 I'll make sure okay all right it's four o'clock so we'll go ahead and start the meeting do we want to call the order-and-roll call council member Fleming president mayor Rogers and chair Rogers here let the record reflect that all subcommittee members are present with the exception of mayor Rogers all right we have one set of minutes on today's agenda that's the August 2nd 2023 did anybody have any amendments to those minutes all right let's see if there's public comment on them any hands on zoom great we'll show those minutes adopted without objection we'll move on to public comment for not agenda items is anybody here to provide a comment that's within the scope of our committee but not related to an item that's on today's agenda go ahead my name is John Quinn I follow the parks department and park facilities for many years in this community we are very under part and one of the things we ought to be doing is improving our park system adding acreage to our park system we currently have 16 and a half soccer field according to the city of Santa Rosa website and I often contrast ourselves with City of Petaluma City of Petaluma has 12 soccer fields for which our artificial turf and lighted I don't know the eight natural grass fields how many are lighted but they are a third the size and have almost as many soccer fields as we do with their having artificial turf fields they have a lot more capacity on those fields than we do on any natural grass field here in this community this community has no natural grass fields it's a problem where we are it's problem probably most anywhere we are up against urban boundary in the county where we can't expand or good annex land there but it's expensive it's hard and there's not a lot of infill sites but we ought to be looking at maximizing all the infill sites for park use active recreation we don't have enough facilities here for active recreation and we have a young adult population here that is is really clamoring for access to recreation facilities and we're not serving them adequately so part of doing a climate thing is getting more land and uses that can benefit the climate and I think you know if we could do well to have 10 more soccer fields 20 more soccer fields and we would fill them I mean right now at certain times of the year on fields in this area you might have six teams practicing on one field because that's the only choice they have and you know it would be better for the kids it'd be better for the adults if they had six fields for those 60 well at least five fields for those 16 you know those teams to practice on so you know everybody had space when you're practicing with five other teams on a field nobody has space to do a good job of their practice and so I think you know from an environmental point of view from a conservation point of view we need to work hard to get more land in public use for active recreation and part of that is going to be high intensity recreation some who's going to be low intensity recreation but there's a need for both in this area and we got it better all right thank you so we can't get into a deep discussion in this because it's not agendized but I imagine that this will come up when we talk about one of our other items three minutes now I'll get my three minutes later yep I appreciate it do we have any other hands for public comment for non-agenda items no and we are my understanding is we're not taking public comment through zoom but I we have assistant city attorney bigger staff on and he can correct me if I've misunderstood we are not taking public comment through zoom okay let's just make sure it was agendized that way we'll move on to our department reports thank you and we do not have any department reports today right let's go on then to item 5.1 all right today we have the update on artificial turf ban investigation item 5.1 presented by water director Jennifer Burke hello everyone this is Morgan bigger staff assistant city attorney can you all hear me yes we can okay can you see me now we can okay all right excellent just wanted to make sure and just one comment before director Burke begins your presentation I believe the agenda allows for live streaming so that you can watch the meeting but we do not take public comments by zoom as a matter of policy now all right thanks Morgan all right good afternoon chair Rogers and mayor Rogers councilmember Fleming you will notice I am not Peter Martin I am Jennifer Burke the director of Santa Rosa water and Peter was unable to be here today so I am filling in for him I will do my best I am not as much the subject matter expert on this but we are just starting this process so I'm here to provide an update on our initial start to considering an artificial turf ban investigation or investigation consider an artificial turf ban as you are well aware in your current fiscal year council work plan under the climate action objective there is direction for city staff to investigate the feasibility of additional citywide restrictions on artificial turf apologies for the two typos in that slide and so that is what we are starting here today just for some reference and information we wanted to make sure that the public was aware what synthetic turf the definitions that we are looking at so surface cover for residential sports fields and commercial settings made of synthetic fibers and so our artificial turf is really meant to provide the same benefit that turf would in terms of being able to play walk etc on the field they are typically made of polyethylene nylon or a mixture of the two and we are seeing more different materials making up artificial turf and they're also looking to make improvements over time to kind of address some of the issues that have come up with that after since it was first introduced we wanted to give a little bit of information on some of the benefits in particular it's usually less maintenance easier to maintain we also know that while there are some needs to use water on artificial turf for cleaning purposes they do use significantly less water than turf or even low water use plantings this is something to keep in mind right now at the state water board there is a rule making going on related to making water conservation a California way of life so we are getting more and more restricted on how much water we can use so artificial turf does prevent provide that benefit it doesn't require a fertilizer and significantly less pesticide and herbicide application then regular turf or natural turf and does allow for year-round sports applications so typically you don't have to have people stay off the turf when during the rainy season to protect the turf and if you have specific questions on that I know there's parks folks who can answer that specifically but typically there's a period of time after rain where they have to keep folks off the turf but there are also concerns with synthetic turf and some of the concerns is that it is an artificial project product so it is something that will have to be disposed of at some point typically we are hearing from the industry that the lifespan can be anywhere from 8 to 20 years and there is really no way to recycle our official turf at this time so artificial turf when it's used and done it is a waste product that goes to the landfill and there are some concerns about the constituents that are in artificial turf in particular one of the things that we're very concerned about in the water department is PFOS please don't ask me to say the chemical name because I will not get it right but it's also it's pretty much known as the forever chemical it's something we are very concerned about in the water department from a water supply perspective also from a wastewater treatment perspective so we want to do everything we can to keep PFOS out of the environment and so one of the things that we have supported and the city council the mayor signed a letter of support for AB 1423 which is pending legislation that would ban artificial turf from containing PFOS in California so that is in the right direction we've also seen a number of other products in California where including PFOS has been banned we've always taken support letters on that so that is good that's helping us move in the right direction and will hopefully be signed and be applicable to synthetic turf in the future we also know that there can be heat island effects from having artificial turf and we have heard and are continuing to read as we're digging into this that the industry is looking into different ways that they can potentially address that and then we also know that there is again the makeup a lot of it is tire or rubber or old tires that are made into synthetic turf and so there is concerns with that sort of plastic and crumb material that can come off we also know that there is very limited information on the human health effects but there are some in that it's the the makeup and the plastic continuals can plastic constituents are known carcinogens in some aspects however there was a report and an analysis done by the US EPA in 2019 regarding human exposure to these chemicals through synthetic turfs and in general it found that there was very little to to provide that human health was actually affected by playing on synthetic turf so there really was no real evidence to support that and that they really need to do a lot more comprehensive data to see if this is any kind of human health exposure risk that should be considered terms of the environment we also know that there isn't a lot of data into really trying to quantify or qualify the effects of synthetic turf on the hydrologic process such as stormwater runoff retention drainage we do know that there have been a number of studies that have been supported by the turf industry to show that artificial turf does cause these problems but we haven't found any independent studies or information or analysis so it is something that still we need to try and dig into a little bit more and understand but there is more and more turf that is being made that is some course opportunities so keeping water on site allowing it potentially to infiltrate into the ground and we also do know that there can be aerial deposition from various things like cars brakes etc that can actually get onto the turf and may run off but I think that's something that can also happen on any non-porous material so that is a concern with artificial turf where turf provides a benefit and artificial turf does not. We also wanted to provide a little bit of background information on the current California government code which in essence states that at this time cannot enact any ordinance or regulation that prohibits the installation of drought tolerant landscaping synthetic grass or artificial turf on residential property however we do know that there is a bill that is sitting on the governor's desk which is SB 676 I've not heard whether or not it's been signed yet we've been trying to track it and I haven't gotten any updates that it has and if that is signed that would exclude artificial turf specifically from this government code but as of right now we cannot limit it on residential property. We also did a little bit of looking into what other jurisdictions are doing related to artificial turf and we know that there are some jurisdictions that have instituted restrictions through building codes and also focusing on trying not to incentivize artificial turf by not allowing it to be rebated through their turf replacement programs. In some cases some jurisdictions have put a limit on the percentage of the landscape that can be artificial turf some have prevented it from being installed on sloped areas and some have really wanted to make sure that permeability was considered if it was allowed to be installed. One of the things we also did want to point out is we have not because this is very early in and we wanted to get some direction from the subcommittee we have not had discussions with schools or other facilities or agencies that operate in Santa Rosa and may either currently be using artificial turf so we'll need to replace it in the future or maybe considering switching over to artificial turf because they don't have budget for water physical budget for water to support their fields and so if if this is something that we are wanting to pursue and get your feedback on how you want us to pursue it we would definitely recommend that we need to start convening some of those stakeholder groups to really understand what they're looking at what the impact can be so that we could bring that back to you all and make sure you fully understand what the ramifications would be if we go down to a turf ban artificial turf ban. Just sorry director can I just quickly ask a question on that do we actually have the jurisdiction to tell a school district that they can't use artificial turf? That is a great question that we will have to get a little bit more information on but I do know we have some we have abilities to influence certain things especially when they're connecting to our water and wastewater system I don't know if that would be the way that we could get into that but that is something we'd have to do a little bit more research and bring back to you because I don't have an answer on that at this time. We also know in talking with at least the recreation and parks department that we have had they have had a lot of interest from the community and continuing to have more all-weather fields so really been pushing for in particular artificial turf so that they can have more recreational fields available and so that's feedback we have received from that department so something to consider. In terms of what we currently do in Santa Rosa in the water department related to artificial turf we do have our water efficient landscape ordinance that does require very limited landscaping. We don't have any specific restrictions on synthetic turf but we do not rebate synthetic turf as part of our water conservation programs and we have done that for a number of reasons in particular for the fact that artificial turf creates a waste product and because we want to make sure that we're continuing to have as much permeable surfaces as possible that is really the key drivers as to why we don't rebate artificial turf. I will tell you as I get many of those complaints that during drought that is probably the biggest complaint that goes up to my desk is we are you know very upset that you won't rebate this because we're doing this for the drought to save water so that is something that I do get a lot of complaints about but it's not something we rebate and so that's how we feel that we are encouraging folks not to install artificial turf but we're not prohibiting it. Let's see one of the things that we would want to better understand is if there is interest in going down this road kind of what the expectations would be for enforcement and what the limitations would be because we are concerned about having the ability to enforce what that would look like and where we could plug that in. Likely we would need to work with planning and economic development through code enforcement because changes to landscape do not trigger typically any kind of permitting that you have to do and so it would be difficult for us to catch it and we're not entirely sure how we would go about doing that so that was another piece we'd like to better understand kind of your direction so we can look at alternatives for what we might be able to do to address enforcement. So with that background and I know it's very high level because we as I mentioned are just starting this and plus you get me instead of someone who has more knowledge so sorry about that. We really wanted to better understand from the subcommittee particularly what concerns you wanted us to try and really address and look at in terms of artificial turf is it you know more for material makeup is it more for environmental you know impacts health concerns and then what additional information would be helpful for you all to have us come back with in future subcommittee meetings so that you can make an informed decision on what type of of ban or restrictions we would like to put on artificial turf. So I would say I'm happy to answer any questions I don't know how many questions I'll be able to answer for you but I am happy to do so and again would appreciate if you could provide us the this direction so that we can work through this with other departments and come back to you with some more robust ideas on how to implement this. So thank you. All right let's start with questions. So you talked about the relationship between the use and the water system do you I know you're not this is not your area specialty so not a big deal if you don't know what to answer but do you or anybody else on staff here know exactly how it works that this turf gets laid down and then we end up with with you know these hazardous chemicals in our water system is it after rain is it after just time it seeps into the earth. So and I don't know if any folks want to try and jump in but in general when you have materials in particular like I can talk to PFOS right so if PFOS is in there it's basically kind of getting out into the environment over time and so any kind of rain any kind of walking on it would potentially get it you know into the soil whether or not then the soil can treat it in any way doesn't seem likely but it is concerns that we continue to have and I don't want to target just artificial turf because PFOS is in everything so we're really looking at how we can ban it is definitely more of an impact for us on the wastewater side for things that people are either ingesting and putting you know in some fashion with PFOS or putting on their bodies that are eventually going into the sewer system that is our much bigger concern so anything that we can do to get PFOS out of products is is what we're looking to do so it's not specific to artificial turf but that is one one mechanism that we need to do more research but it is something that is of concern which is why we supported and encouraged the council to support that particular legislation because anytime we can get PFOS out of a product it's just going to be better for us in the long run. Another question I have is about the ecosystem you talked about you know heat islands but you didn't mention you know what this does to all the tiny creatures and bugs and so forth that might live under this thing is going to get incredibly hot and has chemicals associated with it can you speak to that at all? A little bit I mean we have done we've gathered some information there is impact to the soil so it is better if the soil can have access to air and natural environment so that it's not so that organisms can continue to have that sort of biomass there so that is an impact I don't have a lot of details on how much of an impact that is but it is something that is of concern. Thank you that's all the questions for you. My question is really about the benefits with artificial turf that you mentioned all weather, ability, more solid playing surface all of those sorts of things are those achievable in a natural grass surface with proper staffing, proper maintenance, proper treatment? I am going to ask if you don't mind that the director of parks our interim director of parks and recreation answered that I do know that I'll just say from a you know immediate rain there is always a suspension of time that is needed for turf grass. Right and does that apply to artificial also? Typically it wouldn't not not as long of a time. Right I think that's the that's the thing that we're looking at here with our use of artificial turf is that it allows for a longer playing time and allows for multiple sports on the same field over and over again. You heard from our some citizens that we you know don't have enough fields so I think that's part of the problem so you know one solution is to multiply those fields a lot more than we had envisioned in the future because we'd envision using what the community is requesting is kind of a multi-purpose field so it does it does create it does create the opportunity for recreational opportunities and more types of sports. We have rugby folks we have softball baseball all of those can be used on that same field so it becomes a huge benefit to the teams with that and with the grass field it's a little harder because they need to rest in between the whatever game was played on it before they need they need a rest in between there and like director Brooks said previously we will rest fields so that they can recover from that so I'm not sure if I'm answering your question entirely but that's you know we have a lot of benefits from the recreational side of things with the with the artificial at this moment it to change that we'd have to expand the system greatly and I don't know if any of my colleagues from Recreation of Parks have anything better more wonderful to add but that's where I'll leave it. Okay any questions? Comments or questions? All right let's do public comment then first then we'll bring it back go ahead sir and we'll do three minutes of public comment for folks I'll try to flag you down when we get close to the three. You know I actually have to go coach little soccer players a little bit so I'm going to go quick. Please jump in. My name is Mark Markarian I'm the competitive director for Empire Soccer Club we have probably getting close to 1700 kids in our club it's a large club and then John can speak on the whole league as a whole and the other clubs in town but we have a lot of players and I can't just I mean the presentation was was very good and there's I probably agree with all but naturally as a matter of fact if you asked a soccer person or a sports person what's a better service to play on they're going to say grass because it honestly is better it's safer it's better on your body but the reality is is different the reality is is that we don't have the millions and the manpower to actually keep and maintain grass throughout the year and especially in our climate and I know in our club within we we have pushing 700 kids just in competitive soccer which nowadays is almost year-round they would be playing year-round and that just increases the it's a we provide a very large part of physical education for this town it's because they're practicing two or three days a week they have games on the weekend it's a big part of their lives and it's a very healthy option obviously for them and so the more we can expand on that the better as a really great example we can barely use one of our soccer fields and I'm not faulting the reason why but the reason is because there's men that play on it on a Sunday and they have a right to play on it just like we do the problem is is that we can't play on it anymore in a safe manner because when you have men that are you know 200 plus pounds playing soccer from eight till five o'clock it destroys the field if this was a turf option it would never even be a consideration so speaking for you know for the youth and I've been at this for about 20 years in this town that's that's what our feeling is is that the mix of having the grass fields and having some turf options and expand on that is is would be I think beneficial for the whole community all right thank you sir I'll correct a little bit and expand a little bit and you know I didn't have a lot of time to prepare for this because I didn't know about this meeting until this morning but I did a little bit of research today which I think would help inform some of these considerations I looked on the web and I said you know how many hours a week can you use an athletic field like natural grass athletic field and the answer was 13 to 16 hours for a heavy use activity like soccer 13 hours and so I have been involved in an artificial turf complex in the this greater Santa Rosa area for nearly 20 years I know in the spring and fall we get 60 hours to use by kids on that field every week and let me define what an hour of use is can I do it the way FIFA the international soccer organization does it if you put 22 players on a field and play a game of soccer that's an hour worth of use so if you put 66 66 kids on a field for an hour and a half to play to practice that's three hours of use for times one and a half hours four and a half hours of use so it's use-based if we had lights on that facility like that and you had adults playing in the evening or after sunset you could easily get up to 75 80 90 hours of use every week now to convert that it you know take that and divide it by 13 hours you'd have to replace that one artificial turf field with 678 natural grass fields to get the same utility for our community I've researched the cost of construction I seriously looked at putting in natural grass fields some years ago and it is substantially the same money to put in a good quality natural grass field as an artificial turf field and so if you want to go acquire the land and put in you know six seven eight times as many fields in natural grass you'd serve the community but you could do it a lot cheaper by putting in artificial turf fields particularly with lights you know some of the issues that were raised about the detractions from artificial turf I had a conversation today in anticipation this meeting with one of the major vendors of artificial turf in the United States probably the largest vendor in the United States and they are recycling fields complete recycling fields if you go on the FIFA website they document how they are recycling fields in Europe it is not a presumed assumption that you can't recycle the fields I put in two artificial turf fields outside of the city of Santa Rosa four years ago I fully anticipate recycling all the infill material all that infill material is virgin material it doesn't contain all the bad chemicals that are in SBR and if you start looking at the carpet itself it's much like this carpet here on this floor it's a synthetic material it has the same pluses and minuses as this carpet on the floor if you're worried about those chemicals I challenge you all to pull out your carpet and put silk and whole carpet in your homes I mean these are ubiquitous things in our lives the PFAS you know the industry will respond and will eliminate PFAS if the legislation requires that the PFAS is not going to be an issue on this in particular and then I asked the question you know how many fields around here are still using SBR crumb rubber and the answer I got northern california 98 percent of the fields currently are not using crumb rubber they're using alternate to infills I mean we used a virgin infill material that completely unrelated to crumb rubber tires so all this literature that that people look at that's based on artificial turf fields from 20 30 years ago a lot of that's based on SBR fields which had a different chemical profile completely um the let's get you to wrap up please okay I'll just one thing on the heat island effect the field that uh fields that I put in four years ago were designed to not be hot and they have a special infill that I believe is probably the state-of-the-art infill to keep the field cool and the hottest days in the summer you can walk on that field bare feet it is not that hot I mean an SBR field you couldn't ever do that you know it plays probably 30 degrees cooler than an SBR field so if technology exists don't sit there and paint all artificial turf fields with one brush right thank you anybody else hi my name is Megan count thank you for coming I'm here representing Sonoma safe ag safe schools but also a bunch of other local nonprofits including families advocating for chemical and toxic safety and nontoxic schools and I actually have a few questions for you um but one of the comments that director Burke made in the beginning of her presentation stuck with me and that quote was that plastic grass uses significantly less pesticide and herbicide application and what I've heard is that the warranties require pesticide application in plastic grass so the same is what Jennifer presented right now to my understanding none of the turfs and fields the natural fields in Sonoma and Santa Rosa use any pesticides to maintain them and so introducing plastic grass would actually require I believe pesticide used to comply with warranty I've read lots of warranties from lots of turf manufacturers nobody other finisher air comments not get in the back I'm curious but yeah so that's you two can talk for sure offline yeah I can't I can't wait and so that that's a main concern of mine and I know the second agenda that we're talking about is pesticide use in Santa Rosa so I'll leave the rest of the comments on that so that agenda item but you know at Luchesi field in Petaluma we recorded the temperature being 171 degrees on July 15th last summer it was a 93 to get degree day and it was 100 degrees in the natural grass so 71 degrees difference in temperature and there have been deaths on artificial turf turf that I've read about because it can get hot and that's just something that's a big concern especially in climate change and to answer your question council member Fleming it's very hard for the other beings in the ecosystem to have that type of temperature of difference when you're including not natural materials non-toxic schools last week did a professional training on managing organic turf for resilience for you know to be non-toxic to you know not do the go have the go for problem etc and so there are methods of of having natural turf that can be very functional however I mean I do believe in the chance of rain that you would not be able to play and I mean I'm sure that the numbers that this gentleman is given as far as usability are correct you know in Petaluma they have a lot of artificial turf and when it's not changed over promptly which is always right because everything's always delayed and you know things don't have happen when they should if you go to the field the plastic is crumbling so there's micro plastics all over the place in it's in the air it associates with the dust all the contaminants including PFAS but other things too are associated in this dust and they get into the groundwater they're inhaled by the kids they get into the environment there's no way of controlling it and even if PFAS is taken out of the artificial turf don't worry there'll be another terrible chemical that'll be in there I mean it's it's the whack-a-mole issue that we have with plastics and so you know there's there's no perfect answer here and of course my heart goes out to kids that want to play soccer and da-da-da-da but I think the question is you know moving forward is this a sustainable choice for us to make in the in the age of climate change and all this stuff that's going on with our climate like do we really want to put plastic graph that increases the temperature that increases toxicity into the environment and I mean are we is our plan to just have sports fields for the next thousand years where we have to replace the the plastic and throw it in the landfill every whatever eight to twenty years I don't know if that feels sustainable to me so thank you for listening to my comments I appreciate it thank you if anybody else James you could all right I'll go to bring it back so what kind of direction would be helpful today what concerns you want us to focus on so that we can if you want us to look at some type of restrictions or ban what are the things that you want us to really target and then what information would be helpful to bring back for you so that you can make an educated recommendation on on what we would propose okay start with the mayor um so definitely I would be concerned about how we explain this to the general public if we're saying that they can use some turf if we're doing residential if they can use some turf but they can't use others and to explain to them about the the chemicals and if someone already has this in their yard like are we going to help them to get rid of I mean there's just like a lot of questions I have about how we would get it out to the general public and how we would support and assist them with that I am very happy when children are able to play sports but I think that we cannot do it at the expense of their health um but I also know that PFOS is also in feminine products so I think that we have a lot of a lot of stuff we need to look at and um so I would just need more more data really that's what it boils down to me is more data I don't feel like we have enough and is that in on um health impacts and or what could you just talk a little bit more about the the more data you would like I think that would be on the health impacts but um I think it's more data on just how would it impact um the general public and also how would it impact uh Santa Rosa's ability to to care for our facilities I think that that's a a big thing so um thank you um thank you director Burke and thank you everybody made the time to come out today you know the way that I look at this is that as we continue to urbanize as the planet continues to get warmer and our population becomes more dense in the city limits uh we have to balance our need to increase opportunities to recreate which is very clear we don't have enough adequate spaces to do that and that it absolutely cannot come um at the expense of heating the planet one iota or or contaminating it and so you know the kind of I mean I don't personally need any more information than I have here today I'm sure the council will need more it's very clear to me what we should do in terms of at least the public spaces the private residential spaces are is a more difficult question to answer um as far as how we deal with that or with the school districts but at least for the city of Santa Rosa it's my goal that we we don't allow any artificial turf in public city land and that simultaneously we explore how to build out adequate spaces for people to recreate and that that's not limited to soccer fields there's frankly not enough tennis courts there's not enough pickleball courts there's there's just not enough and it's something that continue to push for is for us to really have strong investments both in capital improvements and and operational funding for for recreation and I know that's a little bit sort of a sideways on this but it really does intersect here that you know we're feeling the pinch because we have a lot of families children and frankly adults and we all want to run around and play if we if we are physically able to do so and it's in the city's best interest to facilitate that but I think that it's a real false um choice to say it's recreation versus the environment it used to be the environment versus housing development and we kind of sort of set that aside and have acknowledged that we have to focus on investing in this thing that is the public comments the public good which which is housing and and I think we need to take a similar approach to recreation and not pit one cause against another I believe that the city if it is so chose to do so we could either partner with the schools you know frequently I get calls from people who are tennis instructors or our soccer instructors and wanted to use school in and I call the schools and they say we're busy we're overwhelmed we're all this stuff so what could we as a city do to facilitate partnerships with schools to increase the hours of playable time on on these shared resources which are another public good right and then what can we do to add or add requirements that don't encumber development but encourage developers to put more open space perhaps not the size of soccer fields but that as we continue to build out our city that we make sure there's adequate recreation spaces I think that going forward it's going to be important to have the data on health human health and environmental impacts from this stuff for my colleagues but I'm completely sold that that the answer this question is to toss out the dichotomy of environment versus recreation and move forward in a way that supports both causes as far as the private stuff I need a little bit more time than today to figure out how to solve the enforcement thing that's something I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out and currently our system as you well know is based on it's complaint driven and that's really challenging I think for residents and staff and something that I'd like to see maybe a few proposals come forward or a study session where the council can look at at the structure of code enforcement both as it applies to this and other things and and really kind of have an opportunity to hear from the public about what would be most effective and if the public has a desire for us to divert more resources to code enforcement officers to be more proactive or if they'd like to continue this current trajectory of having a being complaint based and sort of vexatious to complainants and people who are complained against simultaneously that that moment I don't don't envy anybody who has to deal with this issue whether it's the staff the council or the code enforcement officers did that satisfy your questions yes so I think I'm hearing um you have enough data more for the the council which I appreciate um that you really are targeting if I understood correctly you know artificial turf and city spaces at this time and would need more time for residential if that's something to correct and you did ask about what it would take to partner with the schools and I'd like to emphasize like partner with the schools I could see that the first response to anybody where you know you have limited resources is to say like this is cheap this is easy this is what we're going to do and we're going to move on so if we can somehow drum up or get grant funding to support them to to move towards these solutions especially if the legislature goes in this way of wanting to eliminate the PFAS or any other things I mean they can't want this I mean when a player falls I mean most most elite athletes won't play on this stuff because they just get these rug burns that are real nasty I mean we shouldn't be putting our kids on something that you know an athlete won't play on it doesn't make any sense to me so we ought to figure out how if we have the capacity to support them in partnering with us both to open up their space and convert what they have and and that commits and not putting in future uses yeah we'll definitely do some research on that um and I and I don't have a lot of answers for that um I am not aware but our you know my knowledge is really based on water um there are no sit down yeah uh sorry there are no uh grant funding or incentives that I was going to encourage turf to be put back in so if it's artificial we're not going to find grant funding to say switch it back to turf so I mean and you know it's funny for me to be advocating for um you know actual you know grass because in general I'm not you know if there was not a lick of grass outside of a soccer or playing field in this in the city or you know a picnic area or something like that that would make me thrilled but I think that in the context of active recreation it's absolutely necessary now yeah that that's why we have a turf you know turf removal program right and I used to know it's fantastic and one of my neighbors who put in uh artificial turf was quite missed that she didn't get reimbursed for it so that was a little awkward thank you councilman plumbing yeah so uh for me I just want to start with sort of the overall picture around plastics uh we need to reduce plastics we see it getting into human bodies into our waterways it it isn't a good thing just talking plastics holistically right um it's being found in breast milk it's being found at heart tissue it's finding its way into bodies so I'm going to start there uh my understanding from doing significant research is that it is not recyclable that there are places that say that they will recycle it and at best they incinerate it which has different health impacts for the surrounding communities that are around the incinerators but in terms of actual recycling or reusing of the turf there is nowhere that does that that there's one place up in Canada that is trying to do that but that they have not yet actually figured out how to do that so if somebody has uh research that they can send me but uh but every single time consistently when I've been told that there's a group there's a a company that recycles it when you actually look into it the answer is they don't really they're just trying to uh so I want to start there that when we look at our climate action plan and the long-term sustainability of our city it does not make sense for us economically or environmentally to do things that we're going to have to change out the turf every eight to 20 years and 20 years I think is being super optimistic based on what other communities are finding particularly for the use that that they've seen from them I think that there's a false dichotomy that I think when we come back for a more substantive discussion about what a prohibition or a moratorium or a ban might look like to see also to keep our fields in playing shape for a reasonable standard comparable to what you see right now with plastic grass synthetic turfs that you put that on council to say you can have almost the same level of play but it's going to take this so that we can evaluate not just the health impacts or the ease or other things that we're talking about but really looking long term at the city's finances and how we quite frankly fund the department to the level that it needs to meet the level of service that we want without having to compromise health for children right my colleague mentioned falling down and getting rug burns I've been pretty interested in watching the NFLPA's response to Aaron Rodgers being out for the season go cowboys and you see one athlete after another pointing out the turf and the challenges around turf you see studies that have been coming out particularly about the heat island effect and the impact that that has on ACL MCL's body mechanics as you're playing on it so would be more interested in hearing more about turf that doesn't heat up because that hasn't been the experience that most people have had it does contribute to heat island effect and we do know people who go around and actually take the temperature to verify and then finally you mentioned that there's no grant funding out there for conversion I actually had a chance to meet with some of the folks that were in town last week that were talking about this and we'll obviously talk about this a little bit in the next item as well but there are folks that are looking for pilot projects of helping cities and doing a couple of different conversions back from synthetic turf into a properly managed field and I found actually the discussion really interesting even from a climate perspective about the self-fulfilling prophecy of using things like synthetic grass of using things like synthetic herbicides one of the data points I was telling Jason as I came in one of the data points that stuck with me is that even if we're just reducing our carbon impact and trying to move away from petroleum-based fuels that for every one ton of fertilizer takes four tons of petroleum to make it so does it make sense for us as a city to be designing a system that requires more fertilizers to keep up because we're using more pesticides but then inevitably ends up using synthetic turfs that then destroys the soil health as well I think if we get back to a sustainable point and have sustainable practices long-term is better for the community so last thing and I'll wrap it up you asked about things that we're concerned about with this so for me it's the heat island effect it's the overall plastics use it's the loss of ecological value for bees butterflies birds other types of ecology it's a long-term impacts to children and then yes how do we replace that with something where the user experience is going to be the same or better by managing our parks and what would that actually take for us to do and I love the idea of more parks I love the idea of more turfs even things like pop-up practice areas that maybe aren't the full field but if we already have multiple teams practicing on each field maybe finding smaller areas where we can have you know half fields for practices works works for me thank you I just wanted to say that I think that if we separate residential and what we're going to do as a city for city-owned properties and working with schools and stuff I think that that would be easier to take to council initially if we separate them I think you have to look at enforcement you have to there's like a lot that you have to look at when you're going the residential route but I'm really big on educating the public and hopefully by education then they will know a little bit more when they're picking landscaping materials within their homes and how it can affect them right because it's it's affecting them when they have gardens and they have things and their children are outside playing and so education is a really big thing for me so I think to separate the two and if we wanted to start anywhere start with educating as far as residential is concerned is your intention to bring something back to this committee or bring something straight to council yeah we would come back to this committee so a couple things one so I just want to make sure I'm clear so it sounds like at least from the majority of this committee it's really focusing on the the public spaces so city-owned and potentially looking at schools as well is that is that the direction I'm personally not ready to limit it I'd like to especially if we're coming back to this committee and not going straight to council for a quick decision on something I'd rather get all of the information about what's possible okay and what I mean obviously you said it right on the first slide there's more outreach that needs to happen to the sports community to our neighborhoods and whatnot and so I wouldn't want to bifurcate the discussion yet maybe down the road that makes more sense but for now I think talking about pros and cons of turf in general uh can apply across all of it so I would sort of split split the baby here I would say that I think that the mayor is right that for the purposes of council policy that uh these are there's three separate issues there's what we do in municipal lands which is the easiest one what we do in the schools and then what we do residentially I think for educational purposes the chair is completely right and then if we have a conversation and we're just educating the council we're not asking for a comprehensive policy I think if we're gonna have a comprehensive policy that addresses all three of those things in one day it's going to be real messy so just speaking to the education and again you know there's there's other departments here so I really can only I know I won't say it again but my focus is water yes so we do have a number of educational materials that we already do related to turf and artificial turf the russian river friendly landscape guidelines that really are about in harmony with the environment using less materials using less pesticides less herbicides less water so we have that all over the place and that information is out there we also do canned certified gardens that are russian river friendly we also have our water our worlds program which specifically targets nurseries and other landscape material providers that's all about using less synthetic whatever it may be so we have a lot of that education already out there and then I do believe based on again the feedback we've received and the complaints we've received that by not rebating that's also a big piece that is educating the residential so there's a lot of education already that is that is very much out there and we can definitely bring that back and explain to the committee everything that we have in place so I think we have that pretty well dialed in both from the water department specifically the water water use piece and the storm water piece so we can definitely bring that back and let you know all those pieces that we do have in place from an education perspective already so and then so if we bring that back as well as sort of more options related to the public spaces does that meet the direction from this committee or do you or do you still all want to see what options would be for residential because i'm just trying to make sure that we're bringing because we want to bring this back to you this I will just want to make sure your you know this is going to be multiple departments that we're going to have to coordinate with because we're just really focusing right now on very limited information and knowledge that we have from the the water side and sort of those benefits related to water and storm water but we'll have to make sure that we're working with planning and economic development from an enforcement perspective because we don't have that ability we'll also have to work with Reckon parks quite significantly because all those pieces are going to be basically what you know the information on what it would take to replace those fields and the costs and the information is going to have to come from that department right so this is going to take us quite a bit of time to bring this back and I want to make sure that we're doing the pieces that you all want to see so we can bring it back appropriately and it may be that we have to come back a couple of times yeah and I'd like to see it all and in particular I mean the conversation might be limited just by the governor not signing the piece of legislation and then the law is pretty clear we can't do anything on residential if that if that doesn't happen then yes that we won't be able to make that change so I'm with the chair if if it's coming back to this committee I think that it's be very useful to have all three elements I just want to as long as that my my colleagues agree agree that there are three distinct sort of policy pieces here there's like that do we as a committee or council agree that synthetic turf is not something that we want to have and then how do we want to implement that as a policy in those three different areas so um I would say I depending on how the governor goes but I still think it needs to come to council as a whole separately and so I would want us to I mean we need to do more anyway to figure out what we're doing but I would want to um concentrate more on um what the city is doing you know like the city stuff and then residential stuff kind of put it to the side because that's a lot of that's a lot of manpower like you have to go to how they're gonna enforce it you're gonna have to I mean there's there's a lot of a lot of pieces I think that would be involved in residential if we're looking at that and I wouldn't want to dive that deep yet I would just want to see how we're going to do the city and then and a lot of the information you already have will be helpful when you do residential but I will divert to the chair that's just my my opinion because it takes a lot of work when you have to collaborate with a lot of different um departments yet we may or may not move on something I think it takes a lot of a lot of work and some of the material you get at that time maybe out date I mean so it's bring it all bring it all back and we can have the discussion about before we send something to council what's the appropriate scope right but bring it all back to us okay um and we will um so we would come back with more information you know get your direction we would definitely bring this then to council on study session um and get direction from the council as a whole before we would finalize anything that would go forward sure um two things I just want to note one is just that uh in regards to um oh shoot I just lost oh uh code enforcement um so yes much more complex on the residential side I just don't want to lose the piece that it is also you know on the municipal side we know what we're doing but if we're looking at schools or other private fields that would also be a code enforcement issue that we'd have to figure out because as I mentioned there's no trigger for when they need to you know if they want to replace it and make changes to their landscape there's no permitting trigger right so it would it's definitely going to be something that's going to be complicated um so I just want to make sure that you know I was clear on that piece and then also um just you know was mentioned before I um again and just wanted to be clear yeah there absolutely could be pilot projects or other things about um ecological restoration for various aspects I'm just not aware from a water perspective of any grants that would get us to put high water use back in so yeah that was just that so there absolutely could be ecological restoration money out there that I'm not aware of that just wouldn't be relevant to what we do yeah understood and last um I'm sorry about Sunday I'd love that moment if I can tell somebody's not going to answer my call on Monday let's move on to the next item thank you very much appreciate it thank you director Burke and our next item 5.2 development of the city's comprehensive integrated pet management policy presented by Sean McNeill deputy director of environmental services all right good afternoon um ma'am Rogers chair Rogers and council member Fleming so I think this is a great opportunity to really just focus on landscape today I'm I'm excited about the energy around this and as you'll see in the presentation we are really looking for input on how best to build um an integrated pest management that you would be proud of for our city thank you oops oh we got a share no yeah we do got a share of Jennifer no he was looking at okay oh it's not that share that's the wrong share got it okay all right so uh today I'm Sean McNeill uh with water department and this presentation was put together in conjunction with Jen Santos uh and other members of her team uh to really kind of think about what we could do for integrated pest management so the project description really is um the goal of this is to develop a city-wide integrated pest management strategy as I've dug into it we used to think we had a city-wide one it turned out we didn't we had a departmental wide integrated pest management uh and so we developed our own program for the water department there's a different program for the parks department and we just think it would be a good time to start thinking about let's get one that is for the whole city so that we're all in alignment this plan would provide guidance to staff and contractors who work for the city to ensure that landscapes are designed and maintained in a manner that reduces the need for fossil fuels powered equipment herbicides insecticides and other anthropomorphic inputs that have an ability to exacerbate climate change and the relationship of this policy to the climate action plan is that integrated pest management is a programmatic approach that's geared towards protecting human health and the environment we have healthy vibrant landscapes these are greater carbon sinks and they provide relief from the heat island effects in the urban environment so if we can maintain our landscapes in this manner then we can have reduce the impacts of climate change on our population so the outline for today's talk is i'll give a brief definition of integrated pest management also ipm do a history of ipm in the city and it'll be really brief with just the salient points and then go into we do actually have requirements in some of our permits for integrated pest management on the city we are currently meeting those we think we could do it simpler with a policy and then kind of go through the different types of landscapes that we manage so that you could think about like what would a solution look like that might help us manage all these different landscapes and their needs and then really kind of dive into a discussion of desired integrated pest management policies that you guys would like to see us incorporate into a policy we currently don't have a policy for you to shoot all that it's really let's build it from the the ground up that's our goal so a quick definition of integrated pest management it's really as it sounds it's to address you know issues related to pests bests can be any kind of organisms that get in the way of some functionality that we have so they can be fungus or bacteria causing certain diseases in plants or animals they could be plants that aren't wanted for specific need so that you have we typically call those weeds and then we have a whole host of animals that need to be controlled in our environment and that could be from fleas to rodents to ground dwelling mammals and we'll talk about some concerns we have about ground dwelling mammals on properties that we maintain and so there's a lot of things that go into this these practices to control them a lot of people think oh pest management is pesticides it's not that's that's usually in an integrated pest management strategy that's the end of the process you're looking at what's the least toxic way to address this issue from the start all the way through so these practices could include biological control that would be you know I think commonly you think of people putting out ladybird beetles in their gardens some people call them ladybugs but they're ladybird beetles and they put those out in their garden to help deal with aphids and things like that but you could also have habitat manipulation a lot of weed control issues are developed by having a very solid ground cover a solid ground cover that could be a plant base or it could be mulcher and things like that will help reduce weeds also cultural practices so you can do weed eaters mowers you know things like that to take care of weeds and and also if you have plants that have lots of pests associated with them thinking of fruit trees thinking of roses and things like that there are pest resistant varieties which then reduce the need for the use of pesticides so in an integrated pest management policy we're looking to do all of those things before we go into the toolbox of pesticides but then when we do get into a toolbox of pesticides we want to make sure that we're using them after it's been evaluated so we know what we're trying to target and we're using the right and least toxic approach for targeting that so we're looking for guidance from you guys on on how that would best be presented to council and then for the entire council should we decide to develop a citywide integrated pest management program and then one of the key issues here and in different environments it's going to be a different answer is that we apply any kind of pest controls that minimizes risk to human health in the environment so we have to look at it's it's prudent to look at if we use a specific activity in one area it may not be the best activity in another area given the constraints and I have some examples of that later in the presentation so integrated pest management in the city I've already kind of mentioned this but there really are two efforts that we have the parks department has an integrated pest management departmental policy that guides their staff use as well as contractors and then the water department has taken a different route where we develop we work to develop this Russian River friendly landscape guidelines and then we built a an RFP to our contractor to make sure that they are doing Russian River friendly guidelines and IPM is a component of that and I'll talk a little bit more about both of those so the parks department policy it's written for park staff and contractors that are working on parks properties that are managed by the parks department it's really I say solely I think it's probably like if I could go back and change that word it's it's focused on integrated pest management only and and this is just in contrast to our Russian River friendly landscape guidelines that we work with in the water department but we do have integrated pest management in our process but this is solely an integrated pest management policy and the guidelines come from the experts at the UC Ag extension's office and it is an excellent policy for pest management activities because it does follow through in the stepwise progression to make sure we're using least toxic things control mechanisms first before we enter into anything that might be hazardous to the public or our workers and then it only applies to the parks department and its contractors so that's part of a problem that we see at staff is we like something that is unifying so that we're all doing so you can feel comfortable that what we're doing here is the same as what we're doing in the water department lands you know and on the parking facilities and all of that so the Santa Rosa waters landscape or guidance is we developed a request for proposals so a bidding process for landscape services to make sure that all the city owned or the water department owned properties were being managed following the Russian River friendly landscape guidelines it's more of a holistic approach to landscape management IPM as I mentioned is a component of it as well but then we have a lot of other things like reducing organic wastes going to the landfill supporting on-site composting and building around in our landscapes we provided areas so like if they're mowing our lawns we provided areas for them to put those clippings so that they're mulching in our landscapes instead of the hauling them away taking them to a landfill and being a part of that so those are just kind of a different approach that the water department took but we don't have staff who maintain landscapes it's solely done through contractors so the requirements that we do have for integrated pest management really come to us through our stormwater permit and in our stormwater permit which is also called the ms4 permit but stormwater permit I think is the best way to think about it this comes to us from the regional water quality control board it gets renewed every five years or so five to seven years and they have different issues our current one has or the the future one will have a prohibition of the use of diazanon I don't think that's anything that we use in the city but we would have to in a policy explicitly state that to meet this requirement for our permit and that we also will need to report the use of all pesticides by city staff and contractors in the stormwater annual report and that's something that we aren't currently doing we do not like a citywide policy could set that reporting requirement and give the authority of one entity to roll up all that information into our our report so that's one of the things that we would like to see to meet these requirements in our policy I'd like to kind of just go into a variety of the different landscapes that we are managing in the city so that you can have an understanding of of some of the issues that might come up with an integrated pest management strategy so we have ball fields and playgrounds and you know the community feedback that we get on these are is they want weed free infields they don't want a ball when they hit it in infield bouncing off a weed and shooting in another direction they want resilient fields that can um stand the you know the use um and have enough time um they don't want ground dwelling rodents in the turf fields you know they don't they want a risk of injury to people as they're running and hit you know a hole that didn't look like a hole until they stepped on it and they also want a minimum use of pesticides and so those are some of the things that we're hearing about for ball fields and playgrounds more the naturalized areas and these are you can think of like at Howard's Park but also I would say some properties that the water department owns that are more ag and then have wild lands to them people want the ability to walk on trails so there's a trail on our Kelly farm out that connect it's called the Laguna Trail but it's on our farm it's it's run by the regional parks but people want those areas to be open they also are concerned about how we're managing these landscapes to ensure that they're not sources for wildfires in the midst of their city so they they have a low tolerance to see five six foot tall weeds growing in these areas and that a lot of people are concerned that some of these natural areas really need to be natural so that when we are sending people out going on hikes and things they're seeing the native fauna and flora living in these areas and you can see a lot of our creek trails meet that criteria and Howard's Park I think is a gem in the city as far as apart with natural areas we have ponds and levees and dams the community feedback is that they want a minimum base of pond weeds so we will need in our integrated pest management strategy some mechanism for controlling these pond weeds and we have a separate permit that deals with that in the parks department they also want safe well-maintained levees and dams so that if they're downstream of one of these they don't have to worry that they're going to fail due to lack of management and then also we have the Department of Safety of dams DSOD requirements that these dams be managed to a particular level in particular some of the most difficult pesticides that get used are going to be pesticides used on rodents because we can't really have gopher activity and ground squirrel activity on these surfaces if they get in there we have regulations to do that otherwise we would have to abandon the infrastructure altogether so we do have management requirements under that that need to be you know informed as we develop an integrated pest management strategy federally mandated that's state okay yeah we have road sides and medians so you know some of the challenges we've had with road sides is their difficult areas to work in especially the medians and if the weeds get tall enough you start to lose sight lines and traffic issues with pedestrians and vehicles if they can't see somebody coming because they're hidden in the weeds you know it's it's something that's important but then it's also difficult for staff you know to work in these areas because it is dangerous to be out there weeding and working in these environments so that's another type of environment and then we have our city-owned farms and a lot of these farm areas have naturalized components to them where restoration is going on and that there are weed infestations that are difficult weeds to manage perennial pepper weed being one of them and we have nonprofit organizations that assist with us in managing some of these lands and so the IPM policy would apply to their efforts as well and then we have farmers who are actually raising crops on these lands and they have a desire not to have a bunch of weed seeds in there that could be toxic to their animals that would be feeding off of the the hay crops I will say that in my time working around the farmers I have not seen any of them ever spray but the integrative pest management policy would apply to those activities as well so just want to make sure that you understood that and then we have our city-owned institutional landscapes and this seems to be something that we you know from the last discussion we felt we have a lot of control over but the community feedback is they want aesthetically pleasing landscapes they don't want just these institutional landscapes be you know unkempt and looking poorly maintained and they want places for community gathering so that they can come to these places and feel that it is a safe place to gather and I think the city hall landscape has been has been a really good example of that of people having that opportunity to interface with the landscape before and after meetings and then a lot of times of the year it looks really nice so this is a part of the talk where I was hoping that we could kind of talk about what it is that you might like to see us put into our integrated pest management so that we can come back with a policy a draft policy that is is akin to something you'd be interested in seeing us bring to the full council and provide us feedback and then you'd shoot holes in that right and tell us how we could make that better and then also kind of as we're getting this feedback how you would like I showed those different landscapes that we have how those operational impacts you know should be considered should we choose a path that might be more expensive than maintenance and materials you know how you would like us to consider those impacts as a part of this IPM policy and then I have a little bit more after this I'll talk about next steps and things like that but I thought you know this would be a good time to provide feedback or I could go through the next steps how about go all the way through it we'll ask questions get public comment great to all that sort of thing okay so the next steps are really we would take the feedback from this discussion draft a city wide integrated pest management policy for you to review again there would be an actual document in front of you and we would bring that back to here and you know no sooner than December depending on what you'd like to see and what we would like to make sure that we ground choose but we would like to be coming back in the next couple months with this policy and then we would bring that to city council once we have something you would ideally recommend to city council then we would bring that to city council get that feedback and then finalize the policy and then we can start putting that into all of our bids for any landscape help us you know be very clear what the city wants when a contractor is going to try to work with the city and Paul Lowenthal is not here today but you know I think as we're developing some of this concepts we might want to talk if there are the committee is interested in prohibitions would there be exceptions for public safety and things like that and that's what we would want Paul Lowenthal here to speak about I think once we get more into the policy he would be attending this meeting just so that he could answer from his standpoint correct that's it all right thanks so I'll start off with a couple of questions if that works for you so first I have a little bit of a tick every time I hear from somebody that we don't have a policy on some of this for the for the council because we did in 2018 voted unanimously on a direction and because it was unanimous we never formalized it in an ordinance so even though we don't have a technical ordinance we do have clear direction from the previous council from 2018 on how to how to move forward on this and if I remember correctly it was mostly related to the landscaping contract at the time and so my first question is really how has the landscaping contract been operating with the previous direction from council not to use synthetic herbicides particularly in our public spaces where are we currently using synthetic herbicides if at all and how does that feed into this discussion about the IPM and how does it sync up with the contract I think I'd like to call Jen Santos up here to answer that thank you Jen sure great job Sean thank you low again Jen Santos acting director for recreation of parks and the question was where are we using synthetic herbicides right now and the answer is nowhere at the moment because the overall direction from the city management team in 2018 to staff was not to not to be moving forward with any synthetic herbicides at the at that moment so prior to that though we looked at it as again like Sean mentioned although we technically aren't using Russian river friendly guidelines we use that process of elimination where we look at what can we do that is the least toxic and then if we can't do anything else and we need to use a herbicide we look at that and so a lot of that was going to be on the around sports fields in the season where sports were not being played where they were closed we would come and spray for that at times we had used pre-emergence to try to help us manage some of the landscaping that you would see not necessarily across the street at city hall but generally like that to help us control weeds and again around the warning track and baseball fields outside of the season and other than that was very limited use and I'm looking to my team did I miss anything our experts are really over here right thank you yes in roadway landscaping's again it's an effective tool occasionally as needed because when we're putting folks out in those meetings it is means it's dangerous and so we want to limit that and using having that in our tool belt so to speak is a is an effective tool when needed so those are the locations and then I can report out for the water department they are not using them okay okay when you talked about the the medians I know that's a big thing in my district and because of the amount of roadways we have and getting teams actually to get out there for the safety and visibility can you speak a little bit on on that sure yeah so I I'll elaborate and let me know if I if I missed it but what we had previously was a you know a level of service where we would go out to medians ever so often and as needed when we had an outbreak of certain weeds especially weeds that tend to flop into roadways or into pedestrian travel lanes we could use a pesticide occasionally from time to time on there um now what we're doing instead of using pesticides is repeatedly sending folks out and higher frequency in order to remove weeds to get a certain once they start to flop so you'll see weeds that are higher now that's probably a change that the community seen is taller weeds they last longer they don't you know especially if there's a certain invade invasive species um and so we have a lot higher frequency going out there within reason we just don't you know again don't have that other tool on our toolbox we also haven't um asked our contractor or our staff to increase um so we don't have the corresponding funding to go with that so the the level of service has stayed the same but the tool has been removed from our toolbox so um it's a little bit harder to get out on those medians because sometimes there's nowhere to park so you've got people running across with mowers and trimmers and things like that and we have training for that for sure and we have put up in some places cones to help keep those folks really safe out there but it is it is a little bit more dangerous people are commuting they're not maybe not paying attention and so those are the places that are are really a highlight for us to keep our workers safe thank you i do know from talking with with paul even though he's not here today i know he's particularly concerned in the wooey and and more specifically the fern scar of some of the invasive species that are moving in how are we currently dealing with those is it just mechanical removal at the moment it's a mechanical control i think is the best we could say so the number one issue that i think um the number one plant type is uh an invasive broom uh that's coming in uh and the problem is it grows very dense scott broom whether scotch and french um broom uh are the two common ones my colleagues all about we don't have so much italian room um you know and so uh that's a woody uh plant um and uh so currently we're just i think mechanically uh mowing and cutting those things down um but that doesn't remove them uh and requires uh more activity um and i'll just add to that too one of the things we've all been talking about as we've been looking at uh you know what does the policy look like is that uh since we've been looking at mechanical means only really as an agency the seed bed is growing so we're getting very very dense seed bed and that's why uh you know i don't want to speak on behalf of the fire department that that's one of the things we've talked about you know commonly among each other is that that's something we're noticing is that the weeds are um seeding a lot faster because it's hard to get out there with mechanical means only um so you have a pretty dense seed bed uh now 3 18 19 about four or five years now so it's just something we're keeping in mind um so my questions are around um one it'll all tie back go with me on this little is the oak bore beetle beetle on your radar because um that's like speaking of invasive species is something that you know i never hear about but seems to be a great concern i will say that um you know some of the earliest signs we have a number of majestic oaks on our city-owned farms as we do in our parks and it's attacking our our valley oaks which have largely been spared from the sudden oak death infestation that is another invasive species that um hit us um so we are uh i will say that i have been paying attention to it but we don't really have tools to um address them you know it would be insecticides um injected into trees which um would be synthetic um i don't know that in the water department that it's our core mission to preserve these oaks against that we would work with um nonprofit entities like the um california native plant society we have a very active chapter the milo baker chapter um that could provide technical guidance um uh to to support that but it is a new infestation for us and it is one of deep concern for sure right for the parks team we do have a huge concern now that we're already seeing it in parks so we're looking at what can we do um to help um provide some procedures for ourselves and our contractors on how to deal with the invasive beetle um i know that our staff have been attending seminars and trying to get better educated on it and we have heard the same thing about the use of a pesticide is helpful and um reducing the you know reducing the beetle but we need a little bit more research at this point and that's what i'm hearing before yeah i mean it just really started appearing in our county um and in the the first identification were really close to our was actually the western part of the city so um are just outside of the city so um and that's where our farms are um we have a lot of valley ups obviously just a lot of concern around that i was reading um i think it was uh phil brason does this you know does the Appalachian trail and he goes to the history of the forest service and one of the things he mentioned in it is that a full chestnut population just sort of fell down like i'm sure you know this like just overnight essentially from an infestation and it's always on my mind you know how santa rosa would look if we lost our oak trees it would be devastating but what that really brings me back is you mentioned staff you mentioned contractors and you know it's my understanding that we have about 20 21 parks maintenance crews and that's about a third of our historical staff and so i think you know again you know we were talking about false dichotomies before you know when it comes to the environment versus recreation i think that when it comes to to maintenance versus environment you know we we really have as a council failed you in leadership on your staffing levels um and i think that it's incumbent upon us to to look at that and address that you know we're wanting to make up for for time for space for money with chemicals and that's that's not an approach that i'm going to be comfortable with i understand that you know if we're going to lose like our entire you know oak species and the only answer is to it's not because of lack of resources it's like that's the it's like getting an injection or a vaccine you just got to do it sometimes but but i'm not seeing that that the the overall thing you know whether it's medians i mean a lot of people do a lot of dangerous work in this city whether it's police officers or people work you know the electrical facility at our at our you know wastewater treatment facility these things are dangerous but we can do them well and um and i'm not so worried about that what i'm worried about is not having enough people to do them well and so that would be my request is that when the stuff comes back is to present us with um what it would take from a human power perspective to get it done well and where are the very limited absolute last resource situations where we have to use chemicals to to deal with these situations and also what can we do and this goes back to the first thing to change the landscape in such a way that deals with the heavy sea cover that that takes a proactive approach to restoring the natural habitat whether that's working with the native plant society or other environmental groups i'd rather give you all the resources that you need to do what i think is is the right thing and that i think most environmentalists on your staff would want to get done so um and i am really interested also it's kind of a side note about the rodent thing i thought that was really interesting and i i continue to be the the problem with you know putting pesticides and rodents as you well know is that they don't just end with the rodent so i've been really interested to know if at some point you know we've now we've got driverless cars you know at some and they're running over people will there will there be um will there be you know some sort of you know rumba-like thing that can go after these creatures or some other invention that's mechanical hot yeah something else that's gonna you know can go down there and and nap they're they're adorable little invasive selves and move them elsewhere i would do what i would do or or you know probably destroy them i think victoria wants to introduce cats i think i've read this one before i think that we can introduce cats um now i'm i'm joking about that but but i am really seriously interested in wherever we can be a pilot or a test case to try something different i know we we just gotta get rid of them but but it doesn't to my mind i mean i i'm not an engineer but i could see an engineer making product like that yeah in our in our backyard we're particularly happy when we see the possums at night because we have chickens and they keep the area nice and clean from ticks and other things fleas so any additional questions uh questions i think i gave my comment sorry that's fine let's go to public comment then go for it um hi everyone i'm megan count from sonoma safe ag state schools thank you so much for bringing this forward and for the great presentation i was a part of the whole thing that happened with santa rosa water and the city of santa rosa many years ago the city's come a long way i'm so proud um you guys are doing an amazing job and i can't wait to see a citywide ipm it's the great next step um i advocate for a synthetic free pesticide ipm for routine maintenance so as far as exceptions go you know emergencies for fire or really bad invasives or oak stuff like i get it like the city needs exceptions um and i say synthetic pesticides because if we just ban one then we get another one and they're really none of them are very safe um and i think it's great that the city is still really minimizing its pesticide use um and even going above and beyond what i was aware of that the city was doing um four years ago or so um regarding median strips um this is a problem area that a lot of cities see i've helped a lot of cities transition away from pesticides um and i would just like to recommend if there are areas where it's hard to maintain weeds maybe there needs to be something else planted there maybe i hate to say this maybe it needs to get um you know put some pavement over it um you know winzer has this video out that shows that 100 square foot garden can really help pollinators and help invasive endangered species like monarchs why can't median strips be pollinator gardens something planted in something we want so that something we don't want doesn't grow um something else i'd like to bring forward is the use of grazing so the city of pedaluma recently is managing all of their large open spaces with grazing and they just put hosts on the ground last summer a colleague of mine is actually helping to organize their whole grazing program grazing can help you reduce um and really eliminate the unwanted seed bank that you have in the city and it can do it in two seasons it's amazing what what putting goats and the sheep back on the land can do um and also you know i really would encourage the city to use indigenous land stewardship practices to really heal the ecosystems get stuff out that's not supposed to be there to make the land naturally fire safe my organization has done pilot studies on this have been super effective at helping neighborhoods for um support themselves and not be afraid of fire um so you know raising and indigenous land stewardship absolutely on santa rosa's more wild lands i think is really important i definitely would really support an annual report on what every department in the city is using the county does that right now and it's amazing um it's just as far as building a relationship between concerned citizens like the people i represent um and staff and it's been great for relationship building and just knowing what's going on um i would uh suggest that you talk to the county about um the pond weeds they've been through a lot of stuff with isola um i actually have a few ideas on how to manage that better um you know whether you're spraying it or you're dredging it um but you know do reach outside to other departments in the county that are trying to figure out this work um and also i just have a question um about the people that are doing hay cultivation um and also people that do um restoration on city lands like the laguna foundation or whoever else do they need to report their pesticide use um directly to the city because i have seen and this is an old spray records um they're being too for d being used on i think city-owned land um for hay cultivation so a selective herbicide um and since these aren't organic hay cultivation because they're using biosolids um that might i know you haven't seen it happening but it could be happening as something i think about um i live just over the laguna from all the beautiful hay cultivation in sabastical um and i think about that a lot those are my comments right now but i look forward to being a part of this process thank you so much all right thank you megan anybody else good i'm bob chifola and uh i there there are a couple things i'm curious about uh the first one is what is the city's jurisdiction uh i've been told in some discussions that public schools are separate from the count of the city and so aren't under their jurisdiction center osa junior college is another area that's within city limits but not in uh you know also has jurisdictions of their own um and and what about the county pockets that the city surrounds or includes are you know that that's that's my first question uh the second one there was a word a word in the one of the early slides and that word was turf and i think it's important to define what that means because previous to 1964 it always meant growing green grass but in 1964 kim grass was introduced and soon after astro turf and then many other turf uh terms artificial turf uh i can't even remember them all synthetic turf and and now the latest is all weather turf so i think it's really important that we define what the word is so we know what we're referring to because they're very different right thank you the two any other comments all right we'll bring it back then so i heard a couple of questions but i'm going to actually expand them a little bit because i heard specifically about uh hey i have heard about unincorporated urban pockets but i'll even say integration with the county and other possible jurisdictions we all share the same waterways we are right up but one another right so how does this plan or how would this plan integrate with other efforts around the area so the city on farms are part of the city and so they're within our jurisdiction and so we currently do not have restrictions on we do have no restrictions on the leases when the farmers lease our property they are not required to report to us um any of that currently so that is something that could be amended uh in in uh future contracts as they come in um and uh in this policy could help provide that direction um the uh so that's kind of you know that piece we don't have jurisdiction with our policy over what they do in the county um when you are applying pesticides as a business or a farmer or um uh or the city you are using a licensed pesticide applicator and they are required to fill out pest reports monthly and that goes to the ag commissioner's office in that process is discoverable uh through the public records acts um it's not made available uh very easily and I think members of the audience could confirm that that's true um uh so that is a way that the city could go about getting that information um but you know this is a right to farm county and you'll won't find an integrated pest management strategy like we're talking about today being applied to farms in the county anytime soon I I just I don't see any of that and I know there's been a lot of concern where schools and ag properties but up next to each other what the farmers doing um and the kids are there um at that time uh with spray drift and things like that but an integrated pest management strategy for the city I think would most likely operate independently um um of what the county is is doing that's really helpful and uh I think it would be great as we develop this to put in some of our own metrics on how we are going to report back to the community even if it's just in the annual report we have an update on what we used when we had to use it for the exemptions um I also you know we had discussions earlier in the year about our new assembly member Damon Connelly's bill specifically asking Caltrans to follow the city's plan and so whatever we develop I hope we'll also send a letter to Caltrans and ask them that you know we've developed this plan with all new diligence we've met with our community members we talked about what we want to see as a community and ask them to respect that as well because it sounds like for the most part when it's city land people follow it they're required to and at the same time I know Caltrans and other jurisdictions that have their own to the gentleman's point their own jurisdiction that overlaps that they don't uh so I'd hope that we would do that as well right and and you know of course reaching out to schools who also are you know the jurisdiction is by the state as well including our elementary high schools and and our junior college any other comments um I was just going to stress again uh about the the medians and I couldn't agree with my colleague more um one it it is dangerous Jen I I agree with you on that but also um if we're not providing you with the correct staffing to to do things so uh it's almost like taking the tools out of your toolbox and then still asking you to perform the the same work it gets a little difficult um and so I know that we heard that from staff and I wanted to thank my colleague for bringing um that up and so we need to address I agree with the IPM I just think that we need to address staffing issues if we're going to continue to implement things that do not allow our staff to get their jobs done effectively and efficiently and and and the the medians are things that I hear about all the time because that's a big thing in my district and so that is something that that came to mind um for me but definitely um I think you're on the right track I don't think there's anything that you put in there that I would um that I would disagree with and um also just I think uh Chair Rogers hit it perfectly it's just our commitment to work with jurisdictions um that are around the city and go through the city and but knowing that they may not always take on our policy but just that we have the commitment to work to work with them and share our our policy with them I think I made my my perspective clear when I'm during our questions section um but one thing that I would like to know tags back to our first conversation about synthetic turf and jurisdiction is um Director Burke said that because there it does in some way connect our water water um our wastewater plan or our waterways that we may have some jurisdiction so when it does come back to us in any form I think that it'd be interesting to to know um if we do actually have some sort of backdoor way to to help compel our our neighboring jurisdictions or our integrated jurors or overlay jurisdictions to to maybe join with us um in this integrated pest management program uh and in some tools that we might be able to offer them if so but I think that if it applies the turf it seems logical that it would also apply to this could I ask a clarification um so uh are you imagining that we would reach out and see hey we developed this policy what do you think or are you more interested in us um looking to what by them having a utility certificate uh getting service that we can compel them to adopt our policy right well I well I really like the the ladder um I think it's a heavy hand to start with and uh because I just like to see the elimination of pesticides unless it's an emergency or urgency but but at any rate I just want the question answered um do we have the ability to compel them and and I think that's a good starting point for at least opening because once you know that you have the authority to do so you can go and say hey we have the authority we'd like to work with you to gain you know partnership and in compliance and see where we go from there okay I think that would we'll be doing it for one we could do it for both and your rudders also as far as I know the schools do have some sort of a policy because if they put anything on the grounds they send a letter home um to the parents all the time notifying them if they're going to use um something on the school grounds that might be that might affect the children um so they do have a policy I just don't know what it is but I do recall getting those I feel like the adamant shaking head in the in the audience there might have something to do with that one yeah so I mean that's why I said just the commitment to continue to work with other stakeholders as we already do I think Santa Rosa's pretty we're pretty friendly and we already work with a lot of people so I think our commitment just to continue to do that great so then the last comment that I'll make I just want to make sure that I punctuate the point is it was brought up not to necessarily look at the IPM through the lens of specific chemicals but specific types of pesticides because even you know I when when I was working in the legislature it was neonicotinoids was the big one and then you know those have largely shifted into different names different types of chemical structures but still the same impact so if we could write the IPM in a way that is kind of all-encompassing for what we're trying to accomplish even if that chemical changes from year to year that might be a good place for us to not have to keep coming back right so uh almost like a description of the chemical type or the impact correct neonicotinoids were related to bees and and butterflies you know non-tar you know affecting non-target species um I suspect when we actually have a draft plan uh for people to see that we can word Smith to achieve the goal but that's what I've heard over and over again from folks is build a plan that focuses on the impact more so than one specific thing that will have to come back and amend well what I what I heard is uh your initial statement was to go back to the 2018 council direction which was um provided uh for the parks department in their contract uh to be a starting point which was um I I believe as I recall the main point of that was no synthetic correct um pesticides yep um and so I think that we can incorporate that um we could look at you know where what an exception process would be I also heard that that there might be outside of routine maintenance there might be you know extraordinary circumstances as we talked with the oak for um you know uh that that there would be you know develop what that process would look like or fire uh life and safety issues um there was uh a desire to hear a little more information on how um various you know removing tools affects staffing to to maintain the level of service so an information about that uh for this committee to consider um and then uh some research into um optional burrowing mammal um control yep I apologize there's one one piece of this that is you're reading it off I I think that I I miss which is um you know through the the mechanical process um just a question about using two stroke engine mowers or or other additional things that are really also super toxic um you know that's got to be part of this discussion as well there is state law that is already driving that change and um not as fast as I'd like to see okay um so I'm just wondering if we don't bring that as like a sidebar because would it be part of the policy that we could talk about I think related pest management so or if we're going to manage things I mean how we manage them I think is on the table here so right right okay I mean even at a minimum we can discuss them the same meeting and see how it all fits so I because I do know a lot of landscape companies are in the process of retooling right now to meet those uh regulations and the technology has really advanced um but it is more you know it's just another expense and so we can come back with some information on that um I had a question chair uh so I I know and you brought it up in your public comment about the the animals and the grazing and I know that that is something that we have we've done are is it something that we're still doing I think so but I think last I heard we are having a hard time finding enough goats and sheep that it's their high demand now okay because I do know James is nodding his head a lot I know we're still doing it this was Jack because it's his favorite we're not doing it currently because of the availability but we did I like we know about it we did I know we have done it in the past yes and it's our plan to continue it off as as a pest management system to continue to do that and the fire department and parks have been working with SRJC to um look at a youth training program or a student training program yeah for a great grazing program so we're looking at bringing that next year I just want to acknowledge how good that joke was for a minute I appreciate it um and I know that there were specific neighborhoods actually up in Fountain Grove that were using it as like a festival neighborhood building community building thing every year so and the water department does have grazing on our levees now in the past we had used synthetic herbicides to control weeds on our levees and so we've moved to having grazing but we use cows because that's that's the livestock that's mostly there for us and then some we do actually use goats I mean sheep you know we have a sheep farmer who will live very cool all right sounds like you got some good direction I look forward to having it come back for us all the poke at it great so the last thing on our agenda for today's meeting is future agenda items all right so um we will be returning in the near future with um additional updates on both the artificial turf and the IPM so those won't be too far out and also the greenhouse gas reduction strategy we will be bringing that back to you as well still timing and dates on those yet to be determined but they are on our future items list there was one other that we were just discussing also um oh and that is the bicycle and pedestrian master plan update as well so we'll look to be putting that on schedule if you think so yeah sorry quick question um so would it be appropriate to ask if we could visit um in the future recycling at the parks when you rent like a a gazebo or something that they have the different types of recycling available at the specific locations sure I just noticed because I rented something and I was like we're doing our recycling yeah it was just a lot so yeah and then also um I made these comments on the general plan update that we did but when we look at the greenhouse gas production strategies uh as a primer it might be worth reading through some of the climate actions that we just discussed for the general plan because I intend to go through them like a checklist with this committee as we as we go but yeah we can add that in there too great let's go to public comment see if there's anything folks think that we are missing that they'd like to see us discuss all right see none we'll adjourn thanks everybody I just want to say it is great to see everyone here this is awesome I love this thank you