 How's my volume, Roberta, sound good? I'm clear. Okay, thanks. Hey, Peter. Nancy here. Hi Nancy, welcome. Thank you. I can hear you. I'm clear. Let me try my, my video. I'm actually at home. So I'm on my phone. So see how that works with video. Yeah, we can see you. Really? Good. All right. Excellent. I'm going to turn my camera off until I'm ready. Sounds great. Yeah, you'll be. Okay. My speaker too. Yep. Oh, by the way. So just so you know, I haven't had a chance to talk to Tasha, but I'm going to ask Bjorn Greekman Burke. He's a planner that works for me. To assist me on my, on my items. So he's going to actually be promoted to the co-host and he'll, he'll do the screen sharing and he'll do some of the slides. So just FYI. We'll have, we'll have. Secretary to promote Bjorn and when he's on. Yeah. And both promote both of us. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for that. No problem. Council member Rogers. I see that your hands raised as an attendee. I tried to promote you to panelists, but I have allowed you to speak if you need to let us know something. Thank you. Council member Rogers. Are you able to hear us? Peter, can you hear me? We can hear you now. Yes. You can. Yes. That not means yes. Okay. Can we please promote, I mean, promote phone number ending in seven, six, eight, five. Yes. We name it to remove some part of the number and then promote. Thank you. It's not allowing me to make the phone number of panelists. Is that mayor Rogers? Yes, ma'am. I'll read the name to Mayor Rogers and just get permission to talk. I don't think I can promote to panelists. Thank you. Thank you. For the sake of time. And to honor everyone's time. It is 403 and. Mayor Rogers is unable to chair the meeting today. So myself, council, I'm in Roger Rogers will be chairing the meeting and I would like to call. The meeting to order. At 403. Mr. Can you please call the roll. Mayor Rogers. Here. Council member McDonald. Council member Rogers. Present. We are now taking. Public comment for item two public comment on non agenda items. This is a time when any person may address the subcommittee on matters not listed on this agenda. But which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the subcommittee. If you wish to make a comment via zoom, please raise your hand. If you are dialing in via telephone, please dial. Star nine to raise your hand. Miss. David. Good evening, Miss. Please. Can you please. Put the timer on and also call the names. As they appear. Yes. You can share the timer screen and it looks like we have one hand raised. Eris weaver. I'll let a person to talk and you can go ahead and unmute. coalition, and we'll know that transportation is one of our biggest contributors to climate change, and that so many of trips locally are within two miles or less, which is a perfect distance to ride a bike, and May just happens to be National Bike Month. And so I just wanted to remind people of that fact, and we have a host of activities going on throughout the month, including the Ride of Silence on the 18th, which is a ride in a memorial for cyclists who have been killed on our roads. And on May 20th, this bike to work day, and there will be a variety of energizer stations in different places throughout the county, including a happy hour at the end of the day. Information on all of this stuff is available on our website at bikesanoma.org BTWD for Bike to Work Day. I hope you'll consider participating. Thank you. Are there any additional public comments? It looks like that's the only hand raised. Thank you. Looks like that is our final speaker, so we'll be concluding item two, public comment at this time. We'll bring it back to the subcommittee and proceed in our normal fashion. We'll call item three, department reports. Yeah, thank you, Councilor Rogers. Peter Martin filling in for Tasha Wright today. Just wanted to let you know I have no department reports today on the agenda. Thank you. We will proceed to item four, new business, and 4.1, which will also be Mr. Peter Martin. Great. Thank you, Councilor Rogers and members of the subcommittee. Item 4.1 is a county of Sonoma Climate Action and Resiliency Division update and coordination presentation. The presenters from the county of Sonoma will be Barbara Lee, Director of Climate Action and Resiliency, Jane Elias, Manager of the Energy and Sustainability Division, and Anna Yip, Climate Analyst. With that, we'll let them go ahead and proceed with their presentation. Thank you so much, Peter, and thank you, Council members, for inviting us to speak with you today. First, let me just make sure everyone can hear me okay. Oh, fantastic. I am going to share my screen. If that's all right with you. And let's see. And slide show. I have still not mastered the art of having the presentation up and running and be able to see the meeting at the same time. So apologies for that delay. I am Barbara Lee. Barbara, I'm sorry to get interrupted, but we see the presenter mode. So if you want to switch, if you click on display settings, and then switch swap screens, do you see that down key up at the very top? There's a little drop down under display settings, and it should allow you to unfortunately, I don't have display settings. So it's just to the left of your mouse. I see. Alternatively, I can just share my screen, Barbara. Why don't you share your screen? I will stop the share. I apologize for the confusion here. The audio in my office is really tricky for some reason that we haven't figured out yet. So I am sitting at a terminal that I am not used to sitting at. And very much appreciate Anna's support there. So I'm going to try again. I'm Barbara Lee. I am the new director of the new climate action and resiliency division in the county administrator's office at the county of Sonoma. Some of you might remember me from years ago. I ran the Northern Sonoma County air pollution control district for about 20 years and worked on a lot of air quality and climate issues in this region during that time and then left in 2014 and joined the Brown administration and ran the Department of Toxic Substances control until Governor Brown's term ended. And I'm really happy to be back at the county and working in this region again and on such an important issue. I have Jane Elias and Anna Yepp with me this evening, this afternoon. And Jane, as you all know, is the manager of energy and sustainability for the county. And Anna is an extraordinary climate and resiliency analyst and has just proven it again by stepping up and filling in a gap when I have been unable to make my screen work. So Jane, is there anything that you would like to add about yourself? And then, Anna, I'll give you a chance before we jump into the rest of the presentation. Thank you, Barbara. Just quickly, I think having been in front of some of you in quite a while, so good to see you. And as Barbara mentioned, managing the energy and sustainability division and some of the slides you'll be seeing tonight, we'll cover some of the resources and services that we offer through the division and ultimately through the climate action resiliency division itself. So look forward to any questions that you might have and onward we'll pass it on. And yes, thanks for that echo what Barbara said. Thank you all for having us. We're excited to be here. The only thing I'll add too, Barbara will jump into here in more detail our strategic plan, our county's strategic plan. And I've been working pretty closely since I was brought on board about a year ago, helping implement the county's strategic plan and trying to coordinate with cities as well. So I've connected with a couple folks here on that effort. But yes, again, just grateful to be here and looking forward to future collaborations. Okay, terrific. Thanks. So just a quick overview of what I have to talk about with you this evening. I'm going to give you a little bit of information about the new climate action and resiliency division at the county. Talk about our role in implementing the county's strategic plan, its climate action and resiliency pillar. There are a few key projects that we're working on that I think might interest you. And then we've identified some opportunities where we think there could be some good collaboration between the county and the city. And there will be time, of course, for questions at the end. And I'm going to just point out that I still carry with me my trusty city of Santa Rosa WaterCup. It's been with me for about 10 years now. And it's still doing its job. So thank you for that. Moving on. As I mentioned, we have a new division in the county administrator's office. The climate action and resiliency division was created last year. And it's been, it's been evolving. And we have now three main functions, climate action and resilience, which you would sort of anticipate from our name. And that's really the part of our group that is focused on the strategic plan and implementation of the strategic plan. We also have energy and sustainability with us now. That change happened in February. And when Carolyn Judy retired from her role as the director of general services. And most of general services is now, as you have probably heard, part of transportation and public works. And energy and sustainability has joined the climate action and resiliency group. There will be a final board decision on the future of all of this organization in July. But we're super happy to be working closely with Jane and her team. And as you know, energy and sustainability operates the Sonoma County energy independence program. Implements Bayrun incentives has a green business certification program and also has a program through PG&E, the local government partnership program. And we can talk more about those in detail later. But the general organization of energy and sustainability and what it does has remained intact. It's just now more closely aligned with climate and resilience. And then we are in the process of adding a water resources function to our group. This is largely in response to the impending action by the water boards to approve or give final approval to TMDL, total maximum daily load limits for the lower Russian river. And there's a host of programmatic activities that will flow from that that will be implemented by different agents within the county. And our water resources function will be kind of a coordinating function for that implementation. I'm going to move us ahead a slide. Thank you, Anna. So I'm going to talk a little bit about our climate action and resiliency pillar in the board's strategic plan. It has an overarching goal to make Sonoma County carbon neutral by 2030. And it has five goals that support that overarching goal. The first is focused on wildfire preparedness and resiliency. The second on community resiliency, particularly in the energy sector and carbon neutrality. The third is inward looking. And it's focused on carbon free and zero waste county facilities. And then we have a sustainability and emissions reduction goal for the county's fleet vehicles. And finally, a planning and policy goal around climate change mitigation and adaptation through land use and conservation. I'm going to talk just a little bit about each of these. Oh, and I do want to say that there are two board members in particular on the board, supervisors Goren and Hopkins, who champion climate issues, although the entire board is really pretty engaged in this. They have been the board liaisons for the climate pillar. The structure of how that's going to operate is being reworked at the moment. And so we'll have more in that space, probably in the next month or so. But I do want to call out supervisors Goren and Hopkins for their leadership roles on this issue. So the first goal that I want to talk about is our wildfire preparedness and resiliency goal. And it has three supporting objectives. The first is focused on community education around fire hardening and carbon neutral construction. And this is something that Jane's energy and sustainability group is active in. And we also have an objective around vegetation management, providing outreach and education and also resources to support vegetation management by landowners. And then lastly, the third objective to leverage grant funding to support sustainable vegetation management throughout the county. And as you're probably aware, the agriculture and open space district is heading up a vegetation management program. But the Sonoma water also is doing a lot of work in that area and permit Sonoma has the hazard mitigation grant. And at some point we'll have the BRIC grant. And these are also significant contributors to that effort. Our second goal is around community resilience and carbon neutrality. And the first objective supporting that goal is to support community microgrids and general resilience around energy with the expectation that there will be continue to be grid power interruptions in the future. This is a major focus of the energy and sustainability division. We also have an objective to provide $20 million in financing by 2026 for carbon neutral multifamily housing. So we are obviously looking to the Sonoma County energy independence program to help us achieve this objective. But we are also pursuing grant opportunities. And I believe the city was very helpful in supporting a funding request that we made recently that would advance that initiative. It's an important piece of making sure that the benefits of moving to the green economy and moving to greener energy and greater energy resilience are enjoyed not just by single family home owners and business owners, but also by those who are renting. And then our third objective is to partner with other government entities such as the city, as well as educational institutions and nonprofits on workforce development for carbon neutral and resilient building technologies. And we want to get that off the ground by 2023. The third goal for carbon free and zero waste and resilient county facilities has three objectives. The first is to design or retrofit county facilities to be carbon neutral and zero waste with resilient construction techniques. The second is to design or retrofit county facilities so that we can promote and maximize telework and reduce the carbon footprint around worker commute. And then the third is to invest in county owned facilities to establish carbon eliminating microgrid technologies and improve our resilience with regard to potential interruptions from the power grid. And our energy independence group is energy and sustainability division is active in these as well. The fourth goal is sustainable and low emissions county fleet vehicles. We want to to the extent possible phase out combustion and we are working to achieve a 30 percent zero emission fleet. The light duty portion of the fleet by 2026. We also are investing in the county's employee clean commute program. That's the second objective. And the third objective is to upgrade our county owned electric vehicle charging infrastructure. And this is also a near term goal. We hope to have that infrastructure upgraded by 2023. And then lastly, the fifth goal for policy and planning activities around mitigation and adaptation. By 2025, we want to update the county general plan and other planning documents in county departments and special districts to maximize carbon sequestration and adaptation. And we have an important project that I'm going to talk about in a minute that furthers that goal. And then the second objective is to develop policies to maximize carbon sequestration and minimize loss of natural carbon sinks and incentivize collaboration with private and public landowners. And this project I'm going to talk about also supports that second objective. So moving on, we do have some projects that I want to share with you. We'll talk a little bit about the municipal greenhouse gas inventory we're working on. We're also going to be embarking on a carbon sequestration study, a municipal waste zero waste inventory and plan. As you probably are aware, the board has approved funding for climate resiliency projects and I'll give you an update on that. The climate resilient land strategy is the one I was referring to a moment ago that supports our efforts to maximize sequestration and minimize loss of carbon sequestering habitat. And then I'll talk a little bit about a low interest septic upgrade loan program we're developing and then hoping that we can partner a bit on climate and resiliency engagement. So I will try to move through these quickly because I know you have a lot of things on your plate. But to just update you on our municipal greenhouse gas inventory, we hope to release an RFP late this month, possibly into next month. Our current greenhouse gas data at the county is a bit outdated and it's segmented in ways that make it difficult to build a cohesive reduction plan. So we are looking to create a rigorous and detailed greenhouse gas inventory that is robust enough to support third party verification should we choose to go down that path. The project overall is going to include metrics that we will track and a mechanism for doing that tracking and we expect to make that tracking available to the public. And then the contract itself will also include training for county staff so that they can operate and maintain the inventory and report on the metrics. We expect that developing the inventory is going to leave us in a better position to achieve the 2030 carbon neutrality goal that the board has set for us and I want to point out that we are aligning our work with our CPAs community wide greenhouse gas inventory effort. We know that you also have a parallel effort underway and the hope is that all of our work together will put the county in a better place to move forward accountably and transparently on our climate mitigation efforts. Hand in hand with looking at our greenhouse gas inventory, we want to have a really good understanding of the potential for carbon sequestration within our natural and working lands. We'll be releasing an RFP for this project a little bit later after we've got the greenhouse gas inventory RFP out the door. The carbon sequestration study will help us pull together a wealth of existing data and efforts that are already in place but haven't been clearly aligned so that we can better understand sequestration potential in the county and build that into our efforts to achieve the 2030 neutrality goal. In doing this we expect to be partnering with other departments within the county with other government partners such as yourselves and also with community-based organizations and we believe that the results of the carbon sequestration study will better inform our climate action activities within the county but also be a useful tool for others as you're planning your climate action work coming up. Our municipal zero waste inventory plan is more inward looking. This is another project we'll be releasing an RFP for later in the year. We are collaborating with Zero Waste Sonoma on the development of the RFP and expect that it'll produce an inventory of the county's municipal waste streams and we'll use that inventory to create a plan that will help us achieve zero waste in the county's facilities. We'll be looking at both upstream and downstream solutions and we're anxious to learn from the work that the city has done and that others have done as we bring this forward. I mentioned that the county board dedicated some funding for climate action and resilience projects. The climate resilience fund was established with 10 million dollars from a settlement with PG&E for the 2017 fires. We brought some recommendations to the board in early February and the board allocated the first round of funding from that 10 million dollar pot. A little over 5 million dollars were awarded for 13 projects. There were three projects that were submitted that did not get funding in that first round but 13 did and the selection of the projects was based on a framework that Anna and I put together that has three primary areas where it evaluates the performance of projects, project proposals against policy objectives set by the board. The first area is what we call the care area. It's climate action, resilience, and equity. There is an area that looks at alignment with other pillars of the board's strategic plan and then lastly how well the project strategically leverages external resources and partnerships. All of those factors are evaluated and given overall project score. That project score is divided into the total dollars, county dollars requested for the project and gives us a measure of the cost effectiveness of the project. The projects were ranked based on their relative cost effectiveness and we made recommendations to the board based on that. For the six projects that weren't funded, those are still in the running for funding. Anna and I have been working with the county departments that proposed projects for funding and we're working with them to refocus the projects, to bring in some better external leveraging of dollars and also outside partnerships and hope to be bringing some recommendations to the board later this summer regarding those projects and then depending on what the funding availability looks like, we may also bring some additional projects as well. And I should mention that all of these projects were projects that were brought forward by county departments and agencies. Some of them were in partnership with other external partners, but these were all internal projects. Some of the ones that were funded that might be of interest to you include funding that was awarded to Zero Waste Sonoma in partnership with Transportation and Public Works to develop a model ordinance for construction and demolition waste. And once that ordinance is the model ordinance is developed, it will be shared with all of the RCPA members and participants in Zero Waste Sonoma so that should you wish to adopt an ordinance for construction demolition debris, you will have a model ordinance to work with. In addition, funding was awarded to Sonoma Water for a drought resiliency plan and funds were awarded to improve the energy efficiency and install renewable energy and storage at the Santa Rosa Veterans Building and funds were also dedicated to provide a local match for UCCE and a group of partners to pursue building a community food network to increase food resilience during emergencies. I mentioned that we have a climate resilient land strategy that we are working on. This is a strategy that looks at our natural lands or working lands and urban green spaces as a system to identify ways that that system could be its most resilient to provide maximum benefits to the animals and the plants in the system but also to the people who live within or near these lands. And so we embarked on this strategy last fall. This is in partnership with the Agriculture and Open Space District and Eastern Research Group is the contractor putting the strategy together. We worked through the winter with some technical and implementation advisory groups on building the technical inputs to the strategy in the spring, did some outreach and engagement with focus groups and initiated a more formal engagement with our local tribes. We just received and are now reviewing the initial draft of the strategy and we'll be providing comments back to our contractor later this week. We expect to have public workshop and receive input on the strategy, revise it and bring it to the board later this summer. The strategy addresses not only the open spaces that exist now but considers for example where connected green corridors could best be situated through our built environment and that would include through some of the city territory to improve the resilience of the overall natural land system and also to improve the benefits that are afforded to all of our residents in terms of not just access to those green spaces but protections against heat island effect, extreme heat flooding and in some instances additional fire protection as well. And so we're really looking forward to releasing this strategy. We expect it will be helpful not only for those of us in the County family but also for many of our partners as we're seeking to move forward to the most resilient future that we can create. I mentioned that we're starting up a water resources function within the climate action and resiliency group in CAO and one of the big efforts that we're undertaking is developing a low interest septic upgrade loan program. We're applying to administer this loan program on behalf of the county. Jane and I have been working with the regional water board on the general scoping of what this effort is going to be. It's a program that is actually offered through the state water board. It provides low interest loans to individual property owners who have to undertake septic upgrades in order to comply with the upcoming TMDL standard. There will also be new sewer hookups and going from septic to sewer is the preferred compliance path but there will be quite a few instances where properties will not have the option of connecting to sewer and in those instances we hope to be able to offer a low interest loan to help them upgrade their existing septic to a better performing septic system. The program will be developed and implemented collaboratively between the energy and sustainability team and our new water resources function. As I mentioned, we're really interested in doing some additional engagement and outreach around climate and resiliency. We would like to partner with others wherever we can. We are hoping to hold a climate town hall in this year, likely in the fall. We don't have a set date yet but we are starting to look at that. The last climate town hall that the county held was in April of 2021 so it feels like it's a good time to go back out and take the pulse. We have an interesting situation at the county in that most of our climate goals are inward looking for county operations but there are a few that are very outward looking and it's really important that we engage with our partners and with the community at large as we move forward on implementing those goals and so we would look forward to collaborating with you to maximize outcomes for all of us and also are collaborating with our CPA of course on this. In terms of other opportunities for collaboration, top of the list right now is coordinated transit incentives and promotions. This is something Anna has been working on with some of your transit folks along with City of Petaluma and our CPA and our county transit. This is an outgrowth of the proposal that our county transit operation put in for climate resilience funding to do a fair free pilot program to make all of county transit fair free for a defined period of time and collect some data on where we get the best improvement in ridership as a result of that fair free effort and one of the directions the board gave to staff was to explore whether there was an opportunity to make the fair free pilot truly county wide in that it would also involve Santa Rosa city bus and Petaluma transit as well and so there have been some conversations that have been going on between the different transit providers and Anna has been working with them and we're hoping that we are able to pull together a revised proposal to bring back to the board for funding later this summer as I had mentioned so we're really looking forward to our future collaboration on that. In addition because of some of the work that our energy and sustainability group does around the energy independence program around Bayran we would really like to coordinate with you on community education and engagement surrounding reach codes for energy and in particular we would like to collaborate on energy resilience in multi-family residences. Jane also mentioned that she would be super excited to work with the county on green business certification for some of the city's programs and businesses and I mentioned earlier climate resilient community corridors that is developing linked green spaces through the built environment it holds a whole host of benefits that you know we can chat about if you're interested in some of the details the city did support a funding request we made on this in this area as well irrespective of whether that funding request goes anywhere we believe there's a lot of benefit in collaboratively developing these corridors and would like to explore that with you and as I mentioned collaboration on climate resilience outreach so this is other than a wrap-up slide that tells you who we are and how to get a hold of us this is this is the conclusion of what I was going to present and I'd love to open it up for questions. Thank you very much for that presentation are there any questions from the subcommittee or staff? Yes councilwoman McDonough. Thank you councilwoman Rodgers I just want to make a comment this is my first meeting on climate action and so I appreciate the work that the county is doing and really my question was more around what is our role in the county's efforts and how do we partner better or do you reach out to our staff so that we can work on coordinated efforts in the work that we're doing and implementing some of the plans I'm just not clear on how we actually do this work or what a council person's a role in this and so maybe you can shed just a little bit of light on that before we go and maybe the next presentation will help with that as well so if you could just give me that information. Thank you for the question it's an excellent question we do coordinate staff to staff but we also welcome you know when a council member has a priority issue or area or is interested in engaging on some of these initiatives we would very much welcome your participation but as I mentioned we are actively partnering right now with your transit providers so that we can explore developing a true fair free pilot program for all of transit in Sonoma County and Anna is our our lead on that in the climate action and resilience office but Brian Albi at Sonoma County Transits involved and Anna can talk a little bit more if you want to hear more about that effort Jane also routinely collaborates with city staff on a host of energy and sustainability issues and I'm sure she is ready to speak to to all of those if you want to hear more about the collaboration that goes on I'm interested in hearing from the subcommittee how you might want to be involved in some of the bigger picture things that we're talking about for example would you how would you want to engage with us on a town hall if we wanted to open it up so that not only is it county folks but also some of our other government partners presenting at that town hall we'd like to make we would like to make climate action and resilience efforts across the county as integrated as possible without in any way usurping the important role that RCPA plays we do think that the the more closely we link our arms in this effort the better our success is going to be um yes I think that we would definitely love to work together on our goals that we have in common our community members have actually expressed I'm an interest in seeing collaboration between the city and the county and us being able to put our resources together I think combining resources it allows us to go a lot farther and to not duplicate some of the same efforts if we know how to divide and and conquer um what it is that we're trying to do so we're not doing the same things so um the the mayor's on and he hasn't stopped me from talking yet so I'm gonna assume that I am on the right track in saying that collaboration is always great and we always are open to the possibility of collaborating with our partners in the community yeah yeah and if I could just add um councilman mcdonnell uh the city does have a community-wide climate action plan as well as a municipal climate action plan that were completed uh I believe in 2013-14 time frame uh those are of course due for an update um and they will be uh kind of they'll be addressed as part of this larger effort uh as we move forward with the general plan update for the city um but uh you know those strategic documents do uh really highlight some of the objectives for the city in climate action planning um and of course those definitely go hand in glove with what is going on at a region-wide level and so of course uh you know especially just even our staff here in the water department and other departments we do coordinate often with jane and others um on a lot of those strategies as well too so there is a lot of cross pollination uh going on at a staff level that's great so a couple things you're right we're working on our general plan right now so I would love to know what the county is doing as far as general plan in regards to you were talking about carbon neutral building and as we move forward I think in the planning commission whatever data and information we can share you can share with the city um as we move forward in updating our general plan would be helpful so that we are in alignment on what the county might be requiring and what maybe some of the ideas that you have around that I think that would be one way we could partner um project greenway is something that the county um could be really helpful and I think as we move forward on that bike path that goes through because it's state-owned property so I think partnering with us um on that particular bike path way to get that to finally go through um up to howard's park park and and over to spring lake would be I think really ideal when we're looking at encouraging you know walking and and riding bikes and um the ability for folks to get across town um definitely anything around biking that's our next item that's coming up it's one of the things we consistently hear that we need to partner and I know there's a lot of different roads that we will put some money behind but then it attaches to maybe a county road but I think anything that you can do to help partner so that we can then really get to that um that opportunity of really connecting those roads all together no matter who owns the streets would be great and then I would also be interested in what you're doing for staff as far as allowing them to um be at home and work from home to reduce a carbon footprint or what you're doing around supporting their efforts to um maybe do a carbon neutral uh like a car I don't know you have subsidies for them to get electric cars or what what it is that the county is doing but I think that that may be an interesting topic I think as we're kind of moving from COVID to know how many people can actually work from home at least a few days a week and um and how that actually helps reduce carbon footprint and emissions so I think everything that you've given us today was really great but those were some of the things that came up during your presentation that I noted could be really helpful as we're you know we're looking at our stuff as well on climate so in the interest of time I think what we'll do is we'll get um some succinct answers back to you I do know that there is a a planning group that does um meet on a regular basis through our CPA that includes city planners and county planners and others so I think there is a lot of coordination going on there um the county uh board will be considering I think next month a um no it just considered the telework policy I'm I'm messing up my days and so we have a new telework policy it does um lay out you know how telework um will be implemented going forward now that we're moving back into uh regular time and um we can certainly share that with you we have uh other um other commute um program work that's underway um and uh as well as work on carbon neutral buildings and that sort of thing so I'm happy to get that information to you and if I can just add real quick too I know a part of the new telework policy that we just adopted is this new tracking system where staff can input um you know days that they've teleworked that removed a car trip and so it will calculate for us in total you know co2 saved by this new telework policy and as well for like the user side it's kind of funny it has I can also like calories burned if you biked or if you walked um you know some other funny metrics but it is definitely centered around um you know what are the the climate impacts of this new telework policy that we have just recently adopted thank you are there any additional questions all right so we now will be taking um public comment if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand you will have three minutes and mr birda can you take it away yes we have one hand raised there's weaver there's weaver i'll allow you to speak and you can go ahead and okay thanks um just tagging off of what uh council member mcdonald brought up I have to say I was a little disappointed to not see any mention of active transportation in that whole climate goals overview pillars thing um and I've actually just emailed you both because I would love to talk with you further both Barbara and Jane about possible ways to collaborate particularly the green business program um because we've there's also we've got a bike friendly program and I think there could be some overlap things to happen there um and I am interested in in hearing more you know I've sat through presentations from rcpa about their whole plan which of course they don't have any authority to act on and so how all these different plans intersect because I hear so many of our jurisdictions talking a lot about a priority around climate and then what I actually see happening on the ground from my perspective with active transportation um is so inadequate um in terms of addressing that goal of of being carbon neutral by 2030 the other thing I have is sort of a question I guess is the new buzzword in all of this now seems to be resilience and or climate resilience and I know what that word means in some other context but I have to say I'm not entirely certain what it means in this context um so that would be an interesting thing to hear more about but again I can always take that answer from you offline if the committee needs to move along thanks we also have Kevin Conway with his hand raised Mr Conway you've been allowed to speak and you can go ahead and unmute okay thank you very much I'm sorry I tuned in a little bit late for this meeting but I'm a little confused by it I I don't two of the the members of Santa Rosa's Climate Action subcommittee are I see are not there with Chris and Eddie Alvarez not being there so I don't know if this meeting has has an official quorum and I've never uh seen uh the county represented it so well at at the climate action subcommittee meetings and I I don't know whether this is the result of the county having formed I know there was going to be an entire entirely new department with a new position that has to do with sustainability and I I'm curious as to whether or not the people representing the county are are in that role now I I I guess I've lost touch with what has happened with that new uh new county department having to do with uh energy and sustainability so anyway um I don't know if you can formally address these uh questions of mine or not because of the way the interaction has to work but if you can I'd certainly be interested in hearing uh the answers to the to the items I raised thank you councilmember rogers those are the only hands that he raised oh mr conway did you have something else to say no okay so that's all the hands that are raised thank you um and just for a point of point of clarification the members of um the subcommittee the subcommittee have changed uh councilman mcdonnell is now a member of the climate action subcommittee welcome and uh mayor rogers is on the line and he is attending the meeting although he is not able to chair the meeting currently so I am chairing um so the three of us are on and we do have a quorum um and we are thankful that the county representatives were here to let us know what is going on with the county and also offer um a hand um out um for us to collaborate with them which we hope to take them up on that offer in additional capacities um as we've already been collaborating in many capacities already so thank you very much for your presentation and taking the time to come here today Barbara Anna Hanging thank you thank you and we will be moving um oh well now it looks like I will be calling item 4.2 and handing it off to mr Peter great um thank you councilmember rogers um item 4.2 is bicycle and pedestrian master plan update and an annual report on their progress as you know um you know climate strategies and reducing total vehicle miles traveled is an important climate strategy for the city presenting today will be uh Nancy Adams transportation planner as well as Bjorn creepenberg uh from public works thank you peter and welcome um committee members and and members of the the public so um the way we're going to work this is um I now have a team of active transportation um planners to to address and to help shepherd through um all the good things that that means and that meant uh the council last year um actually two years ago um budgeted the um Bjorn's position so we're really happy that he um has joined the team so he and I are going to um team team speak through the the slide deck we have a few slides and once we're through we're happy to answer any questions and um and you know hear any comments from the our community so with that said I'm going to just this is something that um staff is has just started to do the the council just a little bit of background um council member um mcdonald is relatively new to the council but in 2019 the council adopted the bicycle pedestrian master plan and so one of the one of the items that were um called out in the plan was um sorry I'm not at home and I have a puppy that wants out um so uh one of the items that was was that's included in the plan is is providing our bicycle pedestrian um bicycle advisory board and an update of how we're doing with the implementation of of the plan that the council just adopted so this was presented to our board um our bike headboard um and I think it's January or February it's our second report so um we thought it would be a good thing to connect this conversation with the climate action subcommittee because there's a lot of climate action uh strategies ght reduction strategies that are identified in the climate action plan um that that the these these policies and our bike and pet master plan help us implement so um you know reducing our our combustion and you know trying to achieve carbon neutrality so um there was a conversation about um how we work with you know our government partnerships as part of the last item and um the the county the Sonoma county transportation authority has a county wide bicycle and pedestrian advisory group that um has members from all the jurisdictions within the county and so we meet as a group um to talk about you know all the active transportation functions within the county so um it's a great group um this really a good a good new story is they just were awarded I think about $500,000 to actually update the county wide um bike and pet master plan so that that's a real um good good a vision that they're going to be working on over the next couple years so quite quite excited about that so um I'm going to go to um just a real quick about the our plan um we we looked and tracked what we're doing in terms of infrastructure and corridor studies we we we have several programs and policies identified in the plan and then we also have some performance metrics next slide please so some of this I've already spoken about um the the um you know the really the goal is to try to um increase the access and the comfort of our bicycle and pedestrian networks and those are shown on the next slide Bjorn and then maintain and expand the network and then just support a culture of walking and biking within Santa Rosa so you know when we look at look look at the functions of the plan those are the things that we're trying to accomplish um you know over overarching goals so next slide please so um as part of the conversation um that that was a lot almost a two-year process what what landed up by happening is the plan includes what we call a phase one and this is a list of projects that were prioritized based on you know project delivery community input um you know just really the the the importance of how they would serve our bicycle and pedestrian network connections and so what what this map is here a little hard to to kind of decipher um but it's a it's a several infrastructure projects and I can just call out a couple um we have the the bike and pedestrian over crossing uh at Highway 101 there at the junior college and the Cottingtown Mall and I'm sure that the council has heard quite a bit about that project but that was a one of the major um phase one projects that in terms of infrastructure that came out of of that discussion um there are also corridor studies there were of I think eight plus studies that were identified in the plan and and why these were identified is because we didn't have you know the bandwidth to to really do a deep dive into these individual corridors so they were identified as corridors to be studied um you know once the plan was adopted and subsequently we've actually um you know completed an analysis for for stoning point road um third street down to the passable road which was the top priority for our bicycle industry and advisory board so that was done um last year that was completed last year and we're currently working on um some other studies here over the last four or five months for um college four street Montgomery and uh Rosalind and Dutton um areas so next slide please so I'm gonna hand this off now to Bjorn and he'll go through the next several slides and then I'll close out all right great thank you Nancy um so I'm just gonna quickly like Nancy said this this presentation is given annually to our bicycle and pedestrian advisory board um and and they're somewhat familiar with this subject matter so I'll do my best to try not to use any um any terminology that you might not be familiar with so we've got the projects several highlights here some infrastructure projects that were implemented in 2021 and I'm just going to walk through some of those some of the new bicycle and pedestrian projects you might see around town so we've got some protected bike a section of protected bike lane on Ridgway Avenue right near um Santa Rosa High School between Glen Street and Armory Drive this was a really exciting project that was actually the first parking protected bike lane in all of Sonoma County and this was implemented as part of a slurry seal paving project basically what we did there was we pushed the angled parking out away from the curb and put the bike lanes in between the angled parking and the sidewalk um so rather than the bicycle lane protecting the vehicle parking you've now got the parked cars protecting the bicycle lane um we were also able to implement 3.2 miles of upgraded bike lanes um on pretty long stretches of Hoenn Avenue Summerfield Road and Bethard's Drive um as part of our pavement preventative maintenance program um what we did there was again this is a paving project or these were paving projects and we were able to narrow the travel lanes to gain a little bit of extra width and then buffer the bike lanes so those used to just be standard probably five or six foot wide bike lanes and they are now six feet wide with two foot painted buffers or in the case of Summerfield Road there was actually a pretty lengthy stretch where we eliminated one travel lane in each direction and provided an extremely wide buffer for the bike lanes uh we part of that Ridgway project on the other side of the street just a normal class 2 bike lane couldn't go protected on that side because of we didn't have enough width and there were some other some other challenges we our our crews just finished up about two tenths of a mile of a new sidewalk filling a really important gap um on Gernville Road between Ridley Avenue and Marlowe Road and then we have eight locations where we uh provided crossing enhancements um the most noteworthy being the new signalized crossing um for the smart trail at Hearn Avenue so when that trail originally opened there was no um bicycle or pedestrian crossing uh despite there being a trail on either side of the road and so that's uh that that signalized crossing is a major major improvement um also note just a handful of of rectangular rapid flashing beacons those are um those are the uh the the flashers at crosswalks you can hit a button and then it it lights up and um helps bring more awareness for drivers that there's someone waiting to cross the road um this is just a snapshot of where we stand in our bicycle and pedestrian master plan so the master plan is unconstrained in its vision for infrastructure improvements it does not it it identifies basically every um every improvement that we could possibly make to our roadway network and uh and so obviously it's a it's a very it's a long-term planning document and um as you can see here we still have a lot of work to do um then you look at the all of the um you look at that last column there for the remaining mileage for each of these types of of bicycle facilities so um we're chipping away and uh but but definitely still lots of work to do this is a graphic showing um how far we've come uh over the last 20 plus years just showing the evolution of our bike network here in in Santa Rosa um I'll let it run through a couple times just so you can kind of see just how much mileage we've added every five years or so and you know moving along um so there's a list of projects that we have slated for 2022 buffered bike lanes on on Range Avenue up near Cottingtown Mall uh the probably the project that some of you might be familiar with um we're really excited about the road diet on Santa Rosa Avenue south of downtown between Sonoma Avenue and um basically between Sonoma Avenue and Highway 12 um that will eliminate one traveling in each direction and add buffered bike lanes to that to that stretch uh those two Sonoma Avenue projects are actually I think now uh delayed to 2023 but the goal in both of those is to add buffered bike lanes to those stretches and then a couple of other um pretty short little short gap closure projects um on Range Avenue and B Street and then a couple of crossing enhancements on Santa Rosa Avenue as part of that that corridor project that I just mentioned those both of those crossing enhancements will add a median refuge so that um as a pedestrian when you cross Santa Rosa Avenue you'll have a place out in the median where you can um where you can wait for traffic to yield to you and and those are great because they shorten the crossing distance and they also um they make cross the crosswalk a little bit more visible and they do kind of I think have a traffic calming effect um an exciting update Nancy just alluded to this uh a couple of minutes ago um continue to make progress on the uh Highway 101 bicycle and pedestrian over crossing um so the city as far has secured uh over 15 million in grant funding or I should say no that that was 15 million uh in grant funding that was secured last year in addition to some previous um grant funding we have completed environmental review and are currently working on design um construction is expected to run from uh late 2023 to late 2025. Nancy also mentioned um corridor studies so our plan I believe it was 12 or 13 corridor studies where basically where we needed to do some additional community engagement and or analysis before uh deciding what improvements were maybe appropriate for a certain location um we've made some really good progress gotten a bunch of those underway and I just want to call out a couple of um quick highlights um the the top priority for our bicycle and pedestrian advisory board was that uh in that second row there at stony point road between sabbatical road and west third street that's a stretch of road where um we've had a higher rate of severe and fatal collisions and um so that's our board recognize that as as their top priority we've completed that study and we're now looking to apply for grant funding um to to install protected bike lanes along that entire stretch and also incorporate several um to modify several intersections most notably the joridota trail crossing where we would eliminate that um there's a a free right turn for the eastbound highway 12 on ramp that if you've ever crossed if you ever if you ever use the joridota trail and cross that intersection you'll know exactly what i'm talking about so we would eliminate that free right turn and really shorten that crossing distance for joridota trail users and lots of other enhancements at all of the on and off ramps along along that stretch another notable study that i think people will be excited to hear about um fourth street between um brookwood avenue and bride and lane um our current plans there would be to to do a road diet and take that down from two lanes in each direction to one lane in each direction with a two-way center turn lane and buffered bike lanes um and i think i think those were the kind of the highlights i wanted to touch on from this um from this slide i believe i'm now passing it back to nancy you are thanks thanks bjorn so before i um jump into a couple things i i i did want to kind of piggyback on you know bjorn did a great job of describing some of the infrastructure that were we're getting um we're getting installed within the city so um i i was really happy to see and that we have about 35 of our uh capital um improvement program budget for 22 23 is is for bikes and pads so um that's you know we're i think we're doing doing a great job of of really trying to carve out um more funds um to help us build these projects um so anyway i just a quick note on that and uh i will talk a little bit now about policies and programs and then touch very quickly on performance metrics and then we'll open it up for questions so um don't want to read through all the policies and programs that um you know that we've been working on um i did want to mention that uh the scooter share and the bike share um programs will um are expected to be launched this summer so we're getting very close so that's that's a very exciting um element that will be coming in the downtown rainbow square area um and bjorn has been very helpful in in securing some um funds for from the air district for some um additional bike parking in the downtown area as well so those probably will get installed um next year um getting through that process and then um just another follow-up with two other items um bjorn mentioned that we the the corridor studies that we've been working on and so council um i think probably late july will be seeing um a couple items and we're and we've put them on the council um item or council night um together just because they're so related um you'll see the vision zero action plan that was um something that it was developed um with the somama county transportation authority and the county department of health services so that will be on and then in addition to that we're going to be also um presenting a report item on our our local road safety um plan which um you know we've mentioned a couple of the corridors stony point road uh four street college um dotton and uh rosin so so the council will be seeing those late this summer and um we are as a result of the this work we're going to be looking for additional money um for for the corridor study um enhancement set that have come out of those um those work efforts so um i think it's more to come hopefully with in terms of funding um i think this year's really a great a great boost for for bike and ped projects uh in our capital improvement program so we're excited about that so with that we're going to close out with the performance metric and really this is just um items that are identified in the plan and and you know beyond now that beyond's on staff i think we'll we're going to make some good progress not that we haven't already but you know getting the bike parking um he's already you know getting us additional hundred racks so we're we're making progress on i'm just trying to to to really make that mode shift um recognizable and just um let let santa rosa be a leader and you know moving more people out of their cars and on to bikes and and walking modes right so um he's he's really um starting to engage on you know just the accounting program which i think will help us quite a bit to to tease out how how much we are um you know walking and biking i know i'm a member i'm a resident of santa rosa and every time i'm out i see i see people walking and i see um people riding and rolling so it's you know that that it's there and i i'm just happy to be part of a you know santa rosa's organization to help foster that and you know keep keep it moving forward so with that i will close and answer any questions that we can so thank you for your time i appreciate it thank you both for your presentation subcommittee does anyone have any questions of staff seeing none um we are now taking public comment on item 4.2 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you are dialing in via telephone please dial star 9 to raise your hand you will have three minutes mr bertha can you please take it away uh our first speaker is alexa forester miss forester i'll allow you you can go ahead and unmute hi everybody can you hear me my name is alexa forester and i just wanted to take a few seconds to the beginning of my comment to say thank you um mayor rogers i read your piece in the southeast greenway news about the climate impacts of that project and then shortly after that i went to the community listening session that um councilwoman rogers put together with our new manager and then the day after that i was marching alongside council uh councilmember alvarez who i know is no longer on this committee in the mayday march and i've watched councilwoman mcdonald as you have asked wonderful questions as you brought yourself up to speed and it's just so great to see council members so involved in the community even after hours and on weekends and all of that so thank you for all of for all of that and i just wanted to mention also thank you to nancy adams and yarn weepenberg for that great presentation and all the work that you've been doing um i am a person who would like to get around primarily by bike or bus and i've done both to get from my home to my place of work at the jc um and also to move my family around and so i appreciate the improvements that have been happening but i did want to bring to the subcommittee's attention especially Bjorn as you had put out the improvements over the last 20 years most of what's going in is class two bike lanes which are unprotected bike lanes on high speed roads and there is really good research that shows that only about two to three percent of the population the population deemed fearless riders these are like the people i picture in spandex like really trying to get to the mountains really fast right these people will ride on that bike infrastructure and regular everyday non-super athletic people like myself with kids are not going to use that infrastructure just as an example there's a class two bike way or bike lane on mendicino avenue and i would never ride on that as i was driving with my husband to the finley center for the listening session council member rogers i there were i counted five cyclists riding on sidewalks because they didn't have any place to go that was safe for them to ride so i just want to say as we look forward to our future investments i don't think we should bother putting in a lot of class two bicycle lanes i think we need protected bicycle lanes especially at the speed limits on the roads are faster than 25 miles per hour thanks for listening and have a wonderful afternoon our next speaker is eris weaver and as we well are glad you did talk so you can go ahead on you all right thanks uh the joke around my house is that i get paid to complain and so i'm actually going to start with uh with the good stuff and leave the complaining for the second half of my comments um i am so happy to see that progress that's being made about inventorying and getting more bike parking because that is a barrier for folks trying to do errands um not being able to have a secure place to put their bike um happy to see that um the most recent projects have included um buffered or protected bike lanes which hadn't been being done in the city before happy that there's movement on the 101 over crossing project that's been over 10 years that we've been uh looking at that um and i do know that transportation projects take time to design it to get money um uh to fund and to build but i do have to echo a little bit of um uh what the previous speaker said in terms of if you look at the actual experience on the street seven miles of paint over you know a few years it is doesn't feel like a huge amount of progress and that's not going to get us to carbon zero by 2030 in terms of getting more people on bikes it's it's an improvement yes but it feels like things are moving um slower than than really needs to happen um i was also very involved along the whole vision zero project and i'm very happy to hear that it's going to be coming before council because i seem to remember um hearing hearing you say nancy at some meeting that it wasn't you weren't going to bring it to the council so i'm glad that you are um then i'm really hoping that the um city adopts it and takes it not just lip service but takes it seriously as a as a guiding um principle and puts more funding into the kind of projects that are going to actually result not just in more people getting on their bikes but fewer people dying on our streets thanks our next speaker is chris unther and you have been allowed to speak and go ahead and unmute thanks can you hear me yes great um well thank you council member rogers mayor rogers other members of the subcommittee and and staff for the chance to speak today i live in montgomery village with my family and i'm part of a group of citizens that have come together from across the city to advocate for faster and more ambitious effort to create a sustainable transportation system that meets the needs of all residents um in particular we ask you do everything possible to accelerate the implementation of a safe low stress and complete and i emphasize complete bicycle network connecting all parts of the city such a network would not only drive progress toward our climate goals which are only growing more urgent obviously but also toward many of the council's other stated objectives as we all know the time and expense involved in maintaining a car are significant in the absence of viable alternatives many citizens are deprived of equal access to the benefits that mobility brings including social and economic opportunities that are fundamental to the well-being of individuals and families providing an effective multimodal transportation system will also dramatically improve the safety and usability of our streets reduce congestion fewer collisions fewer injuries and fatalities and reduced air and noise pollution are all consistent with the council's goal to create a safer healthier community for all lastly as countless other cities have shown improving walkability and bike ability can be a catalyst for significantly enhancing economic and community vibrancy getting people out of their cars and onto the streets attracting new residents and visitors bringing people together across economic and cultural boundaries and creating the conditions for new kinds of businesses public events or experiences these are precisely the changes that are needed to strengthen our community and our resilience so we can thrive in spite of the many challenges we face to be clear i know all of this aligns with the vision laid out by the existing bike and pedestrian master plan and i'm excited and grateful for the many improvements already being made to infrastructure around the city including those highlighted today the new 101 overpass the addition of new buffered bike lanes on several key routes and improved crossings and street markings are each integral to the system we envision and i applaud the efforts of city staff and many advocates who've worked for years to get these things done however we need to move much faster and we need to move much farther to ensure we're developing a network that is complete and effective and which will deliver these benefits as soon as possible not at some faraway date or never at all i urge the city to be bold creative and relentless and i want you to know we're here to help thanks and those are all the hands that i see raised thank you and thank you mancy and for coming today and presenting uh before we move on from your item i just uh wanted to say uh that south right road going across highway 12 is dangerous getting to a place to play so that is very very dangerous um so it is it is like chris said having the connections um and i know we're preaching to the choir but getting um when we have bike lanes in certain areas and they don't connect um in different areas it's really hard for people to get around um and also um when we were looking at some of the budget things we were talking about some technology and maybe some of that technology can help us get some of the people off the road that are not uh abiding by some of the laws that we have that helped to keep uh people that are biking in pedestrian safe so maybe that's something else that we can possibly look at as a city because we need a combined effort from everyone to keep pedestrians and bikers safe we can't just make bike lanes and assume that people are going to be safe because a lot of people are not paying um very close attention when they're driving nowadays there are too many distractions which doesn't really work so um going to item 5.1 future agenda items sure i can provide some updates uh thank you uh councilmember rogers uh at your upcoming meeting in june uh we will have some department updates on sustainability some sustainability events including the watersmart expo plan in june uh i do want to note that uh i was uh contacted by uh communications and outreach staff from our rcpa uh snoma county regional climate protection authority um and they are interested in presenting to this board along with others throughout the county uh about climate challenges facing snoma county and how they're utilizing this snoma climate mobilization strategy to mitigate some of those challenges um they'll be seeking input uh from the community including this uh committee on you know potential funding efforts and you know uh defining a vision essentially for climate resiliency throughout snoma county so we'll be adding that to the june 8th agenda it's not reflected in the document that was provided in the agenda today but and then on july 13th uh we will provide a recology update an update from recology and you'll hear from staff of the city on sb 1383 compliance and zero waste updates so some some more fun to come and the upcoming meetings that concludes my update on upcoming meetings perfect thank you um any members of the subcommittee have any questions and staff all right um so we'll now open it up for public comment on item five point one um if you would like to make a comment via soon please raise your hand if you were dialing in via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand and you'll have three minutes to address this subcommittee i'm not seeing any hands raised at this time seeing none i would like to wish everyone a happy wonderful evening and we will adjourn thank you so much