 of one o'clock having arrived we'll call the order at this meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council on September 12th 2023 and the clerk will call the roll. Thank you Mayor, Council Member Newsom. Present. Brown. Here. Watkins. Here. Brunner. Present. Calentary Johnson. Present. Vice Mayor Golder. Here. Mayor Keely. Here. Thank you Madam Clerk. This would be the opportunity for anyone to address us in closed session. We will be adjourning to close session to take up litigation, potential litigation matters if you would like to address the City Council on any of these items. Please do so at this time. Ms. Bush, do we have anyone online who would like to comment? We do, yes. Okay, let's hear from that person. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Hi members of the community. This is Robert Norris speaking from Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom. I draw your attention community as well as City Council to the case of Russell Jackson Barton on your agenda. I have, of course, community has not been able to really hear the real details of this case because the city keeps that under close wraps unless you make a public records act request. I'm going to read it to you, though, so that the community can hear it. This is what he writes. I have been staying in an area on Golf Club Drive and had a living space and a fully functioning community kitchen at this location parked my vehicle on Golf Club Drive to sustain the living space with basic essentials. On a mid July day, Santa Cruz Police Department officials arrived with quad vehicles, a tractor and a garbage truck. SCPD proceeded to destroy all and dispose of my materials found at the living campment. When this incident was happening, I was standing around the gated entrance. At this moment, a police officer informed me the encampment was being shut down and furthermore any vehicles located on the street were being towed by the SCPD. My approach to the space where my vehicle was located, found my truck already hooked up to the tow truck. I followed up with my case workers to find the location of my vehicle and found it was possessed by the Sheriff's Department. He has a second claim. I relocated to Cowles Beach, a beach in which a judge designated as location for my partner, Susan Cooper, to camp with them after having my car and camping space confiscated and destroyed, as described before. Within our first night at Cowles Beach, we were ticketed for sleeping on the beach. The police department continued to make middle of the night harassments with tickets. After our fifth night at Cowles Beach, we were both arrested for violating, quote, temporary restraining orders allegedly imposed by them, the police, in the prior nights. Both Susan Cooper and I subsequently spent the night in jail. We're told that our materials could be collected the following day. This is not a rare case. This is what's happening to homeless people throughout the city, unless they surrender their belongings and leave the minute the police arrive and tell them to leave, even though they give them inadequate space to go to or no space. Since if you consider there are 1200 homeless people outside at least and space for no more than 200 or 300 of them in the armory, only 150 and a few other spaces as well, if you include the 150 Coral Street situation. Your responsibility is to address this and stop the police from doing so. Or perhaps the federal court should be called in to do it. If that needs to happen. I simply raised this issue for the community by the U. I shouldn't really be talking to the council because the council will be routinely denying this request, but the community needs to act on this request. It needs to act on this outrageous behavior by the Santa Cruz police and the negligence of the council and allowing this to happen. And our negligence and allowing the council to be negligent. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. North. Anyone else online as bush? Last call for anyone who is with us in chambers? Seeing and hearing none. We will bring that to a conclusion. What we will be doing now is that the city council will be adjourning into a closed session. We will return here no earlier than 2 p.m., but it might be a little bit later based on what happens in closed session. We now stand adjourned in closed session. The hour of two o'clock having arrived. Clerk will call the roll for our afternoon session. Thank you, Mayor, Councilmember Newsome. Present. Brown. Here. Watkins. Here. Brunner. Present. Calentary Johnson. Present. Vice Mayor Goldert. Here. And Mayor Keely. Here. For having been established, we will move to oral communications. This would be the opportunity for anyone to address the council on a matter under our jurisdiction, but not on today's agenda. Let me see if we have folks who wish to provide testimony to us or oral communication. Come on forward. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Rachel Sodos, and I would like to make a suggestion to the city council, and I think particularly to the mayor because I think it's under your specific purview to call a meeting of public significance. I'm sorry. To call a meeting that's of public significance to. And I would like to suggest that in the interest of healing and truth and course correcting in terms of responsible policy, that the city of Santa Cruz established something like a truth and reconciliation commission to address what has happened in the last three years during the era of COVID. Maybe an example among political leaders could be Governor Gavin Newsome, who I think many of you probably know was on NBC's media press this weekend, and he said that California did almost everything wrong during the pandemic and the criticisms of the public health measures were warranted. And I think that's an important step forward in leadership at the executive level. I would also like to note that there's an interesting article that's in, it's published in the, excuse me, in the magazine, The Federalist, which is a little more conservative than I'm usually to, but I think the legal analysis is pretty good. And the title of it is renewed hysteria shows why we need a COVID commission. And I'll just read a little bit of it in my remaining time. Only through a national commission that would assign accountability for COVID failures, can we ensure America won't repeat the same mistakes. One of the most disturbing images of the COVID-19 pandemic was when a teacher tried repeatedly to force a mask on a crime toddler, despite his visible distress. I think not everything in public health is under the purview of the city, but maybe healing could be started with some kind of commission like this. Thank you. Thank you for being here today. Good afternoon. Anyone else wish to address us under oral communication? Good afternoon. My name is Karen Madura, and I am the owner of Brady's Yacht Club in Seabright. I am speaking to directly address the complaints that were made against my business by Jennifer Zeter during the August 22nd meeting. Brady's is in the spotlight because COVID patios are coming up with our sub committee, and complaints were made to paint us as a nuisance and are disingenuous and have little to do with our patio. I have a long history of working with neighbors and with the city to be neighborly, respectful, and compliant. When I receive complaints, I take them seriously, and I look forward to making myself available to answer any questions and to working with you on any solutions. Brady's is located on the border of commercial and residential zones in a very busy high traffic area. We are often blamed for the neighborhood problems because of our placement and popularity. I remind people they move next to an area which hosts two full bars, a restaurant with a bar, seven other restaurants, a hair salon, a laundry mat, and many other businesses. We are located out of hub to the harbor and Seabright Beach. There is dense housing here, which includes homeowners, vacation rentals, and Airbnb style rentals. Brady's has been a bar since Prohibition, and I like to let people know that they are moving into an area that has a bar and a vibrant commercial neighborhood. As a business owner and resident myself, I have taken many steps to work with my neighbors. Our outdoor patio is shut down with our back door closed by 10 p.m. sharp. I put up signs to remind patrons about noise levels and to be respectful of neighbors. My staff is instructed to monitor noise and pick up trash. I have also internally lowered the volume of my jukebox and the base on the jukebox in order to limit the way that sound goes out into the neighborhood. Neighbors have my phone number, my email, and I respond promptly. Thank you for your time. Thank you for being here this afternoon. Anyone else wish to address the council under oral communication? Who's with us here in chambers? Let me see if we have anyone online. We do. Good afternoon person online. Good afternoon. Yes, this is good. Hey, I'll state this fact. A majority of the federal government has been and is in a corrupt and immoral partnership with the deep state, the swamp, the crony capitalist, the machine or whatever name you use, because they install and keep the Congress deciders in power, and they make them rich. That government then works for what the select powerful few want, not what the public democratic majority wants, and the government narrative and the actions are then not on the side of the people, not on they are on the wrong side of the COVID response. They're wrong in immigration on the wrong side of climate change when viewed as extent is essential crisis or on the wrong side of support for another crazy, expensive, endless, bloody, unwinnable war in Ukraine that never had to happen. And on the wrong side of the entire woke cultural Marxist agenda. The question I ask is, how, how is it that that filters down to the city council level that influences you to follow those agendas? You're not like the top 25% of Congress that wink wink somehow amassed an average 57 million plus in net worth on 174,000 a year salary. It's talking to me, the city's website is still giving out the machine's health advice on COVID, despite the fact there is no pandemic. And too much of that advice is now known unquestionably wrong. The government COVID response was one of the most cruel backs of part time laced, hate filled propaganda campaigns and human history with tragic results of long lasting or permanent adverse effects on mental, physical, economic health and individual rights. The American people were duped by lies for profit and control. We have known for a long time getting fresh air and sun outside never had any risk to anyone. I don't recall any of you getting down on your knees and begging forgiveness for passing misdemeanor laws for making it $1,000 fine for just walking on the beach and all the rest of the damaging stuff you did justified by all the lies. And still now even urging people to get the clutch. I personally know killed a friend of mine within two days of getting it. Thank you. Anyone else online, Miss Bush? Last call. Anyone wish to address the council on oral communications? Good afternoon, sir. Yeah, good afternoon. My name is James Ewing Whitman. This is kind of a repeat from something I said in the supervisors meeting. So I tried to write it out from my phone. So it's a quote, hospitals across the US have killed COVID-19 inpatient since May of 2020 as witnessed by 100 zone record, testifying that COVID-19 hospital protocol is murdered by numbers. Crime proceeds as follows one isolate presumed COVID-19 inpatients from family and friends. So they are without allies to do deny them basic care and hygiene so they fester in their own filth three limit fluids and nutrition to an IV so they starve for deny them exercise so they atrophy five administer oxygen at levels that damage the lungs so that they are unable to breathe normally six administer them room desivir intravenously that goes against the patients and families wishes so their kidneys fail and their lungs fill full of fluids and they die. Seven ventilate them. And I can't read my number eight. That's okay, but I can find it here. Sedate that sedate them at overdose levels. So there's a lot of people a lot of information that something else is gonna go on. I don't know how much time I have. Thank you. Do you've got about half a minute. I'm just kind of bringing awareness to not enough people were standing up and questioning issues. And it's not really hundreds of doctors and nurses. It's thousands throughout the world. So who knows what's going to happen. But it's everybody's choice as to they want to help. Thanks. Thank you, sir. Anyone else last call. We are on item five. This is a proclamation declaring September 2023 as childhood cancer awareness month. And given all the fine work that my colleague, Council Member Martin Watkins has done on children's issues over her nearly two full terms on the city council. I would like her to make this presentation if you'd be kind enough to do so. Absolutely. Thank you, mayor for allowing me to do so. I'm a big fan of Jacob's heart. So it's an honor to be able to do this. So I will read the proclamation. So whereas the character of character of our community is revealed in how we treat our most vulnerable. And whereas each year 19.2 and every 100,000 children in our community will be diagnosed with cancer. And whereas cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease among children, more than asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, congenital abnormally abnormalities and AIDS combined. And whereas Jacob's heart, children's cancer support services has been keeping medically fragile children and families housed, fed and emotionally supported by said fastily adhering to the following commitments. One, parents of children with cancer and other serious illnesses will be relieved of financial fears and able to focus their intention on their children. Two, that no child undergoing intensive treatment in our community will be homeless. Three, that families of seriously ill children will not experience food insecurity during and after the pandemic and for that no seriously ill child in our community will ever miss a medical appointment because of a lack of transportation. And whereas Jacob's heart, children's cancer support service holds the memories and honors the legacies of hundreds of children from our local community who have been lost to cancer, ensuring that their memories will never be forgotten. And whereas the oncology department at Lucille Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford has worked closely with Jacob's hearts, children's cancer support services for the past 25 years as a trusted community partner in providing family centered care that addresses the emotional, practical and financial struggles of families and children with cancer in the city of Santa Cruz. And whereas it's important for all Santa Cruz City residents to recognize the impact of pediatric cancer on families within our community and to honor the children in our community whose lives have been cut short because of cancer. And so now therefore I, Martine Watkins on behalf of our esteemed Mayor Fred Keely of the city of Santa Cruz do hereby proclaim the month of September 2023 as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in the city of Santa Cruz and encourage all citizens to join us in honoring Jacob's hearts, children's cancer support services for its 25 years about standing support to our community and acknowledging its contributions to Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. So that's it. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. So I'm Alyssa and I'm here today as a representative of Jacob's Heart Children's Cancer Support Services. Just wanted to say thank you Mayor Keely and Council for proclaiming September's Childhood Cancer Awareness Month with the community's continued support, we can make sure that no family goes through pedagogic cancer alone. Presiding officer announcements. I have none statement of disqualification. This would be the opportunity for any council member who has a disqualification to announce so at this moment, Ms. Brunner. Item number 20 as it pertains to my employment. Very good. Others. This would be the opportunity for additions and deletions to the agenda. Ms. Bush, do we have additions or deletions? We do. Thank you, Mayor. Item nine has been removed from the agenda by staff. That's the Mission Gardens apartment agreement. Their language still needs to be finalized on the agreement itself, so it will be re-agentized for a future meeting. Thank you very much. Anyone else on additions or deletions to the agenda? Seeing none, we will move to Attorney Report on closed session. Good afternoon, Mr. Kandadi. Good afternoon, Mayor Keely and members of the City Council. This afternoon, the Council met in closed session in the courtyard conference room at 1 p.m. to discuss the following items. Item one was real property negotiations. Two real properties involved in real property negotiations. One is approximately 8.15 acres owned by the city located on Mount Herman Road in Scotts Valley. And this topic was in terms of price, or price terms of payment are both between the city of Scotts Valley and the city of Santa Cruz. Item two was the real property at 140 Front Street owned by the Seaside Company. Negotiating parties are the city of Santa Cruz, the Seaside Company and the Golden State Warriors. Under negotiation are the price terms of payment or both on a potential lease extension for that property. Item number two was a conference with legal counsel concerning liability claims. There were three liability claims discussed by the council. Those are the claims of Joshua David Abbey and two claims by Martin Russell Jackson. Those are also listed this afternoon on your consent calendar as item 10. Item three was a conference with legal counsel concerning anticipated litigation, specifically significant exposure to litigation. The council received a report from the city attorney's office on one potential case. Item four was a conference with legal counsel concerning existing litigation. Two cases were discussed this afternoon. The first was the case of Barbara versus Garni Pacific Inc. At all. In that case, the council by unanimous vote authorized the city attorney's office to file a cross complaint against Garni Pacific Inc. and the Soquel Creek Water District in that litigation matter. Item two was an update on the pending sea level rise and climate change litigation that the city has against the Chevron Corporation and 39 other fossil fuel industries. The council received a report and gave direction to the city attorney's office on that matter, but there was no reportable action. Thank you, Mr. Kandani. We are on council item six on council meeting calendar. Ms. Bush, any updates we need to know about? No updates. Thank you so much. We are now on the consent agenda. This would be items seven through 17 inclusive minus item nine. We will be taking these up on one vote. So the opportunity now is to comment upon or ask for an item on the consent agenda to be to be pulled. Let me start with the council. I'm going to start with the vice mayor. Madam vice mayor. 11 is pulled. Anyone else on the consent item? Mr. Newsome. This is just on item number 12. I want to thank Parks and Recreation Director Elliott and Park Planner Downing for bringing this agenda item forward. I think renovating the public restrooms on the main beach is needed. And I just want to thank you for bringing this up on the consent agenda. I'm going to look forward to this. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Any other council members on the agenda item? This would be the opportunity for anyone who's with us today to comment upon or ask an item to be pulled. Seeing no one, we will. Yes, good afternoon. That will happen. We will do that in just a moment here. For everyone, what we'll do is we will deal with the agenda item 11. Thank you. Let me see if we're good to go here. Sir, on item 11. We need to do public comment on everything else. Excuse me. Public comment on the consent agenda? Other than item 11. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon again. So on the consent agenda item number 17, the Day La Vega tank site installation and maintain communications equipment. On page of that, in your binder, on 17 page 5, number 6B, it reads to comply with applicable federal, state, and local laws while utilizing the least area, including but not limited to all applicable and related maximum permissible exposure to RF emissions or honor about the property, which includes all applicable FCC standards, the Americans with Disabilities Act, any applicable city public utilities commission or federal communications commission orders. So I still don't have a timer. About two minutes and six seconds. Okay. So more than four years ago, I was in a room with, I don't know, 35 or 40 people. I was moved to talk about why or do we have military frequency weapons everywhere in civilian locations. Now, Mr. Tony Kandadi was very clear and he posted about the 1996 FCC 704 Act, which made the only complaint that people could talk about were the way it looks, where I've said quite a few things and I know under my First Amendment rights, I have free reign, but I'm going to be polite because why not? So I also spoke about in 1976, 8,500 documents were declassified by the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. military, Russian military, and about six or seven over three, four, five, six, seven letter organizations. That's 8,500 documents that were declassified in 1976. There's frequency phased array around 100 and up to 60. And that's what the U.S. Department of Defense is all over this city. I had suggested some lawsuits, I'm not suggesting lawsuits, but I am wondering why more people are talking about this because although 8,500 documents were declassified, how many were not declassified? So I just have to wonder more than four years later why the population just seems so here. How much more time do I have? You have 33 seconds left sir. Okay well I guess I'm just making some people aware that we should be aware of let's see if you were to look at the common flu or wireless frequency illness or what they're calling COVID symptoms across the board are the same like the 17 common symptoms for COVID so what's really going on about people's health. Thank you. Thank you sir. Anyone else? Do we have anyone online? Wish us to comment on the consent agenda item. No one with their hand raised. Vice Mayor. Move the consent agenda. Move the consent agenda. Second. Second by Councilmember Watkins. We will be taking up items 7 through 17 with the exception of 9 which has been removed and 11 which we will discuss after we take up the consent agenda. For the debate or discussion, senior none clerk will call the roll on the consent agenda. Mayor. Councilmember Newsom. Aye. Brown. Aye. Watkins. Aye. Brunner. Aye. Calentoy Johnson. Aye. Vice Mayor Golder. Aye. And Mary Cooley. Aye. Motion passes to the Board. We are on item 11. Good afternoon sir. Good afternoon. I'm glad to be here today. It's been a long year trying to get some of our fellow employees a little bit more increased to get them closer to parody and that's item number 11 today so I'm here to talk in favor of that. As you can see behind me I have a few of my co-workers who work hard to provide all sorts of services for the city of Santa Cruz and we're happy to do it and we're even more happy that today hopefully you'll vote to pay them an equivalent wage to other cities and I just wanted to say thank you in advance for that and to have a good day. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else wish to address us? I think we just heard you do that but if you would like to do that that'd be fine. Anyone else on item 11? Matters of fact before the council. Is there a motion? Motion by Ms. Calentoy Johnson. A second by Ms. Brunner. Click or call the roll. Council Member Newston. I'm sorry. Excuse me. Yes please. Ms. Brown. Number I just want to express my appreciation for the for all of you for the work that you do. You're critical. You are. You make the city run. I have been an advocate for addressing wages and working conditions for the city's workforce during my time on the council. I'm thrilled to see us making progress here and look forward to continuing to work with you to improve the circumstances particularly in the highest cost city in the nation. It's really important so thank you for being here and for all of your work. Thank you. I also just really wanted to say thank you for all of the work that you all do and I'm so happy it's been a priority of ours to really acknowledge the getting closer in with the labor groups in classifications and pay and I'm really glad that we've been able to get to this point and we will continue to work on that and thank you for all that you do. Thanks. Thank you. I just want to echo the comments of my colleagues Council Member Brunner and Council Member Brown. Just thank you so much for all the work that you do for our community. You help our community run and you help our community thrive so thank you so much. I think I know a challenge. I won't repeat the words of my colleagues but I will just say very grateful for your work in helping the city run and grateful that we're able to get to where we are today and I know there's more work to be done. Well thank you all so very much for the work that you do every day. It is a there's two sides to the table right and I want to acknowledge both sides of the table both management and labor for the way we've cooperated this year in getting to go with each other. Thank you all around on that. That takes two parties to get together and you've been an irreplaceable component part obviously of our city's ability to provide services. Thank you all so much for that. Clerk will call the roll. Thank you. If I can just confirm who the maker and the seconder was. Okay. Council Member Newsom. Aye. Brown. Aye. Blackkins. Aye. Brunner. Aye. Eulentoy Johnson. Aye. Vice Mayor Golder. Aye. Mayor Keely. Aye. Motion passes unanimously in so ordered. Thank you all. We are on item 18. This is an item regarding appointments to those to the Water Commission. We will take public comment. There are applications in here. Let me first seek public comment. Anyone who wishes to address us on item 18 relative to appointments to the city's Water Commission. This would be your opportunity to do so. Ms. Bush, is there anyone online who wishes to comment on this item? No. Thank you, Ms. Bush. Ms. Bush, will you move us through this nomination? Yes. Thank you, Mayor. We have two openings currently. One will be Council Member Newsom's appointment and then the other will be an at large appointment. Opening Council Member Newsom, your appointment will be the duration of your term. So their term would end January 31st, 2027. If you have a nomination. Yes, I do. Jonathan Lear. By consensus. Second that. There's a second by Ms. Brown. Consensus. Okay. Jonathan Lear is the new one new Water Commissioner and then the next one is an at large appointment with the term ending January 31st, 2026. Yes, Ms. Brunner. Megan Goddard. There's a nomination. Second. Second. Debate or discussion? Opportunity. Anyone? Any other nominees or no? By unanimous consent. Got it. Okay. The appointment is made. Megan Goddard. Got it. Thank you. Thank you to the nominees. We thank you for your anticipated service to our city. We're on item 19. This is an amendment to the Santa Cruz Municipal Code regarding prohibitions and limitations on wastewater discharges. We have a staff report. Is there a member of the department who wishes to address the Council on this item? Mr. Bob told a good afternoon, sir. This is an item that periodically comes before the council to update the limits into the discharges are allowed to send through the wastewater system, which ultimately discharged to the ocean. The city is a signatory to the Clean Water Act, and that controls the wastewater treatment system under the NPDES permit. And thank you for putting my presentation up there. I don't know how to advance it, because I don't have the tools here. Say that again, sir. I'm sorry, I just didn't hear. I was talking to Ms. Bush. Thank you very much. So in effect, she's putting on the screen what I'm about to summarize in five minutes or less. I stated that the city is signatory to the Clean Water Act, and that act obligates the city to control what it discharges through the wastewater system to the ocean, and that's under the NPDES permit. And part of what we do is to do the science that helps us to create limits on discharges and what you're about to witness and perhaps authorize for the third time in the last 20 years is an update to those scientifically derived limits. Absent these limits, it becomes a political hopscotch as to what anybody can discharge, and it leaves the community vulnerable, the ocean and the receiving waters not well protected. So we've done our due diligence and we're presenting to you an opportunity to put the new numbers, the updated numbers, into the particular section of the city ordinance that controls the prohibition of discharge and the limits that are supposed to be there. Next slide, please. This is a summary of the process that we went through. We have a very competent staff of environmental compliance inspectors, and they're typically regarded as equivalent to industrial waste inspectors, but they work way above that job class. They're quite skilled, educated, and committed beyond the general class. And so they did quarterly sampling over two years for significant industrial users, and in fact all industrial users, as well as at the headworks of the wastewater treatment plant, and selected with the assistance of a very competent engineering firm, Kennedy Janks, selected the particular analytes or pollutants that meet concern. And that's the brief summary that you have on the current slide. The next slide would indicate that we went through a brief process of data reduction in which we eliminated the non-critical components and picked the ones that seemed particularly challenging both to the city and the county. As you all know, the plant is a regional plant, which means we take from North County as well as all of the city, and so we have to control all of that by the terms of the MPDS permit. Next slide, please. This map indicates all the industrial areas, all the industrial users spread through here where we sampled from, and we initially sampled even more than this, but these are the most significant of them. And next slide, please. And these are the analytes that we picked to work on after the data reduction, where we sling a string of metals, organic compounds, inorganic compounds, and things like radiation, which is we use gross data in alpha for radioactivity. Part of this is because there are medical discharges that do imaging the university that does research, and we can't control them, but we can monitor what they do because they're under separate control by the National Redactivity Commission. Next slide, please. So we screened using existing local limits because we had established local limits first in 2002, updated those in 2010 through 2012 when we acquired and implemented the technology to see what is commonly called compounds of emerging concern, trace organic compounds that were previously not analyzable in any reliable way by any municipality, but we acquired the skills and we developed those limits 2010 through 2012. The input is to do the current exercise is because communities change, industries move in and move out, so the limits have to respond to those things and the city is preparing to utilize products, the effluent products of the wastewater treatment system as source material for reclaimed water for other purposes, including seawater intrusion, non-potable uses, and indirect portable uses. Next slide, please. This is too busy for you to see, but in effect it's available for anybody who wants to understand the category and the primary reasons for inclusion, but the broad reasons are that we can't impact adversely the receiving waters and the organisms that live in the near shore, that we can't expose the staff of the wastewater treatment system to chemicals and other things that would hurt them or their families, that we also cannot deliberately take into the wastewater system things that the technologies available deployed at the plant cannot efficiently remove. All those are spelled out in strict terms at the right parts of the Clean Water Act, but they're summarizing lay person's language in that table behind the mayor. Next slide, please. So we're proposing local limits for two specific new analytes that we discovered during the two years of review, and those are boron, which didn't have a limit, but now will have a limit of 5.8 milligrams per liter, and vanadium, which also had no previous limit, but will now have a limit of .52. Just so everybody knows, before we derive these limits, we calculate the capacity of the plant, we build in risk measures, and we then build in margins of safety, knowing that there's probably going to be some exceedance, but we don't expect anybody who stays within range even exceeding a little bit to adversely impact any of the objectives of the local limits, the health of the worker, the receiving water quality, and the ability of the treatment plant to meet the thing. And that includes, by the way, what goes into biosolids. I know that has been topical recently, so we can concern ourselves not just with the water, but with the biosolids, and then we're going to do some follow-up action on some chemicals that we now know we treat, and might have impact on the end uses of reclaimed water subsequently. So there's a list of those, I think on the very next slide. Next slide, please. So the existing analytes that we're not changing at all include arsenic, copper, and zinc, and there's going to be additional evaluations for copper and zinc, and the city plans to keep the local limits on the existing ones and will consider additional source control measures for the new compounds that might impact the proposed uses of reclaimed water. And I did not need to bore you with these chemicals, but if there are questions, I'd be glad to answer them. Let me assure you we're not bored. Thank you. I appreciate that. Next slide, please. So we're proposing to remove certain compounds from the local limits, and that's based on the 10-year history up till now, and the intense monitoring. We're seeing that we could devote our efforts to other things, that you can see those limits are exceedingly low as it is. So for instance, to track any of the compounds here, reasonably, we have to deploy membranes for 30 days continuously. We have to guard those membranes. We have to be sure at the plant that no chlorine is used within those 30 days so as not to wipe out the membranes. The care it takes just isn't worth what the data is showing us, that there isn't enough of a threat there for us to continue to monitor these ones. Next slide, please. And the other analytes that we discovered to our surprise was present include acetone, which as many of you would know is using the nail polish industry, not only by the nail polish industry, but it's popular with them. It's also used to clean machinery and things. Formaldehyde, which is a fixative, you'd think that tannery has left, but it's still in the community. The perchlorate, carbon disulfide, and phthalates. The phthalates were not surprised by because of the use of plastics and straws and things like that, but we didn't know that we were going to see them at this level that would raise our concern. So we're working further on those things, and in the next couple of years we might come back if we have enough data to ask that any or many of these be added to the list. So the next steps are the first seeking your approval for the numbers we decided upon, asking the ordinance to be updated, and for us to send our final report to the central coast that we've done our diligence, which is required of us, and to EPA, ultimately, who promulgates all these limits. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you very much. If you could remain here, let me see if council members have questions on these items, on this item, really? Yes. I have a little question. I totally appreciate all of this work, and I know we all do. We rely on clean drinking water. I'm wondering when I was listening to this, just do you ever test the waters that are just coming out of the San Lorenzo that are, you know, either going up to the treatment center before it hits the pipes, or going out of town? I was nodding because I think I misunderstood your question. Do we ever, does my program test the drink in water sources out here? Well, just the water that's in the San Lorenzo. I'm wondering how this, you know, treated wastewater going back into the aquifer, or going back into wells, like we're hoping to do someday. How does that compare to the water we're already pulling up, and maybe this is more for, I don't know, to Rosemary, maybe you don't have an answer, and it's okay, but the water that we're pulling up out of the San Lorenzo that's coming through the watershed, you see where I'm getting at, so we're either way that's coming into the pipe. I think so. I just am curious how they compare. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Good afternoon. Rosemary Menard. Good afternoon. So the answer to your question is yes, we test the San Lorenzo all the time on a routine basis about, you know, all kinds of constituents, the regulated ones and the unregulated ones we've had on our website since 2015, for example, information about things that are called constituents of emerging concern. Those include pharmaceuticals, personal care products, things that, you know, we all sort of just like go down the drain and then eventually end up in various places and then we can find them. So we do have data that stuff is available and we do, you know, make that transparent. On the question that you're raising regarding the Pure Water Soquel project, for example, where we're going to do advanced treatment of wastewater, and then we're going to inject that into the ground over on in the Mid County Basin. There's a ton of work that's going on that looks at water quality. We also do that for the Aquifer Storage and Recovery Program, which is actually injecting treated drinking water into the basin. So we have a lot of data and information and the compatibility of surface water, groundwater, repealing water, groundwater, those are all things that are taken into account in the design and the contemplation of the operation of these facilities. I guess what I was getting at is are they comparable? Oh, no. I mean, there's quite a bit of differences in the surface water typically has much lower mineral content because it's not in the exposure to the aquifer matrix that, you know, will introduce different kinds of minerals into that ground water, for example, has lots of higher dissolved oxygen, typically. But it's still, you can still make them compatible. And I just have one follow-up question, and that is, so in moving this direction, and I think it's super exciting the stuff that you've been bringing to us over the past couple of years, and I really support it, is there any kind of like public education or public outreach we need to do in reminding people things like kitty litter or tampons or other things that should not go down the toilet because this is... Yeah, so one of the major things that has happened over the last, I don't know, decade or so is the crush don't flush for your leftover pharmaceuticals. So we don't recommend that people just throw their whatever leftover pills from when they didn't take the whole prescription or they didn't need to take it anymore down the toilet anymore, which was pretty common. And now, if you have those kinds of pharmaceuticals, they have places where you can take them like your old paint, which we used to pour in the sewer. We don't do that anymore either, right? For the questions or comments. Yes, Ms. Brown. Ms. Brown. Well, I have so many questions, but they're probably not necessary for our decision making here today, but Mr. Babatola, I mostly just want to say we are so lucky to have you and your team working on our water quality and compliance. You keep us in compliance and our community drinking water supply healthy. And so just want to thank you. And I'm going to reach out about your thoughts on the sources of these new substances, but I'll leave it there for now for our meeting. I just thought I would add something to what the vice mayor was asking and what the director of water was responding to. We started this city, started the voluntary take back of pharmaceuticals in 2007 ahead of any other person in the country. The first department was off of a police department and horse night is pharmacy and West side pharmacy. It's now in the city ordinance for extended producer responsibility ordinance 2010 dash 20, I think is the ordinance number and all the manufacturers now pay for the removal of the collection, the reasonable disposal. It's under our program. We started that, like I said, 2007. Thank you, sir. Very much. This would be the opportunity for anyone who's with us in the public or online who wishes to make a comment on this item. This would be your opportunity to do so. Good afternoon. Yeah. Hello. My name is James Ewing Whitman. I do appreciate the presentation. I didn't open up and read everything, but I tried to scan through all the slides and look for certain chemical configurations that I didn't see. So it's entirely possible. I missed some information. Nothing about removing fluoride from the water. That's a super toxin. Cat arsenic is being removed. Cadmium is being removed about graphing oxide or graphing hydride. What about phthalates? You know, more than 15 years ago, people did a study of over 1200 common household chemicals that contain phthalates. Those permanently affect particularly young males. And I mean, I learned more than 45 years ago that the frogs were turning into formaldehydes due to what was being processed. So I am glad that the second speaker mentioned that the new biosolids facility that's being built right across the street from the sheriff's department. I haven't looked at those plans yet, but I'm scheduled to look at those plans. You know, the film Soilent Green came out I think in 1973. It describes some time in the future where the people are eating the processed other people. And that future date is 2022. So I really kind of question all the various chemicals that weren't listed in there. And it's my understanding that in February or sometime this city took between 123 and 127 million dollar loan from the Environmental Protection Agency Bank. Actually, I think it was in May. But February 5th, there was a spill of chemicals and the EPA decided to burn those chemicals, which turned those into forever chemicals. Now, I did write down a number that was 0.00138859. But those forever chemicals apparently one part per billion. That's a 0.60 is actually toxic. So I really kind of question what's going on here. And there's all kinds of tests. But what are you guys really testing for? And although some of the treatment is going into the ocean, a lot of it's being pumped into what was a really pristine aquifer. But it won't be now. So I'll know a little bit more when I actually look at the actual plans for that commercial facility, which there's 20 states in the United States where you can take hot water, pressure and lime and process human beings. And that can be distributed as fertilizer as USA organic, as can the MNRA vaccines and appeal. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Do we have anyone with us online on this side of Ms. Bush? Good afternoon, person online. Yeah, hi. Hey, one case Friday 19 would be one where the uses for recycled water demand removal of certain substances. Of concern here is the read your idea. We should set limits to allow pursuing using wastewater in the production of potable reclaimed water from the wastewater effluent in 2023 and beyond, which means you do intend we drink reclaimed effluent wastewater someday soon. I thought the 600 million upfront and even higher water production operating costs we will be hugely paying on for the rest of our lives to upgrade the capability of the ground and surface water system would have eliminated this unpalatable concept from consideration. You're saying that isn't so. By the way, it rained 63 inches this year. Yes, I suppose if I was trapped in a crash car over a cliff for a week and was forced to drink my own Europe in the state alive, maybe I would. I'm not sure. But that's the sort of condition needed to justify this drink effluent idea. As you say, the water treatment already tests below proposed limits that obviously has consequences. But are there any actual uses for wastewater now that require these extra limits? Or is this all about going forward with drinking effluent water someday? I would be interested in knowing whatever uses those currently are that require tighter limits if any that will improve things at what cost. Let me summarize yuck yuck and yuck to drinking probably very expensive effluent water. Thank you very much. Anyone else online? Anyone else who's with us today? We should comment on this item. Seeing and hearing none matters back before the council. Ms. Brunner. I'd like to move this agenda item number 19 amendment of Santa Cruz Municipal Code section 16.08.110 prohibitions and limitations on wastewater discharges. There's a motion. Is there a second second by Ms. Contari Johnson? Debate or discussion on the item? A couple of thoughts. Thank you very much for this. Thank you for the presentation. I think this is clearly an issue about which many people in the contemporary world are quite concerned. And knowing that we are doing everything not only that is required but should be done. Make sure that our drinking water is clean and safe for people. We very much appreciate the work of the department, the work of the individual folks who are attending to this matter. Mr. City Attorney, am I correct? This is what amounts to a first reading. This will be back before us for a final reading in two weeks time. Is that correct, sir? That is correct. Thank you. For the debate or discussion on this item. I just have a quick comment. Please. I just wanted to say thank you to staff and for bringing these local limits and updates and proposed revisions for our clean water act. Thank you. It was very interesting to learn about and yes, thank you. Very important. Thank you for the debate or discussion. Seeing none, the clerk will call the roll. Councilmember Newsom? Aye. Brown? Aye. Watkins? Aye. Brunner? Aye. Calentory Johnson? Aye. Vice Mayor Golder? Aye. And Mary Keely? Aye. Motion passes in this order. Thank you again very much. We are on item 20. This is the Downtown Association Parking and Business Improvement Area Assessment for the fiscal year 2024. Ms. Yonick, good afternoon. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon. Our Ravaki Unit Economic Development Manager, the item before you today is a update to the Business Improvement Assessment for the Downtown Association. Typically, next slide please. So typically we bring this update at the fiscal year cycle and so this is sort of a mid-year update that the Downtown Association has requested. So when there's a change to these Business Improvement Assessments, it goes through a public process that requires a resolution of intention and then a public hearing where the votes are adopted. So we sent out the notice of the public notice for 45 days ahead of the public hearing on August 11th and then today we are here to approve the resolution of intention to levy the assessment. Following this meeting, if that resolution is adopted, we'll host the public hearing on September 26th and that's where we will tabulate the votes to see if this increase is adopted. Next slide please. So a little bit of background on who the Downtown Association is. This is the business organization for all of the Downtown businesses. They represent over 500 businesses. They have a volunteer board and a small staff executive director, operations director, brand director and then they also operate our downtown ambassador program and so have those staff as well. The main programs of this organization is Clean, Safe, and Welcoming Services through the ambassadors, district marketing, and business support and advocacy. Next slide please. So the proposed change that is being brought forward is a change to the rate as well as a few of the structures of the business types. So how this formula works is that it's based on the businesses square footage and then there is a set rate and their type of business dictates sort of the full allotment of what the assessment is and then there is a location rate as well as just sort of the flat assessment fee. So the proposals are to increase the rate from 47 cents to 54 cents per square foot to increase their partial fee to $100 from $50 and then to add lodging to the type one to increase their type two allocation from 60 percent to 75 percent, the type three to 60 percent from 40 percent and then they're also proposing to add a type four that would capture nonprofits and theaters and would be assessed at a 40 percent rate. Next slide please. So our recommendation today is to approve or modify and approve the updated plan for the fiscal year 24 to adopt the resolution of intention and schedule the public hearing for September 26th and to adopt a first reading of an ordinance that will amend chapter 5.05 to set forth the new method and basis for levying the assessments and I'll take any questions. Ms. Hewett, thank you very much for that. Let me ask if there are questions by members of the council looking left and right. I see none. This would be the opportunity for the public to comment on this item. Let me ask if anyone who's with us today in chambers wishes to do so. Ms. Bush, do we have anyone online? No one with their hand raised. We do not matter as back before the council. Here we go. I'll go ahead and move the recommendation. Ms. Watkins moves the recommendation. I'll second it. Seconded by Mr. Newsom. Is there a debate or discussion? Seeing none, clerk will call the roll. Council member of Newsom? Aye. Brown? Aye. Watkins? Aye. Brunner? Oh, she had to. There I am. Yes. Callentary Johnson? Aye. Vice Mayor Golder? Aye. And Mary Cooley? Aye. Motion passes and is awarded. We are on item 21. This would be the Water Street Bridge Historic Marker. We will. Thank you. We are on the Historic Marker. Ms. Brunner? Thank you. So I will begin the presentation for this item. Item number 21, the Water Street Bridge Historic Marker. And this first came to City Council, I believe, in May of 2019. And it was to place a historical plaque on the Water Street Bridge. And it was brought to the Historical Preservation Committee to establish a subcommittee to review and recommend the plaque by recognizing that two men, Jose Chamadas and Francisco Arias, who were lynched in 1877 from the bridge here in Santa Cruz. So fast forward to September 2022. Some students attended City Council meeting, and I also, as Mayor, received some emails and requests that the installation of the historical marker be brought forward. And so I was tasked to create an ad hoc committee. And we have worked since September of 2022 to review the historical record and engage with community stakeholders and with a goal to return to Council at a future meeting, which is today with a recommendation. You see in your agenda report, in September 22, when we started, we had a template to begin with. We had some public comments. And on the ad hoc committee, which was formed in November 2022, Council Member Watkins was also part of the subcommittee as was a member of the Historical Preservation Committee, and some local historians and an assembly of various community members and the UCSC student who also had brought up this item. So I assembled that February 2002. We started working on some draft language and looking at some options of how that historical marker would look like, and looking at art as well, and looking at other cities, and looking at historical markers across the U.S. and we found many different types. So we assembled all those different types from table top to plaques, to posts and signs and bronze to all kinds of materials. It was quite an interesting research. And in March, we did community outreach meetings. We did in-person and Zoom. We did Spanish and English. We really tried to reach out to the community, get input. We also did presentation to the Historical Preservation Committee for recommendations on the draft language and some of the proposed locations of where this historical marker would go, whether it would go on the bridge, next to the bridge, or somewhere totally else, somewhere totally different. And then we, right before this meeting last month, it went to the Parks and Rec Commission. We, after several site visits around the Water Street Bridge, we recommended a couple locations in the Parks and Rec Commission, made their recommendation, and that is in your packet, that final location, which ties in with our San Lorenzo Park redesign plan. And so our ultimate recommendation is that we recognize this point in time and this history here in Santa Cruz with some temporary signage as the San Lorenzo Park redesign plan is finishing. And that way we can then move forward with the permanent installation in that location that has been agreed upon by Parks and Rec Commission, Historical Preservation Committee, and ARC subcommittee. And that's where we're at. The cost, we have a range of costs that based on other historical markers and signage in the city. And that's in your agenda packet. I would also like to acknowledge the work of our subcommittee. If you could please stand and step forward, because I know they're here, they've been waiting for this item. They, I'd love for them to come up and introduce themselves and just add any information that you would like to contribute to this presentation. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, council members and mayors. Don Larson from the Historic Commission. I'm happy to be on the, and very interesting little different kind of historic marker here, but I think it's important for the city to put a marker like this up. We have other markers for surfers, sign the wave motor out on West Cliff, but this will be a good addition. Thank you. Don, thank you very much for all of your good work over the years as well. Anyone else? Jeff, good afternoon, sir. Mr. Dunn, excuse me, good afternoon, sir. You can call me Jeff. Okay. Yeah. It's great to see you all. You call me mayor. What? Only mayor. I'm going to say something. I am, sir. Nothing to be afraid of, but an observation. I have known about this piece of Santa Cruz history since I was a kid. The photo of it, and I have discovered the original of it, but a copy of the photo of it was in a local restaurant and bar, and I was fascinated with this history, knew nothing about it, and quite frankly, it was a certain celebration associated with that photograph. One thing I realized, if you look at this photograph, you can find it online, and it's pretty stunning. When you look at it closely, all the young kids who are in the photo, kids who are seven, 10, 12, 14 years old, most of the kids, people watching and participating in the post-lynching experience were young children. Those people lived in the Santa Cruz County for the next 30, 40, 50, 60, 80 years. So that means that I knew some of those people when I was a young kid here and certainly knew their offspring. So one or two degrees of separation. That action was meant to send a message, and it was a racially charged and directed message. There's no mistake about that. And it set one for a century and more. And when it was brought to my attention, based on a research I've been doing on that incident for 40 years, really, I'll just remember, Brown, I started that research in March Francis history class, it's an undergrad, and I feel that it's remarkable and a recognition of justice that it's now being acknowledged by our community and formally by the council and by the city. Finally, I just want to say working with the city with them on this has been spectacular. Councilmember Brunner, thank you for your leadership in picking up the ball. Thank you all for the work you do. I'm eternally grateful for your service, all of you, and to staff as well. So thank you. Mr. Dunn, thank you for all of your great work you've done as our unofficial local historian on so many topics. Thank you, sir, very much. Anyone else wish to address the council on this item? Good afternoon. Good afternoon, members. I do want to add one more note to the staff report. So since the last time when we submitted this under the budget piece, that budget includes Brown's plaque plus the boulder. But as shown in the picture, I did receive a recent update from a vendor. In terms of that cost, it's a man made concrete boulder, and that would cost roughly between $12,000 to $15,000. So that's just a quick up down those numbers. Mr. Nguyen, thank you very much. Welcome. Thank you for your fine work on this. Matters back before the council. Make sure anyone else wish to address us on this item? Anyone online, Ms. Bush? Anyone online on this? I'm sorry. One person, let's hear from them. Good afternoon. Yes, hello. Yeah, this is Garrett. I'm okay with the Water Street Bridge being a bridge. You want it forever remembered as a symbol of racial hate, which it never was and certainly shouldn't be now. This Water Street Bridge item is more revisionist cultural Marxism woke narrative slanting of long ago past events. It is part of their tearing down of history and perception and replacing it with the not so subtle narrative message of racial victimization that the white United States was always and still is a racist and hateful country. It's not different than tearing down statues of George Washington, Father Sarah, Ophina Bells, renaming Cabrillo, repurposing Columbus Day, and the infinite rest of the cultural Marxist woke destruction agenda. Do I care to known previously convicted murderous and robbing criminals who did actually confess to this particular robbery murder got their next stretch to 150 years ago? No, not even a little bit. If you say you do, I don't believe you, not even a little bit. Your agenda purpose is crafting a permanent revisionist history of oppression of people of color to support a similar current view, even though the times have changed and even specific facts of this event don't support it. It's not that the lynching actions weren't abominable, but I have two enormous issues with this item. One is your false narrative of a purely racist motive when fact support more so above violence being motivated by a vigilante justice seeking narrative. The second issue, which is obvious and blows sky high, you are narrative by comparison to your treatment of an identically comparable modern day violent mom, meaning the BLM who okay didn't drag Derek Chauvin out of a cell and lynch him, but they did far worse rioting, burning, looting and assaulting and even murdering in major cities all across America, all in the name of seeking justice. By the way, George Floyd got justice, but the BLM never waited for that either any more than the vigilantes did here to meet out ultra violence in spades. I see no plaque condemning that. Instead, I only see reverence and tribute to a murderous violent BLM mob action plastered in front of city hall. You consistently express 180 degree opposite ideas about the morality of mob violence depending on the race of the mob. Sorry, but that's racist. Your narrative hypocrisy is dripping off these agenda pages. You flat out state this plaque is intended to commemorate we that make martyrs of these two convicted and self admitted murderers. I'm pretty sure the lynching was actually not about enforcing racial terrorism intended to intimidate people and enforce racial hierarchy and segregation. Nope, I'm pretty sure it was about mob revenge violence. More missing in contact is that this was only 12 years after the most murderous war in American history, 20 years before innocent help proven guilty, only nine years after the 14th amendment, which by the way, two processes the fifth amendment, not the 14th, it's only refers to state laws and not anything about racist vigilante justice. We could have a very long talk now about mob violence being driven by narratives full of lies. The mob violence of Black Lives Matter started with the lie of hands up don't shoot in Ferguson and continue with the absolutely vicious lie that all police are systemically racist. You blew 10 meetings at what cost? Thank you, sir. Anyone else online, Ms. Bush, anyone else wish to address us on the side of matter is back before the council for action. Ms. Brunner. Thank you. I just wanted to say in 2021, we declared racism a public health crisis. We've worked to write and draft a racial equity resolution. And as per the language that our subcommittee worked really hard on, I just want to read this one sentence. This information is provided in hopes of learning from the past, remembering the victims and confronting racism within our Santa Cruz community. Only when we acknowledge our downfalls as a society can we move to right our wrongs and deconstruct the racial and cultural barriers that can lead to the loss of lives. I'm so thankful we've gotten to this point and that this was brought to us to work on. And if there's any other questions, but thank you. Councilmember, thank you very much. Ms. Cullentary-Johnson. I just want to thank Councilmember Brunner and Watkins and the members of the subcommittee for your important work on this issue. Thank you for reading that statement. It really hits it on the head that we've all, as individuals, as society, have made these mistakes. So in order to heal and move on, we need to acknowledge them and bring it to light. So thank you for your work. Thank you. Excuse me, Ms. Watkins. Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank my colleague here, Councilmember Brunner, for her leadership on this. And I'm certainly the folks who are in the room today who spoke to the work that happened with the subcommittee. And certainly also for your steadfast support as staff, but also a number of the names here that are listed in the agenda report. A lot of thought and energy and time went into it. I couldn't make all the meetings, and those that I did I tried to contribute, but I know that so many people put a lot into making this very, very meaningful and accurate for the purposes that were referenced by Mr. Dunn here, as well as by the statement that in order to move forward, we have to honor and understand our past and to understand also the residual impacts of that through generations in our community that we live in. And this is one way to move forward. So I just really want to end by saying thank you. And this is another way that Santa Cruz is leading and really important work. So hopefully others can follow suit at some point. And with that, I'm happy to move the recommendation. There's a motion seconded by Ms. Brunner, Ms. Brown, under discussion. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a couple of quick comments. I'm really pleased to see this before us today. I want to thank so many people, but I really want to thank my colleagues for picking this up, back up and seeing it through to this point. I want to thank members of the community, Mr. Lorenzen and Mr. Dunn and everyone who has served on that committee and our staff for helping out with this. Yeah, it took some effort. It took meetings and conversations and I think those are very important conversations that are well worth it. I want to thank Ray Diaz for giving us a nudge on this and Eleanor Mendoza who originally brought this to our attention. I think she may have learned about it from you, Mr. Dunn. And so just really appreciative. I want to say a couple of things to just kind of place this in context. I teach a class at San Jose State called Stories That Make America. And they are stories, you know, the purpose is to tell our history in a way that is more inclusive, that reflects different perspectives that have not been heard in the mainstream. And so we talk a lot about stories, about personal experiences, and this is one of them that I brought into the classroom. And I want to just place what happened, the lynching of these two men in the context, the broader context of racial violence against Mexican Americans who had until at this point in time been living in Mexico and when the U.S. took the rest of North America in the West, that things changed very quickly. And so people were literally trying to make sense of these drastic changes in the moment, in time, and they were faced with this racial violence that really was on par with what happened in the Jim Crow South, the post reconstruction in Jim Crow South. It played out differently, but lynching nevertheless and terror. And that is real. And the fact that we are here in a moment, in a contemporary moment where we're reckoning with how we honor and recognize a whole lot of figures in our community and nationally to be engaged in a process that's so thoughtful and inclusive really just feels wonderful to be here. And I just thank you so much. Further, further on this item. Clerk will call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Newsom? Aye. Brown? Aye. Kins? Aye. Brunner? Aye. Calentari-Johnson? Aye. Vice Mayor Golder? Aye. And Mayor Keely? Aye. As I was going to say, thank you all very, very much. We are going to take a five minute break from now until 3.30. We will be back in five minutes time. They've been out there, Rich Smith, Philippina Warren, Christina Alberti, working on the temporary traffic controls that we're all excited about. Okay, and with that, perfect. So here's an overview of our presentation for today. I'll give you a quick overview of where we've been in 2023, and then we'll pass it off to Kevin on infrastructure and the transportation team next. Okay, so beginning of this year, we sustained some significant damages from the winter storms. We had a remarkable winter that caused significant damage along West Cliff Drive. We're looking at numbers in the tens of millions at this point in our region, as well as over $10 million worth of damage on West Cliff. The city immediately, we worked on installing emergency protective measures, as you may recall. So we wanted to secure the sites, making sure it was safe for the public to still access the limited access onto West Cliff Drive. And so as a part of those measures, we instituted a one-way pilot, as well as the closure of the Bethany Cure of Culver, due to the damages that were sustained. Those items were brought to you, brought to council back in February as an update. And then at the same time, we were immediately looking into funding and permitting for restoration of West Cliff. And so as a part of that effort, we immediately reached out to FEMA and FHWA, and we'll give you a little bit more information, Kevin will give you a little more updates of the graphs of funding on those fronts. And then we also reached out to regulatory agency, mainly Coastal Commission. So we've been working closely with the Coastal Commission staff on infrastructure improvements. And so happy to say that we've received a verbal approval for emergency coastal development permit for the infill walls. So they are supportive of that effort. And so we're continuing to charge ahead. And again, we'll get a little bit more information on that very shortly. Coupled with all that, we had a public outreach and engagement. We've brought several staff reports back to council. I hope you guys have updates around West Cliff Drive. But we've also done a lot of neighborhood outreach, as well as even open house events, which again, we'll talk about a little bit more. And then today, you'll get a more dive into the infill walls, as well as the traffic data that's been collected based on the one-way pilot, as well as a toolkit that was developed in response to this effort. And then finally, we've decoupled the infrastructure and transportation portion of West Cliff Drive in today's council meeting. And as a follow-up council meeting at the next meeting, you'll have an update with regards to our roadmap and adaptive pathways. So more on that to come. Okay. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to you, Kevin Cross, their city engineer. Good afternoon, sir. Thank you, Nathan. Good afternoon, council. Mary Keely. So this is an oldie but goody slide. I think you've seen versions of this a couple of different times. And what's different is we've got these under construction graphics on there because as soon as next week, we're going to be mobilizing construction crews at the four locations shown on screen. We're not starting all at once. There's going to be a slow rollout and things will kind of ramp up over the next month or so. I'm going to say a couple of things like schedule of different areas several times through this presentation because it's confusing. So I want to try to hammer home that we're starting with these infill wall locations this year, subject to weather. We're working right on the ocean in certain locations. And so I asked a friend who serves, what do you think this wall is going to be like over the next three months? And he said, I'm plattered. You think I'm your surf genie, but I can't tell you that. And I don't think anybody can with any certainty. So we're going to do what we can when we can. But weather is out of our control, unfortunately. There's 14 sites. Why we're attacking them in a couple packages. Part of it is funding federal highway administrations paying for the bulk of the repairs to the the path roadways, things that were damaged and that are causing the closures. FEMA's stepping in to cover the the revetment damage to the displaced riprap. That's happening on its own timeline, part of its own package of projects. And we're unfortunately stuck in a little bit of a back and forth with FEMA at the moment on things like do we have adequate maintenance records on rock that was placed 30 to 60 years ago. So that's been a challenge in its own right. And then I want to highlight that starting next spring, we hope to break ground on repairs and at Bethany Colvert, which is the bubbled area in the middle of screen by the end of Woodrow Avenue. That's happening as its own project. It had a much more complex design and repair solution. A couple other points I want to highlight here. When we start work on the infill walls on the 900 block, we're going to have to close the roadway to any vehicle traffic except for neighbors to access their houses. And so that's going to push traffic into other parts of the neighborhood where it hasn't been going. That's going to be a necessary part of doing the work over the next few months. We're hoping to maintain pedestrian and bicycle traffic through the work zones throughout the duration of work. With that work, we're trying to work on an accelerated schedule. So we're looking at doing long days, 10-hour days. We'll do our best to communicate the start and finish times that they could change depending on the number and size of crews and what work they're doing. So that's going to be a bit fluid. And then we're also planning to work Saturdays and some nights when we need to access certain areas during low tides. I'm going to say a little bit about how we got to the point we're at. We originally bid this project in July. We received no bids. The saying in our industry is that contractors don't accept risk. They simply price it. No bids meant that this was presented as too risky a project at the time. So we defaulted back to a negotiated bid, which is an approved method of delivering the work. And what we found is that we had initially set a really aggressive schedule trying to complete all the work in roughly 50 working days. That wasn't feasible. Turns out contractors weren't just sitting around waiting for us to call and jump on this work right away. It's extremely busy regionally in the state. So we negotiated a schedule. Granite and Granite Rock Instruction 2 local companies both ended up submitting proposals. Granite had the better schedule and availability. So that largely determined why we awarded the project to them at the beginning of November. And I just want to say that we're very appreciative of both Granite and our structural engineer MME for being able to partner with us on these projects. Like I said, they had lots of other work going on. So they've gone out of their way to support the city and advances to the place we're at today. So in summary, on the infill walls, we're hoping to start construction as soon as next week. What that looks like is going to just be slow establishment of different traffic controls, fencing, things like that. So it's not going to be like we have the cavalry show up and tear everything apart next week. There's going to be sort of a trickle of work starting and ramping up over the next few weeks. As our presence is increased on West Cliff, City crews and Granite, we've started to receive some questions, things like, what are these walls? What are they going to look like? So I wanted to say a bit about that. First off, I want to point out this big, ugly red line through the middle of this drawing is what the current bluff face looks like and the cross section of this particular location, that's common to all the damage sites. So basically the erosion has taken a big chunk out of the cliff face, which is why the road, the path is closed. So we call them infill walls because we're not simply just building a wall against the face of the cliff as it is today. We're actually having to fill that pocket back in. It's like a really bad cavity in your teeth. You can't just put a veneer over that. You have to dig it out, fill it in and then surface it. And so what you're seeing here is our current approach to doing that. It's a combination of a large mass of concrete. It's as big as it is because it's a freestanding structure, meaning it's not anchored into the ground or anything. It's just the weight of that massive concrete holding it in place so that if there's something like an earthquake, it's not going to tip over and fall back into the ocean. So that's the design theory behind the current structures we have planned. The rocks on screen depict potentially reusing some of the fugitive riprap that's been displaced as part of the backfill. That has its own set of complexities. So we're going to do our best to try to recycle that material, not just leave it stranded out in the ocean. Do you have a question? Okay, sorry. There's been a lot of those in the news lately. And then once the wall is built, it's going to be the roadway that path railing as needed will be restored to bring it back to its previous configuration. We're not trying to push walls out into the ocean where there wasn't left face there before. We're just trying to repair the contours of the coastline as it was before the events in early 2023. Finally, I want to point out on this particular drawing, there's this little wedge on the outside face of the wall. The ocean is to the right on my screen. That's a shotcrete finish. People have asked what is it going to look like when you're done. It's going to be a colored textured product. To set expectations appropriately, I want to say that it's probably not going to look exactly like what you would see on East Cliff if you were to go out into that area and walk at the tide zone there. We have a different sort of set of circumstances, different funding opportunities and limitations. So we're trying to do our best to make these look natural and integrate with adjacent surroundings, but there are real world constraints that we have to live with and in turn, including the timeline to get the work done, the method that we're using to deform and construct these walls in about two foot increments. I hope that helps convey what you might see at the end of this project. I don't have any great pictures of what the shotcrete might look like, but it's going to hopefully blend with the natural surroundings. Safety, this is my little PSA for the presentation. This is a really constrained work zone. We're trying to keep one lane open for bikes and pedestrians and the neighbors to go in and out to their house. But we need people to honor the barriers, the cones, the traffic control signs that are out so that we can keep the work zone safe. There's going to be lots of concrete trucks entering and exiting the work sites. They're going to have to excavate a significant amount of dirt in order to create access down to some of the repair areas. It's going to be a lot of heavy equipment and traffic in a very busy area. And so we need the public, everybody to respect the signs, be aware, make eye contact with construction workers if you see them because this is a dangerous situation and we want to keep everybody safe. If we feel there's an unsafe condition starting to form, we will revisit whether we can keep that area open to bicycle and pedestrians, which we hope to do. So that concludes the infrastructure update on the infill walls. I want to talk about the Bethany Culver Bridge next. The both sides of the bridge are failing and need to be replaced. So the current strategy is to build new walls on the outside of the existing walls that you see on screen here, drill piers and then build up with new walls, which would basically encapsulate the existing structure. So it's going to result in a slightly wider area than the current roadway is, which is actually pretty much the narrowest point of West Cliff Drive. So it's an overall improvement to provide for more width for pedestrians, bicycles, and eventually the roadway. We're going to also elevate it to better protect from wave overtopping, which is, again, this is the lowest point on West Cliff. So it's a frequent area for having wave overtopping events. And then we're going to bring back, try to mimic the architectural detail of the concrete railing you see on screen, but bring it up to current safety standards. So working out the details of that design have taken a bit longer. We're hoping to bid this in fall start construction in early spring as soon as possible when the wet weather event subsides. It's also, we have an active creek through the middle of the work zone. So that adds another dimension to complexity here. With the overall objective of getting this area rebuilt and reopened to both pedestrians and vehicles in the end of summer 2024. And unfortunately, we don't think we can provide the same access during construction that we can in some of the wall areas. So this will result in both vehicle and pedestrian detour while we do the work. So the story on funding evolves as we learn more about what we're going to be receiving from the FHWA. And when we get actual bids in rather than work off of estimates, which is what we've been doing up until this point, the bid from Granite was 8.7 million. So in order to bridge between what we've been approved through the Federal Highway Administration and what we need to award the project, we've identified 1.7 million in gas tax money, a million from General Fund, and another million that we've received as an earmark from Senator Laird. There is consequences to reallocating some of that funding from gas tax. That's a pot of money we use for a number of different types of projects. And so what that results in is either delay or rescheduling of other projects, including things that are important to the community. We think it's a worthwhile trade off. For Bethany Culvert, we're still working off of a cost estimate of 10 million, and we have not received a formal approval from FHWA, which is one of the reasons we're not rushing out to bid the project, because we want to know we have some certainty over the funding plan for that scope of work. And RIP RAP, I said before, it's caught in the FEMA back and forthing, so we don't have any real concrete idea when we're going to clear that and be ready to bid and award that work. So here's the timeline we're working on. Our objective is to get as many of the infill walls complete this winter, achieve a higher level of coastal protection than we currently have, and ideally at least reopen two-way traffic between Columbia and Woodrow, which is currently closed. It's only one-way traffic. And then, as I said before, start construction on Bethany Culvert when conditions permit in spring 24, and ideally finish that work summer, which would then allow us to reopen West Coast to two-way traffic. And then, at the moment, we're kind of planning for the RIP RAP as a follow-up activity in the fall. Again, I don't commit to any timelines when FEMA is in the picture, unfortunately. So that's our goal. Communication. We're going to issue door hangers to some of the affected neighbors on the 900,000 blocks of West Cliff when we have more concrete information to provide them. We're planning a mass mailer to, I think, roughly 500 residents on the lower West Side. There's already been a press release, and we're going to try to keep up the monthly newsletter updates and, of course, lots of material on the different websites, including when we have dedicated to the transportation and temporary traffic control measures that are in place right now. Matt, I'll hand it over to Claire Matt. Good afternoon, sir. Thank you, Kevin. Hi, everyone. I'm Matt Starkey. I'm the transportation manager here for the city, joined by local transportation planner. Since February, we've been working on this study of the one-way pilot that's been underway on West Cliff, and we're here today to kind of share what we've learned from that, to think about how these findings kind of fit into the 50-year visioning process that's going on on West Cliff currently. So we'll share, yeah, that summary of the feedback, and I think the key thing we don't want to miss that we've said multiple times is that we have this opportunity now to rebuild West Cliff and restore the two-way traffic as we've, as Kevin's proposed, but there's likely a time when that's going to become really difficult, and I think that's why this 50-year vision process is really critical for us to think about how we share these values on West Cliff between safety, resiliency, access, and recreation. Here's a sort of summary of all the things that we went out and measured. We've been collecting a lot of traffic data to help sort of compare what we hear and feel with what's actually being measured on the roadways. Often we see things that can be different. What we did to sort of compare the different traffic scenarios is we went back to 2019 before the pandemic to see what travel patterns were like, and then we compared that with 2022, which was still sort of pandemic travel patterns, but before the storm, and then February of 2023 after the storm. The sort of general high-level findings here are that there's definitely more vehicular and multimodal travel happening closer to Bay, and that pattern decreases as you get down to natural bridges. So the real concentration, I'd say, of usage is really between the lighthouse and Bay, and then from there it starts to decline as we get closer to natural bridges. An important finding here is the high use for recreation trips, the online data that we collected measures the type of the trip purpose that people use out here. So are you going to work? Are you going somewhere that's not work, or are you just going for recreation? And we found a really high number of recreation trips here in West Cliff, which I don't think is all too surprising, but it does kind of speak to some of the changes that we see in the future with the volumes I'll show where people aren't as inclined to have to stay on West Cliff or stay in the area when they're making a trip, because, again, that trip is more recreational or optional in nature. There was one question I kind of had. I've always kind of had this image of people driving from Bay all the way down to natural bridges and back in sort of like a two-way loop. We tried to measure that, and we weren't able to detect that in the patterns here. So I think what we're seeing is people come to the West Cliff study area that we have here, they maybe go about their business, go check out the surf or something, and then go home from there. But there's not this sort of like pleasure ride back and forth along West Cliff. This data that we see here is showing you the concentration of trips to the West Cliff study area and sort of the inset map here on the left. You can see the brighter red areas where we have a higher concentration of people visiting the study area. I don't think it's a big surprise in this map, but our whole community likes to come here, and I think that was a really important takeaway here. And even on the right side, you can see people as far away from the Bay area coming to enjoy West Cliff on a weekday. Okay, here's the nerdy traffic volume part that I was really excited about. Here's some trends that we see here starting on the left pre-pandemic 2019. This is sort of the full year average of all the data for all the study area roadways, totaling up to like 22,000 cars per day. That as a volume of traffic is roughly what the total of Mission Street is just for a little bit of perspective. Then you can see the next graph line there is comparing February to the full year. So you can see there's sort of the seasonal dip in travel and travel volumes that happens naturally. And then we get to 2022 where we have this real significant decrease in volumes on the study area roadways. Remembering back to February 2022, I was like right after the peak of the pandemic, there was a lot of people being caught with COVID and that the Christmas before that, I remember in my family in particular. And so that was kind of this baseline that I think a lot of us might have had before 2023, before the storms hit was there was really a lot less travel on our roadways before anything changed on West Cliff. And so when we hear the comparison from before and after the storm, it's really important to remember that point is that vehicle volumes were at a really low point before any changes were made out here. And then the next graph here is showing post storm 2023. You can see the volumes there are just slightly lower than what was counted in 2019. And that's a pretty common trend we have in the city and nationally that vehicle volumes are still recovering from before the pandemic and about slightly lower in general. That's sort of the high level view. And then we kind of we dove into the real the nitty gritty details here of how those patterns changed on each roadway. The volumes here are showing February 2023, which is before we implemented the call to sack closures on Oxford and Malta. But this gives you kind of an example here. In dark green, you're seeing where there's an increase in the volumes. And then in light green, you're seeing where there's a decrease. The sort of the big takeaways that I had from seeing this data was first up on Delaware, even with the roadway fully closed at the culvert. The volumes on Delaware in 2023 were lower than in 2019, which I think is goes back to that sort of feeling for what we might have been used to in 2022. And the volumes are really significantly lower. When you looked back to 2019, they were lower. And then as as volumes from Oxford and Malta have likely gone up to Delaware as we've implemented some traffic calming measures, that volume is still very similar to what was in 2019. The other pattern that really stuck out to me was over on the far end by Columbia, where we have a reduction in all of the eastbound travel 3000 trips. But then on Clark and Pelton, you're only seeing an increase of 980 and 360 trips in that eastbound direction. Those don't pull that up to 3000. There's a big difference there between that number. So this is showing us that people are making other choices than West Cliff. They're maybe staying on Delaware. Maybe they're changing the time of day that they travel. Maybe they're changing the mode. They're biking and walking maybe instead of driving. But there's some real elasticity in how people travel through the West Cliff corridor. Part of that's also likely influenced by the number of recreational trips we have. Yeah, something that Matt and I will highlight over and over again is the majority of vehicular trips that you see spilling over into the neighborhood are less because of the one way pattern and more because of the no way pattern that is impacted at the Bethany Culvert being closed. That is hard closure that forces all vehicular trips to turn off of West Cliff up onto Woodrow and then continue their journey. And people are choosing whether to follow our detours or not. And so more of the travel behavior that's changing is as a result of the no way than it is the one way. And we'll continue to see that until we are able to reopen that culvert. I think that that's one of the challenges we've had in kind of pulling apart all this data. There's a lot of different conditions going on in our study area. And on that sort of one way note that Claire shared, the sort of changes that we're seeing on Pelton and Clark here are a good example of that one way traffic trying to seek its way back. So I think there are some localized impacts potentially by one way traffic. I think at large we're seeing that the volumes aren't higher than they were in 2019. Here I'm just trying to show sort of the volumes that happen out on the roadway. This is what we measured 1,700 people using the trail whether they're biking or walking. And then just shy of about 5,000 people going eastbound and westbound in total there. As we start to get pressured by the ocean to having more and more coastal erosion it's going to be a really important part of our visioning process to really think about how we prioritize this usage in the cross-section of the roadway shown here. And if something has to give what is what what gives in the future is kind of a question we have for that again for that vision. So moving off of the more geeky quantitative transportation data there to the more human side of the data and listening to how people are experiencing this. In addition to the neighborhood and garage meetings that we've come to you before and there are multiple folks here who have graciously hosted us and had some very difficult conversations. We also spent time just out on West Cliff and at the wharf doing pass by capture surveys of folks that were both driving, walking, biking and using the facilities and and having the experience of what the one-way pilot was like. So first and foremost a bit of levity what we heard universally people hate loud motorcycles. That is an area that we got extreme agreements. It's also something that we have very little control over but moving off of that we heard almost universally that people love to walk and bike on West Cliff. It's something that is a real shared value in our community and is something that does tie us together is really appreciating that experience. We also from the drivers that we surveyed we had a nice little thumbs up thumbs down survey happening and generally what we heard was that people were okay with the pilot with with what was going on out there and we also heard a lot of interest in separating bikes from pedestrians from cars. So really our our key findings is that the desires that we heard are they're not possible without trade-offs and those should be trade-offs that we continue to explore within the 50 year vision recognizing that right now we can go back to a two-way pattern. There might be a time that we can't and so continuing to have a community vision on what that looks like so that when and if there is a next time that we have a failure we have a plan in place rather than a reaction in place. One of the things we're looking to do and the visioning process is actually doing some more thorough surveying of the whole community. More to get more of like a scientific look at the survey and this was you know me out there with our poster boards on some afternoon so it's kind of our initial our initial hunch for what we're thinking but we want to go get more data to really so kind of a summary going back to what we learned in transportation is that the culvert failure does cause all traffic to divert off of West Cliff and really the feedback that we've gotten the community with result to with with complaints has been largely surrounding that the small one-way pilot area did concentrate those impacts in a very small area rather than being able to disperse them over a larger study area which would have likely kind of spread the burden and that overall we still do have a slightly lower number of auto trips in the overall study area than we did in 2019 as our base year and we do just want to recognize that the last couple years have been really weird there's been a lot of work from home schools closed travel patterns significantly changed and so while it did feel like we were having this really low volume in 2022 what we're seeing now is closer to kind of the baseline normal that we were seeing before the pandemic something that our team really believes in is building a broader community vision to guide investment as part of the 50-year plan recognizing that we do have a changing climate and that more voices are are better to inform what that vision looks like the next piece that you guys also have in front of you today is our traffic calming program so as part of this we've been doing kind of ad hoc traffic calming in the study area but council also gives direction in february to develop a citywide traffic calming toolkit that is part of your packet today we're asking you to adopt that by resolution the toolkit while it was generated from our work on west cliff it is intended for citywide use in this current budget year council did budget some pilot funding for a traffic calming program and so we would use that toolkit to have a community call for projects and have a process to evaluate rank and implement traffic calming citywide we would look to model that process on what we do with our permit parking programs where neighbors would have to self-nominate we would go through a review process we would evaluate and measure what the impacts were on those roadways and then neighbors would have to vote on implementing the selected traffic calming options that were in place so we would look to roll that out it's been a really great process working with our current neighborhoods there and we're really excited to focus on not just the west cliff neighborhood but also on neighborhoods citywide which we've heard from over the years and we're excited to have this pilot funding so with that I think Nathan's going to wrap us up thank you clear thank you Matt Kevin so before you today is a recommendation to receive updates on west cliff infrastructure and transportation direct staff to proceed with restoring two-way traffic on west cliff drive adopt a resolution on the traffic calming program that the toolkit that was developed as a part of the effort to mitigate traffic on and the west cliff neighborhood as well as a budget adjustment a resolution for a budget adjustment to shift funds to fully fund the info wall project and with that we're happy to answer any questions thank you very much thanks all three of you for a very fine present excuse me all four of you I can actually count to four I thank you for your presentations let me see if there are questions and comments from members let me start with the vice mayor start somewhere else because I just lost my tab getting up oh my god excuse me Ms. Conn Tari Johnson right thank you for the presentation and all the work that you've been doing since January 2023 I know it has not been easy you've spent evenings and weekends and more comments later but I do have a couple questions specific to the toolkit that we just saw what is our our plan for communicating the toolkit and the use of the toolkit and then I'm I'm not clear on what that nomination process is like what does that look like yeah great question so generally what we'll do is work with our comms team to put out what we call a call for projects so for neighborhoods to nominate themselves streets nominate themselves for traffic calming we would have a form for that likely what it would look like is that you would have to first talk to your neighbors and get buy-in from 50 of the neighbors on your street that yes you are interested in having traffic calming happen and then you would it would be a short write-up probably a couple sentences of what your key issues are we would take those all in and accept them we would then go out and measure speeds and volumes look at collision histories see if your street is included in a plan look at the existing infrastructure and then we would rank all of the proposals that we got as part of that if your proposal got towards the top of the list where we did have the funding to likely implement we would come up with some designs that were eligible under our toolkit and so it includes a number of different things that that we've reviewed and then we would come up with a plan go to the neighbors and we would ask for them to vote on it getting to a 67 percent buy-in to say yes it's the same thing we do with our permit parking program right now and then we would go ahead and implement one of the things that we've talked about is how do you make sure that we have kind of an equitable distribution across the city and we'd really be looking to get a geographic distribution not to have all of our projects concentrated in one area so we might not use just the raw scores but we might try to spread it geographically over districts we might work with our beach flats community liaison to try to get a project specifically in the beach flats and be really intentional about how we implement we also recognize that in this pilot year we'll probably learn a lot and so the process that we present today might not be the process that we stick with one of the things in the resolution that you have is authorizing the transportation and public works commission to give oversight to this program to work with us on tinkering a group that spends a lot more time in the transportation realm and so as we tinker with that process or potentially need to add or subtract elements to have that process go through commission as we as we continue to modify based on what we learn okay thank you um yeah that's one of the biggest communications I get from community members not just from people on west glyph um or the nearby neighborhoods but all over the city around traffic calming measures so I'm really happy to see this roll out um okay that I'm moving backwards in the presentation and I just have a few questions a couple more questions um the data you shared around the transportation um thank you for acknowledging the thumbs up thumbs down and the surveys are not necessarily statistically significant and representative of a community that we'd have to do a poll so I appreciate that um I wonder if you could give sort of a the anecdotal synthesis of the garage meetings I didn't see that in the slides I'll start with that yeah we um we kind of had I think like two two phases of this sort of outreach one of them was going to west cliff to ask people about how the pilot went um and then the other piece was um the garage meetings that we attended to work with um a lot of the neighbors on the impacts that they felt directly in the neighborhood um two different uh two different feelings there um the people I think we really heard loud and clear that people were really concerned about extra traffic on their streets and um that's why we brought the um the traffic calming toolkit kind of in a really draft phase to them and I thought that was actually really successful um I know we've we've implemented um to call to sacks because of this feedback we got from people uh we've also we also heard feedback from other roadways on um Pelton but we've we've kind of had to pivot away from some of those improvements because of the construction work that's about to happen and then also on Delaware we um we've met with those neighbors to talk about Delaware and um Elmar and we have striping improvements going in on Delaware um this week as a result of those meetings so yeah I think there's definitely different feelings out there about um the impacts and um that's one one thing that we keep coming back to with this vision is if there's you know if we want to improve something or change something on west cliff how do we do that in a way that the neighbors can still feel good about and that's a really that's something we haven't been able to to balance completely yet and it needs more work yeah okay the other opportunity that this highlights is that we were chasing this project that the roadway fell into the ocean and so we were first implementing safety measures so closing the areas that were dangerous and then trying to restore as much access as possible so converting to a one-way pilot and then we were able to turn to the neighborhoods and say okay now what can we do in a process that wasn't dictated by mother nature we would have gone in the opposite direction and so the the reactionary nature of just how this rolled out made it really really challenging and I do think that the process of the neighborhood the garage meetings the backyard meetings was really really productive we met and remit a lot of folks and they were really willing to have challenging conversations about trade-offs and I think it was really positive overall okay thank you last question moving into repairs now I'm sorry if you already covered this but the three million that were short that we're going to try to get from the federal government what what is the how when do we find out about that I know we're moving ahead with Enfield walls this week but how do we what's the timeline for getting that money back yeah I omitted that detail sorry it would look like an amendment process which we've already initiated so we've provided updated pricing on the repairs and we're crossing our fingers that they agree and are willing to fund that difference so of the city funds that are currently committed we're hoping that roughly 88.75 percent of that will ultimately be covered by fhwa vice mayor quite all right councilmember Brunner thank you my question was also around the toolkit and I love that name for this project because it comes up very often in correspondence from members of the public residents communities that are concerned with traffic on streets and traffic calming measures and how how that process works so councilmember Calentari Johnson also brought up part of my question like how does that nomination process work and based on your answer I wonder if you would also consider um crisp as a tool for reporting or requesting some this I don't know somehow using crisp and not having a whole separate thing I think you know we're really trying crisp it stands it's the acronym in case not everyone knows stands for community request for service portal and it's a city app it's free it's also a url on the city website city of santa cruise dot com slash c r sp and you can report um all different categories including bike and pedestrian hazards and roadway hazards and so I just thought I I wonder if if that has been considered or if you can just make a note to maybe consider that check okay and um uh it was really helpful to hear about the bethany curve culvert and that being a separate project um and so I wonder um with the timeline how how with the construction and that project will it will do you expect any overlap and how that will affect all the the road closures and partial closures um I'll take a stab at that so the infill walls will improve things once they're built hopefully by the end of this year this calendar year hopefully weather surf everything else permitting um there's going to be a roughly a three month lull I would describe it before we are able to hopefully break ground on the bethany curve uh culvert work at which point things will probably get worse for most people's perspective because we'll probably have to institute a hard closure I'm saying that because we don't have a hard idea of like what the contractor wants to do they're not on board yet so we don't have a traffic control plan but my assumption and feedback I've received is that we'll have to close both pedestrian bike and vehicle it's already close to vehicle access right so will it does that make sense yes thank you will it start after the infill wall project is finished or could there be a possibility of both happening at the same time it are yes I yeah um so the the there's a definite possibility that there will be overlap because I say that because uh we talked about that that nice shotcrete finish that we hope to put on the kind of a veneer on those infill walls that's something that we're likely going to have to defer until spring of next year that requires a whole separate process of constructing scaffolding it's very it's a very sort of elaborate process we don't think we're going to be able to finish that this calendar year so I failed to mention that also I apologize for leaving that detail out so that would be a second mobilization not as a involved and impactful to the traffic on the roadway because it's going to be mostly happening off of the off of the roadway which will be rebuilt by that point thank you I'm afraid you're all all right all right all right I do have a I can't keep stalling I just want to first of all I really appreciate and I say this every time but with true sincerity the work that's gone into this from the staff's perspective I know you already had a full plate before this happened and this was just thrown on your laps and you were stuck dealing with it and so I really appreciate everything you've done um and um like I've said to my colleagues that since we've moved to districts this just became my number one issue it took every day for me since January uh it the next up up below it is homelessness and RVs but everything else is just dropped off of what district six cares about and that are contacting me and council member um Helen Tari Johnson about um uh I did not see it up there but another thing that people don't like is Curtis driving by playing Old Town Road over and over and over again um and then I in all seriousness I do have some questions um um so the I'll start from the one from the staff report was um there's a section you wrote overall the largest impacts from the one-way pilot were felt from the concentrated study area um Columbia to Woodrow and the hard closure at Bethany Culvert a larger study study area would have diluted traffic volumes over a larger area lessening the concentrated impact to anyone's street and so I know that was what you initially had thought was the what we should have done and it was me that thought after talking to neighbors that wasn't a good idea because what I still picture in my head is all of those emails and all of those meetings just being also sent to the wharf if we did that like it just seems like extra work for no reason and so I just wanted to throw that out there that that is why I did that I wasn't trying to stop your study in any way but I would like to know what just if you know or you think and I'm not a traffic engineer my degrees are in history and leadership but I want to know how would the larger study area likely dilute traffic volumes and especially for those of us that live in that area like and I saw my neighborhood was that extra red xxx area where it's like it didn't change where we went and so it's like honestly I don't think I've changed my traffic patterns my bikes it's still covered with cobwebs like I'm still driving the only thing I have to say is I actually shockingly have slowed down on my sister's block of Delaware since you installed that like I know I caught myself going 20 you're welcome that is not my normal speed and so that did help slow me down so that I'm back to the question what how would that affect it I think yeah that is a really good question when we have the small study area I think what we're seeing is there's not a big enough deterrent for people to change their pattern because that trip is still pretty short to just kind of go up around first was to Oxford then it was to Alta now it's kind of to Delaware and back down not forcing them change as much and one of the things that I saw that helped support that thought was there are there is a small portion that actually did change when we measured volumes at closer to the lighthouse I think it was about 35 percent less traffic going towards bay so the eastbound direction than we would have expected so there are people that are making that change even with that small sort of change in the travel pattern so if we made that travel pattern change larger it would go to stand a reason that more people would make a change as well and again the other part too with that sort of dilution is right now um everyone is kind of choosing Pelton to kind of get back to their their route but if there are other roadways there there would be more choices to kind of get back to West Cliff if you're looking for that so then to that I think um I had suggested this before but I'm wondering would it be possible you know the big flashing signs that you can change what it says to say when you come into mission on one side or the other or ocean street or highway one like traffic impacts construction on West Cliff like use alternate routes so it's just kind of deterring people that don't live there or have to go there from is that a possibility that is um yeah that's an idea we brought up with our contractor for our traffic control meeting the other day that we're going to try to implement I think one of the challenges we also found that I know the neighbors will remind me about is that the signage itself didn't do enough to deter people from driving on their roads and so kind of to your to your point about the the larger study area that's that's why we paired the traffic calming with it is because we I agree with you I think we would have just gotten more emails from from everybody as well but we really wanted to have a tool to really pair with that so we could respond and I think we have that now with the neighborhood traffic calming program that if there are sort of network changes that we can go measure those impacts and respond to them hopefully in future situations thank you and my next question is and I appreciate Nathan I got a letter in the mail yesterday I don't know if you got one with some updates about what's happening on West Cliff but that was the first one I got and I know there's been so much but I think moving forward so I appreciate it in the presentation do you anticipate that those will come out like like I really hope that you sign up for our e notifications because we had to print and stuff 550 letters to do that so you're gonna be like the lady from Seinfeld from the envelopes I was thinking that as I was looking in books yeah councilmember vice mayor golder thank you for the comment with regards to updating the impacts for the info walls and the transportation projects so we'll be using will you we'll be utilizing our website in order to keep updates with regards to the impacts of these projects sending out the mailers was a an initial push to get the neighbor surrounding neighborhoods noticed notified of the upcoming work as well as door hangers and so forth so that that will be the tool that we want to uh relive to go back to maybe do postcards okay and then my I have two more my um my other one was a from the um that we talked about this the the thresholds for traffic calming because everyone's kind of perspective on what's busy on their street right is and I didn't see that in there maybe you could point it out to me but we were talking about doing like an actual I think it's on the second to last page of the attachment the resolution attachment that includes a traffic calming program we have the second to last page is the thresholds and the last page is the streets that would be eligible for various treatments looking at local arterials and collectors thank you I appreciate you you're showing that and then um the other thing that I thought could help and I don't know if it's possible is when I traveled up highway one this summer they had a bunch of closures because of the storm but they had those pop up traffic lights where it turned red green and then would let people go through is there any opportunity for something like that in a situation like this or just with the hard closure at the culvert it's not possible and not worth it um I think that's something for us to consider as we understand the space better that's available during construction those sort of tools are very expensive to implement so I that would likely be one of our barriers to doing it but they're they're a good option to consider and then I this is a super specific last question that somebody asked me the orange barriers that are right between people that are in that block between Columbia and Woodrow on West Cliff apparently have reported to me that backing out of their driveway they keep hitting them because it's really hard to back out in just one lane like and so moving them closer to the ocean I don't know if that's possible but that was some specific ask that came from people that live on that block we discussed this exact issue with the contractor on Monday and um where we're going to do what we can they're currently looking at how they're going to lay out their excavations which is going to set the limits of the work so we can't set barriers over things that are under you know being dug up recognizing that we'll try to create little bump outs for the park the properties and drive as we can but there there could be some coordination that will have to happen on a house by house basis and we're going to do the best we can I can't promise you that everybody's going to have a comfortable ingress egress out of their their driveway that concludes my questions thank you madam vice mayor councilmember I'll be brief because I know a lot of the questions have already been asked I I will also just express my gratitude it's really interesting now not being in that district like how little it actually comes to us it's really really interesting I mean we get it but not to the same not to the same level and so um as if it was when we were county wide so I just want to share my appreciation also to my my colleagues here and the work that has been done to really hear from everybody I just also really appreciate the context setting in regards to what we have right now before us as well as the resources in addition to a recognition that mother nature will have her way and with the acceleration of climate change we need to be planning for that and be realistic and move and have an opportunity right now to move from a reaction space but to a planning space knowing that we can have this temporarily placed and and be able to meet this need financially I appreciated the the the acknowledgement of granite I know they've kind of been there really kind of on a regular basis I've heard multiple times and granite was able to come up and respond and so I don't really see them very often but I just wanted to acknowledge their willingness to be you know our neighbors and partners to help move some of these projects forward really in a timely way so um so thank you and the question I had is in regards for the traffic calming because I do think there's going to be a lot of interest in that um I saw on the report that you have uh it have gone it went through the the appropriate commission it's coming here to us so if a neighborhood or a community is interested or a street is interested in moving forward at this point after um if we foreseeably see it being adopted what would be a next step for them so we're hoping to launch a call for projects this fall in the coming months I'm actually I'm hoping that we can call it out at the October Transportation Public Works Commission open house um and then blast that out that we have a call for projects open and have people nominate so that during the winter period we can kind of evaluate what that looks like for an implementation in the spring great um at some point it'd be great just to you know have updates about that and I appreciate hearing that we want to have um you know representation from all at all areas in the city I know there are certain areas that are you know disproportionately impacted potentially but there are also our other areas that I know will be very interested in this as well so um and I heard if I heard you correctly to have people sign up for the newsletter so that lease okay so we can let our community members know to sign up to stay tuned for when they can apply okay thank you thank you councilmember brown and if anticipating my question councilmember Watkins uh just suggested uh signing up for the alerts you mentioned it can you give uh just for the listening viewing audience uh just a basic how to do that because I think there are probably people out there who want to maybe they're going to go to the website if it's not on the front page they're going to go ah so just really simply how people can do that um yes I believe that the on the city of Santa Cruz dot com slash west cliff traffic controls uh webpage at the bottom of that you can sign up for some e news updates so that that will be the page that we end up again landing all the updates with regards to the info wall and uh transportation traffic control plans thank you thank you just one more quick question from the questions that came up do you already have a list of projects um going and I would imagine that there's already kind of identified areas and maybe some kind of list of projects before the call goes out it in october it might be helpful to see what areas have already been identified and if there's already something existing thank you for the question councilmember bruner I'm assuming you're referring to the traffic calming pilot program and so uh we constantly every year we do receive just as you as council members receive uh request for traffic calming throughout the city and so the traffic calming pilot program is a small amount of money it's about seventy five thousand dollars that we set aside um and so it is a new it is a new process that we're starting so while there's been requests from neighborhoods throughout the city I would imagine that we're going to start that process again with neighborhood champions people um nominating different streets as a part of that process and I just want to make sure that um you know be be really pragmatic about what we can accomplish with that small part of money and the amount of resources that we have and so we do want to be equitable and responsive but we don't see it as necessarily a panacea for all traffic calming throughout the city so we'll definitely be selective in that process I guess without going too far off topic it I think the public it would it would be helpful to know what what has been requested maybe if there's any transparency around that or any identified areas if if there's like a web page like the traffic calming or west cliff right if there was some kind of informational um where we could all see what's been requested because maybe someone already submitted an area that other people wanted to submit and so to see that it is in the city's radar that we have maybe applied for grants or there it we're planning on getting to that in spring of 2024 like there might already be something in process so just seeing yeah I think I think we're too prong there one for projects underway that public works runs we do have an active projects page that shows what those are um project managers are in charge of adding those to the map that we have um and then two when we do have a call for projects I think neighbors will know if someone on their street has nominated because we're going to require 50 percent of neighbors on that street to sign on to the application so that we know that there's been some due diligence and that we're spending our staff resources in neighborhoods they're really invested in having these improvements and so hopefully that helps people know what's being requested in real time and then hopefully utilizing our website helps people see what projects we have underway and on the radar the way and the way we have the sort of scoring criteria set up right now is it would create a ranking of all the requests that we get so I I really like your idea about having a running list on our website so you would know here's my request here's where it ranks against all the other requests and then as we have funding available to implement more projects you can see where you are on that list and if you're going to make it up into the next implementation round thank you um I I just I would love to connect um outside of this meeting um but to to kind of talk through some more thoughts because the the 50 percent neighbor signatures I know that might be an obstacle for people to go and collect 50 percent of a neighborhood and signatures like I don't know that everybody and when we talk about equitable process that I don't think is I think we could see some barriers there yeah I think that's a really really good point and um we'd be happy to work with you on what you think that process should look like more in the details our intention there is to ensure that we have some community buy-in before we take a lot of effort because as we know changes with traffic patterns can be quite controversial so we we do want to create some some bar that's low enough to get over but show some consensus for people and before we spend a lot of resources on it yeah and as the staff stated to you it's really similar to our parking permit program residential permit parking program where we want the neighborhood buy-in to make sure that when we do do the process of spending the resources whether it's just even staff time dedicated to reach out to the neighborhood and create these voters mailers and so forth that we want to see we want to have some idea of some level of success otherwise in the residential permit parking program we actually have a moratorium of two years when those don't pass because of the significant effort it takes for staff to go out and do these notifications in mailing system thank you for answering that I totally understand that and I hope to kind of get everyone's brains thinking around the best process for that thank you thank you councilmember for the questions if I might ask a couple of questions uh if I was FEMA I wouldn't be very very interested in replacing things time and time and time again so we're going to have an El Nino we're told this winter and whether we do or we don't we know that what happened to us in this calendar year is likely to be more frequent has FEMA indicated whether they will continue to fund damage to west cliff irrespective of how often that occurs I have not received or know of any knowledge of any reason why they would not support restoring or emergency repair efforts with regards to emergency events I haven't received any indication so if for example what we're doing now is fails let's say next year or the year after you have every reason to believe that would be FEMA eligible assuming a presidential declaration but that FEMA would then come in and do that again and then again two or three years later and again two or three years later I mean to the best of my knowledge I would say yes they have been doing that so far with regards to the damages that have sustained and then we have gone back to FEMA with regards to coastal erosion repairs and so this is I think at least our third attempt at this let me ask you this about the California coastal commission at least prior to this presidential declared disaster they had as a matter of policy managed retreat and it occurs to me that we're not retreating at this moment and I'm wondering how the coast of your view of how the coastal commission's policy on this question again going to the issue of more and more frequent storms of the nature that we had earlier this year whether the coastal commission is examining their policies with regard to managed retreat I think the the challenge right now with the work that's occurring on west cliff is they coastal commission staff would like to see a plan from the city with regards to our vision for what we'd like to see on west cliff since that quite isn't in place they're open to allowing for these emergency response repairs so that we don't impact some of the utilities or restoration that may never come back if we don't respond at this moment and so they were challenged I believe in allowing the emergency coastal development permit to do these infill walls but they are supportive of trying to assist the city on finding our vision for for west cliff drive it seems that in prior years prior to the acceleration of the kind of climate change we're seeing now and the consequences of that that the coast commission for decades has taken this position with regard to a don't armor the coast b manage retreat c it's a natural activity and their desire as to has been for decades the policy has been for them not to support that kind of thing now are they now drawing a distinction between emergency repairs and permanent solutions I don't necessarily want to speak for the coast commission as far as their stance on whether managed retreat is their absolute policy and whether their exception of allowing the repairs that to occur on west cliff drive is negating that or somehow turning in a complete 180 direction I think they'd recognize that if no response is performed in this immediate future that we could potentially lose all of west cliff in several a couple of those areas you know 1016 928 where we had significant exposure there's utilities in the roadway and so I believe that they were you know reluctant to allow for the infill walls that happened but we're responsive knowing that we have the backing of the fhjbo emergency funding this time and we may not have that in the future but you brought up a good point about whether FEMA would support us you know ongoing but in the moment that we that we have before us now we do have funding in place and then the ability to restore what was there prior to the storms it may have been prior to the last couple of years the case where we would be sounding extreme or alarmist or something to say my goodness we had this what's to keep that from happening next year or two years from now or so on I think it'd be foolhardy for us to think that somehow this is one of those I mean you never hear anymore we used to hear all the time this is a once in a hundred year storm this is a once in 200 year storm now I understood at the time definitionally what that meant was it could happen year after year but the history is this is a hundred year this is a tune that language doesn't seem to exist anymore and it's gone away in about the last decade and it seems that now the situation is we could have this every year we don't know what's going to happen but it's foolhardy to think that there are now 100 year storms and 200 year storms and so on so again I come back to this we're doing this I let me tell you where I'm going with this what I'm going is I get that we're doing the emergency repairs and of course we're going to support that I mean council's there's no question about that there's also an issue over here about there's a 50 year vision of things my issue is I don't know how you get there to a 50 year vision when what's going to happen likely is once or twice a decade we're going to have what happened this year and how does that factor into a 50 year vision how does that factor in to coastal commission policy federal highway administration federal emergency management agency if I was them I would not be interested in coming here every couple of years and dumping a whole bunch of money and again when to them this looks like what is going on here we we keep coming back to this now I'll add this comment it's not like that somebody else's money that's federal dollars and state dollars we paid so we're clawing them back into our community it's not like somebody else's money but I do have a real question about essentially how you fix a flat tire without stopping the car it's theoretically possible to do but it's really hard so I'm very intrigued by timeframes in this conversation and whether or not the state and federal government have an inexhaustible supply of patience about doing that again I don't want to speak on behalf of the federal or state with regards to the influx of funding emergency response that they're willing to perform at this juncture and they have in the past you know I can't say that the visioning work that we're embarking on the fifth year vision for west cliff is coupled with a lot of things with regards to a dating our local coastal plan our local hazard mitigation plan getting us to think about adaptive pathways it's not a linear line about what it will look like out there we want to be able to include a different avenues that we may have to take based on climate change or sea level rise etc events that happen extreme weather events that you mentioned and so it's accommodating for all of that but no one has a crystal ball of whether federal or state will continue to support us but we definitely want to have a vision or a plan in place that helps us seek or pursue those you know a vision for for west cliff or funding help us get funding in the future should these events happen let me ask us with regard to to who funds the 50 year solution maybe you can comment on that um I don't know if we'd be able to do it with just local dollars and hey mayor if I if you don't mind I'd like to add to what mr. Nguyen has been sharing and I think the line of thought process that you're on that I think we all agree with which is that we are most certainly at an inflection point and all look at all levels of government when it comes to the frequency and severity of our changing climate I think it would be foolish for any of us to think that the financial commitments that are being made at the federal level or even state level are sustainable given the frequency of these events and how destructive they can be whether it be wildfires or coastal erosion and there's been a long list of these major events that have occurred across our country just over this last year so I think most importantly the 50 year vision uh it's important to look at it as it not being a static plan it's dynamic it's not a straight line it contemplates a number of scenarios that could play out in a matter of years or in a matter of decades that give us the ability to have plans in place to as we spoke about at our last study session use an adaptive management approach so we can be both nimble but also have a plan in place as we encounter these challenges without any certainty that FEMA or FHWA or our state regulatory partners are going to be able to continue on this path that we're currently on we're fortunate to have the opportunity now I think we have little certainty that that'll continue to be the case if we continue to see these impacts particularly along our coastline so I think it's going to require we continue to adapt but the concerns you're raising around whether or not that financial support will be there in the future to continue building back in the same way I think is a very valid concern that we share and we'll have to see how that paces over the the months and years to come thank you thank you this would be the opportunity for public comment on this item and while people are if anybody wants to come up provide us with public comment let me just say you in the back with the wonderful child we hear a lot of sounds in this council chamber Tuesday in and Tuesday out that's one of the most delightful sounds we can hear thank you good afternoon good afternoon mayor and council thank you for the opportunity to speak and thank you to the transportation people for all this good work especially the quick emergency response putting in the one way etc now I was disappointed to not see more data on bikes as I hope you all know part of the city's climate action plan is to increase the share of bikes I think I see it when I'm on my bike but I don't have data and what I do know is that path has always been a problem except at very quiet times busy times it's horrible and it's really not safe and city of Vancouver has a wonderful around its shore thing which is on the outside nice wide pedestrian and then next to it nice wide bikes and there's no cars really close there everything's safe that would be a better tourist attraction as well as being safer for people so I feel very strongly that we should not be talking about return to two-way traffic return to forward road oh and by the way that picture is out of date it was worse than that the picture that was your cover picture that I've seen several times today that was I think very beginning like January well it was a whole lot worse by March and it's a whole lot worse now so all those that you can see cracking and everything else and the waves were up to road level last week fair weather yeah and El Nino it's a big problem so I'm glad that this emergency stuff is being done I'm sorry that it's just concrete because it's well known that these kinds of things that may last for 10 15 years but the section next to it is what goes and that's been well proven in all kinds of studies so this isn't really an adaptive kind of approach it's just a putting a band-aid on kind of approach I don't know whether green concrete would be possible because concrete produces an awful lot of greenhouse gases and there's going to be quite a lot of concrete there but please don't just advertise this right now as a return and paint it as a return to two-way cars because I don't think that's the best thing for now and for the future and doing that will be the wrong precedent it would be giving people the idea oh yeah we can just continue and you know and a lot of other people here know that's not possible so thank you for listening good afternoon Mayor Keely and council members um I just want to mention a quote that you may have seen from the United Nations climate change is the finding issue of our time and we are at the defining moment I have sent an email regarding two-way traffic bike traffic on bike riding on West Cliff Drive but I now want to advocate for continuing one lane of traffic on West Cliff for the following reasons first emissions must decrease if we're to have any hope for the future and that includes the 50-year timeline that you have been talking about the second is fossil fuel powered cars emit greenhouse gas emissions air pollutants and particulate matter into the air the third microplastics from from car tires come from all vehicles they wash into the bay and the ocean and they are a major source of ocean pollution the fourth is cars and motorcycles without mufflers result in noise pollution with negative health effects on people and wildlife so please do not prioritize cars on West Cliff Drive and limit traffic to one lane put in a two lane option for bikes and a large space for pedestrians thank you so much thank you very much good afternoon thank you Mayor Mayor Keely and and council members I'm one of those people that has been sending Vice Mayor Golder emails probably every other week um my name is Glenn Seiler I live on the corner of Pelton Avenue and Clark Avenue today I'm representing the Pelton Avenue Clark Avenue and Columbia Avenue Triangle this is essentially the entire eastern portion of the West Cliff detour path I will speak for for my neighbors and say that we support the recommendation to move to a two-way to a two-way West Cliff this is mainly for safety concerns over the last nine months our neighborhood has had two meetings with the city and we've attended all of the community outreach events focusing on West Cliff I think the problems that our neighborhood is having are pretty well known now and pretty well documented having nearly a thousand cars go past your house every day making noise speeding is is extremely traumatic for the neighborhood that being said the traffic calming that we worked so hard for has now been canceled while other streets in the detour zone including Woodrow, Delaware, Oxford, Alta, Almar they've all received some form of traffic calming assistance the Pelton Avenue Clark Avenue Columbia Triangle has received none zero traffic calming assistance until West Cliff is reopened the Pelton Clark Columbia Triangle is going to be even more dangerous more challenging than the last nine months have been because West Cliff's going to be closed in both directions the Triangle's going to experience double the traffic that we've previously had if if a 980,000 cars a day isn't enough it's going to be 1,500 2,000 cars a day going down Pelton and Clark in Columbia we're going to have even more speeding and even more rude and dangerous drivers I won't go into the details of of how rude drivers can be when they're in a hurry to get past a detour the neighborhood is asking for your help and support during the construction period in particular we're seeking relief from the incessant speeding with the placement of temporary rubber speed bumps at regular intervals on Pelton Clark and Columbia and to place a full-time speeding monitor on the eastbound 1000 block of Pelton Avenue we're also asking the city to reprovision some of the orange barriers from West Cliff over to the south side of Pelton to create a safe zone for bicyclists pedestrians and dog walkers we don't need a long line of orange barriers but we need enough to create a safe zone and so that the neighbors can park in safety thank you sir good afternoon good afternoon good evening mayor and council members my name is Amelia Conlon I'm a board member for bike Santa Cruz County and we're the organization working for better biking across the county and we do not currently have paid staff we're made up of volunteers and board members who believe that we have a lot of opportunity to make biking more accessible for not just this band ex-clad brave cyclists but everyone in our community we know that we're going to be talking about West Cliff Drive for many years to come and I'm here to bring the perspective of people who walk and bike into the conversation I'm here to urge you to rather than move forward right away with two way car traffic on West Cliff Drive consider the opportunity to make West Cliff a place that works better for everyone and I'll highlight some of the comments that we receive that illustrate that point we do see an opportunity to think about a two-way bike facility the length of West Cliff Drive and the opportunity to address some of the issues that the current closure at Bethany Curve has created for neighbors we advocate for traffic calming to happen throughout the west side along with any changes to bicycle access and once Bethany Curve is reopened we see opportunity to move that traffic onto natural bridges drive and back to Mission Street rather than impacting neighbors so I went through all of the letters in your public correspondence packet and found 140 letters from individuals supporting increased access for people walking and biking on West Cliff and I want to highlight some of the comments that came out of those letters I must say that even though having a one-way on West Cliff would make my car commute less convenient at times I still support it I live on Fair Ave on the same block as West Cliff and so I'm fully aware of how this would impact driving another person says presently riding a bicycle on West Cliff is difficult and getting more so with the addition of rental e-bikes piloted by inexperienced cyclists please consider separated bicycle and pedestrian paths on West Cliff there was a note from a 97 year old woman who says I would enjoy walking on West Cliff with my walker but I cannot because bikes strollers and pedestrians continue to proliferate it is not safe for anyone at this time there was someone who said I've been hit from behind by an aggressive motorist on West Cliff near Woodrow and I'm lucky to be alive a comment said I personally used to love walking on West Cliff but I've began turning down friends who want to walk there because of fast-moving cyclists and I could go on I copied and pasted many comments but just wanted to share those perspectives say that the situation before the storms left a lot of room for improvement and I urge you to consider this opportunity to make West Cliff a place that works better for everyone in your next steps thank you here's some good work you've done as a bicycle advocate thank you for that thank you welcome good afternoon sir good afternoon mayor kealy and members of the council thanks for your time thanks this thank you to the staff for an excellent report my name is Steven sfeet I am also a board member along with Amelia of bike Santa Cruz county I'm also a lifelong life member of the american institute of certified planners I'm also a lower west side resident live on modesto avenue I'm here today to to exhaust my support for maintaining the dedicated space for walking and biking on west cliff drive and not rushing to return the segment east of woodrow to a two-way road just yet Santa Cruz has made strong progress in transforming infrastructure toward a more balanced and climate responsive system over the last five years we've seen it the implementation of class one buffered striping bikeways on on water street we've have a new bridge over brands of 40 creek for peds and bicyclists we have a lovely cantilevered section on the San Lorenzo river which has been crucial for cross-town cycling and pedestrians and we have the immensely popular coastal rail trail on the west side I don't know if we have counts yet but the use is done is amazing finally thanks to claire over here we have a version 2.0 of our bike share program B cycle there are docks all over the west side right on west cliff they're in use all the time multiple city policy documents produced by countless citizen hours and staff hours and dollars over many years direct our government to address the climate crisis the climate action plan the city complete streets master plans the schools complete streets master plan the general plan resilient coast Santa Cruz and others every transportation project that helps balance our mobility system away from cars and toward active transportation systems does exactly that and provides a means for individuals to actively take part as individuals in in reducing their carbon footprint I was really pleased to see the staff report for this agenda item presenting information demonstrating this demonstrating the success of one way separated active modes in the temporary fix it's outstanding work and they even did modifications a few months ago to make it even safer for pedestrians right at the Bethany curve location according to their report a notable majority of users like the temporary design and in fact the written information that you've received from the public that Amelia cited that amounts to 92 percent of letter writers like the one-way temporary design 92 percent of 152 letters so uh haste I'll just sorry I ran out of time haste makes waste and I would ask you not to approve recommendation number two of the item today and move forward with the other ones thank you very much thank you sir what we're going to do now we've got some folks online so what I'll do is I'll take one person online then I'll go to you then another person online I'll go to you okay just tee you up there a little bit so we'll go to the first person who is online good afternoon good afternoon good afternoon I'm not sure if that's me or not you can't tell who's who's online this is Elizabeth Peck um I'm a employment civil rights attorney here on the west side in Santa Cruz I also um don't I also live on Elmar between Delaware and Elmar and first I want to express my appreciation for all the work and effort that you all have been putting in in these unprecedented times I think we can all agree that you know we you know as they as they say in the vernacular the heads just keep on comment so we appreciate the work that all are doing I'd like to raise a couple of points that I raised in the letter I did write to the council back on August 22nd what troubles me is that there's been no attention whatsoever paid to Upper Elmar that is the segment of Elmar between Delaware and Mission and the problem is I don't think anyone can disagree that the traffic their speeds have exponentially increased and I don't see that there's any plan or data for Upper Elmar with respect to those concerns the problem that we see and I I think I know and but I think I know I speak for several of my neighbors on Upper Elmar um as to these concern it's not a question of if a tragedy it's going to happen it's when we appreciate all the renovations that have happened with the park but with the increase in traffic because Elmar has now become the preeminent cut through between West Cliff Delaware to Mission and in the other way um speeds have increased the number the amount of traffic has exponentially increased the problem that we have with the park and the community draw the hidden crosswalk the issues of very few speed impediments between Mission and Delaware there is a problem you have non-contiguous sidewalks you have frequent presence of children elderly and disabled with their use of the park and in the community it is a very high pedestrian area it is frequently used as a way and mean to get to schools with bike but it has no bike path it has become a one-lane road I watched a fire truck yesterday have to stop and wait for oncoming traffic to go because they didn't stop or slow down that is a frequent occurrence I know of pets that have been killed this has all been happening since the reroute from West Cliff I understand that it's not for discussion today because I don't see that any studies have been done but I would very much urge you to pay attention to the upper Elmar and that artery because it is it has become an artery and so I look forward to the community engagement I do hope that attention is paid to it because it is a larger issue that impacts many of the streets not just the segments between Delaware and West Cliff I see I have five seconds and so I want to thank you for your time and my letter is of August 22nd 2023 and I've been contacted by various neighbors who were happy to meet with you and go over some of these concerns but again thank you for all you're doing well thank you for your testimony and for your letter good afternoon I'm Justin Hecker thank you mayor and council members and staff I really appreciate the report you guys put together and seeing the data I just wanted to kind of second what a lot of other people are saying that I really support having access for bikes and pedestrians on West Cliff and it seems like people of all kind of viewpoints agree that they don't really like cars whether it's on their neighborhood or if they're showing them on West Cliff so I kind of wanted to bring the viewpoint that I think a lot of the closures the complete closures are what's causing a lot of the problem not necessarily whether it's one way or two way and I agree with the assessment that they made that if it was one way the entire way through there'd be a lot more diffuse traffic throughout the neighborhoods and I really think that before going back to a complete two-way traffic we should assess what it looks like in a complete one way along the length of West Cliff before seeing what before drawing conclusions based on what a closure in a local neighborhood looks like for people in that area. I also wanted to add the viewpoint that I do live on Delaware and I see increased traffic and not only traffic either but West Cliff is amazing and I think that a lot of people enjoy walking or biking or even driving along it. Thank you. Thank you for being here today and thank you for your testimony. We're going to go to one more online then we'll go with you sir. Yes, hello. Good afternoon. This is good. As to the you get what you pay for conclusion of the one-way assessment report as a resident in the middle of the detour craziness I question that traffic is lighter right now in the affected area than 2019. Also you should note that the data pulled comparisons from very different seasonal months in 2019 comparing to 2023 and 2023 also has a very unusual horrific record 63 inches of rain which I suspect affected traffic flows that you don't acknowledge. Can you say apples and oranges data? Anyway why would anyone assume it'll stay that way and it also sure can be that the traffic differs now because some people were and just are avoiding that whole snap of detour all together in 2023 and it's not some post-COVID new normal. Any long-term new normal conclusion is an overreach. Bikes had a much right and ability to travel west cliff as cars do more so actually since they use the trail also and nobody is saying they can't be doing that as before but if pet safety is a concern maybe those bikes should be banned on the trail. It's real simple bikes can use the roadway. I personally think bikes are the worst drivers around and they could do better. I do understand why pets don't want bikes on the trail especially fast bikes on the west cliff. It's worth a separate discussion. The selfishness of some bikers though is clearly on display here and in those letters as these bikers don't want to share space with anyone pets or cars and they want wider dedicated lanes just for themselves even if that means depriving other people of their mode of travel. While there is a sightseeing aspect to driving on west cliff drive this is a transportation road getting from a to b for some it's going home or it is home and the roadway itself is not a simple recreation only area for drivers of any vehicle drivers by the way are supposed to be watching the road driving. It is a road where all traffic wants to go both ways. By the way part of your job is to respect everyone's rights not passing out privilege to some and taking rights away from others. Thanks. Thank you sir. Good afternoon. Afternoon Donny Glyces. I'm a resident along with oh Cathy's here little child care going on there. Good afternoon. We've been living on Pelton Avenue for the last 40 years so we've seen some changes over time. We're both bicyclists as well but ironically disagree with the bicyclists spoken earlier. We would first of all hope that you go forward with a recommendation from staff and that you bring west cliff back to two way. The impact on the neighborhood has been tremendous. Dramatic. The speed, hostility sometimes of drivers, the safety issues, Pelton Avenue, Columbia, Clark aren't geared as arterial streets. There's not consistent sidewalks. We do child care for our two year old granddaughter and are really worried about her safety on the street. It's just the speed is tremendous. There's going to need to be along with the recommendation additional funding some additional funding for staff for calming efforts especially in the next few months as we go through you know streets detours and the changes that are necessary in order to repair west cliff drive. It's going to take some some money for traffic calming so that it's safe throughout the neighborhood. There's a difference between driving through an impact zone and living in it and I want to say that for bicyclists and for people in cars and that all people should be able to enjoy west cliff drive and that includes people in automobiles as well. We have people in our neighborhood that are in their 90s that look forward to being able to drive have their sons or daughters drive them down west cliff drive. They look forward to it every day. So we know we live in a wonderful place, a beautiful place and we appreciate it every day and it is important that all voices be heard but we want to make sure that everybody understands that there's been a neighborhood for 150 years. It's dramatically torn up right now with the issues that we face and you know we want to we want to cooperate and collaborate with people but safety is a concern and so is quality of life. Last thing I want to say is that as I hope we don't become Berkeley if you spent time in Berkeley, bunkered Berkeley where every block the competition the divisiveness it happens when people are competing to try and save safety issues and save their family from danger and harm. Be careful how you proceed with the with the decisions that you make on blocking streets. Every blockage creates a problem down the road. Do I get three minutes now? If you wish. Okay. Don't leave me here. Okay. I'm just going to piggyback on Don just a little bit here. Just as a point of reference, both Don and I were principals in the school district here in Santa Cruz City. We moved to the west side of school because the schools are just so exceptional. Bayview, Mission Hill, Santa Cruz High. What can I say? And we also the second reason why we built it because we're cruisers. Meaning we cruise. We're the founders of Sanacruz Woody's Club so we do Woody's on the war from partnership with the city of Santa Cruz. We bicycle almost every day. We walk all different forms of cruising and then we and additionally we do go watch the sunset in cars back and forth. But the real reason that we moved here was because of the community. I mean, we really do love Santa Cruz on the lower west side. Wasn't always the premier area when we moved here in 19, what was it, 39 years ago, 47, 78. So we have seen it just change dramatically and we absolutely feel that we've contributed it to this growth in this area. Two way is really important for us because we get an opportunity to see west cliff in both directions. We know it's an extremely expensive future for keeping west cliff as it is. But it's also as the city has promoted the number one area that we bring to why do we come to Santa Cruz? What brings us here? It's the beauty of the city of Santa Cruz both east side, west side. We've served in as public servants on both sides of town while midtown now I guess it's what it's called in our day it was called east side. But we would like to see it continue to be the number one area and most expensive, unfortunately, as Sandy Brown mentioned earlier, I think unfortunately for all of us, but keeping the traffic down, keeping the volume down, keeping it safe. I was going to use Nadia's child as a prop. I think Nadia is going to bring it up because she lives on the corner of Almar, is it Almar and Delaware. So she's seen the brunt of a lot of traffic as well. So please consider the whole neighborhood equity diversity for all of us in Santa excuse me in Santa Cruz. Thank you. Well, thank you both and especially thank you both for your lifetime of dedication to public education. Thank you for that so much. And just a note for the record, there is no such thing as midtown. Those of us that live in that alleged area are very proud to be East Siders. Let me take one other person online. No such place. Right? Yes. Yes. Good afternoon. Am I unmuted? I am. You can hear me. Yes. Yeah, we're here. Okay. On this side of the screen, it's impossible to tell until you say something. Thank you very much. Julian Green site. A few comments. First of all, it's pretty clear from the neighbors who've spoken who are in support of quickly as quickly as humanly possible returning to a two way west and I fully support that the impacts of one way has been quite dramatic. That should be study enough to show what could happen if you ever turn even though as one speaker said it would dilute diffuse the traffic through the neighborhood. The operative word is their traffic through the neighborhood. So it needs to be two way understand the barriers. They're very happy that public works is working so hard on that. In the meantime, for those streets that will be affected, I hope the city will focus any traffic calming device operations on those streets. A bit alarmed about this idea of a city wide traffic calming where you've I've forgotten all the words nominate etc. You want to be careful that a previous speaker mentioned that if you limit traffic on one street, the next street will have double the traffic. And that was found in the 90s when city council introduced speed bumps, the impact on neighboring streets that weren't closed. Of course, so many problems they abandoned speed bump programs. So really think carefully about what you're doing with this nominating streets and some streets are allowed to some art. Another issue quickly to address in the time array remaining. The mayor's concern and the city manager's concern about not being able to get FEMA money. If we keep having to repair that does not comport with the conclusions from the city engineers who said the parts that collapse with parts that had not been maintained rep rapid center from the 1990s. So it's not in the cards that the same thing will happen again if we keep maintenance. And if you look at a meta analysis of all the meteorologists, they said that this past year's storm was not necessarily climate change driven climate change is real, but that the storms were getting central California are really part of a normal pattern. And last year's the wind direction and the fact that the riprap wasn't maintained created that condition. Just finished my sentence. There's really no basis to conclude that this will be an ongoing dilemma that will suck up money for years to come. So we have to look at some other options. So thank you so much. And I hope you will support the staff. Thank you. Good afternoon. Welcome. Good afternoon. Mayor Keely, council members and transportation staff. Thank you very much for all of your input, everything that you've done thus far and also acknowledging that we have a long way to go. So I am my name is Tom Powers. I live on Delaware Avenue right where seaside dead ends into Delaware at very much an impacted area. And I am I've been on the lower west side for the last 50 years. And then my wife and I have been on Delaware. This is our 30th year there. And obviously, as other people have stated long term, we've seen huge, huge change as far as level of traffic. And especially since the events of January 5th. So I also am a bicycle enthusiast. I walked down to my home surf break steamer lane every single morning. I've been doing that for decades. And now that I'm retired, I jump on my bike after that to get a little senior cardio. I call it my senior citizen triathlon walk, then bike ride, then surf. So I ride west cliff from one end to the other. I've been actually doing that for quite a few years now just to low impact and cardio. So I see it every day. And I do see, I don't know, I try to be very cognizant as a bicycle rider, as well as a walker. And I also advocate restoration of west cliff two way traffic. And I think there definitely is a lot of room for improvement on the multi use path. I remember when this first put in, it was called the bike path. And that was back in the late 70s, I believe it kind of melts together having been on the lower west side since 1973. But anyway, as an enthusiast for walking, biking, the whole nine yards, I think that there could be a lot done to improve the multi use path to make it safer. Maybe some dotting, basically to try to separate bicycles from pedestrians, or at least dotted line down the middle and just trying to more visuals to keep people to the right. Because there are a lot of tourists that are oblivious of that. And we have seen just an untenable increase of traffic on Delaware Avenue with a hasty and I think knee jerk reaction to neighbors on Oxford and Alta to have their streets closed without really fully considering the adverse impact it's had to those of us on Delaware and Plateau. So I would love to see the streets opened up as soon as possible and to return to what I would consider a normal west side. Once again, thank you very much for all your efforts thus far and that's it for today. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Ms. Bush, do we have anyone else online who would like to comment on this? Yeah, one more. Take one more and then we'll be right with you. We'll take the person online. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Can you hear me? Hi, we can hear you. Hello. Yeah, we can hear you. Go ahead. Okay. My name is Ms. Linda Hansen. I have a professional business proposal for trash removal service. I would like to propose to the city of Santa Cruz. It's doing the trash removal on the rubber tracks. Hang on just a second. I want to make sure that you are commenting on the item. Are you with us today to comment on West Cliff Drive? Okay, I'm sorry, sir. I apologize. Please read me. No, no, it's not a problem. I just want to make sure. So you want to comment on another item or want to communicate with the city on another item? Yes, sir. I have a business proposal for trash removal service specifically on the rubber tracks. Let me suggest something to you. Can you go online? Do you know how to do that? Yes, sir. Okay. So what you should do is go online and go to the mayor's office and send me an email and I'll be glad to respond to you on that. You got it. Yes, sir. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. You guys have a beautiful Wednesday. Good evening. Hi. Good evening, Mayor Keely, council members, Matt Clare, City Transportation. I thought it would be a good idea to bring my daughter. I didn't really allow her to be so I'm glad she was gracing everyone with her noises. But I am here. I'm a resident. I live on the corner of Elmar and Delaware Avenue. I have really appreciated the efforts that the city has done to come to my house to have backyard meetings. Shebra and Renee have also been there and been responsive to our email. So thank you, everyone. I know this is really challenging. I've also witnessed a lot of anger and tension and I'm sorry that happens and thank you guys for bearing it and also trying to hear everyone's needs. I'm here today, I guess first and foremost as a concerned resident and parent. We're talking a lot about traffic. I would like to focus on safety and in particular, since the closure of the continuous streets, Oxford Way and Alta, I did see the data. It looks like Delaware was not getting quite as much traffic before. I don't know if that would have changed later in the season. It certainly feels like it's getting more now. And in particular, it's those that are promenading down Westcliff that are going up the reroute. So it's a different kind of traffic. It's people that are not as cognizant of the neighborhood, people speeding, motorcyclists, and then Alta, which does not have continuous sidewalks and people are speeding down. I'm very excited about the traffic calming tool kit. I think it gives an objective measure for neighborhoods to qualify for certain supports and in particular, focusing on safety for pedestrians and cyclists. The pedestrian way on Almar is not fit for the amount of traffic. And I fear for my children's lives when I'm walking down the street and often have to push my stroller into the street. In fact, the other day, my daughter almost got hit by a car speeding. People are just, there's no stop impediments. There's no road bumps. There's no stop signs. And it really scares me. And I think Lisa Peck said it well when she said it's not if it's when. And that's a feeling that I have. So I'm here sort of urging you to please act. I do think opening up the streets, Oxford and Alta, will relieve some of that tension. I don't know that the answer is to route streets down there. I think we have professionals here who may have better solutions and can come up with some ideas. But truly what it is is the amount of traffic that is going down these streets now. Delaware, as you know, I'm also a cyclist and an enthusiast. I bike my daughters down Delaware every day. I bike them downtown to their daycare. But it has felt a lot less safe now. And it is a safe bike route to school for Bayview Elementary. There are hundreds of thousands of dollars going into the safe bike route to school. And yet now we have a situation where there are no bike lanes. There's congested traffic and people are speeding. So again, I do fear that somebody may get injured. I don't want this to be tension with the neighbors, which is why I'm excited about the traffic calming toolkit. I recognize we all will be getting more traffic. This is a natural disaster. So we're willing to work with everyone. But I do want to point these out. I would say my first question to the council is to support safety measures on those streets. And my second would be to please reopen those streets so that we can connect the grid and not push all the traffic on two streets. And I support a one. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ms. Bush, no one else online. Is that correct? We do. So we're going to take one online first. We'll go right with you. Good evening, person online. Good afternoon. Good evening. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor and council members. My name is Rob Tidmore. Didn't mean to follow my wife Nadia. I also live on the corner of Nadia, the corner of Delaware and Allmar. Like everyone, just want to start with my appreciation to Claire and Matt. You know, they came to our house. They spent time with us listening to our concerns and helping to brainstorm ideas and ways to work around those. So I know how busy they are. And so I just want to start by thanking them. I, like my wife, I'm also supportive and happy to see the traffic calming toolkit be developed. I think that provides an objective way to prioritize where we focus our limited resources. And I would just make a suggestion that the presence of a bike lane or a bike facility on a street be given points in the toolkit as well. And I noticed that there's, you know, there's points for non-continuous sidewalks on a street. But I think if we're really making sure that we protect our most vulnerable road users, which are pedestrians and bicyclists, I think having points for bike facilities would really help with that. And speaking to another point that some of my neighbors have also brought up, you know, just to reiterate our concern about the cul-de-sacs on Oxford and Alta and that they, through their implementation, have exacerbated some existing safety issues on All-Mart, which is that there's discontinuous sidewalks between Plateau and Delaware on both sides. So there's no way to walk safely without being in the roadway. And that Delaware is a bike route. And so I hope that future traffic calming measures take into account those existing bicycle and pedestrian facilities and do not put additional traffic on streets that have those issues. And I'd like to also request that the city, I know there's a plan to take those detours out, but we just would like to make sure that that happens as soon as West Cliff Drive is reopened. And as to the West Cliff repairs, I appreciate staff's efforts on that. I'm happy to see those repairs coming in. I think returning to two-way and then doing a study where we look at options to go to a larger one-way pilot would be fantastic. I think I think I'm very excited by that possibility as a cyclist and as a person who's walking with little kids. I think that helps with some of the space issues that we're seeing there. I do think there needs to be a holistic study done to look at what the traffic impacts to the neighborhood would be, but I think there's a way that we can find to work that out. So I look forward to those future studies. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much for calling in. Good afternoon. Hello. I'm Jerry Casper. I live on Clark Avenue at Columbia, so I see what's going on there, which isn't very good. First of all, I'd like to support the reestablishment of two-way traffic on West Cliff. I won't repeat all the reasons, but I do support that. And I also support the comments made from neighbors who live in the Pelton, Clark, and Columbia Triangle. The impression I get from listening to the report, the earlier report, and the data is that somehow that area is not as bad as people think, or I just get this impression that it's being kind of kicked to the side and now nothing is being done to help our neighborhood. And so I really would urge you to reconsider withdrawing mitigation for that particular area. But my main point that I'd like to talk about is something that hasn't been raised. And that is the traffic planning during the reconstruction that's going to start on West Cliff. I've been there since 1978, and I've lived through several of these. And it gets to be just an absolute nightmare for the people who are living there. Huge lineup of traffic with rocks in them, or empty cars, or empty trucks hauling away dirt, and they sit there for hours. Some of them leave their engines running, you can smell the exhaust. It's just awful, just awful. And what I would really like to see is a plan. Rules. You don't leave your engines running. You don't have 10 trucks lined up, and the last one won't be used for five hours, or six hours, or four hours. There's a way to park somewhere and distribute the vehicles until they are going to be used, where you can call them in. They'll be used within an hour. Anything. And that can make this whole process work better for the people who live there. Because like I said, I've lived through these now, and I can still remember my living room being filled with exhaust from the trucks that are lined up, leaving their engines running for hours. Why? I have no idea. But it makes it really worse. It's bad enough to begin with, but it makes it even worse. So I would implore you, whoever's working with Granite, whoever's planning this out, please, please consider the neighborhood that has to live through this. Ms. Bush, no one else online, correct? Oh, there is one more. Mr. Stoner, just a moment. There's always one more, apparently. So we're going to recognize that person right now. Good evening, person online. Hi, my name is Mike Fragulia. I've been living on the West Side for 14 years now. I'm sorry, but we seem to have lost your audio. So am I sorry, am I back now? Oh, there you are. Yes, you are. Did I cut off? Sorry, I'll just go ahead. I've been living on the West Side for 14 years, and I'd like to voice my opposition to the return to two-way car traffic on West Cliff. I think everyone here has valid complaints about new traffic that's been introduced by this, and I want to say that we never have actually had a true example of the one-way traffic. We've had a full block on West Cliff. So we have not yet ever experienced just the plain old one-way West Cliff. I just want to fake that apparent here. And I also want to say that everybody here has the same concern. Cars are a problem. Cars are too present in our lives. Nobody wants cars next to their house. Nobody wants cars whizzing by them on West Cliff. Nobody wants the noise pollution. And nobody likes the space that they take up. I think West Cliff is a public utility. It's one of the amazing parts about West Side Santa Cruz. It's for people to enjoy who live in the neighborhood. It's for people to enjoy who visit. And right now, it is not a pleasant place to be a human on, especially on weekends. I will not go there on weekends. It's unpleasant. Yeah. Well, that's all I have to say. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. Mr. Stoner, good afternoon, sir. Mr. Mayer and council members and staff here. I appreciate all the work that everybody's done. I know it's a very contentious issue here. I'm a surfer. I'm a sailor. I drive an automobile. I ride a mountain bike. I ride an e-bike and I walk. So I see West Cliff from land and by sea. And it's a federal highway. It was dedicated in 1924. I actually sent all of you a letter. It's a main arterial street. I'm happy to see it being returned to two-way, whether it's just, you know, for a short period of time or a longer period of time. One thing I do want to address that I think is really important has to do with the Colbert Bridge over Brant's, or over Bethany Creek there. That opening for the water discharge was designed over 100 years ago when I grew up on the west side, the lower west side. There was 50% less houses, so you had a more percolation of the water back into the water table. Now it all runs off on the surface streets. So maybe public works. I haven't seen the plan for it, but that opening has to be bigger for discharge because this past winter, winter was within about six inches of the top. And it would be like a dam and it would just take it out. I don't know if you can answer that question, but that's a major concern for me when they do reconstruct that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Stoner. Thank you. Anyone else online? Yes, someone else right there. Very good. Well, we encourage public participation, so good evening, person online. Yeah, hi. My name is Roger Bernstein. Can you hear me? Yes, we certainly can. Okay, great. Yeah, so my name is Roger Bernstein. I live at 914 Pelton Avenue, Ryder Cross from Clark Avenue. I know a lot of people have been commenting tonight, and by the way, I appreciate everyone's comments. You know, we are at ground zero since West Cliff was closed, and I know the caller before mentioned that, you know, we still haven't seen a true one-way West Cliff, but because it's been closed at Bethany Curve, but we are bearing the brunt of the traffic detours in front of our house. When we bought our house approximately 10 years ago, you know, Pelton Avenue was a secondary street. It was not the primary means for cruisers to move from, move along West Cliff. And right now, everyone is forced to turn down our street, and it's extremely dangerous. It's extremely noisy. And I am a huge proponent, and I know all of our neighbors would agree with me that we would like to see West Cliff return to two-way traffic. And I believe what I'm hearing is that it appears that's in the cards right now, which is great. The second thing is we heard that the traffic calming on Pelton is off the table. That is a huge issue for us. Again, we are bearing the brunt of all the traffic detours in the neighborhood. Everyone is funneled onto our street. And what we would ask is that at least in the interim, while we figure out what the plan is for the final plan is for West Cliff, and of course, there's going to be construction involved in West Cliff that we do have some traffic calming on our streets. We'd like to see several more speed bumps, even the temporary speed bumps, so that we can slow traffic down. As I said, my wife and I, we've lived there for a long time. My wife and I, we walk our little dog around the area. We're also mountain bikers. We like to use the local area, and it's extremely dangerous. So anyway, I implore the council to add at least temporary speed measures on Pelton Avenue to slow the traffic down. And we'd also ultimately like to see West Cliff as two way traffic. Thanks very much. Well, thank you very much. Anyone else with us today in chambers wish to comment on this item? Ms. Bush, anyone else online? Matters back before the council. Glad to entertain a motion. Vice mayor is recognized. I would like to move the staff recommendation. There's a motion. There is a second by Ms. Colantara Johnson. Vice mayor, you can open on your motion. So I did come up with a couple more questions after listening to the public and listening to my colleagues. And mayor, when you were asking about FEMA and that reimbursement or even the FHWA, I'm wondering who repairs, for example, in the county like Alba or Empire Grade or Fulton Empire or other roads that get damaged, 17, that get damaged every year. Who pays to maintain those? I don't know who has the answer to that. Well, Alba just got a significant amount of money from the state transportation improvement program. We have a regional call for projects that RTC runs. We all nominate projects to that and they were funded through that regional call for projects in addition to having some other funding put into that. But I think it's a kind of bigger question like Highway 9. Generally, we look under every single rock we can find to have enough funding to try to maintain our transportation infrastructure. The emergency funding in this case came from Federal Highway because West Cliff is classified as a collector roadway. And so under that definition that we have, it opens up the funding for those repairs. So I imagine the county would be applying in the same way. Okay. Yeah, I can say just jump into with regards to state and federal funding. So West Cliff Drive is deemed a federal-rated route. And so that qualifies us for the Federal Highway Administration Emergency Opening Funding. FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Agency, also is an avenue for seeking additional funds for, you know, coastal protection in the riprap. Counties in the very same boat that we are. So when there's a storm event, an emergency declaration, they do the very similar process as far as doing their own declaration and then applying for FEMA dollars as well as FHWA dollars. And I guess then that brought me to another question that they popped over and asked the city attorney. I'm going to ask it out loud so he can answer it out loud is, because there's residences all the way up and down West Cliff, is the city required to provide automobile access to those homes in perpetuity? Or to what extent can we say like, sorry, you're out of luck. And then what happens? That is a very complicated question and it's an evolving topic due to, as you know, impacts of sea level rise, coastal erosion, etc. But I would and I will say that I would envision should damage to West Cliff Drive occur that prohibits vehicular access to residences along West Cliff Drive and the city not restore that access. We could expect liability claims under an inverse condemnation theory and likely be defending those in court, not prepared to give an opinion on the likely outcome of that. But I think that's fairly realistic probability. And so then to that end, while everyone knows I am not a cyclist, I do like walking. And so I do I mostly use West Cliff for walking. And I would like to say like, as we move forward with this visioning process on how that stretch from the sea to the homes, you know, proceeds, in my mind, I think for my lifetime, you will need to provide vehicle access to those homes. And so if we're starting to manage retreat, or we're starting to just, you know, allow, let's say, we then close one lane, and then all of a sudden it falls again, and then well, then goodbye bikes, goodbye pedestrians, the thing we have to have left is the cars. And so to that extent, I would like to see us keeping it as wide as possible for as long as possible and providing as much access, whatever that looks like. The other thing I forgot to mention, and I do want to switch back to my principal hat, is that I we do have walk and roll Wednesday, every Wednesday, we partner with Ecology Action at Bayview. And I've had a number of parents extremely concerned about some of the traffic impacts and their willingness to let their children bike or walk to school with the impacts of the damage from the storm. The other thing that I also wanted to acknowledge that I haven't heard acknowledged publicly in any of the meetings is that particular storm, while it wasn't 100-year storm, I don't know, I'm not Jim VanderSwan, but I will say that we do know that it was not only the swell direction, but it was a king tide. And so that is pretty rare. And I felt like it could have been somewhat predictable with the deferred maintenance that we had that we would have expect some damage. So, you know, as a walker, I think the scariest thing on the road is the e-bikes. So I don't know, I don't have anything else to add on this, but I just really do want to truly thank the staff. And I want to continue to encourage the community to stay involved as we move forward with, we don't have a crystal ball, but trying to plan for a better future and make it accessible to as many people for as many years as possible. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor. Council Member Calantari-Johnson. Thank you. I also have a couple of follow-up questions. So you brought forward a traffic calming toolkit that would help neighborhoods bring traffic calming measures that are permanent-ish in nature. What we've put in place on the west side is largely temporary, correct? I just want to make sure that most of what we have in place is temporary. Maybe some of it will stick. But if you could just speak to that, and then I have another follow-up question. Yeah, what we've, I think primarily the installations on Oxford and Ulta, the cul-de-sacs, those are, we consider temporary and tied to the restoration of Bethany Curve. I think if they're in the future, they want to apply, maybe after those are removed for another program, we could evaluate it then. The measures that we installed at Delaware and Elmar, I think I'd like to see those stay. They're striping. We kind of tried out these new turn wedges in the middle that slow traffic. And I think so far they've been affected. So that is a nice quick implementation that I'd like to see stay out there. Yeah, if I can provide a little bit of extra comment on that. What's been installed out there is a part of the one-way pilot program and the emergency protective measures that we've put in place since the beginning of the year. If we decide to proceed with keeping some of these what are kind of deemed temporary-ish traffic controls, we would come back with a subsequent staff report as we do the infowall projects, as we do the Bethany Curve to solidify those projects with your guys' approval, with council and mayors' approval. Okay, great. Okay, so I wonder if you can speak to some of the comments on the Pelton-Clarke-Columbia triangle and then the Almar-Delaware. We've heard from a couple of several neighbors about those two specific areas. I wonder if you could just speak to those two areas. I'll start with Pelton. We had some really great meetings with the neighbors there. We developed some really nice striping improvements for the roadway that were pretty in-depth. And we actually got some really good ideas brought forward. We took those out to bid and they came back twice as expensive as we anticipated. So we couldn't really afford to make the level of improvement that we wanted to and that we brainstormed with the neighbors. I think what we're going to try to do is work with our contractor to do some localized installations on Pelton to try to achieve some of the results we'd brainstormed. We have to get more information from granted on what they're planning to do and in their sort of construction sequencing and traffic calming, or sorry, traffic management plan, we have to see what they need and then we can kind of tweak it from there. So it's very much on my agenda to make sure we try to strike that balance with the impacts from the diverted construction traffic and managing those on Pelton. So I think there's more to come from us on Pelton to try to achieve some results there for the neighbors. On Almar, we have a couple ideas in my inbox from my colleagues that I need to review. We're mainly looking at some ideas that would improve visibility along Almar within the sort of detour zone from Delaware down to West Cliff. And those are sort of quick striping improvements we think we'd be able to implement. So we'll be working on those shortly. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. And I just want to acknowledge that, you know, oftentimes we get credit for the incredible work that you do, but it's you guys are the brains, you're the experts. So when community members come to us, we come to you and we look to you for your expertise. And ultimately, you know, I have trust in you in terms of what's going to work, what's not going to work. So thank you for that work. If I could add something to what Matt said. So you mentioned that initially we took Pelton out to bid and the bids we got back were over twice the cost of what we had anticipated. So what you see right now on Delaware, which also had higher costs come in, is that our city crews are doing that work. And so we're also limited right now by our speed of implementation by really using our own staff in house who are already spread very thin. And so this week we're working on Delaware. We hope to be able to pivot to Almar next. And then we're going to make sure it's clear Pelton is not canceled. Pelton is pivoting from what we had planned to what we're going to be able to achieve as a result of the construction happening and the high bids that came in and using kind of a different project delivery than what we had anticipated. Thank you for clarifying that. Okay, I don't have any other questions, but just some comments. I want to reiterate my appreciation and thanks for the big, big lift that you all have done over the last months. And I recognize that getting us to this place to do these urgent repairs before the next set of winter storms. I don't know, it's a miracle that you've brought us here. So thank you. And I also want to acknowledge and appreciate everyone is here today, everyone who called in, everyone who went to those garage neighborhood backyard meetings to try to problem solve together. This is a big issue. This is going to continue to be a big issue and a contentious issue. So the more we can hear from each other and create the solutions together, the better off will be. I know this isn't the end of the conversation. In fact, this is coming back before us in a couple of weeks. So I look forward to this 50 year vision planning, whether coastal commission likes it or not. But the reality is we know that maybe this particular storm was an insane one. We won't see something like that for a while, but we'll continue to see these weather patterns. So the community is going to have to come to terms with some change. That's coming our way. We don't know when. And so I appreciate being thoughtful about how we move about doing that. And I guess my ask of the community is that we just are patient with each other. We're patient with staff. Please be patient with us as we try to figure it out. It's going to get nuts out there over the next few months. So just know that we are hearing you. We're listening to what you have to say. And we're going to try better than our best. So thank you. Thank you. Council Member Brenner. Thank you. Let's see. My question after hearing some of the public comments, I really appreciate the specific input regarding the construction zone and trucks. And is there a plan or is that in process in terms of do we need to give direction? Is that assumed that that will happen, but not leaving trucks engines running and the lineup of trucks and just how it was described? I could really see it be a very challenging situation. So yeah, happy to respond to that. Council Member Brenner. Yes, as part of the construction, there are going to be impacts with regards to additional temporary traffic controls as well as just the process as the City Engineer Kevin mentioned about the number of concrete trucks that will need to be staged with regards to the number of pores, concrete pores that are going to happen in several locations out there. We'll definitely do our best on putting information out on the website. As I mentioned earlier, there is a point of updating the public on what's happening, what happened that previous week and what's upcoming the following week is what we're anticipating. And so we'll continue to use that model to try to get the word out with regards to construction impacts. Do concrete trucks need to keep their engines running in order to keep that thing spinning? Whatever that is called. I mean, can we make sure that trucks that don't need to have engines running aren't running? Yeah, they're not sitting idling for work with Granite Construction and their subcontractors to see if we can minimize that. I'll add there that we are protected under vehicle code that limits idling by large trucks, by commercial trucks. So that's something that's enforceable. Right now we are planning on having sort of the ocean side lane in the traffic control zone is where we imagine a lot of the truck staging to happen. So that's, I think right now our plan is to try to keep it out of the neighborhood, but we have to continue to work with Granite on that. And yeah, the concrete trucks have to keep their engines on to keep the concrete spinning so it doesn't harden up in the truck. Thank you. And then I'm going to switch to traffic calming measures because that keeps getting brought up. And thank you for staying there. So my understanding what I've learned so far over the last couple years here is that traffic calming measures are not just speed bumps. There are many various different types of traffic calming measures and different factors that play into what the best traffic calming measure is for a specific block street area. Can you or someone talk about different types of traffic calming measures? Yeah, thank you for acknowledging all the different tools we have in our toolbox. That's something I also get very excited about. The toolkit we developed addresses sort of different levels of traffic calming devices that we can use on different types of roadways. So we'll, we have a table actually there that pairs with our toolkit that the public will be able to see online so they can understand what treatments would be eligible on their roadways. Generally we think of traffic calming. We're looking to measure volume issues or measure speeding issues on the roadways and those two different types of issues have different solutions that pair with them. And so in our sort of like call to projects from the from the neighbors, we'll ask them what do you think the biggest problem is on your roadway and that would kind of guide you towards the solutions that might might work best. So that'll be something we address in the call for projects and when we work through the actual solutions with each neighborhood. Thank you, that's helpful. My last comment question, I guess, and it's kind of the biggest one and from all the emails and our public comment. Thank you everyone who is, you know, joining us virtually and here in person. Appreciate all the perspectives and experience that has been shared. But this notion of one way, two way, and it's kind of this unspoken thing that two way eliminates pedestrian bicycle to some degree and and I mean we currently have two way and a pedestrian path and the bicycle shares the road as many streets. We don't have a dedicated bike lane. And so, you know, reading through the agenda report and just kind of, you know, sifting through all the analysis and hearing all the input. I think these traffic impact concerns are very real, but they also seem caused by this kind of hodgepodge of temporary emergency partial closures and detours and barricades. So I agree we haven't really experienced a one way vehicle West Cliff and, you know, one lane dedicated for bike and pedestrians as has been suggested. And I think, you know, that is something very important to our community and that we should definitely be discussing as we, you know, talk about a 50 year plan for West Cliff. This community is a top biking community and and that nature and outdoor access is so important for everybody to be able to access this natural environment and the wonder of West Cliff via pedestrian, via foot, via bicycle, you know, Ivan Rolersky. I would hope for a smooth pavement, but I will throw that in anywhere I can get that in. But I think, you know, what it really comes down to is that we need to study those traffic impacts, look at what just this temporary chasing response has, has created and the impacts. And so if we want to consider a one way vehicle West Cliff and a dedicated bike and pedestrian lane, I love the thought, but I really feel like it wouldn't be responsible to do it without proper study data and analysis. And and I'm glad that that's happening. And I hope that that is in in the forefront of your data and analysis. Um, so, you know, repairing West Cliff and restoring it to two way will not eliminate pedestrian and bicycle access. So I will be supporting the motion as recommended. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member for the questions, comments on the motion. Mr. Nguyen, thank you. I see that you're or I think I see that your city engineer had another thing. But I want to say, I want to say, they call these disasters, they don't call them inconveniences and they persist. And the work that you and your staff do every day on this, well, not missing a beat on anything else within your jurisdiction under your span of responsibility is just wonderful. Ms. Lulu, Mr. Starchy, thank you very, very much for your fine work. Thanks to every member of your department, sir. Thank you. We'll call the roll. Council Member Newsome? Aye. Brown? Aye. Watkins? Aye. Brunner? Aye. Calentary Johnson? Aye. Vice Mayor Golder? Aye. And Mary Culey? Aye. Motion passes and so ordered. Let me ask if there's further business to come before the council, further business to come before the council. Motion to adjourn will be in order. The vice mayor moves. Mr. Newsome Seconds, not available. Those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed? Aye. Thank you, sir.