 I see nobody here. I'm late for a meeting at Santa Cruz. I'm watching Santa Cruz. Glad to share. The city of Capitola is starting its meeting. Let's do the Pledge of Allegiance. This is to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I note that we've already noted that everyone's present on the City Council, as you can see, before the start of the closed session. Today's meeting is broadcast live on Charter Communication and the technician involved is Lynn Dutton. It'll be rebroadcasts at 1 p.m. on Charter Channel 71 and also on Wednesday, 8 p.m. on Saturday. So we have some presentations recognizing some volunteers of our advisory groups. One of the strengths of Capitola is we have so many people that do volunteer and we're all very grateful and I'm sure everyone that volunteered was very happy to do so. So Linda, please. Yes, we have members from a number of committees. Please feel free to join us up front. I'm going to read the names of everyone. Not all were able to join us, but from the Commission on the Environment, we had Megan Sixt from the Finance Advisory Committee, Peter Wilk and Willow Sullivan from the Library Advisory Committee, Ariel Gray, Tony Campbell, Gail Ortiz, Lisa Steingrubb and Stephen Walsh, Planning Commissioners, Linda Smith, Sam Story and Susan Westman, and from the Traffic and Parking Commission, Ron Burke, Karen Hanna, Melanie Arao, Molly Orting, Steve Ross, Nels Westman, Willie Case, Doug Tom and Ron Graves. Sorry, Ron. Molly, you're welcome. Yeah, I will mail them then. Hi, Mom. Congratulations. Oh, be careful. Molly, thanks for all of you. Hi. Longer than I've been in town, you've been on that committee. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, too. Thanks for everything, okay? Hopefully we'll be back again. Thank you. That's it? Yep. Thank you, Sam. Thank you for pointing that out. So while everyone who just got their reward reports to the bar downtown, no, you're going to stay. That's good. So let's have a report from closed session. Reed. Yes, we had one item for discussion with the council and one potential case, significant exposure to potential litigation. Council received a status update and took no reportable action. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your questions to the agenda. None. Okay. Now's the time for public comment. You have three minutes to give a talk or a comment. As you see fit on any item that's not on our agenda today. No comments. Bring it back to the board. Any city council or staff comments? I do. Oh, great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think it was last week and I really enjoyed myself. City manager. Jamie was able to attend with me and I was able to learn a lot. So thank you. Good for you. I've nothing. You have nothing. I was going to take your thunder, but I guess not. Thunder. Okay. Well, I thought the chair of the RTC would comment on what I was going to say. Oh, okay. So we're going ahead with phase two on the RTC. So that means that the carrier will be able to do commercial and also plan to do the movement of people. Some sort of mass transit option. And that is all to be decided. The main programs that are going to be worked on are the things that are pertinent to highway one, merge lanes, bicycle improvements, other signage improvements and stuff like that, which will have immediate impact on helping to move traffic in this area. So the other issues with the train, the corridor and stuff like that, that's going to take some time. So that was just determined last week. So do we have any boards, commissions, appointments? Yes, we have one. The art and cultural commission met last week and has two recommendations. One is a reappointment of Roy Johnson as the arts professional and then we have Susan McPeak is recommended to join as an at-large member. And so this is just a concurrence vote. Okay. So moving along, we have a consent calendar. We need a vote. We need a motion. We don't need a vote. Oh, yes, we do. Susan McPeak to the art and cultural commission. I'll second. Okay. All those in favor? Aye. So let's move on to the consent calendar. Any items on the consent calendar that City Council would like to remove and vote on later? Anyone from the public that would like to remove an item from the consent calendar? Seeing none, I bring it back to the board. Is there a motion? Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Moving along to item 10, general government public hearings, we have to consider a letter of support for the Soquel Water District District grant application. So is there a report from the city manager? Mr. Mayor, members of the council, the item before you this evening is to consider supporting a grant application for the Soquel Creek Water District Project Pure Water. As the general manager for the Water District will be able to explain far more eloquently than I was, is essentially a project that would take treated affluent from Santa Cruz which currently is discharged into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and about 25% of that would be transported back here given further treatment and then to the point of pure water and then injected into the groundwater basin to provide a buffer to prevent further seawater intrusion. So the item before you today is to authorize the mayor to sign a letter supporting the district's grant application. I believe the amount is a $50 million grant application and we have Ron Duncan, general manager for the Water District here to answer any questions or provide additional information. Thank you, Ron. Yeah. Wow. I'm impressed, Jamie. That was a good summary. I want to thank the council members. I know you got a lot on your plate and over the couple of years you've really put yourself out there dealing with different people and bringing us to your council. Council member Brooks was even a graduate of our First Water Academy, so thank you. Big endeavor, especially while you were running for election. That was huge to do double duty like that. It really speaks well of the council here. As you know, we have a big problem, right? We've been branded by the state to be one of the top 21 worst basins in the state, critically overdrafted. Innovative study recently showed it's not only a bad case, but also a scenario with seawater intrusion invading our aquifers. So the district has a solution. Jamie described it well. It says take 25% of the treated effluent that goes out to the Monterey basins where you purify it, recharge the groundwater basin, create an iron curtain so seawater can't come in and ruin our aquifers. A statistical survey that we conducted, a valid survey, showed that 77% of the people in the community support using recycled water versus taking more from the streams of the groundwater aquifers. So you have the will of the people behind you, but not only that, the state and federal government also believes in this project. They've awarded us over $2 million state and federal combined. And recently, the state was down here to see what our project was and to see what our project was doing. And it's been a long time and it's been a long time to see what our project was about. So we took them on a field trip, showed them around, took them around Capitola. We have a monitoring well up there. And they said we're the model project for this type of endeavor to prevent seawater intrusion. So they invited us back. They said we got money set aside. They actually changed the rules of engagement for the grant and invited us back to apply for a $50 million grant. So we're in the midst of that and one of you tonight is a letter of support to help obtain that $50 million which would translate into lower rates for your customers. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Well, this is the time of questions to Ron. Any questions? I do have a question in terms of not the water rates but in terms of applications for meters. Would you comment on that? How that might influence, how this program might influence that? Are you referring specifically to our water demand offset program? Yes. Sure. So the water demand offset program is a program we've had in place since 2003. The board instituted. And what it does is it requires new development to offset their projected water use. And it was a balancing act of development's important too. So how do you marry the two? And that program was envisioned as a bridge until we get a supplemental supply. So, you know, I think staff's hope and I think the board's too from what I can tell is once we get a project online or near, you know, to that point where we know it's gonna, you know, it's helping to replenish the aquifer or close to it, that project would hopefully sunset. It's always, you know, in the presentations I give the water demand offset program here and a new supply here and, like, the water demand offset program is a bridge to a new supply just to get us by. Okay. So that helped us and we might be able to release more water meters for the public and stuff like that. I see this as a very green project. I mean, in terms of water savings, do you have any comments on that? Yeah, you know, I'm glad you asked that. The way the board approached this project, we did a community water plan and we said not what project do you want, but what community values are important to you or important to the community in a project and so they did, they listed six values. One was environmental, one was cost, one was reliability, I won't go into the others, but this project, Pure Water Soquel lined up on all, it's at least expensive, we believe the most environmentally sound, I mean, versus taking from, you know, streams or creeks or water or whatever, you're recycling water and it's drought proof. So it met on all six of our community values, we used a science driven approach to see which projects align with those values and Pure Water Soquel popped out the top on all six. Would this project have any impact on adjacent water districts? Is there any working together with Santa Cruz? Yeah, we're working together and really what we've come to see through the water modeling, a very sophisticated model that is being conducted and other evidence and data is that it's not just a one and done project kind of thing, we're going to need multiple sources. Santa Cruz has a different problem, they rely on surface water so when it doesn't rain, they start to get in a world of hurt, we're all groundwater. So we believe the science is showing us that we need both, we need some river water when they have a surface, help recharge the aquifer potentially they can draw some back use it as a storage vessel. So a lot of people seem to think they fall in love with one project, we have a saying at our office don't fall in love with a project, fall in love with sustainability. And the ideas behind that is just sometimes when you work on something that becomes what you want but we try to keep a broad eye and right now we do have a project that we're test piling to receive some water so it's a good relationship and for the affluent we'll be working with City of Santa Cruz on that too. Okay, thank you. At this point I'm going to ask for any questions from the public and please come to the front if you have any questions of Ron or anyone else here. Okay. Any questions from staff? Excuse me, City Council? No questions. Okay, great. So at this point we need, okay one question, sorry. No, not a question, I thought you brought it back I was going to make a motion. Yes, I was just going to say, time for a motion. Yeah, I just want to make a motion to adopt staff recommendation to authorize the Mayor to sign a letter. But before that, I just want to acknowledge Mr. Duncan, thank you for coming and giving us that presentation and I also want to acknowledge Commissioner Bruce Daniels for going around. I believe he went to each and every one of us and had a conversation and informed us and I appreciate him making that effort. Yeah, and he's in the back just to provide more support. You know I had a good conversation with the day and everybody had one and that's why we probably have no questions here today and feel comfortable with this. Yeah, I've always taken time to educate yourself and I appreciate that. Thank you. And I'll second the motion and also extend my appreciations to the District and Ron for bringing this project forth and educating us on the need for it. Thank you. Thank you very much. So there's been a motion and second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye, no dissensions. Okay, moving along, thank you very much Ron I appreciated your explanation also. It was very thorough. Thank you. So moving along to item 10B consider a contract for tax revenue consulting services. I believe our Director Jim will be giving a report. Thank you, Mayor Council members. The next item before you as you mentioned is a considering a contract for tax revenue consulting services. This comprises three different elements, sales tax, transit occupancy tax or TOT as well as cannabis tax. So I'll just briefly go over each one of those and then we can take some questions at the end. Sales tax, we've had a consultant that's been providing the service for 17 years. Sales tax is our largest revenue source for the general fund 49% so it's real important that we stay on top of that. And it's changing. So with the increase of online sales and the Wayfair Decision how online sales tax is allocated is changing so it's really critical that we stay on top of that and make sure that we're receiving the correct allocations. HDL and Avenue are the two vendors that submitted proposals. They're the two largest. I think they're maybe the only two that provide this service in the state and most agencies within California that have a large sales tax base or have a sales tax base that makes up a large component of their general fund revenue contract with either one of these two firms and we've been using Avenue which was formerly Muni services since 2001. So Avenue purchased Muni services in 2018 and requested that we execute a new contract with them and we looked at that as an opportunity to issue an RFP check the market where there are other technologies out there that would improve the service or could we get better rates. Additionally we weren't overly thrilled with the reports that we got from Muni services so that was another reason that we looked at this as an opportunity to go out and see if there was something better potentially out there. As far as the fees they're pretty even. Avenue services was slightly less for the analytics and reporting and that's the component where they take the sales tax database from the state of California and kind of put it into a readable format and report back to us on trends and what type of revenue we're seeing and what industries and all of that stuff. The audit and discovery is where if they see when in their reports anomalies either somebody's way up way down new or dropped off that could trigger an audit and if they find new revenue for somebody's not paying they take a percentage of that. They were previously Avenue was charging as 20% before and now they've dropped down to 15 but that's what HDL came in at. MGO is an accounting firm that only proposed on the cannabis tax so I'll cover them at the end. The next one is the transit occupancy tax or TOT so just some quick stats we have eight hotels or motels within the city. There's six property management companies that have an unknown number of rental properties under their umbrella so that's one of the reasons I kind of want to dig into there and make sure all of those are getting captured and reported and then we have 35 owner operated rental properties within the city so we have a total of right around 50 altogether I think no I'm sorry it's closer to 65 because I think there's about 20 in that second group and then there's an unknown number of rentals outside of the transit rental overlay zone so we don't receive a lot of complaints and our enforcement is complaint driven but we do occasionally get complaints that somebody's renting out property outside of the zone so we would like to get people to fall in compliance with our zoning code. If approved this will be a new service that we have not contracted for in the past from the staff level we have done audits a couple years ago my predecessor and the senior accountant audited one of the hotels on 41st Street actually resulted in a benefit for them they were overpaying and I believe the community development department a number of years ago had a intern that spent about three months doing the short term rental audits but outside of that we don't really we're not really staffed up to do that type of work at the level that we I think we should be and our two specific goals are again making sure that the TOT is collected by the rental property owners and submitted correctly and accurately and then compliance with city zoning codes the breakdown on these fees and the analytics and reporting so for avenue basically we would direct them which of those properties to go audit or how we want to give them an audit plan we want to do you know 25% a year for four years or however that is and they charge 700 per property HDL I can do the same thing for 650 a property or they will take over the entire program where we don't do anything for 750 but that would be about 50 grand a year so I don't think we're going to jump in at 50 grand a year probably just do a couple of audits and see what we find and then kind of go from there the short term rental those fees are paid as a percentage of new revenue so similar to the sales tax they have both both firms have software that they can go in and they monitor Airbnb, RVO and those types of things and look for properties that are renting either within the zone and not submitting or renting their property outside of the zone and then they let us know about those and then we can get them in compliance and it's also we on the complaint driven for the short term rental I was talking to the planning department today and when we get those complaints we can go out there and talk to those owners and get them to stop but there's no real penalty at this point so we walk away and three or four days later they're back up and renting again so we want to kind of get a handle on get that under control and then the last component is cannabis tax this is a new industry with the passage of Prop 64 still remains all cash which causes a lot of concern for PD and finance department there's two components compliance inspections where they'll go in and they'll look at inventory management access control video surveillance business records and then financial audits where they go in and do basically kind of the same thing that our auditors do but a little more in detail as far as looking at their point of sale system their receipts making sure their inventories are all accounted for and nothing's disappearing I think with this one we definitely wouldn't do any of this this fiscal year because I don't think we'll have any storefronts open we may or may not have one open open long enough to do this in the fall in fiscal year 1920 I think with the compliance inspections that's the less expensive portion a lot of that's going to be handled at least on the onset by our police department so we probably won't use that but I wanted it in there so we knew what it would cost if we decided to shift that over financial audits I think we would do one at the close to the end of their first year of operations or maybe mid-year pick a point in time and then depending on how that audit went we would either continue on an annual basis or maybe set them up to three year or five year whatever that depending on how those audits go would kind of drive how we use this service and then the the fees for that are substantially higher than what they are for the other services so an election reporting same type of a thing where they're just taking the records and reporting back to us audit and discovery is when they find things out there and I'm sorry on the audit and discovery for HDL that includes one financial and one compliance audit annually and that's for two store fronts so each store is half of that 14.5 with Avenue they have a larger upfront as they get all the data loaded in so I think part of the reason this is higher it's new it's all cash it's really involved so people aren't the vendors don't have their system all in place so they're still building their systems up so we may be paying a little bit of a premium for getting in early but it would be a good thing I still think to keep an eye on those stores as they go forward before I hit this councilmember story noticed that when he was reviewing it that the HDL proposal we were 10 days beyond their 90 day guarantee proposal so I did email the president and CEO of HDL and they emailed back that they would honor their proposal in the fees so we're okay the fact that we're over by a few days thank you for following up sure so in conclusion the recommended action is to authorize a city manager to execute a three year agreement for professional tax revenue consulting services with HDL to perform tax revenue consulting services related to sales tax transit occupancy tax and cannabis tax that's the end of my presentation I'd be happy to answer any questions of staff yeah thank you mayor Jim thanks for speaking about the expense of the cannabis tax because that kind of jumped out of me it seemed extremely costly for that particular tax but I guess in reading their proposal and it's the new burgeoning business all cash kind of come to accept that but I didn't is that for the cannabis tax is that for any number of retail units that we may have are for two that's for two that's for two we only had one store it would be what 7250 or 7500 so it would be half of that for the first store and then it would go to that amount okay thank you I have a question so when we're talking about sales receipts and stuff like that is there a confidentiality between them and us in the public how's that go so we have to basically write a letter to the California department of tax and fee administration which used to be the BOE and authorize HDL access to the records to the sales tax records for the businesses that operate within Capitola which does have confidentiality so the CDTFA will release that data without our authorization and they're they have to keep all of that information confidential okay it's not available to the public business okay got it in terms of collecting tax for the cannabis since it's all cash how do we deal with that it's going to be based on their receipts so it'll be similar to TOT in where they'll have to complete they'll have to file a report of what they sold what their gross receipts were and then submit the tax off of that we do kind of the same thing with the TOT kind of rely on it's kind of almost an honor system where they tell us the business that they did calculate the tax and then we just make sure the math is right which is kind of why I would like to do some spot audits and just make sure everybody's accurate are we going to get cash I mean that's the thing I mean can they go to a bank and get a cash use check I mean I just don't know how that works that's all for the cannabis for the business the cannabis right us checks we're not all cash it's just they because somehow they'll get it within the store have to be cash but they could deposit their money and somehow it's just unclear to me okay Jamie do you have a comment on this Mr. Mayor and members of the council I think one of the key things to think about here is that the sales tax consulting services we're definitely going to use it represents 50% of our general fund it's been a service that we've used extensively in the past to help us track sales tax and understand how it's potentially going to grow or shrink in the future the TOT and the cannabis tax obviously we don't have a cannabis establishment yet but we wanted to get somebody on board who was prepared to help us with the audits should we end up in a position where we did have a business someone with that level of expertise how we end up using the cannabis tax auditing services and the TOT auditing services I think is really going to be contingent upon how HDL performs and what we discover through the course of some of our audits and work so I guess I would really think about this in sort of two parts one is is this is going to be a new partner for us with our sales tax auditing services and then in addition we're bringing in some additional resources to help with cannabis if we do get a retailer and hopefully an additional resource to help us with the TOT which I think we could do better moving forward but it's isn't a this isn't going to be a guaranteed open contract for three years where every business we're going to execute every single business opportunity that's outlined in it and so it will all be subject to budget appropriations that we make every year I hope that's clear I'm sorry I have a question so who decide once we go into contract you mentioned that we wouldn't have the consulting firm review all of our hotels and so forth who would decide on which ones we're going to do we would direct them I would probably honestly start with the property management ones because the ones we have the least amount of information on the hotels seem to be run pretty tight I would probably put them on a rotating basis the one that was done by my predecessor was the fair field on 41st so they did the largest one first I would probably want to hit each hotel over a three year period and then the others kind of seeing how those shake out but it's the property management ones that we don't really know how many are out there and I just kind of want to get a handle on that so that's probably where I would start but I would take recommendations from the consultant since that's kind of their expertise I would also add that I think that a little bit of the payment history would guide us in terms of the audits frankly that's what triggered the audit that we did several years ago was it made sense when you looked at the way the numbers were coming in we started asking questions of their management their management realized that there was in the course of their own internal investigation realized there was possible problems with it and so the payment history I think is also a bit of a guide is the payment history does it make sense when you look at it is there a peak in the summer does it look like the peak last summer are the payments coming in on time those kinds of things and then I had a second just question about you pointed that we might not look into having them do the inspections for the marijuana tax and I'm just curious about would that be an option in the audit later I understand that our police department would be doing the initial oversight for it but would that still be an option in the agreement here? I think we broke it out we can choose one compliance audit or not we could choose multiple compliance audits we could do one financial or zero financial so I just chose one compliance and one financial to kind of show what I think would be worst case but with the compliance audit that first year a lot of that stuff the PD is already going to be looking at so I don't know that we need to pay an extra $1200 no question any other questions? at this time I'd like to ask the public if there's any questions from the public seeing none bring it back to council for a motion I'll move staff recommendation second I hear a motion and second all those in favor? okay it passes moving on to a one quick comment I just want to thank you for taking the time to reach out for that RFP because I think it's a great opportunity for us to take advantage of that so thank you for that and I do have a question Jim if you could come back sorry should I refer to you as the finance director or as the capitol city treasurer now you are the city treasurer so item 10c introduction of an ordinance submitting the municipal code and we have a presentation good evening mayor and council before you tonight is an update to our bicycle and PTD personal transportation device ordinance the current one is from 1951 to say it's outdated is a little bit of an understatement so we're moving forward the biggest change is the change in technology surrounding bicycles with the new technology of smart bicycles and bicycle shares and scooters we don't want to be the next article on the front page of the Santa Cruz Sentinel saying there's been a scooter drop in capitol and so we've got tonight this ordinance is to protect us from that to make sure that any future bike share or scooter share has a proper contract with the city and also to update our ordinance knowing that there's now new technology on how bicycles are parked with dockless technology and GPS systems some of the work that's been done this past September we reached out regarding a future bike share program for the city of capitol we launched a survey there was a lot of support for a future bike share system the major points that came back in the survey were let's make sure it's safe and make sure we're prepared in terms of how these bicycles will be parked and mitigate impacts that are often associated with bike shares and also making sure that that we're just prepared and that the other part of it was the regional component that there was support for a regional system so I'll jump into the ordinance changes the first was to amend chapter 10.4 general provisions it was just to move the sections about bicycles into the bicycle section of the code and to get rid of outdated references next under chapter 10.4 some of the major components of the changes to the ordinance were to add definitions so definitions for the new technology that exists including personal transportation devices which include our electronic bikes and our motorized scooters and also to bring in those new shared components the shared mobility services we also there was in the outreach that we've done concern for helmets and under state law anyone under the age of 18 must wear a helmet while riding a bicycle we reference we have a new reference to the state code in our code one requirement that has been in our code is that bicycles are prohibited on sidewalks under the new ordinance it'll state that it prohibits both bicycles and PTDs on sidewalks looking into this a little bit further in all the conversations we've had as staff there is concern about children and not being able to ride their bicycles on a sidewalk so diving into that deeper today we realize that there is some federal standards that will recommendations put out by the national highway traffic safety administration stating that the safest place to ride your bike is on the street but for children under the age of 10 they're not mature enough to make decisions necessary to safely ride in the street so therefore the best practice for children under 10 would be to allow them to ride on your sidewalks so with that they're at your direction we could modify the drafted code to say no person shall ride a bicycle or PTD on a sidewalk other than children less than 10 years of age so simple fix for that to make sure that we're not pushing our little four-year-olds out into the busy streets so another is other changes that occurred is that bicycle racks in the public right-of-way will require approval of the public works department and also one gap that we had in our code before is we've had pedicab operators come to the city ask how they could operate within the city and we haven't had any type of system in our code and we now have a new system that they would have to come in get a business license and if they wanted to operate on city property also to have an encroachment permit and also added to the code which I mentioned is new standards for shared mobility services so if we were to have a bike share company come in or a scooter share that it would have to be authorized we have to have a business license and a contract with the city that's authorized by the city council so that would come to you for authorization before they could operate we've also added new removal and impoundment standards so in the situation where somebody leaves a bike where it doesn't belong or if there were a scooter drop off to the city we have a means to enforce to impound those and not at our expense so the big changes and this was in all the conversations that we had before our different committees was we really need to focus in on the parking regulations so the new parking standard that's drafted requires that all bicycles and P.T.Ds be parked in a bicycle rack and then with an exception that if there is not a bicycle rack or bicycle facility within 50 feet of the trip end then a bicycle may be parked on the sidewalks but in compliance with the following so the first is that the device has to be locked and that was a key I met with Claire she's involved with transportation at the city of Santa Cruz so she's had a lot of experience with what's been going with bike share there and she said it's essential that you make sure that you have to be locked to something that's fixed to the ground so the device is locked in an upright position to an object fixed to the ground and I'd like to fix the language to say including a sign pole or a light pole because I don't want to leave it open to etc so and then another standard that is also included that is that in the central village the sidewalk must maintain 5 feet pedestrian circulation and all other parts of the city would be 4 feet which is consistent with ADA also free locking bikes shall be parked in a manner that complies with this section and is not hazardous to pedestrians vehicular traffic or property and that no person shall park, stand or lock a bike or a PTD to the street tree planter box or public bench so really those free locking bikes that they're required to follow all the regulations of a normal bike so my recommendation tonight is to approve the first reading of the ordinance amending municipal code title 10 vehicles and traffic to amend Chapter 10.04 to repeal Chapter 10.44 and then to adopt the new Chapter 10.44 for bicycles and personal transportation devices so I have no questions. Any questions to the staff? I just want a confirmation I've had some questions come to me about whether or not we are actually approving a bike sharing service tonight and I had said no but I just wanted to publicly confirm that that is not what's happening right now. That is not what's happening. Thank you. Yeah, on the how they're parking, you go back to the first pictures that bar that comes out on the jump bikes do we have any or will public works have a override for that or if a bike is parked and it blocks something is there any built-in mechanism how we you can actually pick up the bike from the back and move it even though it's locked they're extremely heavy but you can move it I'm just saying it's parked someplace where it's obviously an obstruction somebody parks it in some inappropriate right that lock I just wanted a PD or public works what would be their mechanism to move a bike that was locked so within the contract we'll have a specific time amount of time in which they have to respond to our calls but that's a great question I can find out if there's actually a code that we could get because it would be very helpful I mean if somebody parks their car in obvious place we have a toad immediately and in this case I don't want to wait six hours which they may think is a quick response to remove something and I'm just wondering there's got to be a way to override that and just look if you're even just going to look into it and another solution would be for public works to have its own passcode just to unlock it as a user and move the bike so yeah I mean somehow in this if there was a contract with some agencies there would have to be some I don't see why there would be a problem giving that to public works or PD or whoever would be that ultimately when we do bring a contract for jump bikes I think we're going to want to look very carefully at the provisions around improperly parked bikes and how those are reported and dealt with sure, thank you any other questions? yeah, Sam, sorry a couple questions, thank you mayor on the old section 10.44 there used to be there are three sections pertaining to licensing of bicycles which are being eliminated and that's probably a good thing for private individuals but a couple of questions one I recall one of the reasons why we had implemented those sections or one useful part of it was that people could register their bikes with the police department and then if they were stolen there was a mechanism for finding the rifle owners because they were registered bicycles will we still be able to do that or are we getting rid of any possibility of doing that and my second question is shouldn't the shared bicycles the jump bikes won't they be licensed or registered we'll have some record of what bicycles are in our community and how will that be handled will that be handled through the contracting process since we no longer have a ordinance requiring licensing so for the bike share question that would be managed through the contract so we would have a set amount of bikes that would be for Capitola and then we would just make sure that inventory exists the licensing of the individual bikes would be complex within a regional system some trips will start in Capitola and end in Santa Cruz while other trips would start in Santa Cruz and in Capitola so the individual numbers for each bike wouldn't work but the through the contract they'll be required to keep to maintain a certain amount of bikes within Capitola and they rebalance them each night and they'll move bicycles around and get them back to their communities which will that mean that we may not be able to track particular bicycles and if they were involved in an incident identify who the rider may have been so that's what I and yeah it's regional but I assume the city of Santa Cruz maintains their list of registered bicycles and so that they can identify you know each particular bicycle and then ultimately who the users may have been within the smart technology they will be able to each bicycle has its own identification and they can track the different users so if it's parked improperly they can charge a fee to that person send out a warning so they do have a everything's tracked individually so we could if there were an issue we would be able to track it through the individual bike I think we have a comment from the Chief and I think Mayor Bertrand and Council Member I think I might be able to provide some information with regard to your first question any bicycle licensing historically you're right Santa Cruz the city of Santa Cruz maintains a bicycle licensing program albeit a few number of people take advantage of that Capitola residents can license their bikes if they choose to in the city of Santa Cruz and that's been the case for many years we have licensed over the last ten plus years less than five bicycles on an annual basis okay so that doesn't mean however that if we were conducting an investigation for a stolen bike of course our goal is to recover the bike on behalf of the victim the most beneficial piece of information with that bike is the serial number that I think is stamped about every bike anymore and that's been the case because there have been so few people who take advantage of licensing bicycles through municipalities I hope that answers your question yes it does, thank you to you if I may have a couple more questions one under the new section 10.44 under group operation it basically says that bicycle riders riders of bicycles are personal transportation devices must ride in single file except on pass the parts of Verovae set aside for the exclusive use of bicycles and PTDs I was wondering how that intersects because I notice sometimes we've seen signage that says that bicycles may use full lanes and and I'm not aware that we have posted roads of that nature where bicycles may basically take up the full lane maybe side to side, abreast and my understanding that that's legal for them to do that how does that interface with this section that requires them to ride in a single file we have the chief respond to this thank you Mayor Bertrand, council member story let me first talk about the California vehicle code and the language in the code that we're talking about in this regard to your question where a roadway has a designated bicycle lane it is very clear in the California vehicle code that bicycles shall use that bicycle lane with the exception of four instances and I'll read them to you from the code so that we're clear when the bicycle is overtaken and passing another bicycle vehicle pedestrian within the lane or about to enter the lane if the overtaken and passing for a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway they can be outside of the bicycle lane when reasonably necessary to leave the bicycle lane to avoid debris or other hazardous conditions and when approaching when approaching a place where a right turn is authorized so that's clear in the vehicle code the vehicle code has no language with regard to bicycles writing in a group versus bicycles writing single file etc if that answers your question well I guess you know those instances where you see signs posted that says bikes may use full lanes how does that come into play or when is that allowed or authorized is it necessary that that be posted that there be that signage before they can do that so we can make that distinction I'm not familiar with the signage but I'll make an assumption that that signage is necessary when a bike is on a roadway the vehicle code treats that bicycle just like it does a vehicle in a rider's shell obey all vehicle code laws old San Jose road has those signs coming all the way down perfect example where it does say bicycle may use entire lane and bicycles is what they do they'll just pull out in front of you how to use that lane apparently that's what the sign says I think a public works director can shed some light on this he has experience with the Cheros and this sort of so we do have those signs and capital actually coming down Warf Road down the hill we have them there I think they may also be on capital avenue coming down from the highway and they're intended to empower the bike to take the traffic lane to a place where there's no bike lanes and where they are able to ride and take the lane and it's kind of an advisory more to cars than it is to bikes it goes both ways it's right to advise cars that you're going to see bikes in the travel way there so that's the purpose of the signs whether or not they can ride single file or not I think that's another issue but that's the purpose of the signs and we do have them in capital well I just think we need to be aware I mean this seems to require that all bicycles ride in single file but my experience and my observation is that when they're allowed to use the full lane that they won't and if there's multiple riders you know sometimes they'll be abreast in that lane so but I mean we will just have to I think exercise discretion in view of this code and those situations where they are allowed to ride abreast or to across and it might be worth mentioning that the vehicle code does make it very clear that it allows local jurisdictions to introduce code that would be more restrictive than the vehicle code so for instance a code that suggests single file riding on the runway or in the bicycle lane okay well thank you I won't belabor that any further I guess one of the minor point or question I'd like to raise and our old code in referenced that the traffic regulation supply to persons riding bicycles or animals and we're now deleting animals and I know it never happens or rarely ever happens and but I recall I think one time we had a cowboy ride through town and just this past December I saw a donkey on the capitol beach and so I mean are we eliminating the reference to animals on the premise that it never happens or so rarely happens we don't need to enforce the traffic regulations for well mostly horseback riders that's correct so we did think this one through and said you know there may be the off chance that someone rides a horse through town but most likely it's going to be associated with a parade or a special event so at this time we thought it would be appropriate to remove the reference to animals but it is they would have to follow the rules and regulations of the road if they were on them and by having it in the code it protects us from that so if you so choose we could leave that in the code I mean I don't know Chief how you feel about removing animals from following you know the traffic regulations if they should be in town and they have to signal animals follow traffic regulations better than humans do I have no problem removing the language I agree with Katie that it would be a special event where typically an animal would be in the roadway and having to follow a specific then that fine that answers my concern thank you Mayor I have no further questions any other questions I have a question sort of a follow up on what Sam brought up in terms of group rides I think we all know that we have a number of group rides that come through Capitola Saturday morning or Sunday morning I forget which you know there's many times when a whole slew of 10 or 20 people go through so what this is saying that we're not going to allow that anymore and I sort of have a problem with that I have nothing against group rides they seem to be fairly well organized there's Santa Cruz Bike Club they might have a group ride that comes through so is there some way we could get around this so that we don't I would suggest that you think of it as a means to for us to police your non-traditional group ride if ever there was a group that was an acting and following the that wasn't you know following the regular rules of the road and they were being mischievous we'd have a way in which to say actually we have a regulation within the code that as group riders you're supposed to ride single file and I don't think the intent is to pull over 30 that we see go that probably start off in West Cliff and end up in Aptos and turn you know so but if you don't want it in there it could be removed it's really a standard when we drafted the update I actually took language from the starting point was the Santa Cruz code which I think they have more issues with people that aren't always following the rules when riding with as a group so this was taken from there and if we don't have that issue here in Capitola then we could remove this section it was just for those instances when a group needs to be talked to if they're so I've seen what you're referring to in Santa Cruz and it could be quite wild and so I could understand why Santa Cruz has that rule about no group rides it's quite wild tell you the truth and so they do need some way to deal with it at least in Capitola I haven't seen anything like that and I do know that we have fairly well organized groups that come through Capitola and I don't want to make that impossible for them so I would not want to support the group ride operation I don't know what other council members feel would it be reasonable to have the wording say something along the lines of all people or all persons shall take reasonable measures to ride in single file I'd rather go to the public and then bring it back and then we can have a discussion so if you want to this is beyond the question and answer okay so at this point I'd like to open to the public for comment thank you council members mayors I'm David Fox I live up at 320 McCormick I've lived there for 42 years I want to thank staff for everything that's done I'm writing this new thing but at the same time I would like to point out you're talking about doing a jump bike thing do not sign their boiler plate contracts keep in mind the city of Capitola I've been to many places take Pacific beach and their bikes are literally everywhere and you can't lay it on the police department to take care of this department down there it's just overwhelmed with complaints they have to take care of the normal police business not taking care of stupid bicycles left on corners so when you come up to approving this contract keep in mind the city and the people we're a pedestrian town we everybody loves Capitola because it's so pedestrian so just look out for our citizens that's all thank you Mr. Fox according to what you just said if I may there's no cybox on your street so where are you going to put it in someone's yard totally understand Karen good evening Karen and Hannah and I know this is just the ordinance so I'm just expressing some concerns totally 100% agree with him that this contract is going to be tricky because we already have a problem with bicycles on the sidewalk down in the village there appears to be no way to enforce that so if we're going to encourage visitors and people who aren't familiar with the village to come down and ride into the village I think that Capitola is one and I'm a cyclist I ride to work every day I really know the roads in Santa Cruz County and I think Capitola Village is one of the most dangerous places to ride a bike if you don't know what you're doing my daughter fell on Monterey Avenue off her bike broker jaw I don't think any of you remember Dennis Noonan who was a merchant in the village for quite a long time he knocked out all his front teeth coming down Cliff Avenue you can't get into this village without going down a hill and if you don't have a helmet I mean I even brought my helmet tonight don't leave home without it it's my theory so I think that it's a little different than Santa Cruz and I think it's worrisome but I know you're going to have public hearings on that and we'll address all that at that time even the issue of under 10 years old you can ride on the sidewalk you can't get a helmet down there after the junior guards get out sometimes after schools out the kids are all over the sidewalks down there and if you really do have a young child you know 5 or 6 years old and the parents are riding with the parents are going to be in the street with cars in between and the kids are going to be on the sidewalk anyway we already have a big problem down there and so if and when you get ready to be looking at that contract the parents are very worried about who do we call when there's a bright red bike parked in front of the store for all day or two days or whatever and I agree the police department is not in a position to be responsive to every one of those phone calls so I don't know if we can be the first city that actually comes up with some answers for some of these problems but I think it's worrisome but I approve of the making the changes and I'm absolutely surprised so I'm supportive of the changes I just want to have as much notice and as much information about the possibility of the jump bikes coming to town thank you any other comments from the public seeing none I bring it back to the council for a motion I was talking a little bit about the operation of group bikes you did have a comment Kristen and I think we left it at that I still have a problem with prohibiting group rides so that's sort of my stance on that any comments from the public I have a comment this is just we're just trying to adopt an ordinance there's no bike program so we'll be clear on that and we're just working over the language because obviously there will be many hearings and bigger crowds when we start talking about that you know it's kind of a there's what we're doing I think I appreciate all the comments by the police chief because what we have to keep in mind first and foremost is the vehicle code because bicycles fall under the vehicle code and I'm totally against removing any consideration for the group ride because there's no special exemption to the vehicle code if the group rides coming through there they don't own the road I think that they should conform to the vehicle code I personally seen a group of 40 motorcycles come into the village and assume that because the first bike has stopped that all the rest of them can just go right on through the stop sign and I know the chief would tell me that that's not consistent with the vehicle code but do we enforce that probably we don't I mean it's something that happens they go through and it's probably quicker for all 40 of them to go through but I don't think that we should be making exceptions to encourage a group to come down you know if they come down as a group and we see the rider they come down I think most of them are prudent riders they don't exercise that but as far as adopting an ordinance the ordinance means to be consistent with the vehicle code so I'm for the single file staying in the bike line if the sign is already there that's posted that says may use full lane well then I think that's already a provision for them to use the full lane I think that part of the vision of the RTC is we're trying to get people out of their cars and into their bikes a user friendly place and so I'm not trying to discourage bicycles by any means but I think it's very important that they need to follow the laws and being consistent with that I think we should leave the language in that was added about 10 year olds unfortunately I don't want to encourage any bicycle to be on the sidewalk but I don't want to go against federal regulations with what's required so I was okay with that language that was added other than that all the language that was in there I was fine with any other comments that Christian Mr. Mayor based on some of the public comment about the children under 10 on the sidewalk you we may not want to include the village in that exception the village sidewalks are quite congested and we already don't allow skateboarding in the village and I'm imagining an 8-9 year old riding their bike down Esplanade and in the town I grew up in in the downtown couldn't bike on the sidewalk regardless of your age just due to the congestion of pedestrians so I know staff suggested providing the exception for under 10 we may also want to carve out the village just wanted to toss that out based on some of the comments that we heard from the public and thinking about sort of the level of congestion we see in the summer I'm not sure that what's the legality of that if it's in conflict with federal laws so to be clear that wasn't federal law that was federal guidance from the NTSB so the NTSB they'll look at all sort of data and kind of provide best practices if you will and that's basically their advice is in general sidewalks are not considered a safe place to ride a bike except for children under 10 and their data shows that that can be a safer place if it's not a law then I'll retract that I mean I don't encourage bikes on the sidewalk I thought it was we're being compliant with the federal law if it's just a suggestion absolutely we don't need any bicycles on the sidewalk so I would strike that I would be forced striking that language so what I was suggesting was maybe in Cliffwood Heights the sidewalk is an appropriate place for an under 10 year old but in the village itself I'm totally fine with what you just said that language just village specific can you define village the way we've defined village in the past for the skateboarding ordinance is effectively the train tracks that Monterey and here on Capitol Avenue and then the top of the hill at Cliff the train tracks effectively at Worf Cap Av Monterey and then the top of the hill at Cliff anything on the B side of the train you cross the tracks you're in the village yeah got it okay can I that definition I'm a little concerned and I get it down in the village proper in front of the stores but for kids that are riding down Monterey which there's a sidewalk there I think young children should be able to use the sidewalks instead of going down in the street on that particular street and so and you know on Cliff I mean there aren't sidewalks there in any event until you get down to closer to Stockton Bridge so I don't know that that's an issue but I would like to see if we're going to carve out this exception that we keep that hill down Monterey out of the exception so that little kids can use that sidewalk maybe we should come up with a pure definitive area because it comes up very often and we always are ambiguous about what we call it so maybe this is a great starting point for finally defining it I would add that the bridge Stockton Bridge should be another place for ten years old and under two to cross over because in thinking about the spirit of what we're trying to do it would seem to me that I have a map up here on the screen it would seem to me that the place where we wouldn't want anyone riding on the sidewalk is the Esplanade Capitol Avenue between Stockton and Monterey and maybe not on maybe not on Stockton and that may be it what can staff come back with a definition for us to consider sure, sure the question is can we get through this as a first reading without trying to define it the idea of kids on either sidewalk or on the streets if we could come up with a definition Karin came up with something that's actually a very real thing it's mayhem there I don't think we should be worried about the first reading I think we should be worried about finally defining what the village is and taking this opportunity to take the time and direct staff to go back and come back and we should nail this down because you know what it's been very ambiguous for a long time with the villages could we tonight then just say we can add the Esplanade Village I mean Esplanade I mean that seems to be where we're seeing the most impact of foot traffic and everyone seems to agree that that's really where we want not to see little ones on their bikes on on the sidewalks yes we could add the language that it does not include that they'd be prohibited along the Esplanade and it would probably make sense to also include Capitola Avenue and that section of Monterey headed towards Esplanade Park and Stockton this short piece between Esplanade and Capitola Avenue on Stockton Avenue that would be my recommendation of the type people feel comfortable with that for the time being because what Ed brings up is sort of a definition of the village at large which could be a little bit more like people want to be in the village as opposed to just you know something close to the village so defining the village you know within the zoning code and the general plan we've got the central village as a mixed use village within our general plan it's very defined within the general plan land use map we also have the central village district or it's now the mixed use village under the new zoning code so there's two areas that we define it in terms of land use for this is a different exercise you know in terms of skateboards we've defined the village as exactly what Jamie had stated previously so it's really for a bicycle if we want people to be able to cross the sidewalk a lot for Stockton bridge and to get into the village I think it's different than an exercise of just clearly defining the village it's where can bicycles travel where can a nine year old where do they have to walk their bicycle through the village should they walk their bike over the Stockton bridge or down the hill it's um so if we want to treat them just like a skateboard I think this is a great opportunity for us to be consistent I don't know why we're trying to resolve this right now we obviously brought up something that there's some controversy on and I think that the skateboard ordinance and the bicycle ordinance should be consistent why would we want to try to impose two separate ambiguous ordinances okay it's hard enough for us to for the PD to enforce any kind of a skateboard ordinance and now we're going to talk about bikes on the sidewalk and we're going to say well no Stockton is okay up to the bridge but why would we make it confusing why don't we take a step back come back with a recommendation and come up have police department weigh in and you know do we want how far do we want them going up Monterey how far do we want them going to the trestle do we want to assume the trestle I don't think we should be just trying to just you know throw in ideas right now I think we should bring us back some good information okay City Council can we just go along with what Ed said and come back with a recommendation for later that they've actually thought through and we're not going to parse it out right now it's just going to take too much time is that agreeable with everyone do we have time to continue this item to work on what Ed was talking about yeah so the number one pressing issue really is the potential scooter dump in Capitola our existing code does provide the public works director with the authority to remove scooters it's strengthened in the proposed code so I think that we do have some wiggle room the urgency to bring it forward was to help make it very clear that if we did have a scooter dump we could impound the scooters I don't think we're wide open without it so I do think we could extend it two weeks because I think it does deserve some thought you know thinking about where's the smoking bam where's the skateboard bam where should we say that there's no bikes on the sidewalk I think it deserves a little bit of thought should they all be the same or is there a logical reason why they should be different so we can work with that stuff if it was June or May and summer was here I'd be worried about a scooter dump it's not bothering me right now okay so I think Yvette's suggestion was a good one just you know at least start at the normal what we think of the village as and then go from there but you're gonna come back with something and we'll think about it in two weeks okay I'd like to also include something about bike ride group bike rides I am very concerned about that I agree with Ed that there are cases where we don't want to see like tons of motorcycles come through town and what that may entail I think the city of Santa Cruz does have a particular type of problem with group rides I mean it's quite rowdy I've seen it on multiple occasions generally speaking we have very well organized group rides that come through here they may not be clubs but they're definitely organizing and going on for years so I'd like some more thought about that and I think Ed's point is good it should be consistent with the state California law I think everyone on this board would agree with that so I'd like some definition of that and how we may deviate from that the police chief did say that we have the option to be stricter so that would be on the document for us I have a quick comment if I'm reading this correctly and correct me if I'm wrong we could still move forward with the section 10.04 it's just 10.44 that we're having concerns about correct so we could still move forward with a motion to so I'm gonna go back to staff recommendation here well that's what I'm asking if that's something that if I'm correct in understanding we could still approve the first reading of the ordinance amending municipal code title 10 vehicles and traffic amending chapter 10.04 general provisions and then leave it at that correct because it's 10.44 that has the issues about bicycles on the sidewalk correct so is that are we okay with that I'm not sure what we would gain by you know the particular ordinances and passing one now the only thing they're concerned about is the dumping of the bikes I don't know if what council member Peterson is suggesting would help that I mean I and part of the change is actually moving stuff from 10.04 to 10.44 and so if we don't do that then I'm kind of confused I'm kind of confused moving forward dude does that make sense to move it to look at it all at one time so 10.04 is still in place right now you're not supposed to ride bicycles on the sidewalk and then once the 10.44 is adopted and all this information moves into it okay I would take that back I'd like to make a motion that we continue this item to the next regular scheduled meeting of the city council for the staff to work on the various issues that we've raised here this evening second so moved no additional discussion I would like that I mean I would like now on the sidewalk issue instead of just looking at the village as staff to also look at other parts I mean because this is a comprehensive citywide ordinance look at other locations that we maybe haven't thought of where it would be appropriate for children to ride on the sidewalk and maybe appropriate not so that's my only request so it's been a motion and second and open for comments okay I do have one comment that I've been holding back on we're part of the safe routes to school program and we've been trying to work with the Soquel school district conjunction with them to make sure that more kids ride their bikes to school and I just happen to live across the street from New Brighton and I've noticed since this program has happened that more and more kids are taking bikes to school and they're coming from all over the city from what I could tell so in the vein of what Sam just said I think this is something kids could be following from all over place I know they come off of Hill Street for instance they're coming over the Highway 1 bridge so and New Brighton being a middle school the students are going to be 10 and up right it is 10 up you're absolutely right on that but this is a phenomenon for a lot of kids not just Sam you're absolutely right about that no kid at New Brighton okay so there's a motion and a second who's second you did okay all those in favor aye okay so that gets us back to German during this meeting thank you very much thank you