the city of santa cruz to begin a relationship with most importantly the new health services director and we fully i fully believe that health professionals medical professionals and our county health department needs to be our partner and our guide in figuring out how we how we plan for those in our community who need these services now whether those are within our actual jurisdiction or whether the those folks are living within our within our city um we need to go slow we can't go fast and we will fail if we keep pushing and so i think what our intent with this really is to recognize and and actually thank the county for taking the time to reach out to us and and and to build this boat together um we we can't make any more mistakes our entire community is having issues with the needle needles that are being found in everywhere throughout the city and um and most importantly the people who are suffering from addiction we need comprehensive program that's going to provide success we need pathways for these people to become well healthy and we're failing at that and so this is about a partnership this letter is not meant to be punitive or say we want this or that in our community right now this letter is meant to express the county let's start working together um it has limitations in it right now because as as i signed on to the thing i believe those limitations are important to express right now but with with the added language of clarity i think um this sets a sets sets us on course for a productive relationship moving forward with the county councilmember brown and then i have a few comments uh yeah so well i do have yes i have some comments and then i have a question for the makers of the motion um so i absolutely understand the kind of intention behind bringing this in this way i totally support the uh direction to uh respond to the county's request and um about the implement about the installation excuse me of uh kiosks i since i've been on the council have just not been able to figure out why we don't have them i understand there's a history there but i think it's time that we change course on that i don't think it's been uh done anyone uh any good to not have sharps kiosks and i appreciate that the county is stepping up and wanting to do this and wanting to um provide the resources for it so i absolutely support that piece i um i do have concerns though about the um the rest of the language in this proposal because well for a variety of reasons but um i'll start with the um the kind of relationship with the county and i agree completely with councilmember meyers that this is an opportunity for us to partner with the county and that the county needs to be both our partner and our guide and so i feel like um try including language which addresses um the potential hypothetical establishment of programs um and locations that aren't even on the radar as far as i can tell um is really a you know a reaction to uh social anxieties and which we rightfully have in our community we have a serious problem um but i would prefer to wait until the county completes this process that they are um they are i believe talking about who knows if it's maybe it's already done um today related to recommendations on a plan for syringe disposal um addressing secondary exchange and monitoring referrals of ssp to the map program um they are planning to do that in december 2019 i would prefer to include in a letter that we look forward to working with them and partnering with them in those efforts around community engagement they're doing surveys they're having community meetings um i think those are opportunities for this conversation to be had with our broader community and um so that would be my preference and um so i guess it with i'll leave it there for now um but my question is if we could perhaps divide the the motion for the letter regarding kiosks and 24 7 and 24 7 need a literate response and then the others as a separate um in the interest of sort of moving that along do you want to go ahead and make that motion to or make that i'm happy to divide it okay let's divide the question should we go ahead maybe let's go ahead and maybe take that vote and then we can move forward with some of the other issues that are still outstanding after that okay so the motion has been divided to address the um to support essentially the first uh recommendation to have the mayor write a letter to the county of santa cruz expressing the openness to the four additional syringe disposal kiosks etc as well as to include um that that letter also include a recommendation that the county establish a 24 7 needle litter response program is that correct yes and we can include language um appreciating um their attention to this issue and our desire to continue a um an active partnership perfect so also including our intention around collaborating and their our appreciation of their um seeking our input as we move forward in this way okay is there any further discussion on that component of the motion seeing none um all those in favor please say aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously so then in regards to the outstanding areas of kind of position I um I'll just maybe take a moment to sort of share sort of my thoughts on it I appreciated I appreciate the added language on it um I think at this time we want to know more before we say yes and we we don't do um social services we don't have a health division or department and we need our county partners to help us and as councilor meyers is suggesting to guide us um I'm a hundred percent supportive of harm reduction and needle exchange I do think that um we need to do that well and right and we want to have it to the best caliber we can have it at and that requires us being able to work with our um partners and so especially those who are experts at the field the county partners so for me um having that language around needing to have the county weigh in needing to have the city council approve I think that could also be applied to the city does not support the secondary needle exchange unless it's sort of as a partnership we're out kind of spurred through the county and has our council approval I think we just need to know I think that's part of the the challenge is if we don't do us um human services and it's happening in our community and we're unaware and it's not going through the county then I think we want it to go through them so that is sort of implied in the in the um direction around no additional syringe exchange sites including mobile exchange in the city without us having approval I think that could similarly be applied to the following bullet around the secondary syringe exchange and I would just suggest that go through the county as there are health and human services entity here I do also just want to um kind of share what council member Myers was saying I hope what we can do is move forward in a way that's going to bring healing to those who are in need that's going to bring the best medical attention and direction and ultimately allows us to move into a place of prevention at a certain place where we can stop folks from getting hooked on these drugs to begin with so I will support it I would make the suggestion that we can change the language maybe to that third bullet to have some elements around collaboration with the county and with council approval yeah sure okay and then that second in okay is there any other comments oh do we need clarity by yeah if I could just get council member mafios the motion part of it okay that's great could you please restate yeah so for the time being as the county revisits its needle exchange and harm reduction program um gathers data on feasibility and um impact um the city expresses um advises the county that um we um do not uh support safe injection sites within the city established without prior I'm going to put without prior city council approval on all of these things no additional syringe exchange sites in the city of Santa Cruz should be established without prior city council approval and the city does not support secondary syringe exchange without prior uh city council approval if I could maybe the only thing I would add is that without our council approval but also without the county's information as our county wide health and and um uh in all cases involving um consultation and involvement of the county health services which makes sense to me okay thank you any further discussion on this item at this time council member brown yeah I just have a quick follow-up comment um again I um I have concerns about making these kinds of statements to the county when we are approaching them in the spirit of partnership and cooperation to say except for not in our city it just doesn't feel right to me um I also have concerns about making sweeping statements about um programs that you know I'm not entirely clear about the um the consequences and you know the benefits and the the challenges I understand what I know is we have a serious problem in our community we have um we have so many needles um that are being found you know that and I and I and I am convinced that this is an issue that we have to address but I'm not convinced that saying no safe injection sites is going to do anything to if I mean if anything that could help us so in with our needle litter issue which is the ostensible purpose for this agenda item so I guess I I'm just not comfortable doing that I would prefer that we refer these um matters to um the catch it sounds like at least one representative of the catch is interested in in looking at these um giving advising us um so I'd really prefer that we do that before we make sweeping statements I would also just conclude by saying we can't stop any of I mean we you know the city only has so much power to um to regulate we there at least in in this way saying you know we don't support it is a statement of that we don't support it but um we're going to have to take it very seriously if and when an actual proposal were to come our way because that is where I think this the city is going to have to weigh in about the conditions under which we would ever approve that but for now to just say no we don't support it doesn't it just doesn't seem like there's really any reason need to do that at this time so I I can't support that I'd prefer that we um if we want to have this conversation that we um get we refer it to some people who really would would be willing to spend some time wrestling with it and get more information and come back to us Vice Mayor Cummings, Council Member Glover, Myers and then Matthews. Thank you and I just want to say that I agree with a lot of what Council Member Brown just had to say because I think that what's important is that we're not shutting the doors of the community on opportunities for people to receive you know alternative forms of of care when it comes to the use of needles and their ability to get access to resources I think that um you know we need to if the county is working on this and the county is trying to gather data and get an understanding of what is appropriate for the city and the county that we we keep our options open and that we try to see what the county is going to recommend and then engage in a meaningful dialogue with them if some of these um if some of these options were to come forward and to say no immediately sends a message that they shouldn't consider these at all when they're trying to do community engagement and so I feel that what's really important is that we leave our options open and we really try to see what the community wants what the community is in need of what the county feels that they could help with support and then based on those kinds of recommendations and engagement with the community we begin to move forward with how we're going to address some of these issues and I also agree that if I think that this would be something that if there's members of the catch who'd be interested in taking this on that we send it to them because they could form a subcommittee and a big part of their role when we form that group is that they're doing community outreach so I feel that they could actually help us in this effort to try to get a sense of how the community how the Santa Cruz city members feel about these different types of programs and provide that information to the city council and also our county partners. I'm gonna just I I know I we have our police our chief of police there in the back and I don't know if there's any input that you want to provide in this in this context chief mills but I know that this is something that impacts your work as well and the work of your force maybe before we move on to some of the other council members. Well mayor thank you and council members this certainly is an important topic for all of us and there's not a person here that doesn't want what's best for the health of this community and as you we get hundreds of emails and complaints about people finding needle-litter so the way you have it structured in terms of adding additional kiosk I think makes sense to reduce the harm and we would be happy to continue the research portion of harm reduction to make sure that you know we at least are headed the same the right way as a police department to make you know and and safe injection sites you know that's a pretty tough tough issue from the standpoint that you are encouraging encouraging is not the right word that we are allowing people to knowingly violate the law in our city in terms of possession of narcotics and and so you know if there's another way to do it then we certainly maybe want to want to think about that but until the state legislature and the federal government strikes down possession of methamphetamine heroin as a law I don't know that how we the police department could support people being in possession of a controlled substance so that's our input. I appreciate that. Council Member Myers, Council Member Glover and then Council Member Matthews. I'm hearing I'm hearing the need for sort of a qualifier I think in terms of so I'm looking at the the health service agency report that was also provided in our packet and posted with the agenda and so in this report there's there's a recommendation for expanding SSP hours as well as incorporating the SSP into the homeless persons health project clinical field services as well so I mean I think I think we're on a continuum right now and I think that our statement is meant to express we have services in the city of Santa Cruz right now and we want to make sure that those are working the best that they can and that they're not causing impact to the community at large and so when I when we when I looked at the language and we looked at the language together Council Member Matthews and I we have these support services currently within our jurisdiction and so I think you know we can continue nuance a little bit on the qualifier but I do think that this is really a shared county wide need and so that I think that's part of where I'm coming from is that I think it's been shown that the burden of services service location in many ways does correlate to our jurisdiction so we have you know data from our from our police department that we're we do spend a lot of resources and our parks department and others so I understand and absolutely support this is a partnership absolutely all the way along until we can get to some very well documented needs of why a facility would be placed and the types of facilities that would be placed in the city but I do think it's important for the city to to establish right now at this point in time expansion you know is not something or these services being located here I just feel like we need we need to sort of put that stake in the ground with the qualifier I also just worry that with the cash which is our homeless advisory committee I'm worried about sending leader you know needle I'm worried about sending public health topics to our cash our cash is not comprised of public health experts it's not a public health committee and I think I think we you know we again we always need to be pivoting back to the county back to the county back to the county that's where our problem-solving brain trust is and we need to just engage with them in a positive way and keep this relationship positive I'm happy with the qualifiers but I do think it's appropriate to try to put a bit of a flag in the ground at this point here I see a staff person interested in poise to share something and then we'll go to councilmember Glover Matthews and the advisement thank you councilmember Myers who's the O'Hara assistant to the city manager I did want to have an opportunity to talk a little bit about the catch and the potential of moving this consideration to the that committee there is a hygiene related subcommittee that has been formed and there is an infectious disease physician on that committee I will say it would be very helpful in these types of deliberations to for the council to ask the catch whether they would want to as a committee take this on rather than providing that directive because they do really need to think about the resources that they have their collective interest in actually taking up these issues and also their ability to do that in an effective way so as you move forward with pivoting policy over to the catch I would just make that recommendation for them to be able to consider it and then either punt it back to you or you know incorporated into their work plan councilmember Glover Matthews and then vice mayor Cummings and then Brown thank you yeah just want to echo the statements of councilmember Brown and vice mayor Cummings especially with the regard to this idea of partnership because it's hard to imagine you know we just heard wanting to maintain a positive partnership but to enter into a partnership with already clear cut lines as to what you can do especially after seeing the slide from the harm reduction coalition on the hot spots of overdoses and Santa Cruz that we're doing in the city right now I just think it's inappropriate to set these stipulations and not enter into the partnership with an open mind since we know the relationship between the city and the county and collaborating around these issues has been tumultuous at best so ideally we'll be able to move forward openly with an open mind to things that we might implement here and then when that time comes reassess and figure out what's going on instead of setting up barriers ahead of time vice mayor Cummings I'm sorry councilmember matthews vice mayor Cummings yeah I just want to reiterate I thought the qualifiers I added were dealt to the objections that people raised this was as the county is in the process of revisiting its harm reduction programs with the expectation I'm quite sure of expanding them for the time being these are our desires and we wait for them to come forward with their their data and their particularly their recommendations on feasibility and effectiveness and we want to work with them in the future that to me is a partnership statement there and I will say I believe in turning to professionals the county health people are our local professionals and I'm not I don't really think this issue should be sent to cash because not all injection drug users are homeless and they got their plate full of plenty of things so it may be that we ask their opinion on suggestions but that's not a deep assignment I think it's appropriate that those recommendations could come to the city manager's office where the the jurisdiction is directed and certainly I think a combination of PD and parks department are going to kind of know the hotspots frankly so that's how I would suggest handling that involvement in cash at a relatively I would say cursory suggestion involves them but doesn't put the whole burden on them. Vice Mayor Cummings I think house move around just for clarification the reason why I was you know wanting to involve the cash and think that you know it's a good place for this to potentially goes because I mean there is interactions with secondary syringe exchange with people who are experiencing homelessness and the other piece of it is that you know last year there were a lot of items brought forward by the city council related to homelessness and there wasn't a lot of community engagement prior to those items coming forward in a broad sense of the community there were there were members who got to weigh in but there were a lot of people who came here and felt like they were left out of the conversation and the whole reason why we put that body together was so that they can engage with the community and get the community's input so it's not to say that you know we don't want to have the the county weigh in because I think that everybody here wants to make sure that the county is engaged in this conversation but I think we also need to you know see what what the community thinks about you know these different options of safe injection sites mobile exchange sites and secondary syringe exchange and it's you know with that groups you know directive to be to engage with the community and they have health professionals on there for me it seemed like an appropriate place to send this and then if they had a subcommittee which it sounds like they have a committee dealing with hygiene that this could fall under that umbrella for more for more community input to us. Councilmember Brown? Yeah I would just ask for the Vice Mayor's comments related to the role to the catch and I also want to thank Ms. O'Hara for raising the point about the kind of direction that we provide to that committee. I think that doesn't have to be a specific direction that they must do this and they must explore all of these different areas. My point was just to say if there are members of the issue are working on what they want to work on it my preference would be that if they want to do that and that hygiene committee has some things to say that they bring us that and we we use that as an opportunity to learn more. So that was kind of that was my I think that that was and then I guess just in response to the the direction I mean I again I appreciate the the point about where we're at right now but you know the the qualifying length that you've added councilmember Matthew is however given that we are in September and county will be I mean I'm just having a hard time believing that we're going to end up with new safe induction site in Santa Cruz between now and December if we don't make this statement right now. So again my preference would be to deliver an open-ended message of desire for cooperation with the county and have those conversations in their process. I'll maybe make a quick comment if I could and then I'll go to you. I'm happy to add some more language too so. One thing I think that maybe that just needs to be I think potentially explained more thoroughly is that we just want to have a role and a voice in it and we want to have the opportunity for our community to have a role and a voice in it and we also want to have an opportunity for our experts in in the county to weigh in on it and that's I think what for me feels good about this it's not saying not at all you know ultimately it's it's basically saying until we have that this is our this is where we this is sort of where we're at so for me with the language is how it's been modified I that's the sort of the sentiment I hope that is across in there. I think you know one of the things that is really challenging is if if if things are happening in relationship to our city and impacts on our residents and our community and we don't really know about it nor do we know if the county knows about it that I feel is as a bit of a disconnect on how we're best serving our community and best aiming to meet the goals that we aspire to have met in terms of the harm reduction efforts so I think this is I'm hopeful that this is more so of an opportunity for us to kind of move together in the direction that's going to have us collaboratively and transparently hit on these different topics councilmember matthews and then council so I'm happy to add to my motion that we intend to engage with the county actively in their process as they move forward and that we refer these items to the cash for their consideration okay it doesn't mean it's their primary assignment it's consideration for their consideration okay I'm fine with that then councilmember meyers is fine with that okay councilmember brown and then maybe we can go ahead and take the vote well I guess I'm you know and again I'm sorry to belabor this I don't mean to but I'm I'm just wondering in terms of the actual objective meeting the the goals that we have that I think we agree upon how is saying no safe injection sites no syringe exchange sites and no no secondary syringe exchange going to give us information about that happening I mean I mayor Watkins I hear you when you say that these things happening without us knowing is a problem but I'm not sure how this these statements are going to give us any information about them happening so maybe you can help me understand that well councilmember matthews yeah I mean there aren't a whole lot of people here but these are the back-to-back letters we got emails we got from the public and they are overwhelmingly in favor of us taking this action and I think what this says is these are high profile programs and the county has said they want to engage with the public and that's what we're saying we need to be engaged before these get launched in our city and I think what we have from all these letters we receive from the community is they're concerned they know there's there's drug problems there's injection problems there's needle problems there's addiction problems they want to help find solutions but they want to be engaged and they're looking to us too to say that that will happen vice mayor Cummings and then councilman I would just say that the second half of that motion I think is kind of where I feel like probably the whole council might be on board with just this idea that we want to work with the county we want to work with community members we want to send these ideas these concepts to the catch of safe injection sites syringe exchange and secondary syringe exchange and for to learn more about their consideration to my knowledge we haven't the proposal of a safe injection site in tannicus has not come up at all and you know the least since I've been on the city council and I don't think that we were really planning on bringing that forward so I mean I could see why people are concerned but you know their concerns I think are because this came forward as an agenda item and people maybe didn't you know they might have been concerned as to whether or not we were considering doing this which we're not but you know as I stated before I think that just kind of having these no declarations when we when I think what's more positive is that we you know work with the county and community on these different topics so that you know we demonstrate to the community we're taking in your input we're working with the county before we make any decisions on how we're going to move ahead I think that in my opinion would be the most appropriate way to move forward I think I think honestly that's exactly what this is doing is it's basically saying we um want to work with the county we want to work with the community and that's why we're saying until we do that and have that process in place then we we don't support it kind of being done without that engagement so I think it's sort of saying the same thing that you're hoping is aspiring to reach based on the qualifiers that have been mentioned okay okay unless there's any further discussion um we'll go ahead and take the vote what's the motion again okay oh I think you are transcribing it I could come pretty close uh for the time being as the county revisits its needle exchange and harm reduction programs gathers data on uh feasibility and effectiveness the city um advises the county that there be no safe injection sites within the city of Santa Cruz without prior city approval there be no additional syringe exchange sites of all the other language without city approval we do not support a secondary syringe exchange program without uh prior city council approval um we intend to engage actively with the county in their process as they move forward and be active partners and we refer these items to the cash for their consideration and does that reflect the second yeah okay all right we'll go why don't we just refer to the cash no I I made it very clear I don't want this to become a primary focus for the cash it's not exclusively a homeless problem and I think where the main emphasis has to come is from the county health department I think it's entirely appropriate to engage the cash in it but not not uh have the um core recommendations for intensive controversial bigger picture public health programs come uniquely from them engage them but not have the responsibility for us a city manager myrton Bernal this is also is this your understanding that the county is hearing this item in October is that right is that also I'm sorry that there what the county is hearing this item or they're going to be addressing this item is this happening in October do you know there was an interest in hearing back from the county Tuesday I can give talk about the agenda I don't know oh it's October they're having community meetings surveying etc completing the analysis um in November and we're bringing it to in December perfect okay okay thank you okay vice mayor Cummings and then maybe we'll go ahead and take a look I just like to see if we if there's any way we can separate the motion for the three bullet points from kind of the recommendations about how we'll engage with the county community members to catch because I think that's really the big area of of disconnect right now I think that everybody here is really wanting to see his partner and work with the county and work with community members work with the harm reduction folks work with the catch but I think that you know the the you know these affirmative declarations of no to the different types of harm reduction is where we have the biggest disconnect and so if we can just separate the motion from those bullet points from our intention to work with the county I think we could probably get to some level of content you're just saying drop out all the bullet things I I guess um you know my I was in response to a comment that was made multiple comments ago that the goal here is to say um we want to be involved in the conversation um and decision making before any of these things happen that I can support but we are saying we want to be involved in the conversation and no no no no to these and so to me that just isn't a conversation starter to say no to everything you know let me rephrase a motion and then maybe we can vote I think because that's ultimately where you're at with it okay go ahead okay um as the county revisits its um harm reduction programs um conducts community outreach and gathers data on feasibility and effectiveness of various programs we intend to engage with the process uh and um um let me see um how do I want to phrase that want to engage in the process um before before consideration of safe injection syringe exchange sites or secondary syringe exchanges are considered and in any event would expect to have prior city approval for such programs yeah that do it okay councilmember yeah thank you um so I just wanted to respond to the statement that was made about holding up the packet of emails uh in going through the packet uh that was provided with our agenda yes there are uh letters that are opposed to or that are in support of this agenda item but that they're also uh a litany of them that are not in support of this agenda item and in addition the ones that are in support of this agenda item are littered with fallacies and poor data uh specifically encouraging us to go to a one-to-one system or for no needle distribution at all in Santa Cruz so it's really problematic to see the reference to those emails being used to support this motion uh when we are supposed to be working off of data and uh making informed decisions that will in fact benefit the health of the entire community because these emails are promoting things that will be detrimental to the public health of our community so it's really important for us to be conscious not just how many numbers of emails there are but the context of those emails the understanding of the people that are writing those emails and then how that correlates to data and proven examples of public health and safety around the issues of needle litter okay so we have the motion revised with similar intent all those in favor please say aye aye opposed okay that passes unanimously all right that um we'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting at this time now until 7 p.m. which will have oral communications before our evening item at 7 30 p.m. From here Matthews vice mayor coming yeah and mayor Watkins here it appears that we have space but in the event that we do not um there will be extra seating available at the tony hill room this evening as well so before we have our regular agenda item um for the evening session at 7 30 we will hear oral communications for the first half hour and oral communications is an opportunity for the community to speak to us on items that are not on today's agenda if i could get a sense of how many members are here that are wanting to speak to the council on an item that is not on today's agenda okay if you can go ahead and line up to my left and you'll have up to two minutes and we will attempt to conclude oral communications at 7 30 and hope to be able to hear everybody who wants to speak to us at this time please council members good evening my name is Sue Powell I am here to ask for your help in protecting the historic church at 111 errant circle from being torn down one way that you can do this is to add an item to your next agenda to consider directing the historic preservation commission to review the dpr 523 historic report for the property during a public meeting the circle church is one of many historic buildings that is not included on the city's historic building index historic building surveys were published by the city of Santa Cruz in 1976 1989 and 2013 while the history of the circle church goes back 130 years this current church was built in 1958 and was eligible for historic consideration in 2013 however the circle church was overlooked by the city's historic designation process younger churches in more affluent neighborhoods were included on the historic building index but the circle church has been ignored because the circle church is not listed on the historic building index staff will not allow the historic preservation commission to review the historic report submitted by the developers the historic preservation commission is very concerned about unlisted historic structures over 50 years old that are threatened with demolition they have created a subcommittee to revise their bylaws so that they can be allowed to review submitted historic reports they have seen that developers pay consultants to produce negligent and erroneous historic reports that do not support preservation of our city's history and culture neighbors and friends of the circle church believe that the historic report and demolition permit application for the circle church should be reviewed by the historic preservation commission as an exception while the commission revises the current policy the circle church is an iconic landmark like no other on the west coast of california please help us in our efforts to protect our heritage and culture thank you thank you next speaker good evening i am brett garrett and there's something happening here in Santa Cruz that many of us consider to be very undemocratic people are being paid at least six dollars per signature and probably more to collect signatures for a recall petition do you know this would likely be illegal in oregon arizona wyoming montana north dakota south dakota and even florida i'll admit i didn't look specifically whether all of these bands include um recalls but all of those states have some kind of ban on payment per signature for initiatives and the like that's because payment per signature is undemocratic and it leads to problems including police being called right here in Santa Cruz due to the belligerent behavior of some probably small number of people trying to get those valuable signatures but there is hope for california assembly member evan lowe has a bill ab 1451 that would illegalize paper signature in california and this does include um a ban that would apply to recall elections ab 1451 has been approved by 72 and a half percent of the assembly and 60 percent of the california senate in other words the state legislature overwhelmingly agrees that payment per signature is undemocratic this legislation now awaits governor newsom signature and i think we should all support it and maybe just maybe this city council could quickly establish a maximum dollar amount for payment per signature in santa Cruz because although we may all have different ideas about what what is excessive i think all of us most of us can agree that excessive payment per signature is undemocratic and some of us feel the very concept of payment per signature is undemocratic please support ab 1451 thank you i read from the rose report recommendations page we'll go ahead and i'm going to go ahead and interrupt you for a moment this is for items not on tonight's agenda we will have an opportunity to address any of the contents related to your comments in the report is the rose report listed on the agenda it's a component as a recommendation in the second item on the our evenings a business okay then i will read from the respectful work cut workplace conduct document two dash one b that two is on um this this evening's agenda so you have an opportunity to address the community the council at that time okay next speaker please and this just a reminder for those who are in the audience this is an opportunity to address the council on any items not on today's agenda please yeah hello city council bruce thomas do for neighbors i've been here before i want to just give you a quick update of what's going on to resolve the year-long problems at the on do for street that were come about when blaze pizza and the starbucks opened there's actually some positive news we're getting some help from the transportation department and they're going to come up with some recommendations that they will publish this wednesday while this thing keeps going in and out i don't know what's up with that but um so anyways i i'm hopeful that we can reach some consensus among the neighbors and the businesses there's they're reaching out to all the stakeholders and they really do i want to commend the term transportation department for really putting a lot of effort and yeah um you guys have to the council members have seen the situation so hopefully we'll address the uh load the lack of a loading zone the talk is putting it down further towards the residents so it will lead to a public process some notifications and um it'll the need consensus or it might actually end up as an appeal if it's appeal that could come back to the city council to really resolve fully all the problems with traffic flow and the loading zone and um yeah and i really want to reiterate this all came about because of lapses in the planning process this should not happen again new businesses should have loading zones designated and i invite the public to go to hearings and make sure anything in their neighborhood does have a specified loading zone so they can not have to face what we've had to face on do four street thank you good day councilman my name is brian peoples i'm the executive director of trail now we're a local organization active in promoting effective transportation solutions i'm here today to talk about you know basically every day our community continues to be stuck in a traffic nightmare um our transportation system is virtually shut down families try to travel to the store travel to school they they can't do it they're all suffering so we're here asking our community leaders to begin looking at opening up the santa cruz coastal trail not a decade from now but today and trail now is actually have proposed to have an interim trail without removing the tracks uh progressive rail supports our proposed plan and we're bringing in the money the funding to do it so we're asking the political leadership to support opening up the corridor today that if you think about it we're hearing about all this climate change and the young demanding change well you have a great opportunity you have a phenomenal opportunity to take advantage of opening up the santa cruz coastal trail and one of the things that we don't really understand the value is the key transportation connections or the connectors that it does and i guess the best example would be i live a half a mile from valenci elementary school my wife's an elementary school teacher there when the road closed she had to go five miles around through the highway to get to the school that's a transportation connection and so that's what the world class world class santa cruz coastal trail will be so please support trail now's proposal we're trying to open it up we're not asking for public money thank you very much hello gary philip i object to to some of the words that were said earlier today about that cannabis thing where there was a talk about how women and people of color need to be enabled to buy these places or something i didn't really hear the word opportunity i'll take tape on that but it kind of sounded like at best it was assuming there's some reason why women and people of color can't buy a marijuana dispensary it's but you didn't really say what that is and it was sort of mysterious to me uh i mean to be sarcastic it's not that leftist thing about how especially white men are fascist you know nazi racist homophobic sexist greedy capitalist pigs not not that is it i don't know but and and at worst you kind of imply a quota system which is as racist as anything there and sexist as anything there is anyway think about that while i read this much as i can of this which is not much there's a damaging civil war of narratives in our country where leftists wanted to mean divide degrade and replace american achievement with a shame blame ignoring the achievement of our moral evolution ancient people are judged by modern standards people of the past moralities are now either martyrs or oppressors and used as an indictment of the present as if today is the past according to them the country was founded only to destroy it the constitution written to validate slavery and wealth is only produced by exploiting the poor america is judged as a bad country by them it is not 1961 or 1691 surprise it's 2019 was america a country built by slavery or a country that overcame and abolished slavery at a cost of 600 000 lives is the u.s a country of rampant discrimination or one of continually accepting more devised people and cultures of any we have all right next speaker you're not in line okay the speaker who's next then please come forward good evening council my name is elise casby i'm a local community activist i'm here tonight to make sure that the public and council members are aware um the library apparently has been uh at least the downtown library i'm not sure about the other branches but i think it's a county-wide situation has been gathering data on patrons and unfortunately the patrons do not know this um when you log into a computer at the library it asks you a question about do you mind um that cookies and you can say yes or no and you can read the privacy policy but uh i want the council and the public to know that um the staff became extremely concerned about the gathering of personal data through the computer system in our libraries and so they initiated a grand jury investigation and report it has been on the county website it's listed as under the years 2018 and 2019 and the director of the library Susan Nimitz was required to respond to the report by september 23rd so i don't know what what her response was i do want people to know that an extensive investigation was conducted and if you're a techie i hope you look into it because i'm not a techie and most of it is pretty much greek to me i just scanned it but the real reason that i'm also talking about this is because i happen to have inside information that hundreds of library books per month are being dumpstered most of the books that are being dumpstered the public that are donating the books don't know this a good many of the books are being dumpstered for a good reason they're old some of them are not the kind of books that should be kept but most of the books are intellectual history and things that cumulatively would make up our cultural history members of the community and council members um huff has watched that's homeless united for friendship and freedom has watched the old guards cavalcade of distraction for the last nine months as the unhoused population has swelled on the streets the council minority and the staff have ignored the most basic shelter and health needs of those outside choosing instead to find failed costly and face saving measures to harass and disperse homeless people who gather for safety and community the city manager and his staff have lied to the community disgraced us all before the courts and betrayed the homeless population with endless broken promises i'm looking at susie ohara in the audience not as a personal matter but because she is a staff member responsible for a lot of these lies i'm going to go ahead and pause the time i'm just going to remind you you're welcome to address the council i am addressing you and i'm addressing you about susie ohara and the staff okay because i think she has to be held accountable for the statement she's made into this council has followed i would remind council member Cummings that he was going to hold her accountable four months ago and i still haven't seen that accountability come up false narratives such as the recall narrative the 18 000 investigation narrative the civility narrative and the homeless menace narrative these divert attention from real issues while renters are being forced out and homeless are freezing outside the progressives and their supporters have gone along with this toxic narrative diversion by not demanding that Watkins restore items to the council agenda and insist on procedural and substantial changes Glover's supporters have urged Glover trim his sales speak softly and walk on eggshells this is a losing strategy it betrays both the voters who put them in office human office and his colleague and those who are counting on their strength not their submissiveness my name is alicia cool president of the santa cruise chapter of the california homeless union and i just wanted to take the opportunity to let everyone know in the community that um recently our lawsuit was dismissed regarding the Ross camp but at our last court date the judge advised both the city and the plaintiffs to meet and confer regarding settlement and i wanted everyone to know that we provided a letter signed by all the plaintiffs giving us the rights to negotiate settlement anthony prince and myself and it was completely ignored um twice by the city and so an offer to meet and settle was never it was a choice basically not to discuss that with us and so unfortunately that decision is likely going to lead to further litigation um it's unfortunate but that's where we're at right now and i also wanted everyone to know that there are still no showers at the city sanction 1220 river camp that's where the people that were displaced from the Ross camp were intended to go at least 60 of the 200 and they still haven't gotten any showers and that is the camp that the city is is responsible for along with the salvation army and i think that we can do better so please i'm asking you to pay attention to that and do better and meanwhile you have everyone else that was not uh placed anywhere and they could use motel vouchers some laundry vouchers and things of that nature thank you pat kittles and a cruise i'm wearing this uh flower sticker that's passed out tonight because i'm told that it merely calls for civility and i'm all for that it does not promote any other agenda beyond civility that's why i'm wearing this um where do i start we've got uh i can always count on somebody to bail out when i come up to speak because they don't want to hear what i'm going to say although of course they have to go wee wee i typically will introduce a very tab probably possibly the most taboo subject of all and that is the undue influence that the israel lobby has on all of us both domestically and uh in our foreign policy uh for years now the democrats have been going after uh trump who i'm no fan of incidentally because of his alleged collusion with the russians well the israel lobby has orders of magnitude more influence on both uh trump and the democrats nancy polosi actually said that even if our capital crumbled into ruins she her top priority would still be aid and she says i don't even call it that our cooperation with israel can you imagine that's that's outright treason who called her on it no one no one but she said that everything i say up here is the absolute truth to my best ability to say it garret uh harden took a cheap shot at me recently and i responded by saying show me where i'm wrong just simply if you don't like what i say i'll be glad to discuss it with you show me where i'm wrong because the fact is each israeli gets 7 000 times per capita more foreign aid than the average inhabitant of the world that is a fact jim jensen uh mission hell and that's a tough clown show to follow um i'd like to comment on a project on north pacific that i go ahead and pause the time right i'm going to go ahead and remind the community that this is an opportunity to listen to the person who has the microphone for two minutes we may not always agree with each other often we don't but we will respectfully listen in here to them go right ahead thank you i found out in the sentinel earlier this week that there is a new development proposed on north pacific avenue and as a resident of the mission hill neighborhood we were not noticed on said development um it's very close to us it's a easy underhand throw for my house and the people that are maintain the hill who that the in the article said the hill would have to be modified they found out about in the paper as well so what i'd like to do is ask that when the planning department notices about the north pacific project that mission hill gets noticed as well thank you hello my name is uh charles vaskey in long times and includes residents during this week of climate action and as we see younger folks hold our leaders to account we also see inaction at the national level and though we must resist nationally we can and must act locally transportation is our largest source of emissions both santa cruz is climate action plan and the california air resources board agree we must reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled only systematic action can change this local government's plan where people can live and work and what modes of transport are allowed and only you our local government can change this every day we go without dense housing in santa cruz we force more of our workers to live further away from town every day we disallow dense carbon living we build more housing on green fields where nobody files sequel lawsuits we cannot claim to be environmentalists and also deny dense infill housing future councils or future generations look to the city council to ask why it has not been done already i urge you to please take speedy action on our land use not eventually not next year but this year thank you hi my name is will mullen i'm the uh city of santa cruz junior lifeguard lieutenant um so i know what it's like to represent the city um and to represent the community and to be a voice for not only the kids but um just a voice for the city and to represent it well for everybody that uh comes in and out of here um i didn't really prepare anything to say um but i know what i'm going to talk about and i feel like there's a narrative um with homeless people and homeless issues and it's become a very uh personal thing for me because there's a lot of people in this room that want to speak about things like that and they haven't ever been homeless i have been in situations like that and i feel like we've become very detached from what that all means and what we need to do to help those people because those people are people just like you just like me um because i was one of those people i'm not i'm not trying to get emotional about it but it is an emotional thing and i think everybody should look deep down inside their own hearts to realize that this is personal for all of us and the homeless people in our community are us it's not an us versus them kind of thing and it's become this oh well they're all they're this and they're that and they're that well even if they were which a lot of them aren't even um they're still us they're still you they're still me um homelessness can cause drug abuse which can cause mental health issues mental health can cause homelessness which causes drug abuse and that like three-headed beast the cookie can crumble anyway um just from there so those these people are just like you and i they're just oftentimes a lot less fortunate so i think with whatever decisions we make regarding that we need to keep that in our hearts and in our minds instead of making it uh about we're deciding for these other people that really have the same rights as we do and should have a voice just like we do so that's all i wanted to say i realized i am going to speak because it's not on the agenda tonight my name is Olivia Boyce-Obble and i'm here to talk to you about the recall petition and it's just come to my attention in the last hour and a half that there are actually people who are coming from San Jose being paid eight to nine hundred dollars to come table and then leave and they're trying to break apart our diverse community and i love the representation that we have right now i really appreciate each one of you and i want to say that piece that you have that piece of information and i really support my friends good evening my name is Ida Guerrero i am the program associate at Santa Cruz community ventures our work focuses on creating compassionate and equitable local economies that contribute to the well-being of our communities in 2018 Santa Cruz community ventures and UC Santa Cruz Blums Center explored local Latina mothers experiences with traditional and alternative financial services our study examined mothers experiences with financial providers and mapped the location of alternative and traditional financial services showing the disproportionate concentration of predatory lenders in watsonville california compared to santa cruz california some key findings included mothers used alternative financial services to pay for necessities deal with emergencies and to build credit alternative lenders were often perceived as easier to access than mainstream banks due to fewer requirements for legal documents and a social security number mothers without assist social security number reported difficulty opening a bank account or obtaining a bank loan even if they had an individual taxpayer identification number hidden confusing and unexpected fees were identified as significant obstacles to using mainstream banking services watsonville has over twice as many alternative alternative lenders as the city of Santa Cruz mothers have a working knowledge of budgeting and save and saving and share this knowledge with each other if you would like to like more learn more about our study visit our website at sccv online.org or please contact the sccv team member in addition Santa Cruz community ventures would like to invite you to a conversation about predatory lenders in the city of watsonville the conversations will take place on october 15th at the civic community plaza starting at nine am and invitations will be sent out soon thank you good evening mayor wadkins members of the council i know many of you from my work as a council member in capitol but tonight i'm here before you in my role as the senior associate of government relations for the silicon valley leadership group i'm here to invite you to join us for our 15th annual applied material silicon valley turkey truck which was founded and directed by our silicon valley leadership group foundation this year's goal is mission one million as you all know there's tremendous need in our region and our goal is to donate one million dollars from this year's race alone to five regional nonprofits that help families in need one of those five is the second harvest food bank of santa cruz county to put our ambitious goal in perspective for the last five years the silicon valley leadership group foundation has donated annually between nine hundred and five thousand and nine hundred and thirty six thousand dollars to these to these nonprofits this year we'd like to close the gap and make it a million one of the ways that we can accomplish this goal is with you through our sandhill property company mayors cump community challenge our mayor's cup rewards mayors council members and city managers who register for our race either in person or through our remote runners category so if you can't be there on things giving day you have other commitments you can still sign up as a remote runner take a jog around your block after your your meal should you celebrate that day and it still counts we've heard from numerous council members that we should also include points for outreach from you in your city so your points will be awarded for turkey talk trot related outreach posts and newsletters ease e-newsletters and social media if you would like to champion these efforts on behalf of your council i'm leaving behind point scoring sheets posters and flyers for use use here at city hall and together we believe that we can achieve this goal of one million dollars going to nonprofits to serve those most in need in our region i thank you all for your service to our community and we hope that you will support us in our turkey trot this year thank you thank you hi daria smosning before you get started i just want to go ahead and we are going to come towards the end i will go tell 735 with oral communications if we don't get to everybody i apologize if there's those that are still here at the end of the night we can revisit that potentially but um you're always welcome to get your information but we'll go to 735 this evening before we start our evening item go right ahead oh excellent segue i'm just here to ask the mayor and the future mayor to be to um we the public a city of over 62 000 people over 32 whatever thousand registered voters we have precious 60 minutes per month to address you directly when you're in session i would just implore you ask you i don't think it's a violation of a brown act uh or any other perhaps public um meeting acts to have people focus on city business when they go to public comment already we've run out of time and items like creeping fascism in america 911 conspiracy theories say that for alex jones but if we could just maybe use the powers accorded to you as a mayor to maybe quash on this discussion for truly city business so we can get through this long line of folks thank you next speaker i'll make a motion to dissolve this council for ineffective government i'll make a motion to appoint councilman glover mayor of santa cruz councilman glove councilman glover we know you're our leader and you'll be putting in good work councilman glover as our mayor won't be worse than what we have here now if there are things people don't like about santa cruz these are the humans on why those negative things are happening in santa cruz and that's why i say we should get rid of them somehow um councilman glover i hope you would be our mayor real soon councilman glover will do the research he'll find the funding and he'll make santa cruz a better place for everybody can you feel my yearning for good government councilman glover save us all duly elected officials councilman crone councilman glover included and there i want you to know that there are residents in the fluent areas of town that are appalled at the public shaming that you intend to follow through with tonight of these two individuals i think it's not quite my turn yet this is no no i'm going to go ahead and pause your comments you'll have an opportunity to adjust at the end of the evening in order to stop me from saying what so many people feel you can you can okay you could have waited for the buzzer but you wanted to stop no no you'll have an opportunity to address the at the end of the evening public comment as it relates to that item right now it's for oral communication i i'm sorry i'll go ahead and ask that those in the audience to please be quiet right now it's oral communications this is for items not on today's agenda and so this is an item that's on tonight's agenda which you'll have during public comment to address the council so if you don't have any other comments we'll go ahead and invite you up then okay we'll go ahead and have maybe the last two here as our final and go ahead and come forward for oral communications items not on today's agenda go right ahead no this is not well okay this is if you wanted to address the recall which is not on today's agenda you're welcome to do that the censure item is coming up next okay go right ahead good evening mayor and council members my name is bevelled a show i wanted to say i get it about if somebody speaks to you in a way that you find not okay and that you wouldn't be okay to meet with them in private because it might continue and because i've been in that situation among many people who claim to be feminist and who claim to be nonviolent communicators and all of that and they still do that but anyway so uh i'm glad that there's a process in place now but what's happened so i appreciate also mayor that you came around and listened to various groups on health and all and i didn't say this at the time but in a room of 14 people there were three others who did say it and i want it because i wanted to say more and i didn't want to call you out in public but right now um what's happening with the recall it's like a runaway train it has taken on a whole life of its own having nothing to do with the original uh complaint and um i think that we who feel victimized by something need to do better and be really powerful and just take it on and i think that if you were to come out and i don't know if you've been advised that it might be political suicide but to come out and say i renounce what's going on with this crazy recall i know you didn't make it but somebody people are making it i have been personally harassed unbelievably just trying to go to the grocery store and they're going around and telling big fat lies so they can get paid so i ask for you to publicly renounce it thank you okay i'm going to go ahead and close oral communications i'm going to go ahead and end oral communications oral communications has been concluded we're going to now move on to our evening item and uh councilmember glower i'm curious to see how many more people came for oral communications okay well we have an evening item at 7 30s to as um sort of my duty to ensure that we're moving our agenda forward and we allocate generally 30 minutes we've gone over a bit for oral communications i'm going to go ahead and close oral communications at this time so just seeing that there um people on the tv may not be able to see but there were three hands so i would move that we extend public comment for an additional six minutes there's a motion by councilmember second second by councilmember uh crone any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed no okay for how much longer six minutes we'll have six additional amendment a minute before you get started who are the additional two okay you'll have we'll have six minutes okay first of all i want to apologize to the mayor for last time that i spoke when i called your name um what happened was i was i was planning on saying three adjectives and they weren't nearly as bad and when i got cut off mid-sentence i got flustered and i tried to combine the three adjectives into one word i am sorry that word flew out of my mouth so i want to let you know that i want to speak about um your report on your your on homelessness regarding preventing homelessness and i'm confused because you didn't vote for rent control and rent control has caused a lot of people to go if you if we had voted for rent control there would be a lot less people being homeless also you've wanted to send out a letter to oppose a bill that prevents your carbine toad for unpaid tickets or lapse registration and that also was a way to end um some of to prevent homelessness i watched a person over 60 and his girlfriend who was waiting for hip replacement get stopped and for expired expired registration and i pled with um chief mills to please please do not tow their car and his response was maybe they can go to the county now they're homeless on the streets and if you can imagine what it's like to have bone on bone and you're outside um also let's talk about affordable housing affordable housing is not affordable for the working class so that will also would prevent homelessness so i could go on and on but i'm going to be cut off any second so i'd like to know the actual plans you have to prevent homelessness okay next speaker hello okay i guess that's the start for me hello everyone um my name is tyler and i wanted to just come up and really quickly paint a picture of 15 years from now so let's call that 2035 the united states has recently entered a recession because of a failing confidence in the american mobility to pay debt because america's economy is no longer able to run because everything has dropped out the bottom line the bottom line being the fact that there is no more environment actually to live upon downtown has been flooded because sea levels have risen so that way we can't even meet here in this city hall room anymore in fact we had to move up possibly to scott's valley uh there are refugees coming from the houses that used to be here there are refugees coming from north county fires fires in scott's valley fires in i don't know ben lohmond basically where are they going to go of course they're going to go in the city center where the resources are and then there are also droughts happening for small farmers out in watsonville and of course without any water to actually grow your crops you end up becoming something like a refugee in santa Cruz when that happens we have a new idea of what democracy is democracy doesn't look like people coming to the city council chambers to complain about i don't know personalities or something that doesn't really matter a whole lot democracy looks like people throwing bricks through windows and stomping down on cars because there's absolutely no answers in what looks like democracy today so i would encourage everyone to start thinking about what does it really look like to talk about solutions and not really just people and i would also encourage everyone to start to think of how we might be able to actually organize in different ways so that the massive amount of resources that are in santa Cruz can actually be utilized in the way that is possible one possible start would be to come to the democracy teaching tomorrow at five from five to nine in lauda nelson and another way is probably not to engage in something like a recall thank you hi my name is james ewing i live in the live oak near neighborhood um about the last five weeks i've really been making an observation of how much cleaner the city of santa cruz is and i know there's still a lot of messes to clean up but i know everyone in this room in front of me and behind me is for everything getting kind of cleaned up just what i want to say thank you right i think that's our last speaker so before we start this evening's um item i have a brief announcement next week on october 8th our meeting um for oral communications will take place at 6 p.m to end at 6 30 p.m in observance of yonkipper per council policy 14.6 so just a note um we're going to have maybe a few minutes of transition before maybe we'll take a two minute um transition time we i has been brought to my attention that we are at capacity in this room and um those who are here for oral communications who want to um take this transition moment to leave are free to do so at this time if you're interested in staying then we're going to need to clear some of the chambers and ask some of the folks to either step outside where we have our speakers on or to make their way over to the tony hill room which is also available and then we'll return back for our evening item as soon as we're able to get into um adherence with our fire marshals uh directive at this point so uh we'll go ahead and break for our transition for the next few minutes and uh make sure we're in complaints i'm going to go ahead and call uh our meeting back into session if i could get your attention councilmember crown sure i know that's what i say yeah exactly it's every once in a while i'm going to ask for your attention we're going to go ahead and call the meeting back into session we're going to go ahead if i can get your attention thank you i appreciate i appreciate your attention so it's my understanding that we're we're good to go at this at this point okay thank you for that um before we begin i just want to remind the community that this evening's item as with many items can often feel divisive and there's going to be areas and times where you don't necessarily agree with the person who's speaking i want to respectfully request that even if you disagree with somebody that you are able to listen to them and i will do my best to ensure decorum so that nobody feels intimidated to come forward and speak to our council regardless of what they have to say without threat and intimidation if i do see an individual um disrupting tonight's proceedings i will give you a verbal warning if i have to um ask you again i will ask you to leave it's my responsibility as the presiding officer to ensure that our process is fair is safe and we are able to adhere to the decorum and i will do the best that to the best of my ability this evening um i want to um go ahead and announce that item and then i'll go ahead and turn it over to council member mires to introduce it so we have two items on tonight's evening the first item was brought forward by two council members and it is in regards to the censure of council member chris crone and council member drew glover and i'll go ahead and turn it over to council member mires to introduce the item uh thank you mayor walkins i welcomed the opportunity to introduce this item uh council member mathews and i have brought this item with two components the first is a censure of council member chris crone and council member drew glover for violation of one of the most important policies governing our city that of a respectful workplace environment and secondly direction to staff to review and revise that policy in the light of this recent experience i will note that our direction concerning the policy review is specifically regarding council members and commissioners and this differs from the direction in item 18 later on in our agenda councils have censured council members twice in recent times and we believe this is an appropriate action we have brought before the council tonight we ask our colleagues to consider this censure carefully as it represents a statement that we as a body acknowledge that our colleagues have violated our respectful workplace conduct policy which is consistent with state law also importantly this censure acknowledges that five complainants were involved in filing 13 different complaints none of the complaints were found to be false and two were found to be in violation all of the complaints were women for background for our community the city's respectful workplace conduct policy was adopted in 2017 in accordance with state law accompanying it is an administrative procedure order that establishes behavioral and workplace standards to support a culture of collaboration inclusion and productivity within the city these standards apply to all city council members as well on january 16 2019 as part of the league of california city's conference in sacramento for new council members myself vice mayor Cummings and council member Glover all attended a training in work respectful workplace policy specifically in regards to assembly bill 20 20 53 that training was delivered by a set of attorneys with expertise in both harassment and work respectful workplace policy at the same conference i spoke with council member Glover over dinner about his use of derogatory remarks to members of the council i explained at that evening with him my discomfort in beginning our professional relationship with such a negative language the city's respectful workplace policy provides definitions responsibilities and examples of disrespectful behavior including repeated use of derogatory remarks or insults berating insulting and being disruptive the policy importantly states that all persons are required to behave respectfully and to refrain from disrespectful behaviors and most importantly to not condone or ignore disrespectful conduct to employees volunteers council members commissioners customers contractors and visitors to our city okay i'm going to go ahead what our vote will say tonight to our community will set a standard on how we view treatment of our colleagues our staff community members business owners and government partners i hope our entire council will take the step tonight that recognizes these violations are serious and merit formal censure indeed the city manager was very clear that we as the city council are the only body that can formally say no to this behavior council member Crohn's and Glover's behavior was duly investigated each of them was found to have clearly violated the policy and none of the 13 complaints were found to be false no one who works at or with the city of santa cruz should be worried about interacting with a council member i will tell my colleagues tonight that this body is very damaged at this point in the eyes of our community i've had many community members parents families and individuals tell me that they will not come to a city council meeting for fear of how they will be treated our democracy is at risk in this very chamber when our community our staff parents families and our business and government partners do not feel safe engaging in our democratic process i believe strongly that this item deserves an up or down vote that this item deserves public comment and we have had we have many members of the public here to speak on this island item if there are any efforts to table the item or postpone it not only would that be improper misuse or misuse of procedure but would be a cynical effort to squash debate and silence women in our community minority that's all i've got to say to open the item uh council member matthews if you'd like to add any comments i'd like to add just a few words and i'm i'm really speaking from the heart tonight i'm going to go ahead oh really i'm going to go ahead and wait just a moment council member matthews if you could just for a second i again want to readjust remind the community that we will have an opportunity to hear from you this is an opportunity for the two council members to bring this item forward and they can present their item i am going to immediately open up public comment after that so we'll hear from you and then we'll go ahead and return back for action okay so we will hear and we'll have an opportunity to hear and we'll listen to you respectfully and we'll ask that you listen to others respectfully again if i see somebody disrupting the proceedings i will ask you to stop and i will give you a warning and if it continues to happen i will ask you to leave everybody has an opportunity to speak including the council members who are i'm sharing their item at this time go right ahead thank you i wanted to start by saying that many people in the community people here tonight have uh made a direct correlation between this item on our agenda and the recall process and i want to say for me personally these are absolutely different things i have to say that's discouraging i'm going to go on for me they are two different things i would say i i look out i know a lot of you out there and i have worked with a lot of you on a lot of different issues and i respect you and i treasure the fact that i have been able to work with so many people on so many issues over the year and do good things for our community tonight what we're dealing with is a separate matter to me this represents completion enclosure of the city's process of accepting investigating reporting on and responding to violations of city policy in this case there were multiple complaints filed by several women alleging violation of the city's respectful workplace policy as is appropriate these complaints were investigated in this case by an independent third party and two of the complaints were upheld if these complaints had been upheld against the city employee there would have been an appropriate level of recourse internally from a reprimand to firing depending on the severity and the circumstances but in this case the complaints were not against staff they were against council in this case because the complaints were upheld against elected council members the remedy lies with us in the hands of the council as has been mentioned this is not the first time the council has censured one of its members it's happened at least twice to my knowledge for different reasons i personally think it's important that we lead by example in our conduct towards one another and towards our staff a workplace where harassment disrespect and bullying take place cannot function at its full potential in fact this very point was made in the most recent issue of western city this is the monthly magazine of the league of california cities the featured article is entitled it starts with civility elected officials role in attracting and retaining employees and it goes on to talk about the importance of elected's behavior in gaining the confidence of the public that's why we have this policy and that's why the state law as well has codified the principles of a respectful workplace now i would like to respond in these comments the the complaints that have been filed that we're dealing with tonight were all filed by women in this case that was the pattern but a respectful workforce policy is important across the board when you think about it if we observe bullying disrespectful behavior or similar action against someone on the basis of race sexual orientation national origin citizenship status we immediately think that's not right we would readily agree that such behavior should be reported investigated and have consequences i would say that's the case regardless of any individual characteristics it's a good general principle to have to behave in a respectful manner some people have maintained in the course of this conversation that civility is a false ideal that passionately fighting for a cause trump's civility or a respectful interaction that may be true in some cases but here we share a common workplace and we live together in a community we run into each other in the course of daily life at the grocery store walking along a west cliff drive at our kids soccer games i believe it's important to maintain the social connection that keeps our community together in the face of the vitriolic example set at the national level these are my reasons for cosigning and supporting the measure before us in my mind this brings to closure a very unhappy period in our council's relations i fervently hope and i will work to forge respectful productive relations between council and staff and help restore the public's confidence in our ability to do our job the time now is to move forward thank you i'd like to make a motion to table this so that we can move on i didn't yeah i had a feeling that i'd like to make that motion though i didn't um acknowledge you so as the president like to make an appeal then i'm gonna go ahead uh you i'm gonna go ahead and i i'm sorry but i consulted with the city attorney and i can make an appeal to that i will go ahead and ask for your advice on this um my understanding is it takes the presiding officer to acknowledge a council member to speak if the presiding officer does not acknowledge that person then they can make an appeal to the council to override the presiding officer at that time then we can go ahead and take a motion or potentially hear what the motion before us will be but it takes the presiding officer to rule on a point of order and there was not a violation of rules nor did i acknowledge council member brown on this item i'll quote directly from the rule the presiding officer shall preserve strict order and decorum at all meetings of the council announce the council's decision on all subjects and decide all questions of order in accordance with the procedural rules for motions and debate and announce the council's vote on all actions or direct city administrator to do so if there is an appeal to a decision of the presiding officer the council as a whole shall decide the question by majority vote any council member with the exception of the presiding officer may move to appeal a decision of the presiding officer if the appeal motion is seconded by another council member the council shall vote on the appeal okay so my my i will go ahead and respond as the presiding officer i did not acknowledge council member brown um and i feel that the community has been wanting to address us on this item and it's my interest to hear from the community and have a public comment on this item and to not use the parliamentary process to just delay that potential discussion and ability of the community to speak to us on this item my i'm going to go ahead and ask that my colleagues respect me you can appeal my decision if you do do so choose you're welcome to do that but i have the opportunity to rule on this and to explain my logic on this so i respectfully ask that you adhere to the processes in that way i will go ahead and not move forward with acknowledging council member brown she is welcome to appeal i would like to hear public comment on this item and if there is interest in this majority of council and overriding my decision in not allowing the community to speak to us or to have us hear this item then that's the majority's decision so that's my ruling i move to appeal second okay there's a motion to appeal the ruling that i just made on the point of order all those in favor please say aye opposed no so that passes with council member crone lever um vice mayor Cummings and council member brown okay so council member brown that was an appeal of the of the of the of the mayor's decision not to recognize the council member so there has been a motion made i presume the motion would be motion to table second okay all those in favor please say aye opposed no okay that passes with council member crone lever brown all right go ahead all right i'm going to go ahead and ask everybody to okay if we could all just why don't we all just take a moment please thank you we still have another item on tonight's agenda that where we will be moving forward with at this time um this is the second item on tonight's agenda it's brought forward to us by the staff i'm going to go ahead and ask those who are not interested in staying for the second item to feel free to exit the chambers those that are interested in staying in the chambers tonight for the second item you're welcome to stay i will ask that you adhere to our rules of decorum good job i'm going to go ahead and ask that you adhere to the rules of decorum and not shout out miss hawkman please we will begin the second item and i will announce the title of the item when the when the transition has taken place okay so the second on the second item on tonight's agenda is the city council's city council investigation recommendation implementation and this is brought forward by city manager martin burnall and um hr director at lisa murphy who will be presenting on the item the order of this will go that will have a presentation from staff will have questions from the council will open it up to public comment and will return back for action and deliberation so go ahead and hand it over to staff at this time thank you mayor so i was going to do a brief introduction and then turn it over to our human resource director lisa murphy to go over the actual recommendations i simply wanted to do a brief presentation focused really on moving forward i ask that you please you know not take what i'm presenting as accusatory or blaming it anyway my intent is to present what we can all do to improve our ability to govern and that'll be my focus so i mean clearly the the report the investigative report clearly shows the need to improve our environment amongst council members and between council members and staff and you know it has had an impact there's no doubt that it that it has the environment on staff morale in particular which is a concern to me and our ability to attract and retain employees and so it's important that we sort of move forward as i mentioned you know the HR director represents some recommendations regarding that to improve our circumstances and situation here but again i'd like to focus on how we can govern effectively and there are you know attributes of exceptional city councils that we can all follow and we can do but we can all do better in this regard and i just wanted to just focus a little bit on those because i think that would be helpful again if we focus on how we can improve ourselves to govern more effectively so there and i'm going by you know some of the the league of california cities and other organizations that put together these attributes that i think are important i think for all of us to recognize and we do well in some of these areas and not so on some of these areas and i'll go over them really quickly and these are the six and i'm just going to go through each one individually so the first is teamwork and really there it's for each other to really work together as a team and to further a common purpose and that really is not just council amongst each other but also staff and the council and the community to extend possible and working in a coordinating collaborative manner is is more effective than doing the opposite in general and for that you need a high degree of respect trust and openness that's the way you can really do that and and if you don't have that then you're not going to be able to have teamwork and and and be able to work collaboratively in particular but it also takes having some obvious some tolerance you know we have to have about we have to value diversity differences of styles different perspectives and for that you have to have you have to be respectful but also we have to think about and act strategically really as far as serving the city's mission and goals and thinking about the big picture because that's why we're here to really govern and to be strategic and to try to achieve goals in mission in the mission of our city so teamwork is just really critical really to any functioning organization and to be able to be productive the other is having clear roles and responsibilities and and there are different roles that we each have you know as policymakers you have a role to represent the values the beliefs and the priorities of the community and I know you know that while serving in the community's best interest but that means listening and having trade-offs you set the policy and the vision for the city and it's best to avoid micromanagement because the the city manager's responsibilities to do the day-to-day operations and that's really critical to the function of our local government and to hold me accountable quite frankly so and also it's important to recognize the subject matter expertise of staff and to utilize their knowledge and experience to guide and inform our decision making it's it's part of the decision-making process you don't always have to go with it that's okay but I think it's important to at least recognize it and support it and recognize that they're here to help you and help the community and to be professional in that regard to honor the relationship with staff and each other again that's critically important to be able to have good working relationships between each other and with the staff and yourselves individually and as a group and to really respect each other with with dignity and respect and act in a civility and a high level of professional decorum is important in order to be able to do that and to listen and to really listen and to allow people to to express their opinions and to contemplate and analyze and before jumping ahead and making decisions or judgments that's that's really critical and I think you know council members it's important you know that you build trust by not playing the gotcha game and to strive to not have secrets or surprises you know at our meetings here we want to be transparent we want the idea here is to be able to make good decisions by working together and having that trust not by trying to scheme or somehow figure out a way to sort of make each other look bad or to make a point for some alternative reason that's just not it's just not good overall obviously that doesn't help to build trust right moving forward and again here too I mentioned this before but respecting different styles and perspectives is this really critical important and to be open to new ideas again that means again listening effective meetings I know this is something that you were probably not very well known for and it's hard in the public sector to do this to have effective meetings in this kind of environment in this kind of form it's just just basically it's it's kind of it's just hard in a setting like this when you have to do everything in public but it is important nonetheless to adhere to meeting protocols and processes and we're all working to do that and to plan and to organize agendas and to develop you know more focused meetings to the extent that we can because then it allows us to really focus on the business of the community and to allocate your time more appropriately for the things that you really have to prioritize which is our goals and responsibilities and priorities and of course that that has to be balanced with honoring public participation and engagement that's that's important too and we work to do that all time obviously being prepared in advance and focusing on really our goals and objectives is super critical to have an effective meetings and be able to feel like you've accomplished made a accomplishment center moving forward and again demonstrating respect and civility with each other and stuff is also important within in the in the meeting setting this was well and holding each other accountable you know we need to operate and open ethically and and work to engage the community and to really think about short-term and long-term strategic directions and goals again that's again it's it's it's a common theme here in all of these that being strategic and thinking about our goals and objective is important and holding you know each other and yourselves accountable for your own behavior and the behavior and effectiveness of the whole entire council is important and adhering to operating protocols and codes of conducts and establishing clear priorities and goals and like i mentioned before holding the city manager accountable for results and then finally it's always good to really try to continue to improve ourselves and that means staying informed when key issues and there's a variety of ways to do that obviously and the resources that are available to you obviously speaking and engaging with the community and gaining insights and knowledge on all aspects of governing because it's ever changing and not everything is black and white and there's always more to story whenever you talk to somebody so doing what you can to improve and to learn and to engage is incredibly important and listening to listen as many times more important than learning to give a speech i think a lot of times we forget that and particularly in these public settings because there's sometimes a desire to sort of to speak and say what you want but it's it's probably more important to actually listen than it is to speak so those are just the six i think things that are i think recommended is sort of traits when you look at what are the traits and attributes of an effective city council they do these things well they consider these things well and i just wanted to point that out because i think it's important for all of us to recognize that in the community as well and with that i am pass it over to our human resources director lisa murphy to go over the specific recommendations that the investigator made good evening mayor council lisa murphy human resources director tonight i'm going to go over the city council investigation recommendations and implementation just a brief background as you all aware investigation was conducted by an independent investigator into the violations of city policies by members of the city council the investigation was concluded in July the investigator made a series of recommendations i myself have made several recommendations and this report requests that the council approved those recommendations these are all also listed on your um in your agenda the first recommendation and what i plan to do is go through each one and then what we can do is maybe come back to them and and address them individually if you want to make any alterations or clarifications the first one is appoint a subcommittee of two council members to work with staff to develop a code of ethics and conduct policy for elected and appointed officials this isn't unusual this is actually very common throughout many of the icma recognized cities that the councils do adopt these types of policies and i think it would be best if we had the two council members participate and staff can help support create that i've also listed in your staff report timelines of which to be able to prepare these items and i believe in this particular one i said we could do it within the next two months the second recommendation uh was that all council members agree to attend a mediation conducted by qualified conflict resolution professional we have several two proposals that have come to us isn't by all means the the ones we have to go with but what i'm looking for you tonight to do is to agree to pursue this avenue look into the training and participate in a mediation voluntarily and utilize one of the two consultants that have proposed on this project the third recommendation that all new council members attend a live training session of the sexual harassment discrimination and workplace conduct policies within the first 60 days of taking office and attend every two years thereafter as required by the state of california although this may seem not not new what is new to this is the first 60 days right now the city offers those trainings throughout the year you are required at some point during the year to take that training and you can also take it online which sometimes may not be the most effective so with this requirement from the first 60 days and you would be able to have that attended by january the league of california cities offers it when you're first elected and also the city of santa cruz offers that training live in january as well recommendation number four that staff will review and revise if necessary administrative procedure order section two a discrimination harassment retaliation policy implementation complaint procedure and administrative procedure order section two one b respectful workplace conduct policy these are administrative policies that are developed by the administration with the work of our equal employment opportunity commission helped us as well on the workplace conduct and what i'm proposing is to utilize the eeoc again as well as staff who would like to of the city who would like to participate we have definitely learned going through this process that we can improve upon this process there are opportunities that we can be more successful when we hopefully never have to proceed down this path again so i have also put down the recommendation to bring this back to the council hopefully sometime uh in early january i think we'll be able to meet the with the eeoc during that timeline as well because they also participate in those policies depending on that outcome then we would bring back to you for recommendation number five which is the council review and revise if necessary council policy 25.2 discrimination harassment retaliation and respectful workplace conduct policy based on the outcome of the previous recommendation that's because those two policies actually this policy the council policy is sort of the umbrella policy of those two that you do have direct approval over so what i'd like to have is that the staff and employees work on the the two policies revisions if necessary and then we'll bring it back to you and have those two policies mirror each other and finally the last recommendation was number six which is to direct the staff to prepare a formal on-boarding process for new city council members that incorporates these policies uh within again the first couple months of your of individuals becoming elected and coming on board there's a lot to learn there's a lot to know and if we have a more formalized policy that would delineate important council policies your handbooks our apos important projects the budget any number thing whether in labor negotiations or whatever it might be in land use issues that might be pressing before you that would be part of the on-boarding process that would take place with the intention within the first 60 to 90 days of being elected with that that concludes the the six recommendations and so i would like to turn it back over to you to discuss each one and hear what you have to say and have any advice on two updates and so on so forth so this would generally be the time if there's any council members who want to ask questions of staff i think this is going to require a number of kind of conversations and discussions if it's okay with my colleagues i would just prefer that we go ahead and open it up to public comment then we can return back for questions action deliberation okay so we'll go ahead and open it up to public comment i had two requests for groups that want to speak to address the council on this item um the first is a city employee who is interested in speaking on behalf of herself and other city employees who didn't feel comfortable coming forward i'll go ahead and invite up that city employee now and you'll have up to four minutes good evening mayor walken city council members i'm susie ohara assistant to the city manager i stand this evening before you with my family by my side and my community behind me to share that i am city employee number four and i speak for women here at the city too afraid to speak for themselves a few members of our city and community are here to stand in solidarity with us victims i ask others in chamber chambers who would like to join them to feel to please feel free to raise your hands i'm honored and humbled to have you all here with me i am city employee number four but i am not a faceless number i'm a mother of three young daughters a wife to my husband a devoted public servant servant who has withstood months of abuse and abuse that continues through council members glevers persistent victim blaming and zero recognition of the harm that he has caused i share these experiences to be an example of courage for those too afraid to report abuse for victim blaming keeps from people from speaking out and fear keeps people from telling their stories i'm here to tell my story in spite of that fear because you need to hear me and you need to understand the impact this experience has had on me is surely not news to any of you it certainly was captured by the investigative report as i cried through most of my testimony in fact i've cried to each and every one of you except for council members glever and crone over the last several months right here at city hall no one should feel this way at work even though the investigator couldn't prove my claims to violate a city policy he proved those events happened months of interrogation from the dais happened using my image to depict the violent ways city employees interface with ross camp happened sending interns to stand physically over me alongside activists as they slung hateful speech to me happened recording me while mimicking those same activists abuse of questions at camp ross happened all these things happened and they hurt me they hurt my family this process has been devastating and many things need to change to protect city employees from ever having to experience this kind of trauma in the future first and foremost the council members must stop this abuse of conduct towards staff their behavior has put a stain on our city and it hurts its employees the respectful workplace conduct policy must be rewritten rewritten to standardize the investigation investigation process and protect complaints to the maximum extent possible the policy should recognize victim blaming as a form of abusive conduct council member glever calling me and council member mires racist or unconsciously biased and suggesting that we are responsible for his behavior by virtue of us not speaking to him first is abusive ironically it should be noted that i've spoken to council member glever no less than four times about his conduct four times and his behavior did not stop further if the policy continues to include council members it should define disrespectful behavior from the dais quietly snapping improval or laughing smirking or nodding one's head while a member of the public parade staff is demoralizing abusive and wrong we see you even when the camera doesn't and it hurts it hurts us and lastly council members brown and comings your decision tonight is no less than heartbreaking for me you have told me that my voice does not matter you have told me that i do not matter these processes must incorporate a some element of restorative justice this victims must be given an opportunity to share their experience with their abuser and those that can hold them accountable you just took that away from me and what i can tell you is that while i may be one woman one mother one trusted city colleague i represent many more city staff and community members that have been impacted by this abusive conduct abusive conduct that has shaken the city to its core and left us completely demoralized one sentence you must take that into consideration during your deliberations tonight thank you susie i got to stop you i i thank you very much we'll have you go next we'll have you go next after we have one more presentation and that is um for former and current members of cpaw hi i'm lea the kramer vice chair for cpwa w sorry it's a little bit of setting so he's sorry um good evening council members i'm speaking on behalf of current and former commissioners for the city of santa cruz commission for the prevention of violence against women or cpwa to affirm our commitment to the women complainants who have come forward with regard to the abusive and disrespectful conduct of council members crone and lover as a commission we start by believing start by believing those who have the courage to come forward and share their stories of harassment and abuse today we are here in particular supportive susie ohara who's served as a staff coordinator for cpwa during then commissioner glove lovers tenure we believe that the entire commission and miss ohara witnessed and experienced disrespectful conduct by then commissioner glover as defined by the city's current administrative procedure order which applies to employees volunteers council members commissioners customers contractors and visitors of the city of santa cruz two commissioners who served during council member gloveers tenure on cpwa were asked to participate in this investigation as witnesses to this conduct both provided testimony that illustrated this pattern of disrespectful conduct by then commissioner glover we believe that this has been a pattern of disrespectful behavior from the cpwa to now on city council and we urge the city council to take action tonight to put an end to what miss ohara city staff council members and others are experiencing in their workplace additionally the commission will be meeting tomorrow night and our hope is to be able to provide resources recommendations and guidelines to the council that will help you as you craft as you craft your plan to address disrespectful conduct harassment and ethics in the workplace we hope to be able to share our recommendations with council shortly so that we can prevent this from happening to others in the future thank you for your time go ahead and now open it up to public comment we'll go ahead and have folks who want to address the council on this item please line up to my left and you'll have up to two minutes my name is a land of soosh first i want to acknowledge each council member here for your dedication to public service and for the sacrifice so that they service and tales in your personal lives each one of you comes into this service with your own priorities and passionate commitment to the people you represent and given the complexity of the issues you are grappling with it's not surprising that conflict may arise and we should be thankful for your willingness to work through this conflict the rose report details for each council members crown and grover one allegation that was substantiated while the others were unsubstantiated and the key recommendations are for council members to avoid making public accusation of misconduct against one another and city staff without first addressing it in private and attempting conflict resolution other recommendation is for all members of the city council and selected staff members to attend and participate in professional mediation in view of these positive recommendations the censure is contrary to the spirit of improvement in city governance promoted in the report by including the censure complaints that were not substantiated it violates our justice principle of being innocent and proven guilty and by voting on such a censure prior to implementing the report recommendations the censures puts emphasis on punishment rather than remediation the censure conflicts with the recommendation of the report and would achieve an effect opposite your time is up your time is up thank you i had some prepared remarks but events that occurred here today make me want to preface them i read from the administrative procedure order section two number one b of the respectful workplace document examples of disrespecting behavior number two intentionally ignoring someone we just saw the mayor intentionally ignore council member brown's attempt to follow with robert's rules of order i would like everybody to understand that in section five under records it says that there are three ways that things can be resolved substantiated unsubstantiated or not withdrawn not guilty as hell or throw it out those are the three that are in the book i'm glad we have a book to follow disrespectful conduct examples a single act this is in the book quote a single act shall not constitute disrespectful conduct unless it is especially severe or egregious like a laugh that isn't there the responsibilities of council members to use conflict management skills to effectively manage disagreements the mayor has totally failed on this one address if possible an appropriate behavior directly with a person engaging such conduct in professional and non-confrontatory way like council member meyer did or like the mayor's perception speech next speaker good evening i'm matt o'hara finishing for susie o'hara just a little bit you must take that into consideration during your deliberations tonight and try to rebuild this organization for the sake of the future of this city thank you this is an abridged statement i'm submitting my full statement to the council now i'll take just a few seconds to speak as matt o'hara and when susie said this has had a big impact on her family it certainly has my sense is that many people in the audience who are laughing when council member meyers mentioned that many of the claims were not found to be false and in fact they're unsubstantiated laughed and they consider this sort of theater but what i'll say is that i watched this report happen in real time and what my wife had to go through wasn't right and it shouldn't be experienced by other city employees and i hope that we can move beyond this and you can all work to to get us there thank you good evening good evening same council and good evening everyone my name is aisle banjo i am the former student body president at the university of california santa cruz serving and representing about over 18 000 students also one third of the population of santa cruz and i'd like to take this moment here to talk about the reflection and the representation that both council members crone and glever represent as the student body president as a former president they are here to represent our voices and to fight for our causes and to really be supportive so i want to say thank you to both of you for your service and for everything that you've committed to this to this town you know as president i had to fight throughout my sophomore year of my university i've had to fight to raise about half a million dollars for homeless students and it's unfortunate that the students on campus are sometimes having to do the jobs of city council by fighting for homeless students because certain meetings and agendas are derailed by unsubstantiated claims and it's unfortunate to see sometimes how local government can sometimes get the toxicity that the national government currently has and it's obstruction that we're looking at right now so i would ask that you all city council members reflect the beliefs and the values as we just saw presented here today by all the people here please raise your hand if you are in support for councilman guver and chris koh thank you that sounds like a majority to me which is a democracy so please respect the values and the voices of all of us and the student body which is again one-third of the population this is really unfortunate and i will be here to make more remarks as we go forward but the only way to establish a community to be someplace in a place where people feel like they belong people like me who is a the first black male student body president at ucsc even though is santa cruz is less than one percent black is by being able to have these voices reflected so i think that darrell darling um the rose here uh for me means hope uh i it's a matter of public record that i was one of the interviewees one of the participants in the first uh investigation or discovery of whether or not the community would be able to come together after the election and after the defeat of the rent control ballot measure and i identified as was reported in the report that uh yes i had hope the final conclusion was that the council's dysfunctional and that the community is sufficiently divided that there is very little trust my statement was i concurred that it's iffy at best but i'm here to say that uh the path that you are on um i agree with our city manager uh i agree with the uh with the people who have said reconcile listen to each other what you want what you want in your heart to happen for our city is what you will be able to do and we will do it with you this community here wow i mean i have another 10 seconds this community elected you seven people to get along enough that you can decide about different positions on various issues but you seven live here because thank you we elected you your time is up thank you to make a difference for us thank you very much i just finished one sentence oh yeah thank you we have the next speaker we'll have up to two minutes hello my name is vicki winters first of all i'd like to extend my really my heart felt sympathy to you susie i was there at ross camp uh during the when you were there what you were doing the working conditions you had to endure that was impossible and it was all put on you and i hold the city manager responsible for that no one should have had to shoulder that alone if you can please address the council um and then i just want to say it's also unfortunate that this whole issue was susie had to occur in a very contentious political environment the threat of recall was deployed even before the first city council meeting to influence a vote on just cause eviction that came out then mayor watkins made her accusations at the february 12th council meeting which made any collegial relations between the council virtually impossible so i think that you should shoulder some responsibility for the dysfunction here and then i'd like to address the laugh that no one else heard except one person other people heard a snort or a grunt other people heard nothing here on this dais uh that was the only accusation against council member crone that was substantiated i've listened to the tape multiple times i've extracted the audio and like looked at the levels and everything there's a cough clearly heard from chris's mic seconds before the city employee says in my professional opinion and then there's nothing um he may have cleared his throat he may have made some other sound we heard here where there was a very loud sound during someone's public testimony that was inadvertent if we were all suspicious of each other and conspiratorial we could have thought oh he did that deliberately to disrupt but if you just if you have the faith and good faith to go to someone and ask seemed like you laughed at me i think she could have reconsidered that next speaker mayor Watkins and city council civility is a tool for marginalizing for silencing marginalized voices historically it's been used to justify the genocide and enslavement of indigenous black and other non-white people imposing civility makes it impossible to respect the diversity of styles and perspectives of others that were outlined tonight i recommend a training for city employees including city council members that addresses the impact of institutional racism santa cruz county such as what santa cruz county community coalition for overcoming racism offers attempts at keeping things civil so far has prolonged this process and worsened the conditions of this city the issues at hand require passionate discourse and challenging of the status quo if there's going to be any effective change this is how progress is made and the proof is in our history thank you i am paula leroy it seems a little strange that somebody could bring accusations publicly where the person is not able to talk about them themselves you know i mean this sort of a one-way thing and so i think that's something unfortunate what i want to say is i see a lot of rulemaking in the recommendations but i didn't see as much mediation although you talked about that in the beginning and i'd like to see because lots that i heard tonight especially from the two people that spoke about censure from them i heard derogatory remarks berating i've seen a lot of bullying i am worried about the working of this body i see democracy at risk when people that we have elected are being shut down and disenfranchising an election i feel there could be leading by example i don't see a lot of kindness or inclusion from the two leaders it is an unhappy period and i wonder really who all is responsible i am not diminishing any you know investigation or issues i mean and there's lots of ways those things happen in workplaces that leadership especially i think could help those people who have different backgrounds styles ideas work together work things outcome to some kind of healing and i really think that's what leadership is supposed to be doing um and like i think if there's mediation and i hope there will be that everybody holds themselves accountable am i bullying am i not hearing other councilman am i working as a team member am i making an agenda with all the other team members or i'm i just deciding the agenda on my myself and so it has been an unhappy period i hope the recommendations will be followed i hope the wonderful thing that you were talking about goes through and i have um worked with chris and drew for many years known in many years they are amazing people and we need them we need them we need you all thank you thank you i want to address you this evening as a professional mediator i've been doing that for 25 years what i've seen often happens is there's what's called a spiral of conflict and someone perceives a hostile intent they have a perception of that and then they do defensive counter attack it's really important for this council and all of the staff to have training and conflict resolution and communication skills not just mediation because you want to know how to say to somebody wow did you just roll your eyes at me and they can say no i was thinking about oh my gosh i didn't feed the parking meter you never know what it's going to be but when you actually check in with somebody something totally different than what you're making an assumption about is happening usually and if it isn't great to call somebody on their behavior and i really encourage you to do work on race class gender and power issues i've been in that work for over 15 years and there are these subtle things that we perceive by somebody that don't have anything to do with their race their class their gender or their power or they may and they may need to be called on it they may need to be aware of it so not just doing mediation it's great that you're going to you know have those conversations but you've got an incredible resource here here the conflict resolution center of santa cruz county has been teaching these skills on active listening how do you listen to somebody in a conscious and present state how do you not you know make a comment because you don't agree with them you know it's disrespectful when someone is speaking not to listen to them and we don't know how to listen we're not taught how to do that we're taught how to ride a bicycle maybe balance our checkbook but not how to actively listen and take away everything that's distracting you and say what's really going on for you here in this moment you know and we have people who are overworked we have stress we have all kinds of things so i really urge you to make another recommendation which is for conflict resolution communication skills and for race class gender and power training so that you can see thank you this is pretty emotional for me um as you all know i'm a long time woman 81 years old i'm also a long time 40 years active feminist i was the editor of matrix magazine i'm a lesbian i get as angry as the next person certainly as upset as susie and as donna i trust your feelings but i know as a woman an angry woman a still angry woman about the way women are still treated after all these years ever since susan b anthony was out there and it's still not somebody is being abused right now somebody is being killed right now a woman why we can't carry that over and understand that that is also true of people who have suffered race discrimination for all these years you know this is really we don't ride the me too thing and forget about black lives matter in this town this is a really important thing um i've known drew and chris for many many years personally i don't know drew as well i've known chris well i've been in so many meetings with chris so many places they are such good people we need them we to achieve democracy to balance you know the people who are representing i'm afraid it's true cindya and martin and donna it's you represent the people who are established the money and interest in this time i know that's not your whole agenda but you're supported by them we are not we have to have we finally have a voice on this council and i am so glad we do and i don't want to lose it hello council my name is satio ryan i don't want to blame or judge anyone i see all of you here in a very difficult position it's hard personal interactions are hard conflict is hard i think when things fall apart it's a wonderful opportunity um what i see in my own personal life is whatever shows up on my path is my path so what i hope for you and what i've been what's been coming to me is i went to the library the other day and i took some cds of marshall rozenberg nvc nonviolent communication and he was talking about his mediation work with with gangs and with warring tribes in northern nigeria and he helped them it took a while but he helped them find a way to understand and find empathy for each other and i my feeling is if that's possible in a situation that difficult it should be possible here too and i i think that you know i get triggered in my own life we all get triggered we get into our own pain i see a pain people feeling hurt and upset and i get that happened in my own life too but unless we're willing to look at ourselves everyone i don't exclude anyone here all of us the whole community whatever you do with mediation i hope you will consider nonviolent communication mediation if there's room to bring in another uh someone that wants to help i hope you will consider that and that whatever you do to heal yourselves will heal the community as well you will give us all benefit and it's a gift look at this as a gift not as a problem i hope you will thank you good evening my name is shebra calentari johnson and i care deeply about this community that's been my home for over 25 years and in particular because my family escaped literally escaped an oppressive war torn country to come to a country and a community where there is respect and there is civility and i understand the word civility differently than what was brought up earlier tonight and i have to say that i am heartbroken and disappointed but what i've experienced tonight um we are more than this we are not about divisiveness we are not about explicit and implicit disrespect we as a community aren't this this isn't who we are we are a cohesive community that can address very complex issues what i've dedicated my professional life to is bringing in resources some of the work i do is a grant writer i bring in resources for homelessness to address disproportionate minority confinement structural racism substance use this is what i've dedicated my life to and what we have seen and experienced tonight what i have is keeping us from addressing these very complex issues that need to be addressed and i will say coming up here i've spoken in front of council board of supervisors many times but i'm shaking because this doesn't feel safe it doesn't feel like someone with my perspective and point of view can come up here and speak and as a woman of color that feels horrible so i want to ask all of you at council and all of the community members behind me and anyone else who's watching to please help us shift this culture of divisiveness and disrespect to one of cohesion and respect thank you good evening council members i'm i'm really encouraged that you're about to embark on a mediation and i wish you well in that and i'm hopeful that that that will become just part of the culture of working for the city of santa cruz i want safe workplace emotionally safe workplace for susie and for for everybody who works for the city and you've got a leader who exemplifies that martin bernard and i have differed over whether to put a parking garage in downtown santa cruz but i cannot imagine him ever saying my ideas are idiotic or irresponsible i had heard i have heard that from from a council member um what i think the city struggles with is what to do to make this workplace safe and i think that that punishment paradigm where you know here's the here's the code right and you know you get training in the code and then you if you violate it you know somebody complains it and somebody investigates and then you punish you know we know it doesn't work with our children i have two kids fighting with each other our our kids and and we want to stop the behavior so we punish one of them it may force it underground but they're still going to be at each other's throats you know so let's move on beyond the punishment paradigm let's all see what kind of responsibility we can take for making this a better community thank you hello my name is buyers the first thing you're not supposed to do is apologize and i actually want to apologize first mainly to council member mires council member matthews and to mayor watkins because i wish i was speaking on behalf i wish i was speaking to my friends and i feel like we're not friends and that that sucks because i feel like there's more openness when we're speaking to our friends drew and chris are definitely friends but they didn't even start out that way it was totally random how i even got involved with these two but they are amazing people and the word respect has been thrown around a lot and i thought that i would just take whatever time i have left to define oxford dictionary respect a feeling of deep adoration for someone or something elicited by their abilities qualities or achievements that seems really intense so the second one is do regard for the feelings wishes rights or traditions of others do regard that to me seems key and it seems like it's appropriate so what does do regard being it's in the making decisions and in its day-to-day activities a body subject to the duty must consciously consider the need to do the things set out in the general quality general equality duty eliminate discrimination advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations i'm basically basically just going to stress on the foster good relations aspect i really hope that there could be an opportunity to foster good relations in the do regard in that definition of respect i really want that to be expressed in its fullest thank you i don't know um that whoever that lady is who put this recommendation stuff up i agree with all that stuff she was saying that's very good idea it's very good working stuff she want to be on the board um these two gentlemen here i have had contact with them i could read people i could see i know what's in them you can't associate these two are good people i cannot see them intentionally trying to harm nobody verbally mentally none of that they are too good for that they are bigger than that now this lady right here um Myers um i've seen the disgust in her when councilman Glover is speaking just disgust won't hear nothing he got to say and she got the home the gall to be talking about whatever she was saying i've been at a meeting where i'll say the mayor started the meeting talking about the ability and at that same meeting minutes later try to cut down councilman Glover and what he was trying to say what's civility in that stopped us from when we wanted to speak democracy i know this lady over here is a good lady too i see what's in people humans these are good people there's no way i don't know how somebody can hold councilman Glover responsible for something that happened at Ross camp there was a many people over there councilman Glover is the only one i saw over there because he's concerned he's an activist and he's doing things for our community so i don't get the logic in what's up that happened over there and it's his fault i don't get that it's something else but i get so riled up when i come here oh my goodness anyhow whoever that lady is they put this up um is there a seat open can we put it on the board that's not what i wanted to say but it's something your time is up okay good evening my name is steve schnarr i think that it's a great idea for the council members to have some mediation obviously the current situation is dysfunctional and untenable which is evidenced by the fact that all of the community and yourselves and staff are wasting entire evening talking about this instead of actual city policies that we elected you to to work on apart from that i just wanted to say that it seems very self-interested and transparent the way that certain council members are trying to frame this dysfunction as just blamed on two individual people and some of the same things that have been thrown at them which first by the way miss mires the not substantiated doesn't mean that that that was ridiculous to try to imply that these things actually happened when they were found when it was investigated and not substantiated but council member matthews i've been in a meeting when after dozens of people testified to an opinion you did not agree with you described it as idiotic and former council member comstock gave the middle finger to the crowd former council member noran at a public meeting that she was attending of the coastal commission was like shouting out of turn and had to be told to stop shouting so i'm not saying that they should have been censured or kicked off the council that i'm just saying politics is tough people have strong emotions not everybody likes everybody that's the way that the world is and it's it's very um it's disgusting frankly it's the reason why people are disgusted with politicians in washington and it's and it's disgusting here to see you transparently use the same behaviors that you and your comrades will use as an excuse to go after other people because you happen to disagree with their politics and you're and you're sorry that you lost power that you had for so many years good evening members of the city council i'm chris nunyes i've been here since 1993 you and i have had encounters councilman i want you to know that i'm five feet two in the morning when i wake up i'm five feet tall by noon as i saw councilman glover walk across the back he reached almost to the top where it says conduct that's pretty big i used to be um the administrative analyst for the commission on the status of women in santa claire county way back in 1978 when we were all still all over the bay area trying to understand and define and describe harassment we still didn't have any definitions we knew what it looked like we knew what it felt like it wasn't until much later on in the 80s when i left to do other things in vocational training that uh some of the sisters and uh the brothers in law schools students and professors finally started to mint some you know good legislation what i'm seeing here after 40 years looks very promising to me but it looks like a beginning there are two things going on here one is the institutional stuff and this is good this is good as a beginning and i hope to see it developed more fully the other thing that is going on is obviously political and what i heard earlier even before this session started was i heard a lynch mob in the making and they weren't going over to take councilman glover or chris crone they were looking for someone else and we've actually had a woman lynched in california and i want you to know that thank you have letters from 52 people that i'm speaking on behalf of tonight hello senate crew city council members and senate crews community my name is robert endicott keller and i represent a group of gentlemen who have had a history with homelessness addiction poverty and recidivism we have participated in and benefited from programs and services provided by the senate crews county sheriff's rehabilitation and reentry facility in washington when we decided we needed to hold up our end of the bargain and what we felt that would look like we started putting together a plan our conversations led to a transitional restorative justice program for people like us by people like us called give back to senate crews but we needed help we wrote over 30 letters to people and groups in the community looking for guidance and support but we only received one person's response senate crew city council member drew glover he recognized our value when no one else did he encouraged us to write down and organize our ideas then to send them to him he answered our phone calls listened and asked questions council member drew glover was concerned with how we were feeling and what we were thinking he spent his personal time on his weekends on multiple occasions to come out to the program facility at roundtree to validate us as worthwhile human beings with worthwhile ideas council member glover was willing to look past our faults to see who we really are he has faith in our potential and ability to turn our lives around council member glover is willing to do with us what most people don't have the stomach to do which is really listen and believe in our intent we support council member drew glover because council member drew glover supports us and if you really want to solve these issues in our community you should take a page from his book and listen to the people you're trying to help and if you don't want to or you can't please don't take the one person that does senate crew city council member drew glover please don't take away our voice we can do better we will do better thank you for your time and thank you drew my name is elise casby and i'm a survivor of psychological financial and emotional abuse my father was one of the highest lawyers in the united states of america he was assistant attorney general of the state of oregon i went through 20 years of harm by all kinds of professional people in this world and i have learned to identify abusers abusers often feel that they are being abused i am very concerned tonight about some of the dynamics in this room so i'm going to say a couple of things very quickly okay number one i stood up and supported susie o'hara after the ross camp because i felt she had been completely overloaded with work i was there i witnessed what happened but i am very concerned about susie's presentation two weeks ago when i went to pick up a city agenda there were two people in the room the receptionist i was in a corner of the room and i had a view to the hallway susie was there and there was another person there incoherent homeless person he was totally incoherent the receptionist wanted to go on her lunch break and i didn't want to talk to the gentleman because he was too incoherent he didn't seem to be drunk he was just completely understandable i mean not understandable i saw susie she was in the hallway making a face of disgust and grimacing as she stood there and i just want to say nobody was there to support what i saw so you don't know if i'm telling the truth but i'm telling you i'm telling the truth we need to score training racial diversity in this mix of mediation that's very important that this council take on understanding racial diversity and white privilege i have had to study abuse i recommend the nasty people abuse i'm excuse me the nasty people book also the verbal abuse patrice havins book on verbal abuse the abuser santa cruz together had a strategy to use the homeless we know this we have a copy of the notes from that meeting they had a strategy that included the special election they had a strategy to ruthlessly and exploitively use the homeless as a scapegoat for this situation also the seppo's report and the rose report you're trying to run around that your time is up all right next speaker i believe i have four minutes no you don't actually you have two minutes really you're not going to give me the right to request a group presentation that i know you had the group presentation for the item that was motion to table so you have two minutes well why should i be surprised okay um there's a hullabaloo about civility and civility has been the cry of mayor wattkins and those who have controlled the council's agenda though without the popular mandate that might justify such control council members excluded grow impatient or angry the public grows outrage they speak out or try to and presto they are all uncivil so when the mayor fails to make the civic auditorium available as tonight and keeps much of the audience outside or in a second building as tonight in spite of repeated requests or when she locks them out of the building after muzzling speakers who've waited hours to speak they don't act like a fascist style salutes and the raised voices are labeled uncivil and become the basis for further repression when signs are raised that block no one the mayor interrupts her own meeting to threaten the audience with eviction devices to thwart progressive measures the mayor's selective recognition of favored council members and her ignoring of those like glover whom she prefers not to hear from excluding progressive matters altogether from the agenda items while packing it with talk-heavy staff concocted items that take up time and space in endless chatter calling on the city attorney to provide brown act pretexts and to shift previously open items into closed sessions highlighting partisan city officials like the chief of police who support her reactionary position as well as the assistant city manager institutionally the city manager city attorney and department heads have run the council agenda and while the city council comes and goes these unelected highly paid officials remain in power unchallenged unmonitored and for decades unaccountable in practice they set the agenda that needs to be stopped and it's not a part of this recommendation why not your time is that next speaker there my name is eric erickson and i'm gonna tell a quick story with the little bit of introduction um i grew up here bayview mission hill santa cruz high cabrillo ucse i worked there for a few years so i'm 33 i'm just gonna say like you know my peers don't show up to this stuff as i'm sure you're painfully aware secondly i got involved politically after the bernie sanders campaign in 2016 after that ended i got involved locally and with the democratic party i was a delegate to the state party and i was appointed a pdc representative to the local dcc so the story that i want to tell is one dcc meeting right over downtown that synthia mathews you were present at i gave a presentation um criticizing the democratic party about how they're corrupt and corporate influence has corrupted that party that's another story but rachel no ryan was a sitting elected councilwoman as were you at the time and after i gave that presentation she called me an asshole like loudly in front of a group of people who were like representatives of the community you were sitting there and you know she didn't laugh or scoff like you did let alone maybe a laugh that wasn't heard you know and i never heard anything from you so it just makes me curious what the motivation is here i want to say first to susie and i've said it before my heart goes out to you i hate speaking louder um nobody should go to work and like deal with that kind of stuff like super true i mean she's smart and she has integrity and she's trying to do her job and she and i look at things very differently but she's trying um i think that's one piece of this i think the i don't want to do the blame game it's no fun and everybody we're all doing it um to move forward and to actually use these recommendations to actually sit down and talk to somebody that you know you've been hurt by and you've also hurt like you got a you know man up and apologize too um and i you know and people up too um for myself i'm i got big personality and you know i have my values and i get frustrated and i mouth off sometimes too i get it like absolutely um but it's not just them that needs to apologize and need to be able to step forward and stuff like that having that motion and talking about false was not said no that false isn't part of that it's substantiated i'm substantiated withdrawn and somebody even gave an example from one of the policies so to try to do this whole thing and try to point at people and all that stuff like we've got so much other stuff to do i don't want to talk about this stuff i like people and stuff like that i want to help with homelessness you guys do all sorts of stuff let's just just man up woman up whatever let's just apologize and move on and like see people as people thank you yep good evening um madam mayor wherever you are and council members my name is ed porter spent a lot of time in this room over the last 45 years and i've had the experience of being a new council member and fortunately it was a different city manager so i'm not casting aspersions but none of this happened for me what's on this page that i'm looking at right now none of it and so i can sympathize a little bit that i'm not going to blame anyone um this council has fallen apart somehow and now we're fixing it and so i'm gratified that we are fixing it that you are fixing it because you we have elected all seven of you and we've said in this evening of comment tonight fix it council because we want to go ahead income rotary and respect and get our business done and not do the stuff that we did in item one and it's time to do that so i will just say like vicki winners i played the tapes again and again and again turn the volume up loud and soft the sound on the tape is a cough that lasts about a half a second it's not what is said in the charges yet council member crown apologized for it anyway i guess i would apologize for a cough myself but everyone should know it was a cough it's good that we're doing this and we'll come away tonight maybe there's a turning point in this council a little more time for madam mayor to do all the right stuff and the right stuff is to implement this as effectively as you can and make sure that all seven council members participate because that's where the dysfunction came from my name is reverend beth love and first of all i just want to acknowledge each one of you because you're sitting there in the public eye in the public scrutiny it's not an easy job i wouldn't take it and i know that each of you has the intention of service or you wouldn't have run and so thank you i appreciate that um i i'm in support of these recommendations that are being made and i'm really clear that that's not enough because these are technical recommendations for a problem that's not technical it's a problem that's adaptive this is from the work of ronald hyphens and i highly recommend you check into ronald hyphens work when we're looking at a situation that's adaptive where there's um conflict where there's personalities where there's people rubbing up against each other where there's style differences where there's issues of oppression and exploitation and racism and all these other things we can't put a technical solution on it and expect it to work it won't it needs an adaptive solution and i'm gonna as a minister i'm really going to call on each of you on the council and even those on staff to like look deep in your hearts and look at what is yours to do in this because what i know about human relationships is that if we're in a situation and there's conflict we're bringing something to that and it's on us to change um and so i i just want to encourage everybody to see this as an opportunity not just to fix a problem but to heal and an opportunity for this council maybe to emerge stronger than ever and so again i don't see these recommendations as enough i'm going to second what others have said i think there needs to be some communication training some conflict resolution and some deep soul searching and i would add do a retreat or something get to know each other go hang out together be kind and loving to each other and see if we can't get this all together and be a powerful powerful community that we should be so thank you very much for your time good evening mayor and council members my name is claire you all know me i've really enjoyed hearing the third hand knowledge this evening about what's been going on at city hall and what it's felt like in this council chamber i've enjoyed hearing the perceptions of what we've actually been experiencing and i've enjoyed hearing how dismissive people have been about the real and hurtful processes that our city employees went through as part of this investigation or that a simple conversation would solve an issue with an obvious power imbalance i found it fascinating how easy it is to dismiss those experiences there's a difference between being a bad person and being a person who has done something wrong nothing before you tonight was calling anyone a bad person it was simply acknowledging that wrongs have been done and there should be a public acknowledgement of that i've been in this chamber a lot but i've never felt as disappointed in this group as i have this evening i'm thankful that lisa has brought forward next step actions to correct obvious deficiencies and i look forward to hearing your discussion and action on those items what i most want to say though this evening is i'm thankful that mayor Watkins was brave enough to step up first in being a leader and setting that example that we as employees would be listened to it gave the rest of the women the faith that they in turn could be brave enough to report what had happened to them so mayor Watkins i thank you for that my name is kathy agnor i've been a resident in this city for more than 60 years i've been a city employee for more than 29 i've experienced times of disrespect harassment uncivil treatment as a city employee and i didn't have the courage to do anything about it i was fortunate that there were commissioners and the city of staff that supported me and got me through those very difficult times my goal has always been to make a difference i think that's yours as well all of you i am sad and disappointed in the council's action to not support censure which is defined as to express severe disapproval susie is my supervisor for the last two years and i'm inspired by her i will say it's demoralizing a city staff that management positions and elected mayors are not believed or supported i'm a service employee will my voice be heard or respected thank you to the city council my name is freeman best and i've been living here since 94 i'm an employee of the static cruise counter office i'm a literally sports official high school sports officials for all the sports harassment disrespect i live it every day you know women's will equal right equal pay and when you're working with the public when you're working with the public sometimes you disagree and because the person don't speak the way you want them to speak it's not harassment sometimes just a disagreement but if you have to be scroll put on your lady's shoes and you know you just just top it up because of everything it's not easy you think it's easy for me every day as a black man living in static cruise it's a great place to live but i i see discrimination every day tonight this lady sitting here she went to this young lady that was sitting in the weather and i saw her move what did she do wrong and then you looked at the audience like her move i didn't like what you did to her discrimination every day as a black person i see it and i saw it in here tonight next speaker i witnessed a disturbing act of exclusion and incivility at the first full council meeting after the 2018 election i feel that this overlooked occurrence should also be addressed when the rose report recommendation of mediation and conflict resolution begins at that 2018 meeting mary watkins made the expected committee appointments giving between two and up to five assignments to all council members except to drew glover exactly zero for councilman glover something i have never seen happen before and i don't know if any of you have either i have never seen it happen over 17 committee appointments were made that night how would you have felt if you were the one person who was completely left out was this an error or could it have been on purpose if it had been an honest mistake and apology and an explanation would have been offered pretty quickly to the new councillor who had mistakenly been slighted in the mayor's committee assignment process because no outreach to mr glover was made i am left to assume that it was a purposeful action not a good foundation on which to build council camaraderie at the first full actual meeting mediation and conflict resolution can serve to turn a gesture of ill will into one of good will please do not choose to continue to ignore this form of bullying that i'm talking about it's a silent but equally hurtful bullying by exclusion that was delivered to drew glover at his very first full council meeting this slight has been completely ignored for nine months and it too should be addressed as the ross report advised by providing mediation for all council members hi my name is jenna here and i'm not really good at speaking in public but i'm gonna try um we live in communities um but we seem to be all pretty disconnected even with today's technology and whatnot um the advancements globalization and all that i mean we know everything about our favorite celebrity but we don't know our neighbor's name next door we don't know who you guys are i mean you guys are making the rules and decisions for the whole community um i just see this whole thing is petty it's really petty i mean somebody was hurt you know in a in an interaction with someone because of the words that were said their words they're not sticks and they're not stones and there's no reason why they can't learn better to learn how to do better um i mean our country was founded basically uh diversity on community and people working together and we've got this incredible experiment called democracy that just happens to be working great but our governments are tearing it down there's always somebody looking up or somebody outside looking in but there's just not enough community involvement in everything and we need to learn how to talk to each other we need to respect each other we need to welcome the differences where it's okay to disagree you don't have to you can agree to disagree um but we need to we need to get to know each other all better i mean i've been living in my car in my RV for two and a half years i don't know anybody's names here but one or two people you know i come to a couple meetings my daughter just moved back with my grandkids because they couldn't afford to live here for a while let's see who's got better now they're back you know i'm fourth generation Santa Cruz and but people see me as a troll and you know because i don't have a place to live i just can't afford three thousand dollars a month but that doesn't mean i'm not a good person or that i'm not someone who's knowing any more than the people to Ross camp that i keep hearing over and over and over again like some type of you know parasite just to be homeless you know you you're not so we need to talk to each other more i was actually just sitting at home watching this being streamed and i felt like i had to come down just to offer my full support um and to say i believe the women who have experienced bullying in the city workplace full stop um i don't believe any fault falls on them for not being able to overcome unacceptable work conditions so i want to make sure that was really clear there's a lot of people that believe that that aren't here tonight that are offering our support to these victims i want to make sure that you know that you have a lot of support in the community and let's not forget that two of these um accusations were substantiated by a independent third party i won't get into how that doesn't invalidate the rest of these complaints but my heart goes out to those complaints as well and it's not acceptable to have a council member acting this way um i think if many of us acted this way in the workplace and were found to have substantiated complaints against us we'd probably be fired or severely punished and i just wanted to say that mayor what can thank you for doing your job in a hostile work environment that i i feel that in the room tonight thanks for being a leader we just really appreciate you especially as a woman so thank you evening you guys have heard from a lot of people so i won't take up too much of your time i was also watching at home and felt the need to come down here and just lay a little support on for the women who have made these complaints i think that it's a really terrible thing that we have city council members who feel unsafe to come to work or feel uncomfortable and i'd also like to echo that we do have two substantiated findings which i think a lot of people are hand waving away as oh just suck it up or you know put your big girl's shoes on or whatever you want to say um but i think we should really be respecting that and putting some weight behind it thank you i just want to say a few things um i'm really happy about a lot of the recommendations that's good uh the mediation could have been done before the investigation before spending 18 000 but i'm happy to see that it's in there i also agree with some of the people that said conflict resolution is really important as well as um something on institutional racism i don't think a lot of people realized what that means um and um the other thing is the false using the word false that wasn't part of any of the words that ali brokaw had mentioned so i'm everyone is switching everything around it was only two items and both of those were so minor but no one wants to look at those and one of them was a laugh that no one can i think the woman that was just up here she spoke about she was the one who observed a laugh so that wasn't even i i i he just believed i from what i gather from the report it was believing someone's word against someone else's word and the other one was over a small conflict of a room being in the room too long than the time that was allotted and a remark was made i mean my goodness all this i think it's much deeper than this i really think it's about something else and it's more about getting our most progressive candidates off and i just i'm looking forward to the mediation i'm looking forward to doing other things because i really hope you can work together hi again there really day show i am a licensed marriage and family therapist who is retired and what i so all these recommendations are great and what i know about people and change is that even when people super want to and they're paying me a lot of money they can't so what i think would be a good recommendation that could have avoided i believe all of this is that somebody is available immediately when someone feels that they have been violated it you know hearing what these women felt is is heartbreaking to me seeing what's happening in the community is heartbreaking to me it's i feel it's just polarizing people and tearing it apart so i think that if there was someone who was a conflict resolution person who was available immediately when someone felt that there was a problem in the workplace because no one should have to work in a workplace where they do not feel safe i mean i think everyone here would agree on that so that that step should be in place to have someone immediately available and it would not have had to go to where it's gone so health in all i think would involve having immediate an immediate way of resolving the issue and again i want to implore you to denounce the recall because it is destroying this community and it's breaking my heart and a lot of people's hearts and i respect all of you and you do what i could never do sit here and listen to all of this so thank you good evening mayor walkins and council members and city staff and community i'm sorry if i'm a little scattered i wasn't going to speak this evening but i felt really compelled so i work as a social worker with the county i've been bullied up by workplace myself so um you know i'm not trying to say my experience has been the same as these these women who have you know put themselves out there and shared their story this evening um and i i hope that we can recognize these women's experiences that they felt as well as working towards resolve and mediation um i interview people for a living um i ask people about some of the most difficult times in their life i work for child protective services um and you know everyone's perspective on situations and um instances is is differs um so and there's a lot of you know factors at play there's you know the women who have spoken and i have talked about gender as being contributing factor we've heard from other folks talking about race being a factor i think we all need to acknowledge these are all factors at play um and as the um woman who's a conflict resolution um specialist or mediator i can't remember her title um said you know we need to look at all these issues and put them in context and um yeah i hope we can recognize everyone's experience and and move forward thank you good evening mayor and council members my name is rachel dan i wasn't planning to speak tonight i'm nervous and having a bad hair day um but i was compelled to speak anyway um because of the action on the last item um i was um because of the the last item i was disappointed and it inspired me to speak to this item um i've been attending council meetings for this um for the past 20 years in this town that i love um and i will tell you that the atmosphere in this room has gotten much less welcoming and clearly work needs to be done by all members to make the public feel more more welcomed um preventing the public's ability to speak on the previous issue is unprecedented never in my years has a council prevented the public from weighing in on a duly noticed item on the agenda tabling the last issue was appalling and cowardly to the council members who made the motion to table that was shocking and disturbing what type of atmosphere do you think that sets for the people of this town uh we will remember what happened here tonight this is not the end the majority of this council will be remembered tonight for silencing your constituents and silencing women who are here exhibiting extreme courage to share their truth thank you susie and thank you claire i stand with you even if the council majority doesn't thank you next speaker speaker hi my name is jane i was here this afternoon being a very straight laced professional public health person and now i just want to talk about being marginalized i was so moved by the woman who got up and said civility is a way to marginalize certain voices i think that is the one thing that if people take away from this that when you someone is intense someone is trying to get across a feeling or asking a question or really needing to bring an issue to the rest of the group or not paying attention or don't want to pay attention or have other concerns getting them to be quiet and nice is really nice but everything is lost and i've had that happen to me more than once where i have been silenced because i was too intense i wasn't night enough if you talk to me in a nicer voice i'm more willing to listen to you i mean this is not what we need when you are representing your community maybe yes sir there are times for being civil i'm not opposed to civility but please remember that if someone is intense someone really cares and i do understand how staff could possibly feel because i've been staff and i've been staffed aboard so i understand but please keep in mind that as women many of us in this room including all of you up here and maybe you know black men and maybe someone who's in a position of power and feels like god i don't have any power how am i going to solve this problem or whatever it is that each of you bring in terms of your own insecurities and the things that you need that please try to listen to each other and not to quiet each other thank you hi i'm brett garrett i'm feeling really heartbroken tonight um i want to suggest one more recommendation that um there may need to be some kind of procedure that makes it equally possible for each council member to get items onto the agenda um when they want to get something on the agenda i've understood i'm kind of heard rumblings that that may be a very contentious process that's very difficult for some of the council members and i would hope that all of the council members can easily get items on the agenda when when uh when they feel it's necessary um and i just i kind of feel like there's a war happening when i really believe all seven of you sincerely want what's best for our city um but if if you don't each hear all six of the others it just becomes really i don't know i'm just heartbroken i i support mediation or whatever it takes to really hear one another um and i'm not saying that there's two people that need to hear one another i'm saying there's seven people that need to hear one another thank you very much pat malo um i was born and raised in this community it's the only place i've ever lived hopefully it's the only place i will ever live um first let me start by saying sorry to susie and all the staff and all the people who have been caught up kind of in between a lot of this i think and um you know you should never feel that way at work and i'm sure you don't get paid enough um and so you know secondly i'd just like to say that you know i think that this is a a rough period right now um we've got so much conflict not just on the you know council but it seems like in the community um and i think that the sad part to me is that you know the competing visions neither one of them or none of our visions in this room are enough to address these issues right and so we need to be able to forgive ourselves for not having the answers forgive each other for not having the answers and come to the table around this stuff and i know it sounds cheesy but i mean i think that's start one is we're all walking around this place like we got the solution and i mean we are facing major major just local issues right now cost of living all of this stuff every one of us unless we're a multimillionaire is going to get priced out of this community one generation or another or maybe won't even have other generations because of larger global issues and so you know i i worked with you know every one of you guys almost in the room on some issue or another and you know i consider everyone allies on you know all of these other projects from multiple sides of this thing and so you know usually i'm like entertained watching the tv show but tonight i'm you know struck by the real life of this and just the it's like you know there's plenty of projects i'd like to see done we're all putting them aside because of this mess and i think we all need to forgive ourselves and each other for this oh and if we can send the public to this stuff too it might help a little thank you i wanted to come tonight um i was uh at the ross camp um while susie was there um and i i'm speaking as someone who there's been a lot of conflation people have talked about people having different viewpoints from drew glover it seems like there's been an idea that there's been this assassination attempt against him because of different political views but i really like your politics and but i was there and i felt like what you did was disruptive it did undermine our attempts you know we had a job to do um i hope that we can make a lot of progress um for homelessness i like a lot of your ideas but i hope that you can treat people with respect um i think that sometimes there's this idea in politics that if you're disruptive you can bring attention to an idea but i think that's probably not what we need to do now moving forward um you know it's scary as staff to like have jobs like that to do um and to think that council members are going to come um you know for an example tell people at the camp that there are motel vouchers available that need to be used for emergency hospital type situations and then have people at the camp not want to move because they're holding out for the vouchers and when i ask who told you that they say that council member over there in the purple shirt in the power color that's easy to identify it undermined what i did it definitely undermined what susie was trying to do um and i think there are probably other people like me that hadn't been planning to come today who didn't want to necessarily speak up because it's such a complicated issue because they're afraid to speak as staff and i i do hope that we can um come together in the future um and that even if we have different political beliefs we can all treat each other with respect which i haven't seen happening so far thank you i'm scott graham um it seems to me that most of the people that spoke before me are addressing item number one not item number two so i'd like to address item number two um i think probably just two of these recommendations would i go along with if i was sitting up there which would be number two and number three um the rest of it seems like there's a minority on the council that wants to make some new rules that'll be more punitive because they didn't think drew and chris got spanked hard enough and so we we want to make something that'll be more punitive than what's already there um this this council uh guidelines of behavior was reviewed and updated two years ago and so just because drew and chris did something that was looked upon as being wrong now we want to reopen it up and try to put more punitive measures in there because we want to make sure that the next time they get out of line we can really smack them down thank you i'm not sure if i don't think there's any additional members of the community who wants to address the council at this time um we'll go ahead and bring it back to council action and deliberation i guess i'll just say um you know it it is this is this is very difficult and to some of the comments that were brought forward we are better than this absolutely and we as elected leaders need to be held to a higher standard and we as an institution in a governing body need to ensure that every employee commissioner person who is working here or participating in our government is doing so in a workplace that's free of harassment intimidation and um and and that's unacceptable completely unacceptable um part of the healing process is accountability my understanding is that is not on the table for discussion and um we'll go ahead and move forward with how we can institute some policies at this point to improve our processes so that we can ensure that no individual feels intimidated or has had had experiences as some of the city staff who spoke up and had the courage to speak up this evening i have um a lot of admiration and respect for those folks so with that we'll go ahead and bring it back to the council for action on these items i'll go ahead and acknowledge my colleague to my left i just want to acknowledge as well the people who came and spoke tonight because i know that um takes courage to speak up when you feel like you've been wrong and as the mayor said you know no one deserves to be discriminated against in at all in our community let alone in the workplace um we need to behave respectfully we need to all try to work together um and that is something that has been expressed multiple times um on the city council one thing for me that has been really challenging is that um ever since february when the initial bullying allegations came out and then throughout this entire year there have been multiple times when members of the city council have asked for mediation and conflict resolution to try to bring ourselves together we've had two retreats one was in march i think the other one was around may june the first of which we talked about communication with one another and how we could effectively communicate we also discussed shared values for an entire workday and one of the things that was very much strongly expressed at that meeting was that we wanted to have conflict resolution and some mediation to try to overcome the differences at the second meeting we again spent the morning discussing shared values and priorities over the six month term again one of the number one things that came up was conflict resolution and mediation among tension that was in the city council um i feel like you know the fact that we haven't addressed this by now has led to more divisiveness within our community after the election in november and when we became when we were seated and started the city council in january what i felt came with being seated on this dais was the same energy that was put into both the no on m campaign and the yes on m campaign that tension within our community came up here and little has been done to try to resolve it and to try to bring us together um i feel like some of the members of the city council we've been able to try to overcome our differences and work together effectively but it hasn't been all of the members of our city council and so from my perspective before we go censoring our city council members and creating more divisiveness within our community we need to first start by having a conflict resolution process and trying to see where we can overcome our differences and bring ourselves together because if we don't we're just going to continue to see more to more more more divisiveness within our community um everyone has said at these meetings that they honestly wanted to work together and work with one another um everyone said they wanted to work in good faith and we need to be held accountable to that since we all said that we were going to do that and i think that's the first step for us to try to address these issues um and um i'm happy to discuss some of the other issues as they come up before the council gets further into the discussion i just want to remind the council that because a motion to table has been made um under your meeting guidelines once a motion to table has been adopted um the motion requires that all discussion of the item under consideration at the time of the motion be halted immediately without further discussion so i would just caution council members to direct your attention to the item that's before you and not the prior item okay agreed okay so if there's any um questions comments we can maybe just move forward and council member brown um i i do want to make a comment uh that is kind of leading into uh moving forward which is what i have been hoping for a long time that we would be able to do and i want to say i'm really sorry to the city employees who feel like um this is not a safe work environment for you um this is seriously a priority for me and i'm sorry that you feel that my um interest in having a conversation about how we move forward um rather than um focusing on um you know punitive measures is in any way an indication that i don't support you because i absolutely do um i so i just wanted to say i i did want to say that it's i do not don't want to talk about the previous item but i did want to say that i do um you know i want to echo vice mayor Cummings remarks about the failure of uh to get any responsiveness on moving forward with mediation and conflict resolution after months and months of this brewing um tension that has been um it has not made this a safe you know of a work environment that feels safe for me and i think for many people at this dais um in addition to our staff in addition to people in our community and i just want to see us find a way to move forward i think that the recommendations that have come before us um are our good place to start i do want to see us um commit to some kind of conflict resolution training and not just mediation um because i think that is really at the root of our challenge that we we have not been willing as a body to do that despite um multiple members requesting that that happen and so we are now at a place where we can actually try to um move forward on that and i'd like to see that happen i hope it does um this evening that we can move forward in a spirit of collegiality in that regard okay now's the time for action and um so i don't know if you wanted to take these bit by bit and then we or if we wanted to have a council member make a motion um i i do have an addition i'd like to request at that time when that comes forward but i can't make a motion council member come i will join the the voices too about um you know you should not have a work environment that you you know that there's hostilities and there should be ways um available to all employees to solve these issues um on march 10th of this year i wrote a letter it's part of the uh the rose reports in the packet um reaching out to the to the mayor i said dear martin i'm writing this letter to you because i want to take responsibility for my part and the difficulties of our working relationship i want to try to reconcile and work together in the future in a mutually respectful way when you said there are perceptions that my colleagues both council member crone and council member glover are intentionally bullying me because i am a woman i assume that you agree with those perceptions i'm taking those perceptions seriously because i have undoubtedly learned attitudes of inequality towards women simply by growing up in our culture for a long time i have attempted to unlearn these beliefs i take to heart your comments and i'll redouble my efforts at self reflection it would be helpful if you would let me know what i said that you found to be bullying behavior i want to be aware of what language i use that contributed to your negative experience in the meantime i want to assure you that i respect you as a person and a woman in a leadership role i wrote that on on march 10th i've yet to have a response and i again reached out to the mayor uh and asked for mediation for conflict resolution and again i had had no response and so i i'm just uh a bit frustrated um about this the whole process as it's rolled out so i i think that it's when we do the shame and blame before we get to the um reconciliation part it's it's really difficult for to take the reconciliation part you know in a serious way if we're doing the shaming and blaming maybe we should add two different meetings instead of putting this on the um the same agenda um i think i would like to see us take the the rose recommendations and um use that as our template uh because i don't i see some of those rose recommendations missing from what's what's been recommended by miss murphy um one of them in particular the first one that he recommends in the summary and as well as at the end of the report council members should avoid making public accusations of misconduct of bad faith against one another and against city staff without first privately and internally addressing these concerns and attempting conflict resolution and rectification when possible uh and i think that there's a lot of politics going on here and you know it's very difficult having this kind of discussion even in the atmosphere we're existing right now just in our community and somebody just said it about uh vice mayor said it had to do with measure m and anti measure m and we saw some of that attention at the at the microphone tonight um i would like to incorporate the rose recommendations there's five of them um into um the recommendations that are before us as well um and i wouldn't mind um people voting on that as well and i'm going to pass it out thank you mayor so i guess i mean one thing i will say as we move forward with next steps is you know in february it was a time it was a different time and and at that time um i i felt it was it was my responsibility as a leader just to say something um and beyond then um i don't think anybody could predict that multiple uh folks would come forward after that and an investigation would ensue and so here we are now at a place that is um going to move us as leaders if we can say we want to move forward with policies and procedures and we want to move forward with um next steps that's the place we are now so in terms of repair it's on this council to move in the direction or to consider some of the recommendations to move forward to not only ensure that we have policies that protect our staff or council members or commissioners but we also have next steps in terms of process i don't think the onus is always on those who come forward and speak up so with that we'll go ahead and have um you present your motion if that's the case is that where we're at well i'd like us to look at um what um miss murphy put before us and then maybe separate the you know if up or down votes on each um item and then also up or down votes on what um the rose report recommended on page 89 because i i mean we did pay a significant amount of money and went through this whole process it seems to me that um some of the recommendations are are are very good and um you know worth sticking into the the final recommendations okay okay council member glever and then council member matthews and then we can go ahead and start emotion or breaking them down the process so that was a lot um from all the different perspectives i want to start by speaking to the staff members i totally hear you and your uh feelings around any interactions that may have taken place or any issues that you may feel with regards to interactions with council members um or myself included i uh want to emphasize uh in also what uh council member crown had mentioned about the february 12th meeting which was what really set all this off it was before anything else really had happened uh and immediately following the february 12th meeting following friday i believe uh i met with the mayor in her office uh to talk about potential ways that we could work together and to address the statements that she had made at the city council meeting encouraging that we would uh open into future reconciliation which as with council member crown's request was never answered so i'm really excited to see these recommendations for us to be able to move forward but also agree with what the mayor just said with regards to that it shouldn't be on the onus of the people making the complaint to uh in act or engage in initiating the conflict reconciliation i think that should be from the leadership of the organization whether that be from the city council itself or from the city manager's office which from my experience the ways that conflict is dealt with even through that interaction is lacking and that's why i really hope that in these uh motions that we can definitely incorporate that uh city staff or especially the city manager's office is involved in the conflict reconciliation training and in the ability to address issues in real time so that we don't have to deal with complaints that go without there being any kind of interaction or conversation beforehand where there are not unnecessary memos sent out with regards to barring staff from speaking with council members because they haven't even tried to go through any kind of mediation or conversations so there's a lot of holes in the organization with regards to the way that uh conflict is dealt with i also really appreciated the statements from people that were recommending uh race class gender and power issues training i think that's really important i think that we should be incorporating aspects of nonviolent communication into this also implicit bias training so all of these things i think should be layered upon each other because outside of the policies which i think should be addressed and looked at to make sure that all of these factors are taken into consideration in the language i think that this is a beyond a policy issue and more of a ideological issue as well as a personality issue because there is right now in Santa Cruz an ideological battle for different perspectives on whether we're going to be working one way or another and that was shown in the election in 2018 that is shown in any online forum that you go on to right now to look at conversations and indicative of the attempt to remove members of this body from the city council solely on a policy disagreements so i look forward to what we decide here are you going to make this motion well i i would actually you know i'm going to go ahead and acknowledge yeah i'd like to you know sort of like put them together okay we'll go ahead we'll go ahead and acknowledge councillor Matthews i agree and i'd actually be happy to launch a motion just looking over these i think there's a huge amount of overlap between the staff recommendation and yours agreed and i'd like to know what your requested edition was before we get going sure my requested edition is having the subcommittee or staff review the city's harassment and workplace policy and address any changes to the policies and procedures that and then return to the council with a recommendation if necessary in regards to personal liability for any elected or commissioner or other who is has liability and for any substantiated harassment claims this is something that both congress and the senate had done in the past in terms of putting the liability on the individual and if our policy doesn't have that component and there was some sort of legal consideration that we look at that in terms of our policy that was a lot to process all at once but i think what i'll do is go ahead and move the recommendation before us and i'm going to make a few changes did you have some suggested changes as well let me put this on and then we'll work on it the first is to appoint a subcommittee of two council members to work with staff to develop a code of ethics and conduct policy for elected and appointed officials so that's the first thing and i'll just say that this is commonly done in many other cities we don't happen to have one and i think the first item that is on Chris's proposal council members should avoid making public accusations of misconduct and bad faith that seems like the sort of thing that could go into the code of conduct do you agree with that i'm i'm trying to with the suggestion would the suggestion be that that council subcommittee incorporate number one in terms of what they're reviewing and potentially incorporating into a recommendation as one of the items to be considered in the code of conduct um i i i would just like to vote up or down that i mean i'm understand i don't understand why we have a committee of two and not three for example i don't understand how as murphy said we could get this done in two months which seems when i talked to other people it sounded like there's a lot more time going to be involved in something like this just if i could i also spoke with lisa and there are good examples of this as starting points so i think a committee of two or three with staff takes some time and in advance i think individual council members would want to let staff know of the items the issues that they would have covered in the code of conduct so a working committee could probably tackle that pretty fast that was just my thought so it could be i don't care it's call it three you know appoint a subcommittee of three council members to work with staff to develop a code of ethics and conduct policy for elected and appointed officials to include accusations of misconduct or bad faith against one another among other issues just trying to get it out there does that do it for you i'm just like that that one statement because i really think that that first statement goes to the heart of where we're at right now and why we maybe shouldn't have come here got here but we did and this is somebody who's looked at it interviewed all these folks and said as his first recommendation council members should avoid making public accusations of misconduct or bad faith without talking or at least looking for some sort of mediation okay why don't we um i'll go ahead and acknowledge vice mayor comings and then we'll just break them up so that we can eventually move on them okay vice mayor i just want to mention to council member current i think that the intention is that currently there's no code of ethics and conduct policy for appointed officials in the city um and the idea is that we can put together a subcommittee to develop that code of conduct policy which my assumption is that we'll all agree to if we're going to serve as city council members and that your item number one be one of the codes of conduct and so when this comes back yeah by this committee we will adopt that okay agreed yeah that's where i was trying to go sorry okay do you want to make that into a motion to appoint the should we take them one at a time i think that would be okay then i'll i'll make us the first motion that we appoint a subcommittee of three council members to work with staff to develop a code of ethics and conduct policy policy for elected and appointed officials um to include that the council members should avoid making public accusations et cetera et cetera et cetera the language in christophers and that council members should be encouraged to contact staff with other issues they feel should be considered in the code of conduct policy i'll second that so that gives everyone a chance to direct their concerns to staff okay do we want to appoint those individuals now or do we want to do that in this another form i think personally i think what might work in this circumstance is to have you as our hr director to think of what a good mix of three members in regards to your interpretation i don't think i don't know how i can win in this scenario to be quite honest with you so for me i think having an outside somebody from the hr who wants to work on these issues with a diverse group of council members why don't i put out a call for volunteers after here and see what comes through if i have more than three then uh i'll i'll meet with everybody and and see how we can't uh whittle that down okay great okay so we have a motion um for item number one to incorporate item number one of council member crone's suggestions as a consideration as that subcommittee develops their code of ethics essentially correct okay should we go ahead and vote on that all right can i ask for a clarification before you do second part of that that i heard during the discussion was that council members um should contact staff to include additional provisions in the code of conduct that council members would like to not provisions issues should that should be considered issues that should be considered perfect thank you and that's right to also allow from other input thank you for the clarification okay any other questions on that one all those in favor please say i are you opposed okay that passes unanimously okay then um number two on chris's all members of council receive immediate training in the city administrative procedure order 1b the respectful workplace conduct and city council policy two point 25.2 i think that very closely mirrors four and five um and actually overlaps with three in different ways um so the public doesn't have this in front of it so i apologize for that um the item three in the staff recommendation is that all new council members attend a live training session of the sexual harassment discrimination workplace conduct policies within the first 60 days of office and attend every two years thereafter as required by the state of california what's different from that from our current policy is it requires a live training session which i think we all know it's a little bit more effective than an online training and uh it's within the first 60 days rather than in the first year so um i think that's pretty close to what your number two is there it's the same yeah so maybe if we just go with that number three that's in the uh staff recommendation the one thing it doesn't say is immediate it it doesn't say immediate and i think just to be realistic if we say within the first 60 days and then there's another um uh item in both in different forms in the staff recommendation and yours talks about um onboarding where is that um if i can maybe just offer a bit of a suggestion yes maybe we can go through what we have for the staff ones if there's elements that have been missed then we can pull those that we want from the additional i think to try that i was just trying to find the i know and i think it's just a little bit complicated and difficult for our city clerk to catch and i think we'll have a chance to get to everything if we got it so i'm going to move um item three which is all new council members attend a live training session the sexual harassment discrimination workplace conduct policies within the first 60 days of taking office and attend every two years thereafter is required by the state of california second okay any further discussion all those in favor please say oh i have a question around this one item because um is this a general sexual harassment discrimination workplace conduct policy because i think that it's good that we have that training but what i was going to add to it was that we're provided the city's policy specifically which we weren't provided when we first onboarded and i think that there can be you know the nuanced details within the city's policy so if we can also be provided the city's policy within 14 days and sign an agreement or a letter stating that we have read and agree to the city's policies as well as the training yeah um let me just say that that gets down to number six here which is direct staff to prepare a formal onboarding process for new city council members that incorporate sexual harassment discrimination workplace conduct policies so and if you looked at the um discussion of that and you've all been there you get elected you get sworn in in mid december and then basically the city shuts down and then you come to the first meeting in january and you got to operate like you know what's going on and you don't and so um i think the idea of doing that part of it early on i don't know if you feel it's adequately covered in six there i i think sometimes for the live training session lisa you can tell me don't we bring in external trainers for that we do we also we do incorporate in the live training uh i just want to also mention that as part of that training is is unique to us so that we do the workplace conduct and we also do require the cultural uh diversity training of all new officials so why don't you know why don't we just fold that in um so that would be then all new council members do all that within the first two years as we're required by this state of california and the training shall also include santa cruz specific policies on bill in the blanks workplace we do the the workplace conduct respectful workplace conduct as well as the cultural diversity we require that as well okay i can include all those policies okay did you catch that um bonnie okay is that appropriate for the seconder of the motion yeah okay any further discussion this is item number three okay all those in favor please say aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously then i'm i'm saving two till the end because i have some a little more complicated thoughts on that number four staff will review and revise if necessary the i'm just going to say apo administrative procedure orders section 2a and the apo section 2 1 b and uh the reason that the staff reviews those this is what i have learned is that the administrative procedure orders are developed internally by staff and so they they will review based on the learning experience that we've gone through and look at the areas that need refinement or clarification and i know from those um the staff members who spoke and their experiences the whole issue of what was confidential about what they were saying and what wasn't was not clear that was a big issue for them so and we've talked so um these are things um that need to be clarified and here again i think if individual council members reading over the apo see things they they feel need to be dealt with they can get to our staff but the the review of the two apos would be done at the staff level so you're moving number four that's number four okay that second question i'm just wondering council member joe roses reported he why didn't he point this out or did he and i didn't see it the well i think that's the that's one of my recommendations is that now that we've had a significant event occur unlike any other we have learned some lessons as we've gone through uh not just only whether it could be definitions but process as well notification process so i think a whole overlook of the the entire policy is warranted and yeah so for the discussion council member i mean i guess i would just say my interpretation of this also is that the rose report doesn't speak to it because part of the where the issue came up was in the rose report and what was made public as part of that so it wouldn't so it was kind of a document that is the basis for consideration of this question um yeah uh but during this whole thing uh there's been a series of press releases released by the city and it has been very uh defaming of council member glover and myself and we've heard it from a lot of many people around town and i i i wonder if this also the committee could take up that also that that aspect of it and say well what what is a press release when you're using council member's names and you're just using innuendo that's out there it was um it was really that was was hurtful also council member mires well i'm just going to bring up then the use of facebook and uh framing me as a racist so these are things that need to go on uh we all need to sort of realize that there was things revealed that should have been confidential there shouldn't have been predetermined for facebook posts about the outcomes of the investigation you should never never call someone a racist i've been an out lesbian for 34 years okay so don't don't call me a racist so i'm sorry that a press release upseted you but do not defame me in this community i think let's get these motions done i'm tired let's go home i know don't okay let's let's maybe take a let's let's maybe take a three-minute breather and we'll come back and we'll get through the motions i think we're really there i think we're very almost exactly the same so maybe we could expedite that i can't make a motion i think i have a motion for do you want to break is that what you're thinking i think we need a two let's just are you okay let's move okay so i think if we could i think there isn't a need to necessarily labor this and the issue was raised about a press release i think that's the kind of thing when we go through the apo that's where that should get addressed so let's send that issue to lisa okay talk about so you move number four why don't you see okay seconded as written okay council member vice mayor coming seconded all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes i want to get to number five number five has to do with the council's policy 25.2 and that's the one that we act on so the staff will develop the apos with input and then bring forth a suggested revised council policy so i will go ahead and move that the council review and revise as appropriate council policy etc etc based on the outcome of number four okay second any further discussion council member i mean that's a lot to take in what just happened if i had done that the world would have ended based off of all of these things that are going on right now i think number one right right here that was of the rose report council member should avoid making public accusations of misconduct of bad faith against one another and against city staff without first privately or internally arrest dressing these concerns i have no idea whether you were addressing myself or council member crone you're looking at both of us the entire time and you just made a public accusation in bad faith against one of your colleagues without any anything so i i would just say i don't want us to rush through this because of that outburst and i feel our speed picking up as we're starting to talk about these different issues this requires our focus and our attention and we need to be very thorough because if there's that response to the assumption i have no idea what facebook posts and who you're again who you're talking to but to have that response to anyone in suggesting you're a racist i think that that is why we really need to have some of this implicit bias and anti-racism training worked into our training regiments because that was really disturbing and intimidating to me so i would really appreciate it if you would not i'll just go ahead and pause for a second why don't we go ahead and just acknowledge the fact that item number two on the recommendations is to have some conflict resolution and um i think that right now we have an opportunity to choose a path that we can move forward with trying to institute some not only procedures and policies around improving our government structure but we also have a path to say we will have an opportunity to have these difficult conversations we are going to commit in some regard to some form of of mediation and conflict resolution in the future but tonight at 10 20 um after a really long and um difficult evening i'd say we can take the hat we can let that be so i guess my hope is that we can move through this knowing that one of the potential outcomes will be for us to move forward with some conflict resolution could councilor matthews i think i've moved number five which is revising review and revise as appropriate policy number 25.2 that's the policy on discrimination harassment retaliation respectful workplace that we adopt as a council did you already move that you said or you want to know that's that's the next step that's after the review of the apos then maybe the next step okay so do you want to make that as the motion i'll second that motion um all those in favor please say i any opposed that passes unanimously i will say the whole issue that this number one on chris is about avoid making public accusations i do think that's appropriate to go into the whole code of conduct decision and i will just say about facebook god only knows what goes out on social media okay but let's try to keep it directed to the content before us at this time please um then let's go to number six which is directing staff to prepare a formal onboarding process for new city council members that incorporate sexual harassment discrimination and workplace conduct policies i'll second that and add that we incorporate that new city council members and commissioners also be incorporated into that as well vice mayor i'd like to wait i don't know if that was that second yeah that was second day myself i'd also ask for a friendly amendment that this occur within the first 60 days of being seated we're being sworn in to the city council because there's no the yes and we have in our i agree um it should be sooner than should be should be the staff report discussion says there should be a formal onboarding process for new council members all council members and this is this is where i say come on people during the christmas vacation let's get real it lists all this stuff so um staff will have to go off and work on this so i think it's that issue and the real basics so okay great we'll try to expedite that go ahead i just said the reason why i said 60 days was taken into account that council members get sworn in in december they go on christmas break and then in january that would you know be around the 60 day period so for it to work for the onboarding to occur just yeah i mean so that's the motion just as written really with the uh addition of and commissioners okay i seconded the motion and within 60 days okay okay incorporating in 60 days i seconded it okay all those in favor please say aye any opposed okay that passes unanimous and i'll just say um i've talked with lisa about this and um it is a lot to digest when you're new and so much to get a grip on things you never thought about i mean i'd i'd honestly like to be a part of that process and i probably i think maybe someone who's brand new so you get you know i didn't know this and oh you should know that right so i mean that's for you i think that's a great when we start putting this together i'm going to look to people who have been through the process what did they need to know what what did um what was their experiences like that's a fabulous um addition to it so now we get to number did we vote on actually we did vote on that before we get to number two which i think you're reserving for a little bit more uh conversation i'd like to incorporate or if somebody would be willing to incorporate in the motion that we have staff review our harassment workplace policy and if appropriate to or maybe it's our city attorney i guess if it's appropriate to have changes to these policies um that they return back to the council with a recommendation to hold um any city elected official personally liable for any substantiated harassment claims um and remove uh sort of the liability from the city because similar to what's happened at the federal level um they're recognizing that the taxpayers should not shoulder those costs that'd be to number four is that what that sounds like a separate one and that's the city attorney okay is there consensus for for having you explore that or i can't make a motion but that would be something i'd be able to explore i will say i know of that at the uh higher levels of government um never heard of it at a municipal level but i see no harm asking for information on that okay so so maybe you want to report back to tone i'll i'm fine with that if you want to report back with any information on that as it relates to our policies and um if there's any kind of recommendation that we would want to come forward with you can let us know i could report back on options for the council to consider okay councilor brown just a question um you're suggesting that you'd like that to come to the full council and not be considered as a part of the subcommittee process consideration of our ethics and conduct policy in general and i i think we need more information i think what you can do is hear what he has to say with regards to what is your capabilities on the liability side and then the the location that you can drop that in if you choose to do so would be within your own council policy okay so we can we can incorporate it into that and that way you have the um you can determine what you want to put in there so we could to the full council it could right in of the um number five even though that is predicated on any changes in number four it doesn't stop you from bringing that particular policy back at any time because it is your policy okay yeah so can we just agree do we need a motion would you prefer a motion or we just direct him to bring back your information it's a request for information i think is what we're trying to request for information if there's any type of recommendation as it relates to our council policy is there agreement upon the council in that regard regarding liability regarding personal liability um and i'm happy to share with you what i have if you like or that's fine but i'm i'm happy to research that and report back to the council okay we just do that by by consensus agreement okay and then um did you have a question about that no i was gonna discuss number two um well i think oh this number two no no this number two chris is number two i can speak to that uh well i think we covered that didn't we my understanding is that was incorporated into number three i yeah did you have a question about that yeah if i could speak to that a lot i think that there's a difference in the intention behind what chris has brought forward is number two and what is going into um the live training session for potentially new council members within the the first 60 days of office i think what came out of the rose report is that um there seems to be you know there seems to be some issues around um an understanding amongst members of our city council of the respectful workplace workplace policy and the different items around discrimination harassment and so my interpretation of what came out of the rose report is that we as a sitting body have immediate training in the the apo section one b which it sounds like it's going to change if we're going to be um based on what we've moved so far this evening um around respectful workplace conduct and so i think it's a separate issue where what he's recommending is that we all have the training it is acknowledged by the public that we've received this training so that moving forward if there are issues that the public knows and that we all know that we have had the training on this respectful workplace policy so i just want to as elizabeth warren says i have a plan for that well let's go ahead and see we have a very well everybody's supposed to complete it within this first year anyway with the new state law that has occurred so i know many of you have already taken the the course this year i can't recall off the top of my head who hasn't so well i'm more than happy to offer a refresher class if that's what you're looking for i think what's what comes to your mind what the intention of yours is that we take it collectively rather than individually taking the class and so i think we could do that in number two just say all council members will participate in a training on the santa cruz administrative procedure and policy and i mean we're going to do a little training if i could i maybe i'll just recommend that we do that after we have staff review and revise it because that makes the most sense if we're going to have a change to it because there's inadequate kind of elements that we've learned from this process that's missing that maybe we'd wait and as soon as it's been revised and approved then we have a training in it how's that sounds good to me okay potential solution makes sense okay in terms of timing that's how that would then we could just add that number three all members of the city council will receive training in the apo and city council policy upon revision of those policies does that sound like a good deal upon revision of those policies and it could be incorporated into the onboarding process moving forward from here comes around i'm sorry to complicate or to potentially complicate this but i'm a little confused now because the training that i believe miss murphy is talking about is a is an already established training um which happens uh which is structured regardless of what our specifics are this is about the state law so having that refresher isn't going to or doing it together as that training is not going to get us to looking at whatever it is that we know i think our the one when we do it in house we incorporate our policies into it so if they're included so if you do the that's why the recommendation is structured that way because our live courses include the city's policies and that's when they're provided to employees that's what we do with all of our employees okay i want to but great um so should we move on to two yeah okay um i am personally not so interested in spending the large amounts of money spelled out here for conflict resolution and mediation processes they seem very much in depth and kind of going over a lot of ground that's been done in the past by different groups personally i wait for um all members participate in a conflict resolution training uh conducted by qualified conflict resolution professional and by that i i mean a collective training and that the city then make a conflict resolution services available on an as needed basis um as situations arise that to me it's more forward-looking comes over glimmer comes over brown after uh so i can appreciate that just looking at the estimate for say the conflict resolution center which we heard a representative from this evening uh their total estimated cost for a holistic multi-tier approach to conflict resolution is eleven thousand three hundred and twenty five dollars we spent over eighteen thousand dollars on the report that we're talking about right now which gave us the instruction to do holistic and complete conflict resolution so i really don't think um i'm a little concerned i'm just reframe that i'm a little concerned about us making a decision based off of price when we spend seven thousand dollars more than the estimated total on the divisive aspect of not addressing conflict reconciliation and this whole concept of conflict resolution and reconciliation is near and dear to my heart because i firmly believe that conflict in itself is neutral we experience conflict every day the way that we determine what conflict is is how we deal with it whether we address it head-on or through mediated conversation or whether we let it brew up inside of us and rack up all kinds of different complaints and then bring them all at once without even talking to the other person so i would encourage us because i didn't hear a second to that motion that i would make a motion to move number two and which is to engage in conflict reconciliation or resolution training with a qualified professional and approach the conflict resolution center to use their contract or proposal that they provided in addition to conflict resolution training to instruct staff to come back with options for nonviolent communication training unless that's already incorporated in the conflict resolution training and then in addition specifically race class gender and power issues training with an emphasis on implicit bias second okay i was going to second it i was writing my note but i would i was going to second that but um i also wanted to ask uh if the maker of the motion would incorporate the part of the of council member matthew's motion about have making services available on an as needed basis i think that doing something like what the conflict resolution center is proposed although we don't know exactly what that is because we have a price but not a whole lot of detail on what there's plan that's pretty good there is a plan but um in terms of how it might get at some of the things that um council member glover you're talking about i guess is what my what i meant i think i haven't that we can say suggest yes that we'd like to have i mean i'd i'd be interested in having all of those included it would be worth asking the just for information mrs bradovic is here from the conflict resolution center so if you have any questions yeah i'm sure if you can answer your questions um maybe we could ask that question then oh and or just provide direction that we would like to have that included in whatever comes whatever training we get as well as make making the services available as needed and i want to make one more comment about that because i feel like it's really important that we have some kind of accountability mechanism built into that because part of the problem is even if they're available and nobody's making use of them because not everybody's on board with doing it we end up here and so i'd like to have you know somewhere maybe in the subcommittee some space for having uh bringing us a proposal that kinds of holds us a holds us accountable for for using those services as they are needed and not um just kind of if we decide we want to take um someone up on the offer i will that was yeah there's a lot but yes i will tell you i'll take all of that um we'll go ahead and i'm gonna go ahead and acknowledge vice mayor Cummings just wondering if you could just repeat the motion because i was looking at number two in the staff report um which is what you said and then i wasn't in that was something different so could you just repeat because i wasn't sure where you were reading from yeah i'm just uh looking at the recommendations number two to move all council members agreed to attend mediation conducted by qualified conflict resolution professional and approach the conflict resolution center um to use the quote that they provided in the agenda packet which cites the 11,300 and change number but then also to incorporate um if it's not already in the training and maybe the representative from the non the conflict resolution center could come up and let us know um if there is aspects of nonviolent communication training incorporated in that conflict reconciliation which i'd imagine there probably is um but then also uh where it comes down to race class gender and power issues and if they're incorporated in there and then with the implicit bias training and i want to make sure it's cool with the secretary of my motion i specifically want the city of santa cruz to approach the santa cruz county community coalition to overcome racism uh and engage them in their cracking the codes implicit bias training which has proven to be incredibly effective at opening up people's minds and understanding about the systemic racism and implicit bias we all carry with us that's score right yeah yeah maybe we could do it for the interest of trying to get this through that we could look into that at the future we do actually do offer uh an implicit by implicit bias training class for uh here but i would be very interested i'm always looking for new trainers different varieties so i'd love to get that contact information i think we can achieve what you're looking for from the staff's perspective which i think council could attend to um i'm always willing to like i said let's let's try another group if it may be better than one we're using i don't i can't recall who we're using but send that to me that'd be great okay so it seems like there's some interest in um kind of now understanding the direction that the council is interested in going in that i think could be fine-tuned hopefully as we move forward with what the next steps would be based on the contract potentially with the Conflict Resolution Center i'm happy to allow the opportunity if the director says that she can't do that or does want to do that if not i'm assuming that it's going to work since she's here and and hasn't said no i'm not going to be able to do that and hopefully we can just get that fine-tuned in terms of next steps um councilmember matthews and then councilmember glimmer um that piled on a whole lot of more stuff than i was anticipating um and i'm just wondering about the time because even the um the training conflict resolution training for council members involves private one-on-ones and then a five-hour training of facilitation so that's a six-hour training right there and then there are all these other trainings that have been suggested so i i know they're all good but um i i don't know uh how much we want to pack into the expectation for every year or if there'd be different trainings offered uh at different times the other question i have is the language here says all council members agree to attend mediation conducted by qualified conflict resolution professional did that mean when there's a problem you agree to mediation or did it mean that we agree to a training on conflict resolution principles and so forth um i've used the conflict the city council has used conflict resolution center in the past very very successfully with parties that appeared to be at war with one another so i have a lot of respect but i'm just wondering what we intend here maybe i could if i could maybe just interrupt and then i'm going to go ahead and acknowledge councilmember clever and then i'll go ahead to vice mayor Cummings i don't think we need to go through sorry but i had my hand up and you acknowledged me but it's hard for me to keep track of everybody sorry but i'll just make if i could i'll first start with councilmember brown but i guess what i'll say is that instead of us going through the nuances of the contract at this time perhaps we could have the ethic subcommittee look at what that would look like work with the hr department and our um contractor to fine-tune the next steps and bring forward the next iteration of it councilmember brown forgive me we have been um kind of speculating about what's possible with the conflict resolution center we have a representative here i would ask that um invite the director up and to just respond to the discussion that we're having to see if we can maybe just resolve it now instead of leaving wondering what's possible and i think you're trying to figure out what to do next sure good evening so um my name is layla bratowicz and i'm the director of the conflict resolution center and uh you all have the submitted proposal already and the proposal is really threefold with an opening for future um future needs as well so there is it seems that there's an immediate need that needs to be addressed which is uh the the training in conflict resolution in communication in breaking that spiral of conflict and uh that's really the first step and even before that can be done first it would be really necessary to talk with each of you individually so that that way this is a tailored custom training for you specifically so to make sure that we're addressing exactly the issues that you need you need addressed the differences between the training and facilitation is training is a training and then facilitation is not quite the mediation it's really getting everybody sounds like uh some of the work that you've already done on shared values and how do you how do you really want to approach conflict when it arises again what are the next steps so that can be this discussion that you're having now like the next step is like when a conflict arises we'll try to resolve it privately first if it doesn't work we're across the street pretty much we can call the conflict resolution center we can have a mediation within a week whatever works for you it's for you to decide for us to facilitate the the decision um there's also the part of doing the training with with the staff same thing same breaking the spiral of conflict getting everybody on the same page it's really what we're trying to do is change the culture of how we address conflict at the at the city council level at the city at the city so that when the future situations arise there is common ground already so and then there's the of course the mediation the mediation that have been proposed right now relate directly as i as i understood to the to the two cases from the report that have been substantiated and that gives an opening also that potentially other mediations are needed it's really again it's up to you it's a voluntary process so that's if you have any questions yeah well i'll just say thank you for being here and for being available to share and it sounds like what you have before us is a good first step and we definitely have more to learn from that so i'm comfortable moving in that direction at this time personally okay just want to say that it does include parts of the nonviolent communication it's not fully just nbc it does not necessarily include the implicit like it touches but it's not an implicit bias or any sort of racial gender training specifically it's really communication so thank you councilmember clever thank you um yeah so as much as i appreciate subcommittees and stuff um i feel that this needs to be moved on almost immediately especially because we've been waiting for months and months to be able to address the situation so um i think that we should move forward immediately with uh the conflict reconciliation training uh to answer the question of councilmember mathews i think that we should all agree to participate in this mediated uh conflict resolution training with the professional at the conflict resolution center as a group uh and throughout the entire process also with the individual ones but also as was mentioned and added to the motion make it an ongoing process so that we can have that available and so that there's a level of accountability to make sure people are using that as a first option before they go and file complaints or launch investigations and all this other kind of stuff and then i also do as much as i appreciate director murphy's implicit bias training i've heard from people that it definitely could use some updating and i am very familiar because i've gone through the score cracking the codes training so i would prioritize that one to make sure that all the councilmen receive that specific training because of how holistic and thorough it is it runs about four hours and so that gets back to the question of time i think that this issue deserves a large portion of our time because it has slowed down and impeded the ability for us to move forward on the super important issues that we should be dealing with as a city so if that means investing 10 15 hours of training in understanding all of these different nuanced issues and uh different areas of interaction i think that it is uh it would behoove us all and the citizens of santa cruz for us to invest that time vice-mercames yeah i just wanted to say that for for clarification i think that number two is pertaining to the current city council members and that this is enough that because we have issues right now that need to be reconciled and yeah even needing to so yeah i just i think what i was hearing before some confusion around that is something that all city council members have in the future but i think it's just i just wanted to clarify that it seems like that's specific for us as a body currently okay so that seems to be essentially what was also affirmed by the executive director okay did you have additional comments yeah i just want to put it for the record that while i do believe that it's important for this group to go through the training because of the issues that currently exist i think having preemptive training for council members just like the other trainings potentially every two years since that's the overlap of the time that people are on on city council uh that may be beneficial because that will not only reinvigorate the knowledge in the minds with people that are continuing after those two years but also give a very robust and clear understanding for the new coming uh or incoming council members council member rathios um i do want to get some clarity on the nature of the motion um as spelled out here it's um 10 hours of training just interviews and training and follow-up facilitation on the conflict resolution and then additional training on other topics and so if i could i think it's essentially accepting the conflict resolutions contract or proposal and then um council member glever was going to be working with uh our director lisa murphy from hr on implicit bias training and if there's a training that the council members can take as well as soon as possible would also be incorporated that does that summarize your motion yeah just uh but also the race class gender and power uh which is kind of in the implicit bias training so we'll start there and then if there's more we want to expand on we can bring that secondary training back but okay so knowing that we can expand training beyond that at a certain point that's essentially the motion council member brown i'm just wondering where the incorporation of some accountability to utilize um conflict resolution and mediation as needed uh i believe it was a friendly amendment yeah for the amendment you made it and we both accept it okay got it thank you but thanks for clarifying nice merecomings i'm a little confused because currently we do receive race and implicit bias training so i'm just kind of curious as to how incorporating that again into this like what's the intention behind it since we've all to my knowledge we've all gone through that already and that's already incorporated into the city council policy yeah the implicit bias training is a specific and in-depth four-hour process that's paired with uh video and incorporate small breakout sessions with discussions and exploration into personal biases and unconscious behavior so it's just a lot more in depth and it i think it really carries a lot more weight because i've been like i said before i've been through it a couple times now but also watching people go through it and the transformation that they have just in their understanding of the situation i guess if i could i just think that we can look into that and move forward but for the interest of the item before us around the conflict resolution maybe we can instead of trying to go in that we can just kind of maybe focus on that tonight and knowing that there could be more opportunities to look at what we've already had what you're suggesting what could be contracted with through our human resources department how it might fit in for the purposes of this evening's item particularly as it relates to what's agendized this evening having it go through some of that conflict resolution components at this point seems appropriate does that work for you in terms of the direction that's been taken in as long as we're working on it to potentially implement implicit bias training through score and cracking the codes then sure it sounds like that's what our uh we require like i said we require the cultural diversity class that you have to take and maybe it's time to update refresh try something you do another look that's that's something we can do but you all are required to take that and then just reiterate again the implicit bias which we do have that class it's not required to take but we do offer it but it can be time we're saying to look at it again revamp it go another with another vendor or have you say i have that's absolutely fine we don't require that class is what i'm is the distinction what i'm making so we can look at our policies around that is that fit okay okay so essentially um moving forward right now though at the at the time with the recommendation of two and moving forward with the the um conflict resolution center excuse me right okay do we have a time certain i mean 60 days are we gonna you know that's our deadline to do this as soon as we can figure it out i'll start scheduling you know how difficult it is for it to get you all together but that's that's the first role to overcome but we we can start right away okay all right so just to clarify with respect to the conflict resolution we'll get started in that right away that'll be the priority with respect to the other trainings we'll look at how we might incorporate that or update it within our existing uh programs and in in classes just to be clear okay okay great and i had a question does this incorporate mediation because i mean i hear a yes it does resolution training yes yes yes as described by uh mish bradovic yeah packet yeah okay any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously we'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting at this time