 Madam City Clerk, are we ready to roll? Madam City Clerk, are we ready to start the meeting? Mm-hmm. I can't hear him. Can you hear me, Mayor? I can, yes. I can't hear him. One second. One second. Shredham, we are figuring out a brief technical difficulty. I don't know if that matters or not. Can you guys hear me? I can't hear you. I'm clear. Yep. Can you hear me now, Mayor? I can, yes. I still can't hear him. Okay. Can you try again, Mayor? Can you hear me? Now I can hear you. Thank you. Thank goodness for IT. Okay. We'll go ahead and reconvene the December 1, 2020, Santa Rosa City Council meeting. Madam City Clerk, can we do a roll call, please? Yes. Council Member Dowd? Here. Council Member Tibbetts? Here. Council Member Sawyer? Council Member Sawyer? Here. Council Member Sawyer? Here. Council Member Rogers? Here. Council Member Oliveris? Here. Vice Mayor Fleming? Here. Council Member Sawyer, have you joined us? Yes, here. Thank you. Mayor Shredham? Here. Let the record show that all council members are present. Thank you so much. Hey, we'll do these meeting reminders. First, council members, keep your audio on mute unless you're speaking. Staff will remain muted until meeting to speak. As members of the public join the meeting, you'll be participating as an attendee. Your microphone and camera will be muted. Only today's panelists will be viewed during the meeting for calling in from a telephone and choose to speak during the public comments portion of today's agenda for privacy concerns. The host will be renaming your viewable phone number to resident in the last four digits of your phone number. The City of Santa Rosa is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment free from disruption. We will not tolerate any hateful speech or actions and are well staffed to monitor that everyone is participating respectfully or they will be removed. Madam City Clerk, could you explain how public comments will be heard at today's meeting? Yes. After each agenda item is presented, the mayor will ask for council comments and then open it up for public comment. The host and Zoom will be lowering all hands until public comment is open for the agenda item. Once the mayor has called for public comment, the mayor will announce for the public to raise their hand if they wish to speak on the specific agenda item. If you are calling in to listen to the meeting audibly, you can dial star nine to raise your hand. The host will then call on the public who have raised their hands. Public comment will be limited to three minutes and a timer will appear on the screen for the council and public to see. Once all live public comments have been heard, the meeting host will play voicemail public comments. If you provide a live public comment on an agenda item but also submitted an email, e-comment, or recorded voice message public comment, your e-mail, e-comment, or voice message public comment will not be duplicated, read, or played during the meeting. Additionally, there are two public comment periods on today's agenda to speak on non-agenda matters. Items 13 and 17. This is a time when any person may address the council on matters not listed on the agenda, but which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council. Okay. Thank you for that. Madam city attorney, would you like to report out on the closed session item, please? Yes. The council met in closed session on item 2.1, which is pending litigation and gave direction to staff. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Okay. We have no proclamations. Mr. city manager, we have reports on our staff free fees item seven. Yes. We do not have our report on 7.1, but we do have a report on 7.2. And I will read that. The state's limited stay at home order for all California counties currently in the purple tier remains in effect through at least December 21st. The order applies to all of Sonoma County as an end is in effect from 10pm to 5am daily, unless individuals are performing essential work. All non-essential activities outside of the household are not permitted during the curfew hours. The state's limited stay at home order restrictions for counties in the purple tier. The announcement was made as the governor revealed that California is experiencing the highest rate of increase in COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic. And it is anticipated that the new cases resulting from Thanksgiving gatherings are expected to add to the surge within the next two weeks. No timetable is provided for when a new more restrictive order may be issued. With all this in mind, we continue to urge our residents to celebrate the upcoming holidays at home with your members of your own household only. Always wear a mask when going out into the public. Refrain from traveling over the holidays as much as possible unless for essential purposes. If you do decide to travel for non-essential purposes and have increased your risk, you have increased your risk of potential COVID-19 exposure, you should quarantine for two weeks to ensure you do not spread the virus to others. Finally, last week, new Sonoma County guidelines were published to address temporary structures, tents, and canopies for outdoor dining setups at restaurants and restaurants. These guidelines help clarify the requirements for meeting both COVID-19 safety needs and the fire protective measures in a more consistent manner across Sonoma County. Those guidelines and details on all of their information provided in this update can be found at srcity.org backslash prevent the spread. Next up, unless there's any questions, is the glass fire recovery update by Mr. Paul Lowenthal. Are there any questions on that last update from Mr. McLean by any council members? Not CNA. Thank you. Mr. Lowenthal, you're on. Actually really fast, Mr. Mayor, if I could before. So, Mr. City Manager, one of the things that the governor presented yesterday was the expected capacity for ICU beds by a region. And while the Bay Area looked at the state, are we starting to get into talks again about what to do with folks if we do start to exceed our ICU capacity here locally? We have not been. The county is handling that issue. We'll be checking in with them in that capacity during this week. We're not directly involved in those conversations at this point. I do know, obviously, we had SSU was set up as well as then up in Healdsburg utilizing one of their motels. So I am curious if we can put out information on what the backup plan is for folks if we do reach our capacity. We'll reach out to the county to see if they have any additional information to provide. Great. Thank you. Seeing no other hands up. Mr. Lowenthal. Mr. Mayor, vice mayor, members of the council. My name is Paul Lowenthal. I have a couple of comments that we would like to have. A couple of points. We have two past boroughs with Kam 하니까 and Robins. The city, county and state debris task force continues to be Monday through Friday and the city's debris task force meeting a second time Monday through Thursday. We're also joining in and working with the watershed task force two days a week. with you as Kemplin discussed last week we were wrapping up the phase one so there were seven properties in the city where the state was unable to complete the phase one household hazardous waste removal that was completed on Wednesday of last week so all parcels within the city of Santa Rosa are done now with phase one we used a contract through our own city house our own hazardous waste contractor to get those done for the state so that our community members can now freely choose which phase two program they're going to go through so the deadline to pick the program is the 15th of this month and that's to opt in to the state's right of entry program for their debris removal or the private debris removal program. The state has started their process as of today they have begun mobilizing equipment into the county conducting their site assessments asbestos abatement as well as their 8-1-1's for the dig ins and they intend to start actually physically removing debris by at least Friday of this week so with that we've been pushing very hard to work with our community members that have eligible debris to get them into the program directly. Adrian Mertens has been working on a lot of the communications on that. Jesse Oswald our building official right now we're tracking seven private opt-outs and 10 right of entries so we've got to get our numbers up I got a couple weeks to do that. The biggest thing we're pushing right now in addition to the the number of structures that were destroyed in the glass fire within the city limits is the 1151 parcels that were affected by the fire. The addition of the tree removal program by the state for the hazardous trees has been one of our big priorities our number one priorities to avoid what we have experienced here locally following the tubs fire. You can drive around our community you can see a lot of the dead and dying trees that are continuing to collapse especially in the cross creek areas and certain parts of Santa Rosa that we are hoping to avoid this year so the state's tree removal program is new and we are pushing to get our community to understand the program and that if they have a tree that is likely to die within five years and will is a threat to our right away or any sort of public infrastructure they are encouraged to complete a right of entry and the state will evaluate the trees and with an arborist and will remove them they will remove the tree the drop it and remove it through the normal right of entry process so we've been working hard to get that direct communication into our rink and valley Malita road Los Alamos and Oakmont residents so again a lot of work is going into getting them to understand that and we're continuing to work with Cal OES to push that program here locally. PG&E has completed as of last week with the exception of eight trees all their P1 priority trees I think there was roughly 9,000 of them they were halfway through their P2 trees the P2 trees were their second priority and they're halfway through thousands of those that were removed. One thing that has come up that we want to bring some situational awareness to council on that we're working kind of behind the scenes but it has now been coming up at some of our community meetings and we're getting some feedback from our residents is regarding the trees that were removed by PG&E. In 2017 PG&E had a wood program where when they removed trees that were felled on private parcels they removed that wood if the the resident authorized it because ultimately the wood is the responsibility of the owners at some point that program stopped and the issue we run into here locally is that PG&E has felled and reduced the hazard of the tree that was interfering with their ability to repair and replace infrastructure however it has now been determined that because the tree has been felled that no longer qualifies for the state's program. So Santa Rosa pushed this issue pretty hard at a debris task force debris task force meeting with a state involved and that led to a meeting that PG&E hosted where the city the county Cal OAS and PG&E met for the first time over our concerns. That concern has now been spread not only from Santa Rosa but to now multiple other counties where they're looking at the issues that we raised here locally and the impacts that some of those decisions and how trees are being felled are negatively potentially negatively impacting residents so we are working very closely with our city manager as well as Cal OAS and the county to figure out how to fix this problem in the future but also how to deal with potentially our residents that have been affected here locally. We don't know what the world looks like yet we are actually going to physically get into the field and see if we can find some examples. We don't know whether it's a couple residents or hundreds of residents here locally but our standpoint right now is that residents should be entitled to some sort of a removal process and because their tree was felled by PG&E and that they're no longer eligible for the state presents a problem that we're looking to address here. We do anticipate that that will come up again during tomorrow night's community meeting which is why we wanted to bring it to your attention here and that is kind of the last final point we have is that tomorrow's meeting community meeting is at five o'clock. We'll be covering the phase two program of the private debris removal program watershed and rebuilding as well as insurance questions so myself, Kempel and Robbins, Jesse Oswald will again be available to represent the city in that community meeting. Adrienne's been working closely. She hosted the last one on behalf of the city and the county will be hosting this one and that is where we're at. Also, if there's any questions. All right, thanks so much Mr. Lonefoul regarding tomorrow's meeting is it open to anyone who's interested in hearing the information? Yeah and the information you can get the access to the meeting by going to srcity.org forward slash glass fire recovery on our city's recovery page. You'll have the link to the meeting and the information. Great, thank you. Questions, Mr. Tibbetts? Thank you Tom. Paul, I got a couple questions for you. I'll start with the PG&E one so what I'm hearing you say is PG&E is going in. They're cutting down the trees to protect their power lines most likely or some form of property owned by PG&E and they're not chainsawing them into trucks or chipping them or anything like that split into fire when they just leave a fell tree on the property. That is correct if it's over four inches in diameter so they will remove the smaller materials however wood over four inch becomes the responsibility of the property owner and the city and Adrienne and a lot of us put together a pretty comprehensive argument that we presented to PG&E and Cal OES last week or actually it's been a week and a half now and we're able to basically use a lot of the information that they provided to us previously in response to our concerns now. So in 17 they removed all the debris to reduce future fire risks here locally in the campfire which was in 18. They instituted a wood removal program in April of 19 so we tried asking some questions of what was the breaking point where they implemented a wood removal program well into a tree removal process but yes ultimately we are concerned with those trees that have been felled for a number of reasons. One is they will present a future fire risk but ultimately we are trying to advocate for future coordination which Cal OES is very open and respective to and it seems like PG&E as well so that again we don't run into the issue we're finding and faced with locally. How many trees did they clear the Tubbs Fire Incident? I have to imagine it was you know a magnitude larger than the 9,000 plus trees that they have to clear here. It was a large number. We had Brian Batari directly assigned to our task force in 17 and this was a standing topic and it was something that came up regularly on in community meetings so I don't know the total number of trees but I do know that we were using that our residents were using it locally. I can remember in a lot of our report outs to the city manager in our task force meetings after that we were pushing and advocated for extensions to that program because it was continuing to be used and I remember a lot of residents in the coffee park community that the mayor was bringing forward to us that we helped advocate for so it was a successful program back then and we're trying to figure out how to connect those dots this time. Well that's my point is we know PG&E is capable of doing it on a scale larger I just you know it's beyond me why they're trying to pull that good will right now or withdraw and I should say you know I guess my final thing is I know that we have an obligation to rough up PG&E when it comes to doing this job and it sounds like you and your team are doing a good job of that I certainly appreciate it but if they if they just decide to say no is the city of Santa Rosa or your office under potentially I don't know the vegetation management ordinance that we have we have any ability to extend this service in the absence of PG&E making it their responsibility. I don't know the answer to that I do know that right now the city manager and I actually have a meeting tomorrow morning at 7 30 because this is an evolving topic but again we wanted to make sure you have some situation awareness because it is coming up and we're hearing about it from our public our goal right now and and it is to figure out what we can do with the kind of the other jurisdictions that are coming forward we're actually on our last 3 30 city debris task force conference call we were actually getting real-time information from the state that three additional counties have come forward with our same concerns so I think behind the scenes the state is helping connect the dots and helping us join up with other other counties and we did let them know that you know with us kind of bringing us to the to the front that we will likely be issuing a letter from the city as well with with our concerns. I'm sorry for all my questions guys but this is making me want to ask more can we take legal action and file suit because it is their property might my argument that I hope you're making is that that resident every time they pay their energy bill whether it's to snow and clean power PG&E also pays a charge for transmission and delivery which pays for that pole and that wire that that tree is threatening so you know in my mind this is the responsibility of PG&E and this is something that the residents are already paying for they're paying for that infrastructure to work into work tree shouldn't fall on it so you know I hope you'll bring that up with them can we pursue any kind of lawsuit Miss Gallagher if it comes down to this against PG&E maybe you have these other counties or cities join in to try to force the point. I'm happy to work with Paul and look into that but I do not have the answer to that question okay yeah I hope we will and Paul thanks I know you're already doing everything you can and you're pulling the punches another question that I had was with the right of entry totals you said there's about 10 private seven public so that's 17 total how many are outstanding about 50 60 so our numbers are are a little skewed for a couple reasons we have seven private opt-outs we have 10 right of entries for structures we have 14 for tree removals in the city limits we have properties that they're actively engaged with but until the right of entry form is actually accepted and approved it doesn't count as statistic so we know we're engaged with a number of properties and there's just some follow-ups and you know a driver's license picture was missing from something so working with those but we're looking at roughly 18 or so that we have outstanding for specifically for for the actual structural removal we had roughly and we that's actually another point we did complete a pretty comprehensive assessment way beyond what Cal Fire did where we actually physically went into the field and into debris fields to look at and get an actual real final count of our structure so we will have that to report to council in the next day or so where you will now have a final how many commercial structures residential structures that include the ad use all the way down to the the uh low skillico's village structures that were destroyed because those are technically in the city limits on county property so we have finished that we'll have the full breakdown so our structure numbers not that high it's roughly 38 structures which is fantastic it's the 1152 or 51 that we're really trying to work with to figure out where the the trees um can cannot can be opted into the system okay thank you paul i appreciate uh all that thanks for your patience guys council any other questions from mr. loanthal seeing them thank you paul for that presentation mr. city manager we have a report on seven point four yes we do uh seven point four tubs fire recovery update and i'd like to invite jennylyn holmes from catholic charities and adam peacock from feather vine to do the presentation hi can you hear us yes okay thanks welcome thanks so um thank you marisha my members of the council um um myself and adam peacock are really excited to be virtually with you to talk a little bit about rocks in oma county i know we've updated the council a few different times uh this is going to be probably our final report out on the tubs 2017 fire recovery work we've been uh pursuing over the last uh few years so uh grateful for the opportunity and all the support that the city has given us so far so uh next slide so just a little bit of background for those that um have heard of rocks in oma county rocks in oma county is a uh collaborative network that addresses the long-term recovery needs related to the disaster of the 2017 sonoma county fires it's a group a collaborative group made up of several nonprofits um and we work together for typically about three to five years uh next slide the big component around uh rock sonoma county and long-term recovery groups it's part of fema's kind of work that they do after a community disaster in order to bring together groups of nonprofits and uh volunteer organizations to work collaboratively to serve the individual who is affected by the disaster and help streamline service for them in the most effective way uh next slide i'm just going to quickly highlight here a couple of the organizations that have been a part of this since the very beginning uh this work wouldn't have happened without these kind of core foundational groups but i will also mention there are uh several dozens other uh nonprofits and volunteer organizations who have been part of this journey with rocks in oma county and in particular our partnership with uh the county the city fema and cal oes has been an important part of how we have been able to educate uh disaster survivors and and working with them on advocating for their needs in their in their recovery pathway so with that i'll turn it over to adam talk a little bit more about how the process works and then we'll talk uh finally to finish up with our accomplishments and answer any questions from the council thank you jenny lin um yeah thank you for the opportunity to present again to you uh this afternoon just to if we can look at the next slide i'd love to talk a little bit more about um the way that rock has done its work and who we help so as jenny lin already mentioned um rock was really created as a long-term recovery group based upon national best practices and frameworks that have been created for disaster assistance we've worked very hard to stay in good relationship with fema cal oes county of sonoma and city of san aroza our collaborative has been based around a committee based model right after the fires in 2017 we had quite a few committees because of the the broad range of help and assistance that was needed but as we moved deeper into recovery really housing became a primary focus for the assistance we're providing so along with an executive committee we had a housing committee that was broken into uh those assisting those who were renters who had their their home destroyed and uh those assisting homeowners um disaster case management which we'll talk more about emotional mental spiritual support and uh communications and unmet needs um the big thing that we want to communicate is that we were available to help all fire survivors so uh anyone of any background and especially those who had significant hurdles to their recovery we were there to be available for them for the long haul but we wanted to do that in a way that protected against duplication of resources we knew that every a dollar that was available for recovery was going to need to be spent wisely and so um if we can go to the next slide about a client's journey um the uh the journey for our fire survivors here in san aroza and sonoma county started by signing up for help um fema opened the local assistance center that was located here in san aroza we had over 16 000 people sign up there at the local assistance center fema told us we would expect about 10 percent of that total number as clients we ended up with a little less than that uh 1223 clients um so uh out of those initial sign ups we had case managers who would meet with the clients to help determine um their eligibility and conduct a needs assessment um one of the benefits of our collaborative is that rather than needing to meet with multiple organizations and kind of rehash their story which could be traumatic for the fire survivor working in a collaborative way allowed us to really wrap the services around them and to really support their emotional journey uh as well as uh understanding how we could get them the resources needed for their recovery um so we really worked to create a process that was client centered and to empower the clients to lead their own recovery process which leads us to uh the next part which is that they developed a recovery plan um the key part of that plan really is sequence of delivery this is a key element of long-term recovery that um the the community support that we're offering really comes in at the end so they utilize all the help that they can get from insurance although many were significantly underinsured or did not have insurance at all um that they would get the government and and other type of community-based support and then uh come to our unmet needs committee and our philanthropic partners uh at the end so as I mentioned earlier we we had 1223 clients that we've begun this journey with um 1045 the vast majority were Santa Rosa residents and so this has been a huge uh endeavor focused around um many in the city of Santa Rosa and as we transition back to Jenny Land around what we've accomplished I just want to say that um our fire survivors really are the heroes of the story many are still in the process of recovery from 2017 but to see those we've worked with um worked so hard to recover has really been a testament to their resiliency and the way this community has come together around them. Thanks Adam um so on the next slide we'll talk a little bit more about the specific numbers of what has happened and we're coming to you because we predict by the end of December 2020 so the end of this month that we will be have completed all of our disaster case management work and all of our long-term recovery work for the 2017 Tubbs Fire so uh over the time we've been working with individuals as Adam mentioned we met with about 1200 clients to assess their needs which were equated to about 15 000 plus interactions with individuals many of the people we worked with needed just kind of minor assistance for example we listed a couple of of those specific examples what we have done um for looking at uninsured equipment uh that was essential for a home office that was destroyed in the fire that was something small we could help with and help them get back on the road to recovery uh we also helped in some scenarios with gap funding for rent while they were transitioning to a new home so the minor assistance uh you know cases helped us to kind of well down those numbers down to about 627 people who we considered to be a level three or four when we triaged them and levels three or four was kind of triaged in the level of in the amount of vulnerability and the amount of loss um and limitations that the individual might have around recovery resources and so with that we worked with about 1200 people they were assigned a disaster case manager to help them navigate the very complex process back to a full recovery we have about 15 cases that are left and open right now but as we mentioned the hope is that those cases will all be closed and people will be back on the the pathway to their housing and recovery by the end of this month uh next slide uh so one of the the committees that ended up becoming a large focus in our work um was our housing committee which was actually chaired by Mayor Schwedhelm at one point we're very appreciative of his leadership on that that endeavor and the housing committee we actually focused a lot of our time on the renting the renter population individuals who lost their rentals in the uh disaster and were not allowed to rebuild as they were only renting and not a homeowner at that time so we were able to help rehouse over 820 renters and we were able to partner with the city of Santa Rosa all of you to provide 48 housing vouchers to the most vulnerable these were really targeted for individuals who really had no options to rebuild no place that they could rent at the amount they were renting before a lot of these individuals that we worked with came from the journey's end a mobile home park um and our sushi uh partners helped with a lot of the housing location uh partnered with the housing and choice vouchers that were provided additionally as Adam mentioned we were able to uh leverage private dollars uh to be able to provide direct client assistance to fire survivors so we were able to disperse over five million dollars of client assistance to fire survivors really focusing in again on the extremely low income and vulnerable population and this oftentimes came in the way of being able to replace um broken tools if that was their trade or in some some of the largest scenarios actually helped them with the cost of their rebuilds because they would financially not be able to have done it without this uh assistance and then lastly we partnered with an organization called Hope City to do volunteer rebuilds they could typically when we work with them they were able to rebuild uh individuals homes at a very uh a low rate uh sometimes half the rate of what a what it would cost if they did not use their volunteer rebuild program and I'll let Adam talk a little bit more about the homeowner work that we did yeah just quickly if we could look at the next slide um we had uh 310 households that were owners that we were able to help get home uh a wide variety of um assistance was provided for both stick builds as well as um mobile homes and modular homes and and all of those efforts and so our construction committee did a tremendous job really helping our fire survivors find what was going to work for them um we were able to provide 1.5 million dollars in funding from local philanthropic organizations and nonprofits to provide really in many cases it was that gap funding that made the difference between I don't want to make it sound over dramatic but with with all that our homeowners were facing here in this community uh staying in the community and the rebuild process it often felt for them the difference when getting home we're giving up and so um just so excited to see them come home and uh you see here pictures of a welcome home dedication from earlier in the fall uh where this is one of the hope city homes that Jenny Lynn mentioned this was built with volunteer labor it's a it's just a absolutely fantastic story and it's going to be featured in the SR city connections e-newsletter going out tomorrow I believe um and so you can read more about it and and we're just so grateful for the partnership with the the um city of Santa Rosa both with the the housing vouchers for the renters but also um with the the community collaboration around projects like this to help homeowners get home so um if we can also look at the next slide I want to highlight one other significant feature about the work that rock has done over the last three years which is that we were able to secure funding to open a rock resource center and so this was a physical space that our fire survivors and disaster survivors could come to for assistance for support and for referral to resources that are available for them to the community and we're able to um establish this as a enough of a presence in the community that it became a hub for some of the additional and subsequent disasters that we have faced um prior to COVID but since 2017 and so um it became a place where resources were made available after the uh Gurrenville floods that we had uh in west county in early 2019 can cave fire and then um ongoing uh this year in 2020 fire assistance and we're excited that we're going to be able to continue to keep this rock resource center available for assisting those who are in need in our community so I'll turn it back to genuine okay um so next slide is the the last piece of information we're just kind of talk about what's next for rock Sonoma County so as I already mentioned all of our 2017 fire recovery cases will be closed by the end of December and one thing that we're really excited we actually just found out about I think it was a week or two ago uh is that rock Sonoma County's disaster case management program has actually been nationally recognized and awarded um a national award for their innovative work around this uh it was through the applied institute for disaster excellence uh and it's being recognized actually later this week at their annual national institute uh additionally they we've been able to develop kind of a uh a manual 100 page manual I think it's 100 pages at this point um that is actually being distributed uh all across California in terms of how to do this work around um fire recovery in particular as we are all very well aware of this was the first time of anything like this had happened in this magnitude and so we're trying to share our lessons learned what worked what didn't work and uh hoping that other communities are able to to learn uh from the work we've done around disaster case management so um again I mentioned how we've been able to to pivot beyond just uh some of the the 2017 response as it's been needed with subsequent disasters um we are currently in the process of looking at what long-term recovery should look like and can look like in responding to the recent fires including the glass update that we just talked about in the the prior item before the council so um we're we're actively looking at how can we continue to take the lessons we've learned in the relational collaborative infrastructure that we've built um to to help our community continue to be resilient as I mentioned we're going to keep the rock resource center open and um I guess as we close I think our last slide just says thank you to the city of Santa Rosa um throughout this entire process um we feel like our city government has made a really strong commitment to this community to help them recover and has really followed through in that process and we're very grateful for the opportunity both to present to you now but like even more for the support that we've found as we've been trying to move this collaboration forward on behalf of our fire survivors so um thank you we hope I hope that you can have a sense of celebration with us for the the work that's been accomplished and especially for the recovery that so many of our of those impacted by the fires in 2017 have been able to make great and I think at this point you know we'll sort of back over to you Mayor Schwedhelm if there are any questions or anything to add great thank you for that presentation are there any questions or comments from anyone on council not seen any um I do want to thank you and compliment you you know it seems like three years ago was just yesterday um but once you start seeing the numbers and it goes back to for me that theme of neighbors helping neighbors I'm just glad that you two in Roxano County are neighbors and you know just like the city of Santa Rosa and many of Mr. McGlynn and his staff paying it forward because unfortunately other communities are going to experience things similar to what we did um but they will learn from some of our experiences so thank you so much for all your time energy and dedication to this effort thank you Mr. Simmons you have your hand up thanks Tom I just wanted to say out of Jenny Lynn thank you both from the bottom of my heart when you brought this forward it seemed like a good idea at the time but you know sometimes as a council member I get worried about the creation of new committees and things like that um but you guys have really hit a grand slam with this from what I can tell based on the data I mean I think what was it 820 or so people renters that you help relocate impaired you paired also with housing choice vouchers I mean I think about what that cost would be to not just the individual who might become homeless or shelterless but to the city specifically since that's since our job is to kind of watch the person the city so I think it's outstanding work and probably a tremendous amount of cost savings there so thank you so much all right we're now taking public comment on item seven staff briefings if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star nine madam host would you please facilitate public comment on item seven as the mayor stated this is public comment on item seven staff briefings the countdown timer is before you for the convenience of the speaker and viewers the first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak when the countdown begins please make sure to unmute yourself when invited to do so your microphone will be muted at the end of the countdown or at the conclusion of your comments there I'm not seeing any hands raised for public comment on item seven staff briefings and there were no public comments submitted via voice message all right thank you so much item eight of tonight's agenda city manager city attorney reports madam city attorney do you have a report for us this evening were you unable to hear that I didn't hear it no I do not have anything to report this evening thank you all right thank you mr. said manager do you have a report for us this evening yes I do I am pleased to announce that the city of santa rosa's Fulton road reconstruction project is the recipient of two awards first the best to the 2020 best projects of award of merit by the engineering news record california region and second the infrastructure project of the year awarded by the american concrete institute northern california region the fault and road reconstruction project between occidental and west third street repaired approximately 2300 linear feet of four lane pavement that supports a remarkable 25 000 vehicles per direction per day the project's innovative design involved the installation of portland cement concrete pavement rather than traditional asphalt pavement while only two percent of the local governments currently use concrete pavement this innovative technology is proving to be less costly longer lasting and requiring less lifetime maintenance than asphalt pavement in october 2019 when the kincade fire broke out the Fulton road was actively under construction the city and crews halted construction and acted quickly to make this major north south traffic quarter drivable evacuation route for those evacuating the fire's path innovation adaptability and sustainability were key to the short and long-term success of this project I congratulate transportation and public works capital projects engineering team traffic engineering team and everyone involved in the project were committed to innovative and sustainable city infrastructure and that concludes my report okay thank you for that report and it is a wonderful project having received the benefits of traveling on that road council any questions on the city manager's report mr tidbits is your hand still up from there we go um see none okay we're now taking public comment on item eight city manager report if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand through dialing via telephone please dial star nine madam host would you facilitate any public comment on item eight thank you mayor as you can see a countdown timer is before you for the convenience of the speaker and viewers the first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak when the countdown begins please make sure to unmute yourself when you're invited to do so your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown at the or at the conclusion of your comment and this is for item eight city manager city attorney report all right mayor no hands are being raised for item eight city manager city attorney report and there were no public comments submitted via voice message okay thank you very much on item nine statements of abstention by council members are there any abstentious mr tidbits thank you mayor i'd like to abstain from item 2.6 the second reading of the ordinance of the resilient city ordinance and again it has to do with the development project i'm pursuing and and some of the provisions in that could help it oh sorry not development tiny houses that's what it was thank you clarification mr tidbits 12.6 yeah i think it was 12.6 let me look sorry it's the resilient city ordinance okay and yeah and um sue it's related to tiny houses because i think one of the big amendments in the ordinance was the addition of tiny houses so that relates to my work yes thank you council member thank you okay it is item 12.6 are there any other statements of abstention on tonight's agenda see none thank you on to item 10 mayors and council members reports are there any reports for this evening's meeting seeing no oh vice mayor phleming yeah i just wanted um you know not this is not so much of a report as just uh um i would like to reinforce the city manager's report out about the COVID-19 concerns related to both the county and the state and encourage people um if they're not already considering um abiding by those regulations to know that um that i hope that i speak with the council but if i don't please speak up that we really hope that people are careful and safe and that you know it's going to be a rough few months and that i think we have a bright spring to look forward to if we're really careful and safe through the winter that's it from me thank you and i asked your question yes i saw a lot of heads nodding from council supportive of your comments so thank you um one thing i would like to report out on uh the public safety subcommittee met on uh november 23rd we had several items that we discussed many of which will be coming to the entire council first we received a presentation on the san rosa fire department wildland resiliency and response strategic plan we also had a presentation from police chief navarro about the san rosa police department staffing and an updated timeline uh for the response the mental illness slash homelessness commonly referred to as the cahoots so all that information is online and lastly received an update on the act after action review update and we gave direction to staff we would like to see uh both of those reports done at the same time at a future council meeting so that will be coming uh in the coming months 2021 uh and with that um i guess we need to take public comment on item 10 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand and if you're dialing if you have phone please dial star nine madame host would you facilitate public comment on item 10 thank you mayor i count down to timer is before you for the convenience of the public participating via zoom and viewing from the government channels and youtube the first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak when the countdown begins please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown mayor there are no hands being raised for public comment on item 10 council member reports all right thank you so much for that uh we have no minutes to approve on item 12 consent calendar mr mcglane mr nut will be taking this item okay welcome soon to be mr nut he is being promoted as we speak there he is congratulations mr nut on your promotion item 12 please thank you very much mayor our item 12.1 resolution professional service agreement with a ecom technical incorporated for city facility energy audit and microgrid study item 12.2 resolution authorizing submittal of substantial cares act amendment number two to fiscal year 2019 2020 action plan to the us department of housing and urban development and acceptance and appropriation of 1.281 million one million two hundred eighty one thousand four hundred and one dollars allocated to the city of santa rosa under the third round of coronavirus aid relief and economic security act the cares act community development block grant cdbg dash cv three item 12.3 ordinance adoption second reading ordinance of the city the council of the city of santa rosa increasing the compensation of the city manager by providing effective july 7th 2019 one at 2.5 cost of living salary adjustment and two an increase to the contribution by the city for the 2019 2020 fiscal year equal to 0.25 of base wage to the city manager's retiree health savings plan for a total contribution of 0.75 of base wage item 12.4 ordinance adoption second reading ordinance of the council of the city of santa rosa amending title 20 of the santa rosa city code to implement the downtown stationary specific ordinance or item 12.5 ordinance adoption second reading organs of the santa rosa council of the city of santa rosa excuse me for i guess the dog doesn't want to stain though the dog is seconding i think oh yeah we've all been there i'm just glad neither mr netter's dog you're asking for help thank you live tv is exciting um all right 12.4 ordinance adoption second reading ordinance of the council of the city of santa rosa amending title 20 of the santa rosa city code to implement the downtown stationary specific plan file number re z two zero dash zero zero eight item 12.5 ordinance adoption second reading ordinance of the city the county council of the city of santa rosa amending title 20 of the santa rosa city code reclassification of 888 properties located within the boundaries of the downtown stationary a specific plan file number re z two zero dash zero zero eight item 12.6 ordinance adoption second reading ordinance of the council of the city of santa rosa amending title 20 of the santa rosa city code to extend and modify chapter 20 dash one six resilient city development measures file number re z two zero dash zero zero seven item 12.7 ordinance adoption second reading ordinance of the council of the city of santa rosa amending plan development pd 403 policy statement to include quote coffee shop dash counter ordering unquote to the list of conditionally permitted uses at the parcel located at four six two zero highway 12 in order to support the operation of a coffee shop with accessory drive through service and extended hours of operation apm zero three two dash one nine zero dash zero two nine file number prj two zero zero zero six thank you that back to council any questions on the consent calendar seeing none would our host please facilitate public comment on item 12 consent calendar now it's a time for public comment on item 12 consent to make a public comment be a zoom raise your hand now if you are participating by telephone dial star nine a countdown timer is before you for the convenience of the speaker and viewers the first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak when the countdown begins please make sure to unmute yourself when you're invited to do so your microphone will be muted at the end of the countdown or the conclusion of your comment again this is for public comment on item 12 the consent calendar may or doesn't look like we have any hands raised for consent we did receive some voicemess as public comments are you okay if i move forward with those public comments yes please do i'm a i'm a mental health worker in sonoma county and i'm calling about item 12.3 uh the city council manager asking for a raise um i would like to ask him if he's heard of the like philosophy of like captain goes down with the boat you know or women and children out first and wonder what he thinks of that um i feel like in our society women and children represent the most vulnerable um and right now the most vulnerable are are houseless those struggling to meet food to get their food um struggling to pay rent and i wonder how often he is able to get coffee um and i wonder how often he has to worry about filling up his gas tank and i wonder how much he's stressing about his electricity bill this winter um some people don't have to worry about an electricity bill because they're sleeping outside tonight um but obviously he needs a seven thousand dollar raise um so i don't know if i feel like if that philosophy was adopted uh women and children first metaphorically speaking most vulnerable first then perhaps we should consider giving ihss workers um the minimum wage which right now they're being paid 13 per hour and minimum wage in sonoma county is 15 an hour even with 15 an hour it is impossible to find even a one bedroom apartment working full time i know this because i experience it i do my co-workers every single day so i'm honestly just shocked and appalled and like a little amused at someone selfishness to ask for seven thousand dollar raise or really any raise when our county have you been downtown lately have you seen the extravagance of people dining out next to the homeless literally sleeping outside of the library they can't go into they can't read books from i i i feel like we need a little bit of a reality check here people like it's winter during the pandemic people are going houseless this is not a good time it's it's it's shameful you should be ashamed of yourself for even asking for a raise right now thank you so much and have a great day sent item 12.3 the wane d wit from roseland last meeting you folks approved a 2.5 percent cost of living adjustment for the city manager's wage and it appeared to some people in the community that every year the city manager has gotten a raise and the same with the city attorney whereas many people working in many good important jobs rarely get yearly raises please explain to the community why you need to spend so much money on a top heavy bureaucracy with the top heavy pension plan regarding item 12.4 the ordinance for the downtown station area plan specific plan as it's called has left out a large portion of the disadvantaged community of roseland though roseland is in that plan specifically dot navineau at sabastopol road running northeast highway 12-101 intersection at all of street underpass numerous residents have stated they didn't get a chance to participate and once while i was at one of the meetings at the library and i asked about roseland involvement the people handling it were like well this isn't about roseland and tried to dissuade my i believe this is a violation of title of the civil rights act involving transportation funding which you get from the metropolitan transportation commission so i would hope you folks would be ready to specifically address that exclusion of the disadvantaged roseland residents by working with the new elected city council person representing roseland and not try to just make that person go along to get along this also deals with 12.5 with the reclassification of those boundaries and those properties so please be fair especially because you've got the resilient city development measures which are affecting roseland more than other areas we've got the highest rate of housing coming in even though our areas weren't burned some people say though we are getting burned by the way you folks are handling that's all with that in mind a good new december to you be well and stay well i'm melinda i'm calling to address section 12.3 i do not think that our city manager should get a raise it's absolutely not a priority right now i would also like to you state my support for cares act funding for rental assistance tenants need rental assistance now more than ever during the pandemic this is regarding issue 12.2 super important as you know it's a lot more expensive to deal with people after they have been evicted than it is to um keep people housed so thank you my name is shon josephi and i'm calling in friday number 12.3 i think the city council should oppose this ordinance and city manager should not get a raise i think it's very inappropriate that the city manager gets a cost of living raise and contributions to their health care plan when so much of the community cannot afford to live here and does not have health insurance i would like to see that money go towards the community that need it i think it's likely that this ordinance passes anyway so mr city manager you have the choice with your money what to do with it you could donate it to local organizations and people who need it in fact um the movement for black lives is calling this not cyber monday but reparations monday uh here's some of the lists of demands for the reparations maybe you don't know about this maybe maybe you can use this money to help people who need it uh they demand reparations for the systemic denial of access to high quality educational opportunities in the form of full and free access for all black people including undocumented and currently and formerly incarcerated people to lifetime education including free access and open admissions to public community colleges and universities technical education trade technology and agricultural educational support programs retroactive forgiveness of student debt loans and support for lifetime learning programs to reparations for the continued divestment from discrimination toward an exploitation of their communities in the form of guaranteed minimum livable income for all black people with clearly articulated corporate regulations three reparations for the wealth extracted from their communities through environmental racism slavery food apartheid housing discrimination and racialized capitalism in the form of corporate and government reparations focused on healing ongoing physical and mental trauma and ensuring their access and control of food sources housing and land four reparations for the cultural and educational exploitation or racial and extraction of their communities in the form of mandated public school curriculums that critically examine the political economic and social impacts of colonialism and slavery and funding to support build preserve and restore cultural assets and sacred sites to ensure the recognition and honoring of their collective struggles and triumphs by legislation at the federal and state level that requires the united states to acknowledge the lasting impacts of slavery establish and execute a plan to address those impacts this includes the immediate passage of hr 40 the commission to study reparation proposals for african americans act or subsequent versions which call for reparation remedies those are the demands there are many many many many many resources online in communities that could use the help maybe you could donate all of your race to those communities maybe you could donate more that concludes the voice message public hey thank you for that consulting that process um vice mayor phleming this is your item indeed um i will move items 12 1 through 12 5 and item 12.7 second okay we have a motion by the vice mayor 12 1 through 12 5 and 12 7 second by mr rogers any additional questions mr tibet is your hand up guys it is thanks mayor quick question for sue on item 12.7 in the event the traffic spills over into the public right of way such as highway 12 do we have legal resource to provide right to cure or notice to cure i'm sorry i'm sorry can you repeat that i'm not understanding the question yeah i'm sorry to bring up all business it's relating to 12.7 it's the starbucks um at our last meeting or nesto brought up uh the the reality of of the drive-throughs that starbucks have in terms of impacts and i took a drive to starbucks on farmers lane and saw that there were not 11 cars there there was probably over 20 um a very long line and then you know looking at that over off highway 12 i do have concerns that it could go into um highway 12 being a significant public right of way and i'm not wanting to stop the coffee shop from moving forward but i am curious that if if we start noticing that there is a drive drive-through line going into highway 12 do we have any legal recourse to get them to comply whether it's through a cease and desist notice to cure to get out of the public right of way yes we do have a number of different avenues we have enforcement of the conditions of their approval if it becomes a nuisance we have avenues to pursue that so yes we do have avenues to to address any potential problems great thank you so much i'm comfortable moving forward hey uh mr rogers you have a question also yeah just as a follow-up sue because there is a number of areas not just that one but there's also an additional area on mendicino avenue in the vice mayor's district that has a significant impact how would one make that complaint and have that corrected uh if you wish to make a complaint um of any violation of uh either conditions of approval of any business or that the business is operating in a manner that has created a public nuisance i would start by uh referring that referring your your uh complaint over to head and in particular to code enforcement and to the planning uh department planning section is that it mr rogers okay uh mr soyer thank you mayor i'm you know i i noticed the same thing that a couple of the other council members noticed on farmers laying with with starbucks and i because i live in that area and drive by the intersection often i know that the problems began um pretty closely to um the inability of people to be able to go inside the building i i expect that problem to continue throughout until these restrictions are lifted so my guess is things will normalize after that but i believe they will continue to be an issue it was one of my concerns with moving with this particular item was that stacking issue and the um the traffic study and i i do expect it to continue to be a problem until these until the restrictions are lifted and then it will my guess is it will it will normalize but that could be a while thank you and i would just offer it because i too in my district have a similar situation but what the local business did was just rerouted it so it stayed on their property and no longer affected the roadway so there are some solutions out there so thank you for providing that information miss gallagher um okay uh viceroy fleming where you make a comment or was going to make a comment and then i have a question for the council um so my comment is i think mr rogers is referring to the dutch brothers only about a hundred feet outside of his district but at any rate um you know we can start arguing is the line in the middle of the street or but anyway uh that that dutch brothers you know i don't know you know what how you cure something like that um aside from hosting somebody outside all day every day to tell to make it stop so um so my question to the council is can i see a straw pole um if um if people would like me to um pull item 12.7 for a separate vote okay a lot of um behind our questions there so with that i was just gonna say i'm fine with sticking with my i vote recognizing that i'm the tiebreaker i just needed to hear from sue that if it starts you know impeding traffic then i want to know that the government has some leverage there to go and correct the action i'll just state my experience on mendicino is that we may have the power but i don't know that we have the capacity okay uh mr alvarez final comments oh you're muted i did want to mention that i did oppose this the last time but i i did consider the fact that we do have uh longer lines right now during covid so i'm going to be supporting this as it moves forward okay um madame setting clerk can we do a roll call vote please yes thank you mayor councilmember dowd hi councilmember tibbetz hi councilmember soyer hi councilmember rogers hi councilmember oliveris hi councilmember vice mayor fleming hi mayor schwedhelm hi that motion passes with seven eyes vice mayor you have one more yep uh and this i will now move item 12.6 second motion on item 12.6 by the vice mayor second by mr soyer could we do a real call vote please you councilmember dowd hi councilmember tibbetz oh i'm sorry he's recusing councilmember soyer hi councilmember rogers hi councilmember oliveris hi vice mayor fleming hi mayor schwedhelm hi that motion passes with six eyes and councilmember tibbetz is recusing okay thank you item 13 we're not taking public comments on item 13 non-agenda matters this is the time when any person may address the council on matters not listed on this agenda but which are within the sub-matter jurisdiction of the council if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star nine we'll take 10 speakers under item 13 if we have more than 10 public comments on item 13 the remaining speakers will be afforded the opportunity to speak on item 17 non-agenda matters to revive public comment madam host would you facilitate public comment on item 13 see there is a timer before you for the convenience of the audience and those participating in the zoom council meeting the first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak when the countdown begins please make sure to unmute yourself when you're invited to do so your microphone will be muted at the end of the countdown or at the conclusion of your comment the first public comment will be from Doran and followed by Mike Doran I've enabled your speaking permissions can you please unmute your microphone and confirm you can see the timer on your screen I can see the timer can you hear me yes I can thank you very much please identify yourself for public record if you choose to do so and your time begins now thank you my name is Doran Amaran I'm here representing the climate center and here to speak on behalf of a request from one of our members a supporting organization founded in Santa Rosa which is why green energy fund uh why green energy fund is an important provider of pace financing for renewable energy and resilience projects and I'd like to strongly urge the city council to expedite the approval of why greens a pace program before the end of the year for a number of important reasons uh first of all local government should enable sound and reliable financing solutions like why green to small and medium businesses I know that there are a number of small businesses currently in the pipeline and they could use access to this funding in order to proceed with their renewable energy and resilience projects this is especially important during the pandemic when liquidity and uh access to financing is tight uh many of these projects represent the same needs of our local business members uh that the climate center supports like the installation of solar and the hardening of businesses and facilities against wildfires and the like I appreciate any urgency that the council can bring to this matter I know it's currently scheduled to be taken up in February but for a number of reasons that my three minutes don't necessarily allow me to go into it would be vastly advantageous to those local businesses if that financing could be approved sooner and in order for that to happen we do request that the Santa Rosa City Council move forward why green was founded in Santa Rosa they operate all over the state and indeed around the country I personally know the people there they're great folks and I'm happy on behalf of the climate center to put in our word to help help them perhaps convince you to expedite their application in the city of Santa Rosa with that I conclude my comments and thank you for your time thank you the next public comment will be from Mike Mike I've enabled your speaking permissions can you please unmute your microphone and confirm you can see the timer on your screen I've unmuted my microphone and I can see the timer can you hear me thank you yes I can please identify yourself a public record if you choose to do so and your time begins now uh Mr. Mayor and fellow council members and staff my name is Mike Lamere I'm resident of Santa Rosa I live in the Skyhawk community northeast Santa Rosa I'm a senior vice president at why green energy fund and appreciate the last speaker's comments and I'm here to echo that sentiment and ask that you consider expediting the approval of why green I will speak on more of a personal note having been a founding member of the team here in 2010 and have been very gratified and proud to work with the with this organization and and hundreds of your peers around the country and in nearly 700 uh cities and counties I've seen the company and help guide the company grow from just five of us to an employer of over 300 people we're the largest provider property assessed clean energy funding in the U.S. and have driven many environmental and economic and community benefits in providing critical funding to over 90 000 individuals and homeowners and business small business owners you know there are really there are a lot of reasons why you consider you know proving another paced provider and in fact acting with urgency as soon as the next council meeting but I'll give you three ones that really hit home for many of us that live in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County one is wildfire resiliency whether you're rebuilding or strength your home that you know in fortune loss of fire or strengthening existing one residents really need access to affordable financing and that's really the heart of what why green does and and has provided over two billion dollars in private capital do so in addition to focusing on renewable energy and energy efficiency and water conservation two is jobs paces the proven driver of good paying and local jobs uh you know supporting the contractor trades in both commercial and residential sectors the why green is is fueled over 40 000 new job years uh you know like I said good paying local jobs in the trades and unfortunately we haven't been able to do it here in Santa Rosa and that's one other reason why we ask for urgency and then finally the COVID impact of the economic impact on many individuals and businesses uh that have interrupted their access to financing and credit markets um for these and many other reasons we respectfully ask you to uh uh approve with urgency this program uh and we look forward to working with you and the many community members uh in years to come thank you very much for your time and have a good evening thank you Mike again this is for public comment on item 13 non-agenda matters raise your hand now be a zoom if you wish to make a public comment or dial star 9 if participating be a phone may or I don't see any additional hands being raised for non-agenda matters are you okay if I move along to the voice message public comment yes please do thank you 13 public comment on non-agenda items Dwayne DeWitt from Roseland a few years ago the city of senator rosa finally annexed the last portions of Roseland that they had created a county island over 25 years ago the first thing they did was come in and raise taxes on some folks and then as a little assuagement if you will they paved a small portion of road known as Roseland Avenue Roseland Avenue the name sake of the neighborhood there at sabastopol road down in Hughes Avenue perhaps the most beat-up road in all of Santa Rosa they didn't get to get in that taking care of until recently they paved the half of the eastern portion of the road just half of it and left the other half all beat up still people think you're doing that as a retaliation or a retribution for those roseland folks pointing out the duplicity of city staff and the nature of the recreation and parks department involved in the various dealings I think it's just an oversight how about you show the people of Roseland you really care about them and come back out there and get that paving down on Hughes Avenue while the weather's good and also go back to Roseland Avenue and kick off all of those bombs that are living up there on the street and beat up RV vehicles with no license plates on them trucks full of trash and debris with expired license registrations there on the western side of Roseland Avenue near the highway 12 it's really important that you show Roseland you got some concerns for us because essentially most folks think you're just well taking the money from the county and not living up to your requirements and staff laughing all the way to the bank with their fat pay and not caring so I know you could show us better than that show us some love for the holiday Merry Christmas to you Mayor that concludes public comment on item 13 okay thank you before we go to we're going to take our break because I believe 14-1 will be a lengthy discussion so why don't we take a 15 minute break we'll reconvene at 540 reconvene at 540 Madam City Clerk are we ready to reconvene yes I'm ready okay we'll reconvene the central city council meeting of December 1st we have a roll call please yes thank you councilmember Dowd councilmember Dowd councilmember Tibbets councilmember Tibbets councilmember Sawyer here councilmember Rogers here councilmember Oliveris here Mayor Schwedhelm here vice mayor Fleming I'm sorry here okay let me check councilmember Dowd have you joined us I am with you now thank you councilmember Tibbets have you joined us okay let the record show that all councilmembers are present with the exception of councilmember Tibbets all right thank you Mr. McGlynn item 14.1 oh you're on mute sorry about that 14.1 report ordinance introduction open government ordinance sue Gallagher city attorney leading us off good evening Mayor Schwedhelm and councilmembers um you're going to be before you start if I can I'll let the councilmembers know we will be taking three breaks for questions after slide 19 slide 24 and slide 32 and it'll make sense with the presentation the city attorney is about to present with us sorry for the interruption sue no problem thank you for for noting that I appreciate it so we're here this evening to bring the open government the proposed open government ordinance to you um it has been a long time in coming to the council and uh also with me this evening the Magali tell us our community engagement director Danielle junior community engagement coordinator and Stephanie Williams our city clerk and they may also want to weigh in on different elements of the ordinance so I appreciate having the opportunity to work with all of them on this project and and welcome their input as well so this evening we'll walk through the key elements the highlights of the proposal and its key elements and we'll identify a few decision points for the council I recognize that this is a long presentation and I will try to be as efficient as possible but I do recognize that many of these provisions will have significant implications for the public for your council and for city staff as well next slide so these first few slides will set the stage the values that we seek to implement the balancing that's required and the history of how we got here so we're here today with an intent to invite strong and effective public participation in our city government to expand opportunities to facilitate public participation and to reach beyond the minimum requirements of state law to best engage our Douglas community and the essential principles are highlighted in the open government task force report and in the work of the subcommittee over the last year and a half and they include a high value on public engagement a strong focus on two-way communication between the government and our community and open transparent municipal services and a government that honors the community and invites participation and collaboration next slide so openness is strength and that is a theme that runs throughout these efforts but at the same time we do recognize that there is a need to balance expectations responsibly the city government can be pulled in so many different directions and as stated in the proposed ordinance itself we need to balance our efforts to ensure that the city's operational team can continue to act effectively and nimbly to meet its civic obligations next slide so how did we get here as I mentioned at the beginning this has been a long process the open government task force was formed in early 2014 was comprised of a diverse group of dedicated informed residents met on a regular basis over the course of the year and issued its report in December of 2014 and I know in the past but I'll again repeat that we appreciate all the work of those residents the report included a series of recommendations to improve the openness and transparency of San Rosa municipal government and to strengthen community involvement and engagement the adoption of a sunshine ordinance was one of those recommendations just one of those recommendations this is the we're finally bringing it forward to the full council and I will note that a number of the other recommendations of the task force have already been implemented with respect to the sunshine ordinance we're now calling it the open government ordinance as easier to understand for folks the full council considered the draft ordinance initially in 2016 and determined to refer it to a council subcommittee for more detailed consideration so the open government task force implementation subcommittee was formed council member rogers shared the committee throughout throughout its its work and he was joined by council members alivaris and council member soyer as well was a very strong team and worked worked carefully and diligently for all of these meetings so the committee for almost a year met in monthly meetings we met in different locations across town and walked through each step of the ordinance very carefully reviewing and revising different sections discussing their implications discussing different options um and uh the we had a brief pause and in the subcommittee we convened uh justice this last october to consider final questions and now we're here uh before the full council next slide so now we'll turn to the elements of the ordinance itself um there are five key elements that will go over this evening there are a set of enhanced agenda requirements there are new standards for translations both of uh agenda materials and translations at meetings there are a series of recommendations for management of our public meetings there increased um access to public records and to data that's generated by the city and then there's enhanced provisions for enhanced education for both the community and for city staff we'll walk through these five elements and before we begin i want to note that this subcommittee is currently recommending that all of these new requirements apply at least initially only to the city council itself essentially running this as a pilot program with the council and if the provisions turn out to be effective and efficient then we'll look at the potential of of expanding the provisions of the ordinance to cover other city boards commissions and committees i also want to note although we're going to focus on these five key elements there are many other details that are included in the ordinance and we're not having out we just don't have an opportunity to go through all of those details this evening but those details are less controversial many just as impactful but many just not as controversial or as not as a meeting of highlighting so next slide we'll begin with the expanded agenda requirements uh require these requirements are intended to supplement and enhance the requirements of the brown act so they go beyond what the brown act requires and the requirements um address excuse me both the contents of the agenda and also the timing of the posting of agendas so begin with the contents the new requirements for agenda contents first each agenda both the preliminary agenda and the final agenda must include a brief meaningful description and that's defined as a description that is sufficiently clear and specific to alert a person of average intelligence and education of the general substance and significance of the item the description must include a statement of the recommended action or a statement that the that the item is for information only the agenda must include a statement of the anticipated budget impacts the ordinance proposes that the agenda also include a link to prior council actions on the item and the ordinance provides that the agendas all of the agendas must be published in both English and Spanish next slide the ordinance also sets forth a series of requirements for the timing of the posting of the preliminary posting of all of the agendas the proposed ordinance provides for an earlier posting of the preliminary agenda an earlier posting of supporting documents an earlier posting of the final agenda and then the the the ordinance also includes a description of the exceptions to those posting requirements those would be the grounds for relief for those deadlines next slide so we start with the preliminary agenda and before we talk about the current proposals for timing of the posting of the preliminary agenda I just wanted to give a little bit of brief background on the on the origins of that requirement the current requirement is the result of a settlement that was entered into between the city and the sierra club in 1994 the settlement terms were then incorporated into san rosa's early council agenda policy policy number 00035 that policy was adopted in 1999 and that policy provides one the council agendas are to be posted nine days prior to the council meeting which we do two that staff reports are to be made public at the same time this element has actually proven to be quite difficult under our current procedures three the policy includes exceptions that you can you can be exempted from the nine-day posting requirement upon a finding of good cause and then the the policy does clarify that it's applicable only to the regularly scheduled meetings of the council it's not applicable to special or emergency meetings nor is it applicable to closed sessions I thought too is important to note both of these documents because the open government task force referenced both of these documents as it set forth its own recommendations next slide for each of these timing requirements for the preliminary agenda the supporting documents in the final agenda I'm going to provide a comparison of what is required under state law under brown act what is the existing requirement or practice what is the task what was the recommendation of the task force and then finally what does this ordinance propose so with respect to the preliminary agenda brown act does not have a requirement for preliminary agenda and in fact it's relatively rare for preliminary agendas to be to be posted or required by local policy but there are some instances where there is is that requirement our existing requirement under under the the council policy is to post the preliminary agenda nine calendar days before the council meeting if you count back from a Tuesday that means the posting has to happen on a Sunday we in fact as a matter of practice post it on the Thursday before the Tuesday meeting given that also the RDOs may fall in there as well so we currently post a little more than the nine date nine calendar days the recommendation of the task force was to post the preliminary agenda 12 calendar days before the council meeting this would actually match up with our current practice of posting on the Thursday before the Tuesday meeting in the proposed proposed ordinance would move that posting date essentially a week earlier so it would require that we post the preliminary agenda 12 business days before the council meeting so next slide so we put together a sample calendar just to give some something to visualize these dates so for January February if we had a council meeting scheduled for February 2nd we would be posting currently we would be required to post the agenda uh preliminary agenda on Friday January 22nd under the task force recommendation would have us post the preliminary agenda the day before on Thursday the 21st and in fact that would be our standard practice and the proposed ordinance would push that back a week and have us publish the preliminary agenda on Thursday January 14th I also note for this calendar and the next that I have that these are just the posting deadlines so these do not take into account behind the scenes works including the time that's required now for a translation into Spanish next slide the timing of when do supporting documents get posted online under the brand act were required to provide any supporting documents when we provide those documents to the council let me back up a little bit supporting documents are defined under the ordinance as both materials that are prepared by staff and correspondence and materials that are submitted by members of the public through a designated portal and received at least one day prior to the meeting our existing practice is that we post the supporting documents with the final agenda the task force recommends that we post the supporting documents 12 calendar days prior to the council meeting in other words with the they would be posted with the preliminary agenda and then the proposal of the proposed ordinance suggests that we add the supporting documents to the preliminary agenda as the documents become available that was in recognition of the difficulties of having all the materials finalized 12 calendar days or in the under the proposed ordinance it would be two and a half we would have to have all of the supporting documents finalized two and a half weeks before the preliminary agenda is posted this does mean by adding the supporting documents to the preliminary agenda as they become available in our finalize it does mean that we have an ongoing update to the ordinance from the time that the preliminary agenda is posted until the final agenda is posted next slide so now the timing of the final agenda brown act requires that we post a final agenda 72 hours before the council meeting our existing requirement is the requirement of the brown act so to post 72 hours before the council meeting again we post earlier than that but that is the requirement and the task force recommendation is that the final agenda get posted five calendar days before the council meeting that is consistent with our current practice finally the proposed ordinance would move that back and we would be required to post the final agenda for business days before the council meeting this would mean we would be posting on Wednesday assuming that there was no holiday that intervened next side and here's a calendar again meeting again on February 2nd currently the requirement is to post on Friday January 29th the task force would place publication on Thursday the 28th and the proposed ordinance would would have us post the final agenda on a Wednesday the 27th next slide so the summary of what's proposed under the under the ordinance assuming no holidays we post the preliminary agenda two and a half weeks prior to the council meeting assuming no holidays we would post the final agenda on the Wednesday prior to the council meeting and we would have ongoing posting of supporting documents again from the time the preliminary agenda is posted until the final agenda is posted I'll note too that in comparison with other jurisdictions for example the the county does proceed under the Brown Act alone some other Germany other jurisdictions do as well so we currently run about a week behind the the board of supervisors under the new ordinance we would we would run two weeks behind the board of supervisors and more if there was a holiday but as the subcommittee discussed there's a balancing of yes this will will bring us a slower pace but it does provide additional time for public access and review so that's the balancing that that you'll need to look at next slide there are significant operational impacts to these changes in scheduling and I know that the city manager would also like to weigh in here as well I'd like to review this slide and the next before I hand it over to the city manager and and some of his team so this calendar that's prepared by our city clerk includes the new posting dates and includes a provision for Spanish translation Spanish translation under our current contracts requires between 48 and 17 two-hour turnaround so it does add a couple of additional days to the schedule so again working from that same council meeting on February 2nd under the new schedule staff reports would be due into legislature on January 5th so almost a month earlier earlier the city clerk would prepare the preliminary agenda and agenda review would propose to be held on Monday January 11th and that afternoon the preliminary agenda would have to be finalized and sent out for translation posting to the preliminary agenda on January 14th and then beginning of the adding and supporting documents final agenda review meeting on January 18th here January 18th happens to be a holiday so we'd have to adjust that date and then send out for translation on January 21st and publication on January 27th for the February 2nd meeting next slide so this slide is entitled exceptions and I'll I'll get into that uh uh after the city manager has an opportunity to weigh in but I just wanted to point out that the staff does have some concerns about the additional week uh or week and a half added to the process the concerns about how it may slow some of the critical business of the city and in particular concerns about time sensitive grant applications time sensitive contracts time sensitive emergent issues and time sensitive appeals and the need to coordinate coordinate with some of our partner agencies before I move into the details of the exceptions that are allowed under the ordinance I will hand it over to city manager McGlynn so just briefly counsel I I'd ask that the team um if if Stephanie or Dean I can promote Claire Hartman uh to to the panelists because I think she'll give you the example of the the chief concern which is um your ability you know the council's ability to address timeliness as it relates to certain activity um so um I just want to turn it over to Claire to cite an example um the as you saw there was a list of concerns that staff brought forward uh I think a lot of that is driven by the desire to meet the needs of the community and meet the needs of the council and those are some of the things you need to take into a balance and consideration but a specific example I'm going to turn it over to Claire to to to illustrate um some of staff's concerns Claire thank you and good evening um yeah essentially what we're looking at is um in practical terms we're we're adding a couple of weeks to the process so as you know quite a bit of work goes on behind the scenes with any items particularly items that run through our public process that go through say the design review board the planning commission and then on to the city council so right now uh on average um the fastest we could ever move an item from planning commission to the city council is um is about a month or 30 days that's really where we only have a few days to really turn something around and we do that when we have grant deadlines or there's appeals and we want to act quickly um otherwise what we're looking at is on average it's about a month and a half between the two decision-making bodies and that is a bit of time for applicants to to have to work with and if that's further delayed because of complications of analysis or we're working through some issues that have come up between the boards then that can add additional time um so essentially what we're looking at if something was acted on this week for example by design review board or planning commission instead of looking at the 1st of January we probably will be looking towards February um and that's just the nature of this so we can do it um we'll always make our deadline eventually um but the impact is really on our applicants it's it's an additional two weeks to their timeline and as you know um we've been working with a lot of housing applicants and they are really leveraging lots of different financing to make their housing work and so it's not uncommon for them to say that you know two weeks is is critical for them so it will have an impact what we'll what we'll end up doing is educating them early on in the process so they can build that into their their time schedule and then I think it's important to note the exceptions um they do come up they they will come up uh so um one thing to consider is the is the wording upon which you're adopting in the ordinance to make sure that you have the leverage as a city council to to allow for exception but certainly for uh grants that the city is applying for um that comes up regularly we recently had a grant opportunity uh and we had 30 days to respond so this actually this timeline would not accommodate that the city to apply for a grant that we would want so we'd want to make sure that the the language that support um some exception to the to the to the timeline and that's it thank you clear um and I'll move forward now unless the city manager has anything further um if I can go back to the PowerPoint so yes uh these are some of the reasons that we want to allow some variations um from the schedule um and so that the proposed ordinance does include exceptions that would allow us to bring things more quickly when needed so next slide so this is uh the exception for items that were not placed on the preliminary agenda but have come up uh after the preliminary agenda was posted or there was some reason that it could not be on the preliminary agenda um so those items may be placed on the final agenda but no action may be taken on those items unless there is an affirmative vote of six council members or a unanimous vote if less than six council members are present and a finding of good cause and if we go to the next slide good cause is defined it's defined as a result of exceptional circumstances beyond the control of the council compliance with the 12-day requirement would impose a substantial burden on the city's ability to conduct its business or result in a prejudice to a private person so again either a substantial burden on the city's ability to conduct its business or a prejudice to a private person now this exception is based on the language of the Sierra Club settlement and language that was incorporated into council policy 000-35 and the only addition that was made now in the proposed ordinance is that the requirement that if we are going to ask to exercise this exception that the staff provided detailed explanation of why the item could not be included in the agenda and why the materials could not be provided in advance so this exception again it's existing with it with that one addition it includes a two-step process of council meeting and we have used this in the past the council by vote must first determine whether there's good cause to hear the item make the finding of good cause and then if that determination is made by a four-fifths vote then the council may move forward with the item currently it's used rarely I think since I've been city attorney we've used it maybe two three times and I would suspect that if we move back the date of the posting of the the preliminary junction as is as is proposed that we might anticipate that that this clause may be invoked more often next slide and actually if I can if I can go back on that they're currently the language of our of our of the council policy has weird odd numbers in terms of what the vote requirement is requiring five affirmative votes if there are seven council members present and unanimous of less than seven so you have an odd result there we've cleaned that up so that it requires the six vote of six council members or the unanimous if six or fewer council members are present the confusion was based on that the settlement and was drafted when there were only five council members on the council okay next slide so exceptions for the final agenda if there is an item that was not on the final agenda but the council wants to consider it there are three instances that the council can consider all of these are existing provisions in the Brown Act so there are no new exceptions suggested in the ordinance but it is worth looking at what the existing exceptions are so you can consider an item that's not in the final agenda if a majority of the city council votes and finds that there's an emergency poses a severe threat to public health or safety or there's a two-thirds vote of the council that they're quote there is a need to take immediate action and that the need for action came to the attention of the city subsequent to the posting of the final agenda or the third exception is that the item was continued from a prior meeting of the council occurring within the last five calendar days these exceptions are used very rarely but they do they do get used I I do not anticipate that we would be invoking these exceptions significantly more often if the move is simply one day earlier of the posting of the final agenda so the next slide would be moving us into translation requirements and I know the the mayor as a mayor indicated this may be an opportune time for you to ask any questions that you have with regard to either the background materials or the timing of the preliminary junction preliminary agenda story about that the posting of supporting documents or the posting of the final agenda great thank you for that presentation so far council any questions mr rogers thank you mr mayor so I want to ask a couple of questions related to the two examples that miss hartman gave the first on the development issue where there's the timing gap between the planning commission and the city council is there anything in the ordinance that actually precludes the city council from putting an issue on the preliminary agenda pending the approval of the first adjudicating body so for example when something gets posted on the planning commission agenda couldn't we also put it on the preliminary agenda pending the approval from the planning commission and then if that doesn't get approved then you remove it before the final item or you continue the item at the council meeting yes I guess there are two two scenarios there one is that if it's an item that is going to come to council by operation of our ordinances that is absolutely fine and in fact we've done that before where we know we're going to we're going to try to rush something through and I shouldn't say rush we're going to try to expedite something through the process we will post it on the planning commission agenda and also on the council agenda so that we're ready it's a little more awkward if it's a matter that's going to be appealed that would come to the council only on appeal and I think that it is is is not appropriate to schedule appeal before it's before the appeal is filed okay then then perhaps perhaps that is something for the council to consider then as an exception is if something is appealed that we keep our normal timeline with the appeal I think the the argument is that we are trying to give people as much notice as possible about these discussions that are taking place it's why I personally would rather err on the side of having to remove things from the preliminary agenda because they didn't get in then holding up and also not giving people the the the the access as for the the second example about grants that exception is built into this ordinance correct correct if because we would find that that that the posting requirements would be imposing a substantial burden on the city's ability to conduct its business so that would be incorporated in terms of posting the the appeal I guess there's there's a couple of ways to get at that one is if we determine that there would be a result that that not including it in the final agenda would result in a prejudice to a private person or private entity so that if they had a funding deadline something to that effect that so really I mean it has to be something concrete and not simply we're really eager to get our project going we could we could post it under this exception so if there's a funding issue if there's some other deadline that they're working under that that the delay would prejudice them then we could move forward on it to post it on the agenda on the final it or post it on a preliminary agenda before an appeal is filed again I think that gets very difficult because that means we are looking at a project and determining right whether it's going to be subject to an appeal or not that's guessing what the the other bodies could do right to be clear I'm not saying post an appeal on the preliminary agenda I'm saying a normal process in which it's coming to us where we know that it's coming to us but I'm also suggesting and throwing out there is if that is actually a concern that I'm hearing from staff perhaps the council wants to add in some form of language into the ordinance that keeps the current appeal process that we have when things are appealed to the council and whether or not we'd want to go that direction so that's why I want to put that out there I just want to work could add an you could expand these exceptions we could try to think of some language to include the particular scenarios into the exceptions so I think we'd want to think about that and talk about what do we want to include as additional exceptions and and what what do we not so one of the things that came up councilmember rogers is in a the staff's discussion because this is leading to it is with the earlier posting date there's likely going to be things because we're required now to post that are going to get deferred because right now we run right up on these deadlines so we move back something may appear on the preliminary agenda and I think staff also had a concern about confusing the public that things are going to get moved because we post early and we're not ready we're likely going to defer those items so there was I just want to also put out staff's concern about you know as public hearings would obviously be we would try to keep those because there's a whole other slew of posting requirements but some of the other items that the council considers because we may not be prepared because we think we're going to get there right but we in reality as we don't get there those items will get deferred because we're not prepared to do them with early posting requirements and I think that's some of what Claire was also illustrating is we work right up on the deadlines and pushing back these things may seem like it's going to do that but it could also cause additional confusion yeah totally understood Mr. City Manager and all I was saying is that I if I had to choose between people not being aware that something is going to be taken up for people having to wait an additional week where they thought that it was going to be I was inclined to err on the side of more time for public engagement I was just going to add one item and I agree with the audience that said that the additional consideration about posting the next step in advance if you will so if you know it's a rezoning it's going to Planning Commission and ultimately the City Council that's only if the Commission forwards a recommendation for approval to move it forward so one thing that staff has been quite diligent is not to do that not to be presumptive it's it's confusing to the to the citizens if that you've already scheduled an action that's post the one that they're attending they think why are we spending the time at this first hearing if it's you should be looking at this other date that's already scheduled so just keep that in mind sometimes the intent is is great but it can be more confusing to our thank you and Claire I don't know you're a little bit softer than everyone else I and looking like my colleagues on council are straining to hear what you're saying so I don't know if it's a microphone or volume but FYI Mr. Tibbets you have a question yeah thank you Tom Claire I just wanted to you to reiterate did I hear you correctly that if you were taking up a project today that there would not be just from the design review board there would not be a decision until February as a result of this ordinance as implemented or as presented your own mute IT difficulties it looks like try this can you hear me now yeah okay great so yes the difference is instead of saying it's happening in December your first action and your next action will be in January will probably need to be more closer to February or at least the at least if it's happening in early December we're definitely looking at the end of January beginning of February and if we implemented the proposal by Mr. Rogers that would keep us moving forward as we currently do today so long as we were just doing these preliminary or presumptive posts that could be taken down or deferred depending upon staff's readiness or the decision of the previous governing body is going to work is the greatest impact in timing is the preliminary agenda right that's going to add the week a week and a half the final agenda we can work with that's only adding a few days and in practical terms for public review items you know we're going to bring you the most current information and all the correspondence so all that will get posted as we have it but a lot of that doesn't happen till the end anyway so that's practical speaking is not going to change but the thank you oh go ahead but the preliminary includes the project description which is what is the item that's going to be before you but it also includes the recommendation so you know we'll have to work on what can we say if we're if we're that early or if we're doing that before we even know what the action is or the recommendation is well I imagine we can meet the 12-day requirement by posting the issue so the public as Chris stated becomes aware and is put on notice about the issue but you can leave out a recommendation or the planning commission's recommendation and that can get posted after the decision yeah I don't know if that meets the rules for the preliminary agenda right the the ordinance does provide that the that the the agenda does need to identify what a recommendation is so I I do think that I do think that probably the better solution is to add an exception for certain types of of actions council actions um with matters that are coming to a public hearing before the council there are as as city manager pointed out there are additional noticing requirements under separate laws so you're not going to get the benefit maybe of the of the 12 business days beforehand but you're going to get some benefit from from the other types of noticing um again I'm very hesitant I I don't have a particular concern of items that are naturally going to come to council by operation of our ordinance I do have concerns about trying to guess what is a lower body going to do and who might appeal it might there be appeal and to me posting those on online telegraphs um concerns that I I don't think are are appropriate well I I guess here's what I'm struggling with folks I'm trying to walk a very careful line about making sure that we are a transparent organization and I think we are I mean we have the public records act that people can do to look at everything as deep as our emails to one another we have you know noticing requirements as they lie today I can't go out and have dinner with four of you and talk about a policy and discuss what we think is the best course of the city you know so I do feel like the public has pretty significant protections in place there's a lot that I like about this ordinance you know I think we are so behind the curve I'm posting in Spanish I'm thrilled to see that incorporated as part of this um and I like what I believe and I don't want to speak for Mayor Scott Bartley or Ernesto or John who were you know part of that council but I got to believe that the impetus of the open government task force was to just increase the public noticing about significant projects and probably development projects because those seem to be the ones that kind of increased scrutiny and ire from the public if there isn't sufficient noticing what I would hate to see us do tonight is undo the progress that our staff has made that Claire has made David you and Jason that Sean everybody over the last four years about reducing our development timelines and what I heard Claire say tonight is that's exactly what we're about to do so I hope that the council can be really really careful and looking at exemptions and and I don't know if it's that we find a balance about noticing public issues better than than this council may have done in the past but I hope we don't undo years of progress tonight hey mr sorry your hand was up did you have a question or was it answered okay vice mayor Fleming yeah um you know where I was going with this is that you know I think what I'm hearing from staff might be like a false binary between uh this um an idea of potentially advanced posting um and the assumption that it will confuse our residents and um the example of um you know it holding up a housing project which I think um our staff knows is incredibly important to the council and so I was wondering if you know we couldn't go forward with potentially noticing you know potential for possible appeal I understand that you know this can be incredibly confusing but if we were worried about um confusing the public we sure have a heck of a lot of work to do because half the time I read an agenda I'm confused by what is on it and you know I mean we it's not as though like we we write these things in you know in lay speak so you know if we want to put something as a placeholder we can just be very clear hey it's a placeholder for a potential outcome so that you have this advanced knowledge and then we don't have to pull in this sort of potential like bogeyman of holding up development of housing so I don't know if that's a possibility I understand the concern around um uh being presumptive and I and I respect that concern I think that we can be explicit in that it is simply a placeholder we we may I just respond quickly as what we would need to do is to um amend the provisions of what's included in the preliminary agenda if we want to have that preliminary agenda uh be uh able to be just a placeholder that says we're reserving this time in case there's an appeal of this particular project or this particular item um because uh the way that this is written um and we have to include you know we have to include a fairly significant uh um identification uh of the description of the of the item we have to include the recommendation we have to include the budget implications we have to include uh past council of actions and so you know those pieces can can can be put together in different ways when we get to the final agenda those items really do need to be in there are many of them need to be in there under the brown act but in the preliminary agenda you do have more flexibility and again um you know our I just want to remind too that our our current practices that we are posting uh the 12 days uh in advance calendar days but what this does is it adds the week um for business days and then adds a few more days for the translation so it's about another week and a half that things get uh get slowed okay um that's the extent of my comments or questions on that matter mayor I think you're muted okay mr. down as I've listened to this presentation I certainly respect and admire all the work that's gone into it but I honestly believe this concept if enacted without an awful lot of stipulations that give the city council and staff some room to maneuver uh it's going to slow things down immensely in the process as a typical faction and I cannot support this as it sits being presented to us today uh because I don't think this community while I absolutely support being transparent and open about what we're trying to do I also need uh believe that we need to be effective and efficient and helpful and moving things through the process as our responsibility is at the city council my comments okay mr. sorry you have your hand up thank you mayor um I'll right now just limit my my comment to what we've been talking about as far as the preliminary agenda and the concept of anticipating the potential for an appeal excuse me I would if I was an applicant and I saw that on a preliminary agenda um I think I would be considering calling my attorney I mean that that I understand that the intention but unless we put that place holding on every single um uh item that comes from the planning commission of any import then it would suggest that the that our staff has decided that this particular item is worthy of an appeal um I think it would be confusing and even though the the um it would help uh with it would help inform that there's a potential for for an appeal I think it suggests that there might be one and uh we know how things work as a council and there are some and and the applicants looking for uh going to the various bodies to get their their projects through the process they understand the process but if there was a um if there was an item on a preliminary agenda that's suggested as a placeholder for an appeal I think that that would be a tip of a tipping the hand of the of the staff they would have to decide to do it they would have to make the decision on what items may or may not have this potential for an appeal so I think it's dangerous um even though I the transparency is so important but I think that that kind of suggestion it looks like a suggestion and um or a potential um that might be uh a problematic for me to support that particular piece and I'll talk a lot of other comments about the preliminary agenda and the difficulties that this um presents later when we start making our comments um but I'll leave it there yes so any more questions uh Mr. Rogers I'll save it I was going to offer a compromise but I'll save it till the end thank you maybe a few more of those as we hear more of the presentation um Mr. Sivitz do you have any more your hand is still up are you um I I don't have one thanks okay um any other questions from council sorry Tom I actually do I'm sorry I the 12 days um I heard the presentation that it's a result of a lawsuit excuse me from the Sierra Club is that how we arrived at that number and is in Claire or to uh the presenters do we is there any number because you know I think you're going to see from this council that we're going to want to balance our desire to increase transparency to the public because as they're represented as we have an obligation to do that but as Dick said we really can't slow down the gears of the city I mean because I got to say the two comments I hear from the public most is you guys aren't transparent enough and you don't do anything you're slow and it's like this this ordinance in a odd way kind of ties our hands in both regard so I'm Claire would would a reduction in days I mean could we be better without being you know overly burdensome to you and your staff I'm going to defer to the city attorney because that was a settlement agreement right there the the settlement agreement um as incorporated into the council policy um it provides for a 12 calendar day uh posting of a preliminary agenda and that is what we do so that is the current practice the subcommittee's discussion led to the proposal to shift from calendar days to business days by doing that it does add another week effectively to the to the agenda because of the week because we we meet on a Tuesday so you're adding two weekends in there so that's um that was the the evolution of the 12 business days as opposed to 12 calendar days thanks for the clarification sure all right thank you um I have a couple questions going through the slideship um the slide three made a comment a fiscally environmentally sustainable about the fiscally sustainable when the staff report said the financial or fiscal impact the implementation this ordinance is unknown at this point it seems like how do you reconcile those what's this going to cost if it were to be implemented and we do not have those numbers currently we have not had the opportunity to really delve down into evaluating what the cost is I know we talked at the subcommittee about additional staffing requirements we have costs of translation there are going to be other costs you'll see as we go through other elements that will trigger again need for staffing or a need for additional resources and I don't know if the city manager would like to add add to that the only thing I would add is it's hard to forecast I mean some of this is procedural um and if and it feels like it's it's it's moving existing requirements back I mean that's why translation services is more quantifiable but the the actual moving back it's uncertain what that impact at this point will be um you know you know I think that's part of the struggle staff's having is what we don't know fully what the impacts will be and we're guessing at some of uh of this and there and I think that leads to some of the anxiety is I'm not we're not a hundred percent sure what the result of of this is going to be so it is some unknowns um we already do some of the translation services it's just codifies that translation services and again puts it at the front as when you get into that the next part of the I don't think it's going to add substantial cost it just regularizes the procedure right and so but that is more quantifiable than some of the other issues that we're trying to wrestle with this evening right and you know for me being 100% support for the translation services my bigger concern is what we've talked about with this agenda and the amount of staff in what they're doing plus and I know later on in the presentation we'll have the PRA request you know and how those get processes processed and those timelines so Mr. City Manager what would be that the process that we would follow at the end of tonight's meeting at some point the dollar amount needs to come to us because we're gonna have to prove that do you have a timeline as to how long you would anticipate so we we would be looking at what the immediate impacts were and then we would come back to with a budget to correspond to that some of this is you know we're already going to be increasing the clerk staffing you were in the process of increasing the clerk staffing requirements but again a lot of this impacts the PRA aside a lot of this impacts just how how we're pushing back timetables on existing staff so again I you know we're not trying to be obtuse about it we just we're we're learning as we go here there's no real model around the state nobody else is doing this work I mean that's we're we're way out we're heading into territory that's that's pretty unknown we don't have a another jurisdiction that we can specifically model and ask these questions of so we're we're learning as we go okay thank you and so now I want to put you on the spot Mr. Tim to start asking about the Sierra decision that led us to our current timing sometimes it's helpful to understand how did we get here do you know what the circumstances that led us to this nine or 12 calendar day requirement back in 1994 sure it's a it was it's a nine-day requirement and it was a lawsuit about the center was a marketplace development and I don't know what the specifics were that triggered the demand or the request that the settlement include this early agenda process but I will note but it is included that the settlement is broader and includes a number of agreements between the Sierra Club and the developer but then this is also incorporated in in in in that settlement I will note too in looking at the other jurisdictions in the Bay Area there are only a few but there are about six different jurisdictions that have some version of a sunshine ordinance not all some have an early agenda portion some do not but those tended to be adopted during that timeframe between in the late 90s so you know there may have been some efforts along that way at that time so okay but I don't know the the specifics of why but it's helpful because I think some of the conversations that we've had tonight are probably similar what they had back in 94 that led to this so we're in the same ballpark that that was what I was hoping here thank you and then on slide 17 I talked about six votes you mentioned some other ones where there's some we're not being consistent what's the thought process because I know usually a or my understanding a super majority of the council is five out of seven now we'll send we have a six and of course which you said that one okay if there's needs be if there are less than seven needs to be all six of you but if there's seven only five of you is there any thought processes to how we came up with this ordinance being six or suggest the typical super majority of five out of seven yes and that's does stem from the settlement and the settlement provides for a for a or I'm just checking it it required a four fifths vote again at the time they're just five council members so it required a concurrence of four council members or by unanimous vote a fewer than five somehow that got translated oddly into our council policy so that our council policy you know requires the requires a vote of concurrence of five council members but if there are less than seven present then it has to be anonymous so you have this weird as long as you have seven people you only have to have five votes if you had six you needed all six just an odd response so I took that that the settlement was providing for a four fifths vote and the four fifths vote then translates into the it's over five so it turns into six and that was really at the direction also of the subcommittee we did we discussed this issue and the the request was that I train I put in a number that was consistent with the intent of the settlement agreement interesting okay I'll say further comments as we progress on this and then my last question was to use an example a lot of times the final presentations get uploaded the day like today's presentation we got the updated one if we pass this ordinance what impact in it obviously this this happens on a regular basis with us because everything's we want the most updated information if we go to the route of the proposed ordinance would it have an impact on staff's ability to do just what occurred today during this presentation uh no there's there is a provision in the ordinance that allows for updates or corrections or clarifications that would come to council and the the requirement is that those be provided to the public at the same time that they're provided to council and that is consistent also with the brown act so okay sounds good okay why don't we continue I think we're on slide 20 okay we'll move to translation requirements and the translation requirements are in two realms translation of the agendas and then translation for meetings so next slide for the agenda we've already talked about that the agendas will be provided in English and Spanish um in addition uh we will the agendas will be provided in uh other languages if resident speakers exceed five percent of the city's population so five percent is the threshold for provision of translated ballot materials under the voting rights act I will know that under the voting rights act that five percent threshold is based on the voting age population here the proposal is that it's for a threshold of five percent of the total city population again we discussed this also at the subcommittee and the the notion is that yes for for voting rights it really impacts people that are of voting age or above but here many of our many of the issues and projects and proposals that the council considers are of interest to all of the residents of the city and not simply those who are of voting voting age so that was why there was a shift to the five percent of city population rather than five percent of voting aged population those are the automatic translation requirements and then upon request the agendas are provided in braille or in large type at no cost for those who are in hearing impaired or are vision impaired I'm sorry for vision impaired and the agendas are provided in other in languages other than English or Spanish at no cost and the the proposed ordinance does provide some deadlines of when when you need to request those translations and when they'll be provided next slide so then the translation requirements for meetings the ordinance provides that there will be live Spanish translation at all regularly scheduled council meetings currently Spanish translation is provided at staff's discretion so this will instead mean that we provide Spanish translation at every meeting the ordinance provides that the final closed captioning will be available in both English and Spanish I will note that the live closed captioning would be simply in English would not be required to be in Spanish but once it's archived it would be translated into Spanish as well and then the ordinance provides that telecommunication devices would be provided for speech and hearing impaired upon request and that's an existing provision as well I'd also note that at our meetings the brand act does require and we do comply that spite speakers who are speaking in a language other than English be given a double the allotted time speaking time to allow for a translation I'll also note that although we're talking about having live translation Spanish translation at all the regularly scheduled council meetings the proposal does not include providing a translator for Spanish speakers who are exercising their public comments so next slide we'll move into meeting management I think we could probably do a group of these slides and then and then break again for questions meeting management some of these are already implemented some are not the ordinance would require that all meetings that take place in the council chambers would be broadcast and this would include meetings other than council meetings but other boards and commissions and so we do note that that will require some additional staffing for meetings that are not currently broadcast the ordinance provides that we should strive for time-certain scheduling of hearings we it is rare for us to schedule hearings at a time certain this would encourage that practice the ordinance provides that we would prioritize public hearings over non-urgent report items and Mr. Mayor you have already begun that practice now I know that the the order of business is currently set forth in council policies so if this ordinance is adopted we would look at those policies and see where they need to be reviewed and adjusted so the ordinance also encourages the mayor to announce early on any continuances or adjustments to the agenda order to clarify the ordinance provides for clarification of closed session disclosures so additional it's not really additional to clarify the requirements for disclosing the the purpose of the closed session beforehand and for reporting out after but it is still consistent with brown act requirements which we do comply with and then finally in relation to the meeting management it provides for preparation of citizens guidebook to provide information for the public on how to really take advantage of your opportunities to participate in a public meeting and later in the presentation I will outline the elements that would be going into the citizens guidebook next slide meeting minutes this provide the ordinance provides the speaker cards will include a one an opportunity for speakers to include a one sentence description of their comments on the speaker card and the city clerk could then use that sentence when when the clerk prepares the minutes in terms of timing of the minutes these are pretty straightforward if there is no video of the meeting available for example if the video equipment there was a failure in the equipment then the draft minutes would have to be available to the council and to the public no later than 15 business days after the meeting and then the final approved minutes are to be posted no later than five business days after they've been approved by the council next slide it's going to move into public records and Mr. Mayor I'm not sure do you want to proceed on or do you want to take a break and ask questions let's stop and just see if we based on the last group let's see if there's any questions with this group of questions um outside of getting clarification what's a speaker card I've forgotten what those things are um so let's go back council questions uh Mr. Soria thank you Mayor just quickly um the the all meetings and council chambers will be broadcast I I if I thought that was all council meetings in council chambers will be broadcast what there are lots of meetings that occur in the council chamber that have nothing to do with the with policies governmental policies in Santa Rosa what is this what could I get clarification on what that really is saying sure it is um meetings of boards and commissions and committees it's not just any meeting that that takes place but okay that's what I thought that this is this that doesn't say that yes that's not quite close enough that's a little bit too much of short cutting in uh in drafting the powerpoint so that's okay just wanted to clarify thank you very much and I will know that this is an area and actually these later slides um do apply more generally and not simply to um to the city council again the committees subcommittees recommendation was to have um those early agenda requirements and both substance and posting applicable only to council kind of as a pilot program to to to see how it how it all works out great council any other questions on this portion of the presentation I do have one uh regarding the final approval approved minutes we posted no later than five business days after approval are we meeting that timeline now I don't know how that's out of context for me I don't know when they get posted now after they've been approved um mayor yes we right now we are striving for that as soon as the council has approved minutes I have staff finalize those for signature and uploading to the website and we have not as a matter of course sent them to the council and once they've been signed but they are published to the website great yeah norm I suggest you know I want a copy of those but good uh mr. Rogers you have a question yeah mr. mayor just as a quick note because we did do substantial discussion on this as well that section that you're asking questions about was a compromise from the original uh suggestions from the open government task force the open government task force actually did not have the exception in there about if a video is available and the subcommittee did feel that if you have access to the video we could remove some of the burden on staff by giving them a little bit of additional leeway to get those done so just I did want to provide some context for the council on why that particular provision was in there great thank you for that so you know the questions let's continue with the presentation thank you um and I and I will note if I can follow up for a moment on uh council member Rogers uh just his last comment is uh yes the ordinance also requires that the the videos be a stamp so that you can link right to a particular item and we do already do that in place that is already in set in place so moving to public records um the ordinance uh designates the city clerk as a public records coordinator uh it directs that each department will designate a department representative it provides for staff training on public records and accommodating public records requests it also directs for public education about how to request public records the ordinance provides time frames and procedures for response to records requests and it does include a requirement for annual reporting of the a number of requests that were received the results of those requests and whether there was any appeal you'll see on the next couple slides about an appeal for the most part these items are already in place the annual reporting will be expanded um and I I also want to note um that the open government task force suggested several additional time requirements for the city's response to public records requests suggesting that we would be required to confirm receipt of the request within one day provide a response within three days if the request was relatively simple um but uh after really careful consideration of some of the legal issues involved there and some of the logistics issues of deciding what's simple what's not we're going to generate um more uh disputes uh uh than um uh than clarity the council member did um determine to retain the timelines that are in the public records act itself rather than trying to shorten those time frames in fact the practice is that we do respond as quickly as we can to all of the requests um and the ordinance does obviously direct us to do that next slide the ordinance establishes appeal procedures for those that are dissatisfied with the response to their public records request and this is this is a new provision and it is unusual I'll note among public entities it's a two step internal process so step one is an initial complaint form that is submitted to the city clerk so if the individual or entity has requested public records and is dissatisfied with the response that is they believe that the city has failed to produce um disclosable records they may file the complaint with the city clerk the city clerk after consultation with the city attorney is then to make a determination as quickly as possible but no later than 10 days after receipt of the complaint the next slide and then to the step two if the requester is still not satisfied with the response and the production of documents that were provided they may file a petition with the city council that complaint that petition would be referred to a subcommittee a council subcommittee for decision the petition would be heard at the next available subcommittee meeting and the subcommittee would be responsible for informing the petitioner of its decision within two days of the meeting and again we would have an annual report of all the appeals that were received and the disposition of those appeals as you may be aware the public records act itself also provides a cause of action in superior court these internal procedures would be a prerequisite before a individual or entity could file a claim in the superior court challenging response to a public records act request next slide the proposed ordinance also includes some new requirements for disclosure of data generated by city departments the ordinance defines data to include in a quote facts or statistics gathered or generated by city departments concerning city operations programs and projects all of that data is already available when we back up this potentially includes a tremendous amount of data so if we think about the city as a whole we've got the data that's generated all the data that's generated by the water department by police by fire by transportation and public works including transit traffic parks public works construction and maintenance the data that's generated by planning by building by housing engineering and all of the other departments so it's a tremendous amount of data that is generated and unless this data is exempt from disclosure under the public records act or under other federal or state or local law all of this data is currently available to the public upon request the proposed ordinance however provides that all of this data would be consolidated into a single web portal for ease of access ease of public access we are concerned that the amount of data that is generated could place a very significant strain on our website capacity and the council may want to consider whether to narrow this provision so as to avoid those difficulties or conversely look at the cost of upgrading and our systems to be able to handle that amount of data and I think additionally the challenge here even in the narrowing of the data is throwing it into a single web portal staff is just doesn't know what's going to be digestible because generally that's not how information is disseminated generally we try we've tried in the past to utilize some some key indicators that the the city council had wanted us to track on an annual basis and condense that information whether that was through our recovery recovery work if we threw all the recovery data on a website um the the challenge would be you would drown under the data that's there so so I think even more than the issue about throwing data on the website is you know even though some of that data is curated it's curated so it's a digestible amount of data I think staff's really concerned about just throwing things on the generation a single portal to what in staff is asking the question and and I'm just relaying that concern I think it's the format is even more of a challenge than the volume of the data is is what is it going to mean for somebody to encounter those data sets there's a lot more transparency that we have now than we did when this initiated through a cell up you can look up their permits their track their permits there's a lot more that we're trying to do so again I think staff's question here is what's the outcome because folks can still ask to see data right um and and how does that get formatted I I don't think staff wants to get in the way but how do you create a digestible amount of it's a city attorney Gallagher's there's just so much data that's being generated throwing it out on one website or one web portal we we already have some challenges of making sure that our data is updated that's out there this would almost be like throwing data on a wall and hoping some of it sticks so I again I think the question is what's the outcome desired and and and then maybe we can work to some place for the council wants that space but there was that was the major concern is the amount of data generated and having it be any way digestible for the public especially since it's coming from different platforms it's not all we're moving towards singularity and platforms but there's still redundancy and multiple platforms out there and thank you and I very much appreciate that and I and I very much agree that it's it's both the volume of data that would be in that web portal and the accessibility and and frankly even I at times have difficulties finding information on our website and to have it be in in in that raw data form could be very difficult so I would also note that there are concerns in in in my office that you know the exception is unless it is the data is exempt from disclosure under the public records act or under other provisions of state federal or local law that means that all of you know any any new areas of data that are generated and existing areas of data that are generated we're going to have to be run through our office to evaluate whether they can they can go onto the onto a onto a web portal so I do appreciate the city manager's suggestion that this may need a little more a discussion as to what what do we really want to have and how do we want to structure it and again this data is again it is provided that it is subject to disclosure it is all available upon request so next slide we get now to the enforcement of the ordinance the proposed ordinance does include enforcement provisions if a member of the public believes that there's been a violation of the ordinance they may file a complaint with the city clerk that complaint must be filed within 30 business days of the alleged violation um it is to be the complaint will be heard by the city manager uh the hearing is to take place within 90 days of receipt of the complaint and the decision by the city manager is to be issued within 30 business days of the hearing next slide uh if if an individual uh files or entity files three complaints uh that are found to be unfounded the hearing the city manager finds them to be without basis three of such complaints within 12 months the complainant is then barred from filing a complaint uh under the ordinance for a period of one year uh the ordinance expressly states um that uh that the city and all this departments and uh are welcome to voluntarily a cure uh or correct any violation and then the ordinance requires an annual report of complaints and disposition of the complaints uh next slide this is an education um and again throughout uh the ordinance it does encourage um and direct that there be ongoing training and education both for the benefit of the public and for the benefit of city staff so this is a collaboration of really having us be able to work together well uh preparation of the citizens guidebook um that ordinance directs that the guidebook include a description um and explanation of the city government structure and organization um a description of the city's responsibilities and functions uh that the guidebook provide definitions of terms of common terms uh and then that the guidebook provide um uh paths for um citizen participation in local government and kind of the full range of what are those opportunities for participation and suggestions of how to take um best advantage of those opportunities so that is the last substantive slide and I um I I do um want to note before we go the last slide is of course for questions but before we go to that I do want to note um that many of the provisions of the proposed ordinance I think so we've started to talk about are going to take some time to implement so if the council moves forward with adoption of the ordinance we would recommend that the council think of having a later effective date at least three to four months to get all the elements in in place or underway both the elements that were discussed today and the other elements that are in the ordinance but not talked about today. I also will mention that I have her discussions uh suggestions recently um that perhaps we might look at adopting this ordinance initially as a policy to try it out you know the subcommittee talked about keeping many of the provisions to application only to the city council again on this on this uh uh idea that let's try things out um and and see how they work and if they work well then let's expand it to the other boards and commissions but keep it for the city council itself um for now and next slide uh happy to answer any questions mr tim it's any questions I see you have your hand up yeah thanks mayor um sue you know I guess this is a question for I guess a lot of staff you know I'm seeing here in the PRA that each department will have to have a designated coordinator um and again I I know Tom asked about budget I have the same question about budget because I know I've seen the work that um you know our clerk's office currently does uh your office on PRA work and it's extensive and I'm concerned that now we're looking at hiring new positions within each department just to handle PRA work so I guess my question is do you foresee that being a possibility or if not is there any way to gauge or estimate what the impacts time wise to each department would be as a result of this PRA extension I I I don't have the amount of time but currently each department does have a designated representative for public records so that is already in place and and I certainly you know invite um Macaulay or Stephanie to also weigh in on that but that is already in place and we I don't know if I mentioned but we do have a new system that's been in place um Stephanie I'm not sure maybe a year or so year and a half um that is a online process for requesting documents for providing responses that that system allows those the responses are all then online so someone else can search through the requests and then have access to those documents that someone else requested so it is a it is a good and efficient system in terms of providing additional access to to the public but Stephanie I don't know if you want to add anything to that or Macaulay that that's um correct Sue um Councilmember Tibbitt so we do have that um it's about a couple years old uh next request is the online um program citizens aren't required to put it in writing they can call and ask for records if that's the case or if they email us we can input that ourselves but it is a way for staff to upload documents then we have the opportunity to review those and work with the city attorney's office to determine which records are discloseable before we actually make them public and release them to the requester because we don't we want to make sure we're not releasing anything that's not discloseable or exempt from disclosure but yes we have streamlined the process for PRAs and if I could just add um that it does though however impact small departments such as ours um I mean we're we're community engagement is myself and Danielle and also some of our own's prevention partnership folks but um just something to to note yeah and you know I appreciate that Macaulay I know that staff doesn't like to always weigh in on their opinion and they like to be unbiased in a council presentation but I hope that you know that you feel like you can you can speak to us about what how this would impact you and your other workload and even so so far as if you have a preference because I know speaking for myself every time my board of directors hands me down um more reporting that I have to do it takes away from the things that I love about my job and so I'm concerned about staff morale in this process as well um and God knows I am not detail oriented and I'm not going to keep in records so I hope that you're better at that than me but my my final question is for members of the open government task force uh when this came forward you know when we're going through the slides one concern that I had putting myself in the shoes of a resident who might be wanting to file a complaint about our process and the records that we produced and we basically are on our watch dogging ourselves there's no independent third party entity reaching into our files on behalf of the resident's best interests to say you know you don't have to you know I work for you you know whereas we're saying this person's trying to petition city hall for information because they don't like something we're doing they don't trust us that's why they're probably doing that PRA to begin with yet we are the ones who are furnishing information themselves and creating a disclosure about what we did right or wrong and I'm just going to venture to guess that that's not going to be satisfying to the citizen who brought forward the complaint did the open government task force get any comments from the public or concerns from the public kind of you know based on what I just highlighted or was it were they satisfied generally with with us watch dogging ourselves because Stephanie I think you're great I trust you but you're not an elected position you don't necessarily you're not necessarily accountable to the public in a way an elected clerk would be so I just wanted to bring that up as a question for members of the open government task force or for the subcommittee yeah I can I can weigh in there we did talk quite a bit about uh who the adjudicating body should be or who should hear the appeals what we ultimately decided was that particularly since we have currently the open government uh task force implementation committee that that might actually be a really appropriate body to deal with many of these issues you're right absent some form of independent uh arbiter within the city there are going to be concerns about that process but as soon noted with with all of these with the the open with the public records act as well as with the brown act there is ultimately relief that people can seek in the courts if they should choose to we're providing an option that's free that isn't going to cost them money to still have their concern heard it'll still be public and there'll still be an opportunity for for that grievance to be aired particularly when we when we look at trends in the city you know if I'm somebody in the public who doesn't trust us and the report comes out that we've denied every single uh pra that would be cause for concern and that would obviously be something that the the media and others would cover so I think that it is a good compromise in terms of what our capacity is and I and I get not wanting to add staff time and not wanting to add staff in general but this is a council and this is a city that's made a commitment to open government and some of these things that are in the ordinance they are what they are they they cost money to do and they're the right thing to do and I'd say that this is one of those things Mr. Oliver is Mr. sorry any additions to Mr. Tivitz questions I I can I can weigh in I know sometimes during during our process you know we would uh can make consideration of certain recommendations and look for input from the council expecting it wanting it you know and so that it was not just the the subcommittee making decisions you know when I was when we were first talking about this it seemed like a reasonable alternative to a to a to a legal proceeding but what when I look at this now what I realize it would be putting us in the position of is making a determination that one of our employees is not doing their job and that's are the only two employees that we that we have that we review is the city manager and the city attorney we would actually be making a determination about the whether or not another person and maybe at the city clerk or some other some other department did not do their job and did not adequately satisfy the requirements or the the needs of a person requesting the pra so I have a little I had I do have some concern about how about being a subcommittee that's now determining whether one of our employees is doing their job that would be a concern of mine and I was so I was so I wonder this would probably need a little more work for me to be able to to support it fully the way it's the way it's articulated here but I understand the intention Mr. Oliver is any additional comments on those questions from Mr. Tivitz yeah I want to address that make some other comments too kind of taking back on one Sue said earlier about potential other pathway this is this has been six years of the making and it's it's been easy and I came in maybe more than midway it's been difficult but sometimes understanding being inside be part of the committee and watching that grow it's kind of like we keep making this big salad you know they're growing and growing and growing now we're here to serve it to you to the rest of you and somebody doesn't like radishes you know like Kale some of those like the dressing but there's a lot in this and it's a lot and I'm hearing you some of you now ask questions that coming from the from the outside really looking at it this is a big ask and towards the end as a lot of these things started to develop one of the things I started the question to and it was it was one of our slides and some of the things that we're going to require on an agenda budget impacts what's the budget impact of this it's big this is a big ass there's a lot of things related to staffing documents translations interpretation there's so many things that are there and I worry that pulling the trigger on this thing as an ordinance could put us in conflict as far as where policy means practice and maybe maybe it does make sense to for us to explore this as some type of a council policy to test it out for six months or test out elements of it as we continue to work out some of these other issues because again I really worry about what you're going to be facing I'm not going to be here but you can be facing some serious budget impacts because of this and we're trying to do the right thing I'm not saying don't do it because it's going to cost but we also need to find the resource to make it happen I think the citizens of Santa Rosa deserve this and they deserve something good and they deserve something they can understand too and here we're trying to help the rest of you understand it in one city and it's difficult so I don't know what the answer is but I'm open to some discussions about maybe moving forward with some kind of a different process maybe it is a council policy that we start working on and thinking chunks of this but I think we need to keep this burning and keep this moving forward and coming up with something that's the final product at the end that we can all live with and that meets everybody's interests as well. Great thank you. Mr. Timmits did you have any additional questions? Yes, quick clarification on the current PRA process without the Sunshine Ordinance Sue, can the public if they don't like the records we're currently furnishing can they still take their claim to Superior Court for discovery and all that good stuff? Yes, if a requester is unhappy with the response that they've received from the city they can go directly to Superior Court to challenge that. Attorney's fees are awarded to a successful plaintiff so there is that element as well and I will note that as a practical matter we only get maybe a couple of Public Records Act lawsuits in a year sometimes we might go for a year with none we have a couple pending now where the the laws are unclear on on what gets produced and when and and so forth so those lawsuits are pretty rare but but they do exist and they are available you can you know anyone can go right to court yes there are filing fees I will note that with the addition with the adoption of this ordinance these internal administrative processes will be a required prerequisite before you go to Superior Court so they'll have to go through these these two steps before they file an action in Superior Court and that's under the general principle of you have to exhaust all your administrative remedies against a governmental agency before you ask the court to intervene. Thank you sir. Okay next up we have Mr. Sorry you had your hand up. Thank you Mayor and just a quick question about the access to city data and I and I agree with I agree with the city attorney I have my own difficulties in navigating our website and looking for what I consider a pretty simple looking for some pretty simple information I spend a lot of time searching but my question has to do with whether or not we could determine which of the of the data is may is usually asked for that we could target as opposed to all data which that sounds I agree with council member oliveris not only on his concern about the budget but also this this this thought about perhaps looking at policy as opposed to for as opposed to ordinance and to do some testing out but I'm curious if we could narrow that down to if that that question had to be generated from some request or some information that someone was looking for that they couldn't and there might be we might feel that narrowed down to one department dependent potentially maybe two where there are usual questions about data that is generated that they need to find as opposed to all which sounds daunting to me so I'm just curious if maybe there's a if there was a genesis to that request and it's not something that maybe maybe it can't be answered tonight but I think that might be a good way to at least to start to narrow it down if we move in that direction so I'm sorry mr sorry was that a question for someone now we're just opposed for you know I don't know what can if it could be answered right now but I'm just maybe mr rogers has a sense of where that quest where that request came from it could have just been a general request from from members of our either the committee or members of the public that we're attending some of our meetings when we were actually live and sitting in a room with them I mean it could have come at that point because we had been working on this for a very long time or it could have come from the original task force I just think that we we would need to drill down I don't that's why I don't think I can get an answer tonight but I just be curious to the genesis yeah and I and I certainly will defer to um council member rogers but I can also indicate that originally um this provision was the open by default concept and it included not just data but all city documents and so actually the subcommittee and its discussions narrative from having all city documents to be posted on the website which obviously is thousands and thousands tens of thousands of documents to instead looking at data rather than documents so that that's where that originally came from and yes the the the notion of open by default by of of documents should be information should be presumed to be disposable and available to the public that's the genesis behind this and and certainly a council member rogers and chair of the committee may have additional additional comments or explanations yeah so sue is corrected it is one of the recommendations that came out of the open government task force um you know I actually took a note I was going to address this exact point um in in final comments after the public gives a chance to speak but you know the city manager made a comment about uh people throwing it against the wall and saying what sticks in terms of the data and and that's not understanding how everybody is going to use the data and that's actually part of the point uh you know if you have your data that's accessible for everybody to use then you have people who are not necessarily entrenched in how we are currently doing things who are able to look at the data whether it's a grad student who is working on a on a thesis or whether it's somebody who is in the the educational field who want to review data and come up with different or better ways for us to do things that's probably well outside of my purview and as a council member I kind of get used to what we are currently doing and what other cities are doing and so the idea was if you provide that data and don't put limitations on it people can really be creative in how they use the data and potentially come up with solutions for the city. Hey thank you for that. All right uh we have Mr. Oliveras and then Mr. Dowd. I apologize my hand was still left on before. Okay uh Mr. Dowd you have a question? It's not a question it's uh it's really a comment that I really appreciate what city attorney Gallagher talked about and I see the direction that this city should go is not do anything beyond uh what is powered by the Public Records Act and uh that which is not required by state and federal laws uh and limit the actions of our city employees to request uh of our citizens not just publish a sole website for everything that's produced in this city uh that's mind-boggling to me as to what that might cost and maybe one person out of 175,000 might be interested in it uh it just doesn't make any sense and then my last comment is I really really would hope that the city council could implement some of the things much as uh council member uh Oliveras said and to some extent also council member Sawyer that put things in place and then give time for implementation so that we haven't jumped in over our heads in the deepest part of the ocean but we walk into this and see if we can accomplish some things that go along with the concept of keeping our options and and presentations open to the public available to the public but just don't make it a blanket just do everything for everybody when everybody doesn't even want it thank you hey seeing no additional hands up um I did have two questions one on slide 26 and 27 I mentioned uh the PRA appeals and it said 10 days and another time I had two days but since we've been having this discussion is that business or calendar and I've just asked whatever the ordinance is if we could be so first one first question for those two are those business or calendar days and I would love for us to be consistent throughout because I know there's another item on the agenda where they called working days and now clarification I think would be helpful yes these these are calendar days and in general in statutory interpretation if the days does not specifically a state business or calendar it defaults to calendar so but we but you are right since some of the provisions are um specific to business days it does make sense that we be expressed throughout so and I appreciate your definition that's what I was assuming but again as we're talking about let's get away from government speak I'm not sure many of our residents might know what you just said so thank you one thing that I forgot to ask regarding uh agenda materials when we were talking about as supporting documents get created it gets pushed well it gets added to the agenda I know some members of our community uh have signed up for council updates would that information also be pushed out to those members of our community who like getting that information uh yes yes we yes we would um push out a notice through our gov delivery subscribers that um documents have been added to the agenda okay and they would receive those documents or that it would direct them to where they can get those documents it would direct them to where they can get those documents great thank you okay so you know additional questions just give council the heads up what I'd like to do is let's uh hear public comment then we will take a deep uh brief break and then come back for our conversations so we're now going to hear public comment for item 14.1 uh madam host would you facilitate public comment for item 14.1 thank you mayor you can see there is a timer before you on the screen for item 14.1 open government task for open government ordinance to make a public comment raise your hand via zoom if you are participating by telephone please dial star nine the first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak when the countdown begins please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so your microphone will be muted at the end of the countdown or at the conclusion of your public the first public comment will be from Eric followed by Karen Eric I've enabled your speaking permissions can you please unmute yourself and confirm you can see the timer on the screen yes I can thank you very much thank you please identify yourself for public record if you choose to do so when your time begins now thank you this is Eric Frazier in the greater cherry street neighborhood I appreciate the opportunity to participate and thank you very much for allowing me three minutes to cover the points that I've assembled as you can well imagine this is a bedrock issue that goes right to social justice so again I appreciate being involved my comments here might be a little bit random and out of order so please bear with me number one on the list is that SB 272 requires the city to post an inventory of enterprise systems used to administer the affairs of government I have never seen this inventory produced by the city and I think it is an important inventory to have access to so that you guys understand as well as the public the extent of automation in serving up information item number two surveys where are the guidelines for the city's use of surveys to assure that they're statistically important and that they have no defect on language or logic number three reports reports must be complete and accurate with projections or opinions labeled as such and not misleading in any way they also must have an author attributed to the writing who is responsible for the content potentially legally responsible for the content number four verifiable sources all the information and writing as well as presented orally by staff or officials subject to the Brown Act must have verifiable sources referenced so that we can track down those source materials number five meeting management why is the legislature not administered sufficiently to see whether the public should go to a physical location and or participate via zoom if you look at the legislature calendar currently you'll see that there's a lot of misinformation about where the meeting's being held and is it on zoom that will grow more important as we transition away from the covid pandemic speaking of that certainly the application of zoom and other platform tools and technology should continue on even as we physically assemble i don't see any provisions for that when it comes to the cpra here and again there's a lot of these technology platforms you mentioned next request next request and i think if you were to search next request you'd see those areas where data sets are frequently requested and i don't buy into council member tidbits assertion that requests are made just because there's a lack of trust in government i think people use information for a variety of reasons and after all we've you know it's our information too pr a request should not have any additional hoops to jump through for the requester so this idea that you're creating some additional hoops to jump through in case you have to appeal the lack of action or the lack of completeness would be a problem uh thank you very much i'll sign the resume thank you eric the next public comment will be from karen followed by colin karen i've enabled your speaking permissions can you please unmute yourself and confirm you can see the timer on your screen i have thank you thank you please identify yourself for public record if you choose to do so and your time begins now thank you good evening mayor schwedhelm vice mayor fleming and members of the council my name is karen weeks and i was a member of the original open government task force as you can imagine i'm delighted to see this coming forward it's been a long time coming as has been mentioned previously tomorrow will be six years to the date when the report was first presented to the council i commend staff and the subcommittee for their work the ordinance presented tonight is vastly improved from the one that was brought to you in march of 2016 and also the staff report was very clear in laying out the differences between the original ordinance and this version and i thank you for that i do have a couple of questions of course a number of them have already been answered during the presentation so but there's still a couple of outstanding ones and to start off i would like to say that if some of the members of the original task force had been asked to participate at either council meeting or the subcommittee meeting maybe some of the issues that you're talking about tonight might have been fleshed out the first question i have is at the last subcommittee meeting i did ask the reason for changing from calendar days to business days and didn't receive an answer so i'm asking that again the second question i have is about the supporting documents and being sent via delivery and i believe that that's already been answered and i really do appreciate the fact that when there are additional documents provided that the public gets notice of that the city attorney talked about some of the other items in the report such as the citizens guidebook and the items listed under 1-10.010 and i believe she indicated that these might be coming within three to four months and i just wanted to find out if that if i heard that correctly so once again i'd like to thank you all for a job well done and thank you again the next public comment will be from colin followed by sonia colin i've been able to speak in permissions can you please unmute your mic and confirm you can see the timer on your screen yeah i can see the timer can you hear me i can't thank you very much please identify yourself for public record if you choose to do so and your time begins now hi my name is colin netcast i'm a lifetime resident of san rosa and of sonoma county oh man what a long report but i think it's something that's very necessary and very appreciated um i've been trying to come to as many city council and subcommittee meetings and uh board of supervisors meetings as i could since i decided to start getting involved uh as a community member in local politics in may um and i i see a lot of the things that come up um that i have had other community members to talk to me about as problems things that folks feel like they have difficulty with access uh being addressed in this uh i think it's great that y'all already do a really good job of putting out agendas way in advance um i know someone mentioned at some point that a lot of this is stuff that the board of supervisors the county government does not do and i can tell you from experience that it significantly hinders public engagement in those meetings so i commend you for wanting to move forward with this and involve public in the decision-making process uh i did notice as one point of concern which was it's a not a small thing for the members of community that it impacts um i noticed that there was a discussion of using telecommunications devices for deaf and hard of hearing community members um i was curious about that as to what that entails i don't know if that means that somebody is live transcribing or what or if there would be some kind of discussion in the future about using um uh sign language interpreter on screen i know some larger cities uh do that as well um but overall i think a lot of it is really great stuff uh i hear some of the council members concerns about it slowing down the decision-making process and i definitely agree with those concerns i would say adding more staff to rectify that problem would be helpful so that the turnaround time is not less than or that so that it's not increased you know so that you're still able to make decisions and timely matter um while also being able to notify the public of these issues in advance um i know i have taken on essentially a volunteer position within my own community in terms of reading through agendas as they're posted and translating them for community members i know by snare uh flung mentioned that there's a lot of difficulty with parsing the language and those agendas i think that might be something to talk about in the future as well just to make the language more accessible um it was very gratifying to hear that i am not the only one who has difficulty translating uh the dense language of those agendas um so that might be something to think about in the future but i think this initiative is great and i commend you for bringing it forward before the council i hope you move forward with it when it comes to about thank you thank you callin the next public comment will be from sonia sonia i've enabled your speaking permissions can you please unmute your microphone confirm you can see the timer on your screen can you hear me i can hear you now thank you very much sonia please identify yourself a public record if you choose to do so and your time begins now my name is sonia taylor um i've been around for a long time in other words i'm old i remember the seara club lawsuit i remember the settlement um i think that it has resulted in good things for the city of santa rosa i while i understand deeply the concerns about uh cost about staffing um i think it is important to remember that this is the public's business that you're conducting and the public it should be able to find out anything they want to know and with that said i have to say that the city of santa rosa does in my experience an excellent job of responding to pares i'm guilty of numerous ones um staff is is very open and always willing to talk to anybody in my experience about what's going on i fully support this sunshine ordinance i remember when it all started been around for a while and i disagree rather strongly that the city of santa rosa should just do the minimum uh the public records act and the brown act require in fact the brown act very explicitly states that um you know it's the government it's the people's government and it provides opportunity for um closed sessions for instance and things like that but it also says you don't have to do them it gives you the opportunity but you don't have to do them the idea is i think what this sunshine ordinance puts forward which is to be as open and transparent as as possible and the city is in my experience as i said doing a good job of that but we can always do better um so i would fully encourage you to support and pass this ordinance and i hope you will it's been a long time and um i do want to uh echo the last speaker who um talked about the county of sonoma i'm in the process of writing a lovely letter your glad's not going to you about their complete and total lack of transparency so thanks i hope you will pass this thank you sonia again we're now taking public comment on item 14.1 open government ordinance to make public comment raise your hand now via zoom or dial star nine if participating by telephone here i don't see any additional hands being raised are you okay if i move along to the voicemail message public comment uh yes let's please do thank you point one the one you with from roseland thank you for finally getting to this six years since it was first explored it is definitely something that you should embrace and have the whole culture of all the city employees understand not just a sunshine ordinance approach but an actual authentic community engagement in which you allow the community to do as your number uh of recommendations say you're going to do one of the things is number six the management of the meetings to facilitate public participation participation allowing people to come to the meetings and not this exclusionary doubt approach that you've embraced and feel is somehow helping many people tell me they don't know what's going on with the city because they're not on the internet these are taxpayers they're older folks that maybe you folks want to exclude it sure seems that way one of the things that remain concerned to myself as others is number three posting of the council's final agenda for business days prior to any regularly scheduled council meeting we hope that means santa rosa city business days because the city's closed on fridays so that would mean to most folks the monday before the meeting and then three days business days in the week before the meeting making it the tuesday one full week before the meeting the two folks are going to make this stuff available to us and that shouldn't be a problem you folks can step it up you got some highly paid staff there they can definitely suck it up and make it happen for us you only have four business days a week now so make sure that those four business days of the santa rosa city is what is part of this number three for the new ordinance that you are adopting today every bit that you can take to help the community be more involved and abide by the stipulations from the past with the sierra club settlement would show that you are trying to do the best you can to have the most informed public and the truest community empowerment right now it seems like your efforts are more window dressing and they're not really striving to have true community involvement even your community advisory board meetings it's as far as very few members of the public get a chance to participate in that thank you mayor that concludes public comment for item 14.1 all right thank you so much for that okay we're going to take a recess we'll reconvene at eight o'clock reconvene at eight o'clock madem say click are you ready to resume yes i am okay we'll reconvene the december 1st santa rosa city councilman could we have a roll call please yes councilmember dad councilmember tibbetz here councilmember soyer here councilmember rogers here councilmember alavarez here vice mayor phleming here mayor schwedhelm here let the record state that all council members are present okay now look for a public comment what i'd like to do specifically and i want to see if this is okay with you mr rogers as you have this item one more opportunity for questions and get not comments questions from council for clarification then we'll get general comments from council to help mr rogers with any information he may want and then this item will be yours and mr rogers if there's any specific things you would like us to make comment on that would be helpful for you to share it after we get questions for other council members okay so council are there any questions related to the entire presentation and or clarification from any of our public comments mr tibbetz you had your hand up thank you mayor yeah i wanted to just pose karen's weeks as questions to the staff i apologize karen i did not write them down and i forgot them over the break so i'm hoping either staff has those questions written down or karen can share them again the main the main one if i can jump in mr mayor uh and i apologize this was going to be my question as well was on the shift from calendar days to business days uh and you know our our subcommittee was working on this for about a year and a half and i apologize i don't remember why we made that shift so i was hoping that staff could remind us as well and i believe the questions mainly had been answered uh except for that one i remember i i believe that it was made right is that you danielle sorry yes it's me danielle i believe that the the request was made from members of the public who were participating in those subcommittee meetings to change from calendar i'm sorry business days to or calendar days to business days and you know could you just introduce yourself for those listening in as to what your role in the city is yes danielle gar jr community engagement coordinator with the community engagement office great thank you so much jack does that answer your questions or was karen's questions your only question well if she had more i'd love for her to post them but she may have left um i i guess my clarifying question is just to reiterate what i heard before we currently post 12 days because of the settlement with the seara club so what we're talking about doing is expanding one week just because we're moving to business days from calendar days correct well let me let me clarify the um seara club settlement and the council policy requires posting nine days but nine days nine calendar days is a sunday uh and therefore if we are going to post during a business day that would be friday uh but because of um our practice of uh rotating rdo's alternate rdo's um we instead post on thursday is our practice but under you know that is just our practice and we could post on friday or even over the weekend under the current uh requirements um but it is our practice to post on thursday so we're currently doing nine days calendar days well we're required to do nine days but that would be sunday so we're actually doing 12 days uh as a general practice there are occasions where it slips over and gets posted on friday instead but um our general practice is to post on thursday thank you okay council are there any other questions then so mr rogers um can you just kind of tee up what feedback you would like to hear from council that will help you with your with this item yeah i i think so there's uh i'll be honest mr mayor there have been hours and hours and hours of the subcommittee going tediously line by line through the entire ordinance so i think what would be most helpful for me uh before i make the motion is to hear what the concerns are from from council members see which of those concerns we can either explain or offer up some form of a compromise and see if we can um then get an ordinance that the council is interested in passing um and again i mean this comes from the subcommittee uh recommended which means it doesn't actually need a motion but it does sound to me like the uh members of the council have an interest in weighing in so if that works for you if we could just go through the list uh have people give comments i can see if i can craft something that that we all can kind of agree on okay so just open comments and i'll just go around where you fall into my squares mr dowd you're up first i i think i've made probably as many comments as i have uh but i will repeat them and that is that i i really do support us having a uh very open and uh system where the public can participate and understand what we're doing i don't like the the piece in there about the sole website for all items prepared by the city i just think that that's an awful lot of time and expense that uh is much better handled by having people who want a certain item of information to do it upon request in accordance with the other issues of the public records act and then the last thing i would like to say is i think this will have to be phased in by some means uh so that the city council can identify the things that are working well and emphasize them and and decide that there's other things that aren't working well and discontinue them but not feel like this is stamped in concrete that's my opinion thank you mr dowd mr tibbins you're up next thank you mayor you know first i want to preface everything i'm about to say with uh i'm really grateful to you chris and to the subcommittee for all the work that you put into this over this long period of time and um i'm gonna you know work with with you and everybody to try to move something forward the last thing i want to do is be an armchair quarterback who did not participate on work that began many councils ago for a very good reason so some of some of my concerns are this just generally speaking my prevailing concern is that uh the the noticing timeline is going to undo a lot of the significant advances this council has made uh within city hall particularly the planning department i like your solution a lot of posting uh in advance and kind of just using it as a placeholder because i do believe that what the public is after with the sunshine ordinance it's just the ability to have information sooner whether we end up acting upon that or if a planning commission votes something down they at least have been noticed but we don't we don't see it i think john's comments are spot on about that i think it's going to create a huge degree of confusion and require a lot of public education between now and and when it's implemented implemented but i'd rather give the public the benefit of the doubt to figure it out in the staff the benefit of the doubt and us to explain it to them in a way in which it works um i think we should probably exempt appeals it sounds like that was too um convoluted uh per the brown act and and when i think about an appeal you know those are those are coming about because people are already informed and probably to some degree organized which again i think is a big push behind why the public wants the sunshine ordinance so i would recommend exempting appeals um i was okay with the meeting management um i also liked your suggestion chris about allowing video in lieu of minutes i'm really i just feel bad for the city clerk staff who has to transcribe all these minutes within i think it was five days um so i understand that we need to do that you know short of a video but i think a video could help a lot in that regard you know with the pra stuff i'm kind of take it or leave it i i have huge concerns about the budget i have a lot of concerns about our staff particularly small departments um i just don't think they have the support they need to to do it right which then becomes an issue with implementation and um us watchdogging ourselves but you know i'd be willing to support that in in kind of and i'll get to this point in a minute and kind of a pilot um i think that uh you know by and large what i would like to see is i think i would have a hard time supporting an ordinance tonight um because as as dick has pointed out what i think ronesto has pointed out there just seems to be a lot of um stuff to implement in a really short amount of time and if we don't implement it properly there's going to be consequences for us the illusion of impropriety and uh you know impacts to staff you know generally speaking one of the things that that i love about being on the council is that you know we get to do things we get to bring forward citizen issues citizen complaints citizen projects that's our job and i just don't want to pass it and my fear is that we pass an ordinance that will slow that down um but i know that that we do a public a greater degree of transparency whenever possible so what i was hoping is that we could pursue something and i think i heard ronesto say this is implementing this maybe for one year as a policy as something that staff has to begin to implement we have to begin to implement um and then have a review committee you know the subcommittee check in in six months and then probably again in one year to see how things are going the only caveat to that and i don't know if our charter allows for it because i would truly love to see staff be voting members of this committee i don't know if that's possible but i think we're asking um for a lot of work to be put on their shoulders and i know that that's their jobs that's what they they agree to do when they they take these contracts with the city but i still think that there should be um i don't know i i'm sensing in staff right now that there's a lot of reluctance and fear about the process i could be mistaken so i'd like to see that but those are my suggestions um and thanks for all the work you've done on this i do mean that thank you mr tibbitts mr sorrier you're next thank you mayor um and i i do want to thank the the original task force for all their work that as you can tell the body of work is really quite immense and they were um they were steadfast in their in their desire to have the sunshine ordinance and have a body of work that would make us make the city more transparent than it already was um and also the the public that was involved with the task force as well and they spent a lot of time and energy and making comments and recommendations to the original task force um and also the the sub the one that was subsequent to that and i really want to also acknowledge um council member rogers his ability to pick up that ball after it lied kind of just sitting on the on the court if you will um for months and months and be able to pick it up and help the community that we had community meetings at that time even though there were only a few people there they they offered some really great recommendations and chris had had the ability to to hear them and to um to include them in in some of our recommendations and also knowing knowing full well that it would ultimately come to the council and there would be a large conversation and this that is what was happening tonight so thank you chris for your um for your ability to to correlate um a great deal of information and be able to help us move on because you'd be very it was very easy to get stuck on one issue for instance the the timing of the preliminary agenda so um chris did a great job um and i really appreciate his leadership there so i'll i'll go into the um what made me uncomfortable what what um what i was i'll just tell you what i would like what i have concerns with um i continue to have concerns about the early posting on the preliminary agenda um i am i am i agree with with jack about the what it could do to projects um what it's going to do to staff what it's going to do to our city clerk i mean there there are so many consequences and ramifications of of going too early or pushing the staff into um what i think of as being um an arduous task to try to um respond to 12 business days so i'm in favor of calendar days um and the really the task force the original task force recommendations um i'm very much in favor of um including the the one for the final agenda um their their recommendation their original recommendation there as well um i know that's it's not i know chris was i know i'll just mention he chris you wanted to go a little further than i wanted to go and i i think you knew that i suppose had a little heartburn about that i i still do so i'm you know i'm i'm i'm not nothing if not consistent on this on those concerns about the uh that the timing when i looked at that calendar uh that you illustrated um uh earlier in the in the presentation um it gave me um no small amount on pay on i think it was say on on fifth tile 15 or slide 15 gave me no um small amount of anxiety so i that that's not something i'm interested in in putting into place um i don't i don't feel comfortable being being an appeal body for our employees for pras that that makes that does make me feel uncomfortable um and the city data we have a lot of work to do on how much on where we go with that i i like the idea of being able to um have some information that is not currently um available on on on a website you know in some portal but in my opinion until we clean up our current website and really get in there and make it um as as user friendly as possible adding more layers of data in there before before maintaining a um a user friendly a website um i think would be would be a mistake so um i think that is i think that's it i will leave it at that with with my thanks um to the council for being able to process this much information in one evening it's it's uh you can imagine how much work went into it i appreciate everyone who was a part of that and thank you council for the for your willingness to weigh in on this thank you mr sir mr olivaris you're next yeah i i i just want to reiterate what i said before uh mayor after going through this process and actually the process today and trying to roll this out it's a big ask of staff uh it's going to be i don't know that we need a year in reviewing this or or trying it out we need to test it out there i know we can bring back in order to change it but i don't want to do that i think i'd rather start out with something like some type of a council policy uh while we explore more of this and continue to roll it out and eventually have some kind of strong ordinance uh but like i said i the big my biggest worry right now is is uh committing to our promise to the public on what we want to do and it's going to cost us money we need to find it i'm not saying we shouldn't do it because of that we need to find it so that's going to take some work uh and we don't know yet um a lot of the elements of this as far as the practical piece of is put into practice now we don't know yet so we need to we need to discover what some of those barriers may be as we roll it out so i just asked for some caution as we move forward that we do it right uh and that at the end we end up with a product that we can all embrace and be proud of because i think this is going to be a first i think in our county and i think it could be a model for others to follow as well so i really encourage us to uh to be more methodical about how we roll it out uh because i think there's still a lot of unknowns that need to be addressed as well thank you mr all there's vice mayor phleming thank you i want to start by saying that this what's been brought forward to us today it's not lost on me the amount of participation that that has been put in a lot of hours and so forth and um to that end you know um you know i hear the the point about having staff involved we have council member oliveris our longest serving member and a former staff member karen weeks um weighed in heavily on this you know we have our two most senior members of the council and mr rogers who has tons of policy experience so you know in terms of what comes to us um you know i just want to extend my sincere and heartfelt thanks to all of the work that you and the community put into bringing this forward and i'm going to be um you know supportive of um whatever compromise the council and in your wisdom comes up with tonight whether or not it's a a policy or an ordinance or you know try something but what i'd like us to do is to consider trying as much as we can and um if not getting caught up on some of these in my mind roadblocks that are are reasons that that are realistic they're practical challenges and they're opportunities for us to overcome things if we want to make something happen for our government which is funded by and for the residents of the city of san aroza then what we ought to do is to figure out a way to pay for it and if people want something people have to pay for it and so if our residents want this and demand it then we need to figure out how to fund it for them and if they don't want it then you know so i so i guess where i'm going with this is that i reject the idea of oh you know it's such a huge burden on staff it's such a huge burden on the clerk what it is is it's an opportunity to staff these departments properly if this is something that the public wants if the public doesn't really want it and doesn't really want to pay for it then you know i don't know why we're here um at this point so you know it's it's kind of like this you know you're you're darned if you do darned if you don't uh and and i think that it's you know a little bit of false logic because you know times are tough we're looking at a difficult budget and everyone's worried about things getting cut when we're asking for a huge body of work to come forward and maybe it's not the right time maybe the public would decide that uh they don't want to pay for this at this point in time but i tend to err on the side of we wouldn't be at this point in time if if people didn't want this and so um you know to that end um you know i have a couple of thoughts but again i i'll defer to my more senior colleagues which is um one is that you know i'm not concerned about putting unprocessed data on a website i think that you know a lot of great science a lot of great research comes from things that we don't know how they'll be used or where that in what ways they'll be used it would be lovely to have everything perfect and nifty and i think that we do need to have a user-friendly website and more publicly accessible things but when it comes to data um and raw data i'm okay with just putting it out there it belongs to the people it's the people's data um if we want to the people want us to organize it a certain way they need to let us know and they need to let us know that they want to pay for it um and then around like the posting deadlines i do share the concern about it holding up timelines but i think that we just had a first crack tonight at how to best um work around that problem and i think it's an opportunity for some creativity and some public education i do share councilmember Sawyer's concern about creating confusion and i do share the city attorney's concern about tipping um or giving the illusion of tipping um staff tipping their their hand about how they think something's going to go and so i think that we need to come up with a way to do it in a way that is really clear that we are not prejudicing the outcome of something prior to it happening but that we are are maintaining a place um and that we can and that for developers who might see that on there that um you know our our planning and develop at um our pet department has gotten really good at communicating with potential developers and so i don't think that this is beyond their ability to let people know who are filing applications hey if you see this thing it's it's a procedural matter it has nothing to do with the outcome of your project and um if developers can get as far as they do with the city i think they can understand that line on a preliminary agenda and if they can i don't know how they got that far to start with and then um the last thing is that if you know let's try something and if it doesn't work let's review it and let's do our best to fix it and i mean i can't say enough how much i appreciate the hard work of our staff and especially our clerk's department during this COVID time i mean you know Stephanie and Dina you guys have done the work of a much larger team uh in the last nine months and if you don't know how much we appreciate you digging in and how much i believe that we should upstaff your department and give you all the resources and that no department should be worried about getting a load of work done that the council asked for lack of resources we should give the public what they ask and we should give our teams what they need to get it done so that we're not stuck between picking the two and yes things are tough and yes we have difficult decisions to make but let's try to act with um with the leadership that we are and you know that we represent in the north bay and not the fear of the the tough winter ahead of us so those are my comments and thank you again right thank you um you know my comments starting just generic i really think this are general i i really think this was a community effort and i do fondly recall back in december of 2014 when this presentation was done because i was sitting as an audience member just before getting sworn into council can't believe that's been six years and mr soyer i don't know that was your fourth time fifth time elected but anyway we um it was just fascinating this process that that's when it was introduced and remember the dialogue and you think of all that this city has done over the last six years right and i really appreciate you know mr rogers you picking up the ball and the rest of the subcommittee to get us this product that we have here and again i'm not looking for perfection i'm not looking for perfection at all just improvement in our transparency and improvement in our processes in the city and the one thing i do want to remind council especially those of us that'll uh be here in 2021 it's we've talked about what will this cost to implement to me there's two sides of that equation either bring more dollars for more staffing or we reduce our priorities this council we've been asking staff here's our priorities this is what we want you to prioritize we the seven members on council i may have to say okay we're not going to be able to have five priorities and that's right you know i'm in a big um i'm a big supporter of having and you know making this a policy not an ordinance now and i'm open for the staff you know i think our city attorney talked about a three to four month you know implementation period it may take longer but let's do that as almost you know this test project project and like the vice mayor said too i i there's not too many things that now that's a deal breaker for me but mr rogers i will provide with you or for you some specific points um a when we're talking about the web portal for me just one web portal that doesn't sound practical what i would love is a user friendly website and again my um metric my personal metric heck if my father-in-law can understand it that's good you know we've talked about governmental language let's not get governmental language someone that's easy to use right you don't have to be an it professional or someone inside this government bubble to understand how to maneuver through the website so i think that's tied into a single web portal if we have a single search engine that was able to get all of our information so any resident could be able to find that uh i mentioned the effective date i've mentioned the policy and then i really i haven't seen a good reason why we wanted to go from calendar to business days i'm very supportive of the original open government task force recommendation so i'm a big supporter of that you know and that is the group that i really would like to apply because if you look at who those community members are they're still in the game right and if i was a member of that and that was a big concern i had that it's taken us six years can you imagine right now if someone were to create a task force and say you know do all this work and in six years will give you an answer or your return on your investment probably not you know there's a variety of reasons why it's here but i just really want to applaud all those members of the community and that task force that originally stuck with us and now we're seeing the product that i think will be uh again may not please everyone but it's a step right direction so really applaud all the efforts of staff and current members who've been on the task force and specifically that previous open government task force of which i know at least one member it didn't scare away she's currently a city employee so that kudos to her too so with that mr rogers i believe you have this item all right thank you mr mayor and thank you everybody i i think for me um when i approached this project uh with uh councilmember soyer councilmember oliveris and i and i do want to mention councilmember combs was one of the original members who picked up this project as well and had been involved for a long time in it one of the things that i was struck by and i know that we discussed was just sort of the overarching principles of democracy and how our legitimacy as a government was derived by the consent of the people who we govern and here we had this document that was put together by folks telling us how they wanted to interact with their city and we have spent a lot of time since talking about how to get people engaged and for me the most bedrock principle is they've told us what type of government they want it is up to us to figure out how to actually implement that and what we really did was we walked through as i mentioned tediously each of these areas and while there are aspects that are not perfect many of them come from a compromise that the committee made based on what the intention was from the task force what we were hearing in today's time from the public and trying to meet that expectation so for example there's been a lot of talk about the preliminary agenda the 12 calendar days versus the 12 business days i actually do remember now as we've been going through this discussion that was part of the compromise that we made because the original task force recommendation was for five business days for the final posting so what we decided in those conversations was that because we were not going to meet the five business days for the for the final posting and we were instead going to go for four we could at least provide a little bit of extra lead time on the preliminary agenda without tying staff's hands so much that we couldn't get anything done so i did want to provide a little bit of that context as well uh with that said i do hear many of the concerns uh i will try to offer a compromise based on uh hours of work that we put in uh based on what i think that the public expected of us of this ordinance and i'm gonna start right there i've heard from a number of folks they would prefer to do a policy than an ordinance and i'll tell you that is one of the things where i don't know that i would want to compromise on that uh and particularly to council member oliveris's point there is so much in this ordinance uh that isn't controversial that we should be doing already that i think sends an important message to the public about the level of importance that we have some of that is the translation requirements some of that is the providing of of folks uh their ability to interact with us i i know we're getting caught up on some of the stickier details that don't really uh matter to everybody in the public like the agenda but i think those things should be codified in an ordinance and this is our opportunity to do some of that so i'm going to suggest we keep the ordinance uh but we also already know the ordinance is dated not only have we learned a lot about community engagement over the last six years we've learned a lot about community engagement over the last six months and dealing with covet and we in fact at our last meeting for the subcommittee uh made a recommendation that we needed to keep the open government committee going to talk about lessons learned to talk about implementation as we come out of covet and that we should really treat this ordinance as the bedrock not a final deal but something as a evolving document that implemented best practices but still kept that commitment to the public so what i'm going to suggest is that we do pass the ordinance um and set the implementation timeline uh effective with next year's budget so that that way it gives staff time to prepare it gives us time the next council uh to have a discussion about the fiscal impacts of portions of it and if at that time the council decides that parts of it are not able not practical or feasible based on budget constraints then we can have that conversation and we can in fact schedule that to be done uh in conjunction with the budget i then think we also set a six month and a one one year review period as council member tidbit suggested for us to have a study session hearing from staff about what the practical impact has been and that we can then address some of those issues as well i do think tying it to the to the budget discussion would ease a lot of the concerns that i heard from from council members i think for the advance posting of the agenda uh i think that four projects that have to come to city council regardless and there are not as many anymore because we have done a lot of that streamlining but there are still some let's go ahead and just place those on the preliminary agenda but for ones that are appeals i hear you let's build into the exemption section that appeals from a lower body whether it's the planning commission or whatever have you that those are exempt from this additional timeline i think from what i heard from council member soyer and council member tidbits i think that that would solve the concern because then it all it not it doesn't assume that there's an appeal and it doesn't slow down the process if there's an appeal uh from what we've been trying to accomplish i am happy to talk about that as well as council member fleming said i agree i don't know what people are going to use the data for if if they find a clearing house that we don't have staff curating and cataloging if they don't find it useful fine but what we clearly heard from the public in these discussions was particularly for institutions who wanted to be able to have access to that data for whatever project they have coming up having a clearing house where they have access to access to that data would be helpful so i'd like to keep that if council members are open to it um council member soyer i also heard from you the concerns about the appeal body for the pras we currently have it as that multi-step process i am fine as a compromise if the council wants to not have us be involved in it go through the process of the the appeal to the city manager and city attorney and if the person then at that point finds that as an unsatisfactory response then they do have the avenue through the courts so if that makes council members more comfortable that we take ourselves out of the appeal process i'm fine with that as a compromise as well um all right so i think i will make a motion whenever you're ready mr mayor but i will throw those out for discussion and see what the general straw poll reaction is from council members if that works for you thank you we do have a couple hands up uh oh mr jib is it down mr soyer you still have a question i do thank you mayor and and thank you chris i think clarification as far as tying the exactly what parts of this would be tied to the budget because i i i have to say that i was kind that that's one of my biggest concerns is the unknown of the cost and though i agree with um council member um we're flooding that you know if the if the community wants this then we need to find a way to pay for it um i'm not and i'm not clear exactly what the community really is looking for what the but it's hard it's always hard to gear when an entire community is looking for so um paying for it could be a heavy lift so i'm so i do have a concern about that i was one of those that was actually kind of in favor of going for a policy before going to an ordinance um just because to be able to try some of these out um i understand that the the message that it sends if we went to a policy as opposed to ordinance but it would give us an opportunity to tweak those things that didn't seem to be working um and so i'm i'm unclear as to when this would begin as far as the the um preliminary agenda changes uh from the the various changes that have been discussed when would that begin right so so my my suggestion uh from hearing the the different comments from council members is that the implementation of this ordinance is at the adoption of the next budget so that way staff has time to prepare between uh hopefully if this is adopted and next june uh what those actual budget impacts for them would be and then in the discussion of the budget we have an opportunity to discuss do we need to add staff or do we need to actually go back and amend portions of this that are infeasible due to our current resources but it allows us to have that conversation and it allows staff time to prepare for that um that's the suggestion that i'm i'm offering i did also want to mention because you you did trigger me on one thing that i was missing but none of the council members brought it up but sue did bring up a concern around um the recommendation portion uh i think that uh my intention and i i i got the vibe from the subcommittee that the intention of requiring a a budget impact and a recommendation uh is uh not uh in any way legally binding but is the best guests from staff to be able to make an informed decision from the public about what we're talking about um so for both the budget as well as if a recommendation if staff is bringing us something without a recommendation which does happen quite frequently that they are bringing an item for discussion they shouldn't have to come up with a recommendation we should be able to build in a way to to say you know recognition if it's a project recommendation pending uh you know direction from the planning commission or uh no particular recommendation available at this time whatever whatever have you i think the idea is allow the public to know what we're thinking and not completely blindside them and if if we have concerns if we if we're looking at this item and we say we don't know what the budget impact of this is going to be i think it's fair for us to put it in there to the extent that that's true so that that way the public has the access to the information that we have at the time of discussing things so i just i did want to make that plug in there that if that language is so restrictive that it prevents us from being able to do those sorts of things then we definitely need to soften it but the intention is to make sure that the public has the same information we have at the time that we are trying to make a decision so can i another terrifying question regarding the implementation yeah if we pass an ordinance tonight how how difficult will it be uh when we're dealing with the budget to be able to be nimble and to be able to make adjustments uh what if we find out that some certain things might be too expensive um unwieldy you know some things will absolutely work some things are just going to be a nightmare um if we create if we if we adopt it as a policy tonight as opposed to an ordinance does that change our ability to be nimble during the budget process i guess that's a question for sue because uh my my understanding is or my thought is that we would have an opportunity to discuss it as a council and if there was a need for us to waive our budget isn't a one-time discussion it's an ongoing conversation it would give staff an indication of where we are headed in the budget process and that it would give us ample time if we needed to uh with obviously 12 uh business days notice uh for us to be able to have a discussion about whether we can actually where we find those resources or have that that conversation with the public during that budget hearing process about do you value this over other priorities that we're going to try to meet that makes sense yeah it makes sense to staff um the only thing that i would say is um i don't the city attorney may have a specific opinion about implementation generally we work in a fiscal year not in a June June so would we be going for a July 1 implementation date with okay that's that's the one clarifying question i had yeah yeah i'd i'd want it to run concurrent with the the next year's budget if i could just ask the city attorney to comment on that also to me just talk about what staff either operational impacts or documenting impacts would policy versus ordinance route going uh the the difference uh in terms of flexibility for uh a policy versus the ordinance is simply that working with an ordinance uh you can change it uh with one council meeting um if it's an ordinance then we need to do the two readings of the ordinance uh it would be hard to imagine that after six months we'd be talking about it being an urgency ordinance so i think we can set that aside uh and it would it would require two uh two steps um so i i think the difference between the ordinance and resolution is that uh two step process at the end if you want to do amendments uh and then it's a it's um more the sense that i think when we have a policy uh folks have a more of a sense that we're we can we can tweak it easily we can we can change it we can try things out and modify it but as a practical matter we can do that with an ordinance as well it just takes a longer process and so a little a little more involved you have to do various a statutory steps for for an ordinance um and to if i can't sue to and also to to be fair that's part of why i'm talking about tying it to the budget is the budget has to go through those same steps and processes yes if in the budget process we've identified that there's an issue there is a remedy to fix it along with the budget before the actual implementation yes and what we would do is we would agendize the open government ordinance at each budget meeting you wouldn't if you it would give you the opportunity to address the ordinance at each of your budget meetings separately to get that process going to make amendments if you if you should so desire from from a staff perspective in the budget process i would concur it was the it would be perfectly set up to step through those public hearing processes and review processes so that so the um we wouldn't see that as a hurdle because we would have plenty of forewarning um and an ability to evaluate that in the in the overall budget cycle yes and i i do want to also clarify the the actual implementation of the ordinance and the ordinance would not go into effect until july 1st so we wouldn't be kind of trying things out we would be internally doing our own uh investigation and trying to figure out what's what is it going to take for us to meet these requirements and then be able to report back to you but we wouldn't have had the practical experience of trying it out but but that aside we could still track those those issues right so we would be able to identify those issues staff could identify where there is there might be some challenges so um we'd still be able while we wouldn't necessarily be doing it practically we could still track where those issues lie for us and for the council so if there are issues that occur which would have been challenged having the framework that we know we're shooting for would allow us to evaluate impacts and it kind of i would hope that staff would be attempting to implement early to see how it would work yeah without the fear of some form of enforceability on them should they do it incorrectly or if they'd learn something in the process absolutely exactly exactly mr sorry did you have any more questions yes thanks for just a quick one i that i think the city manager just answered it um i was what i was concerned about was are in it whether or not we have the ability and you mentioned tracking to understand had we already been working with this particular model how it would have impacted certain decisions that we would have might have made given with these with the um with the preliminary agenda discussion because i was just to jump into it um and then in and if there were some failures that would be that would of course be unfortunate but but mr mcglenn just mentioned that he felt that the staff could model or foresee what would how it might work given the what we might be passing tonight with the full implementation of the preliminary agenda timing so if we can if we can figure out what the impacts would have would have been had we been already implementing this this this ordinance then i would be more comfortable moving forward um it's just i feel like we're kind of i as long as we're not shooting in the dark um when we finally implemented on the first of july um it gives me a better sense of of we'd leave some of my anxiety about the timing issue okay um mr timmings thank you mayor okay so i this is the one issue i'm having with it i mean i think chris i'm definitely on the same page with you potato potato resolution versus ordinance as it's laid out um i'm happy to support an ordinance but here's my concern is i i feel like there needs to be very concrete um trial and error that will that should happen well before the budget process i mean when this comes forward i'm gonna want to hear from claire and how it's impacted ped i'm gonna want to hear from migali how it's impacted her time and her ability to get out in the community because she might be focusing more on the detail oriented reporting stuff um i want to hear from pra and clerks and and everybody and we're not going to be able to make that determination during the budget process until we've either through resolution or ordinance imposed this policy upon the staff so i guess what i'm asking for is can we implement resolution now that has flexibility that kind of is the phased in approach that people are asking for so that by the time budget comes prior to july first we have this clear grip you're still getting the ordinance that you're seeking but i mean i'm asking for some hard data here i i what i don't want to see is staff coming to us saying okay well we've kind of looked at this we've had some conversations we identified how this scenario could have run differently here's the staff positions we think we'll need going into the budget because i'll tell you i won't be in a position to support the ordinance going forward after the budget hearing if we don't have anything concrete yeah and what i'm what i'm telling you councilmember with this with this uh suggested compromise is that we get three bites at the apple for the council over the next year and a half year i guess you know yeah year and a half three bites at the apple for us to to talk with staff about what the actual implement and implementation is looking like so uh that's why i made the the comment to the city manager and you heard his response about starting to implement early to to hit those pitfalls at a time where there's no enforceability uh it sounded to me like that is his intention is to try to to use that period to do so not to drag feet up until the budget is adopted to start implementing but actually use it as sort of a grace period and then after that we have a six month and a one-year check-in for council on now that it is fully implemented how is it actually working and your one year then is aligned again with the next year's budget for that discussion i just i gotta say for the same reason you're pushing for an ordinance tonight is the same reason that i'm asking for an implementation date it's because intention is great but disasters happen other priorities happen well and that's the one the one qualifying statement that i need to make is that in a couple weeks time this council is going to be considering contract for uh diversity equity and inclusion work you you need to carve out time to do this work which includes this work as well to do the evaluation which goes back to some of the comments that the mayor made earlier about focus of the council and committing to that focus to do this work right because that that's that's going to be the city manager's chief concern is we're up for the game but if we get thrown a lot of other projects to your point mr tivitz councilmember tivitz we're we're going to struggle to reach the to reach an assessment in the time frame laid out that with an ordinance you you really lock us into that conversation but you're going to have to be willing to spend allow the staff to spend the time to do the work and it's not work that just happens without the evaluation period well shawna i gotta say based on what you're saying i i'm gonna have a hard time supporting an ordinance and prefer a policy but i want to help chris and all the committee members who have moved this this far can you give us an indication a date that we can memorialize that you think you would have time to do this understanding that we probably can't throw another hot potato in your lap between now and that time well again i think you know there's a there's a very there's a contract coming forward for your review in a couple weeks time which is also going to carve out staff staff time and resources to devote to some very important work the council and the community wants to see done i just want to make sure that we're all understanding there's a series of things that are organizationally focused this involves the community as well but we've got a carve out time to do that work so we can bring you back the evaluative i can't forecast this like you're saying what's coming what i can say is that an ordinance of the council does set a start date and we're going to have to come back to you and provide input through the open government task force of how we're making progress against that and to my to to to the council member roger's point that becomes a vehicle to come back to the council and say this is where we are in the evaluative process but you know there are there is a possibility of disappointment depending on the state of circumstances that go with that july 1st of 2021 is when we enact this am i tracking this because i'm hearing a year and a half but i'm hearing july 1st are we talking july 1st 2021 we enact and then the subsequent january preliminary budget hearing is when we revisit it no no so what we're going to do under this this proposal is staff will have between now and the start of the the budget discussions in 2021 to start to implement without essentially without the enforceability of the ordinance in effect while they hit pitfalls while i figure out what shortcomings there are the things that you that they can't possibly know until they start doing it to your point we'll enact we will fund in the budget have those discussions about what we actually need to in terms of resources for them to achieve it and then we'll check in six months out which at this point would now be a year from now and then another six months out from that which will be the start of the budget cycle in 2022 and i i hear you on wanting to go with with a resolution or a policy instead of an ordinance i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna quote john soyer john soyer used to always say that if you don't stick by your values when they're tested they're not values they're hobbies and and we have made community engagement and openness a value for the city i think an ordinance says that i think a council policy is a little bit too milked toast and i wouldn't support a policy as opposed to an ordinance i just want to make sure chris i'm what i'm trying to say is i'm actually coming more into your camp about this issue i'm saying that if we're going to be here you know doing this let's dive in and make sure we have all the information leading into budget time but what i'm hearing is that we're going to do that july 1st we're going to evaluate it to be clear what i'm hearing from the city manager and the way that i'm intending it is that they will start to implement immediately but in terms of the enforceability in the we want to give them the room to be able to make mistakes and to find those pitfalls and so it's really the enforceability of it the official enactment date will be with the budget next year when we as a council give them the resources they need to implement it or make a determination in public that we are not able to actually meet those goal holes and and make those adjustments to it so my just for and just for clarification it allows us to stage implementation right we're not we're not shooting for one day we can take we can take this as a process improved as through the six months right we're we're going to start with one component which may be the posting dates staff will sit down and figure out how we tackle those issues and get feedback it allows us to take a a a a more considerable consideration in our approach to implementation i i hear you guys i just to your point chris you know i like i said ordnance resolution potato potato and if we're not setting a hard implementation date to begin all these practices you know even if it's three four months out i just feel like we are creating something that's milk toast um i'm i'm you know i'm willing to try i hear you yeah i hear you i'm just trying to find a compromise for if we want to trust trust the intent that's fine but i'm going to just go on the record now that this comes in the budget and we don't have enough information we don't have the hard experience to back the numbers to back this policy going forward in the future i will not be there to support it okay uh vice mayor phleming you had a question or comment yeah um so one is that i i had a question of staff which is um given the the compromise around the implementation um that mr rogers has put forth does this ease some of the concerns around having a dialogue log in a back and forth with us uh in terms of making this happen and not over burdening you guys with the work that you know is essentially unfunded my my sense from the staff is that yes having listened to to the issues that we brought forward that this would go a long way to help ease into that and evaluate the the the space so to that end though i want to be very clear that you know the work of you know for too long um you know we have had so many bad things happen but that the work of diversity equity and inclusion has no part in this particular discussion in terms of workload the council has made that a clear priority and um we are saying to you and i want to be clear with that this is what council member rogers is asking for is that we that has already been made a council priority and that's an expectation with this what we're asking for is at least what i'm hoping that he's asking for is that you do your best with what you got now that when we have our budget conversations we don't get a recommendation of what you would like we get a report out of what you have the resources to do now and what it would cost to do what you can't do now and then if that's the direction of the council then then that that would provide clarity well so please okay so what i'm trying to say here is that then at that that during that those conversations um you come forward and say okay we try to do this we flat out don't have the resources here's what we need to make all of your dreams come true here's what it would cost and then we get into negotiations at that point and so that it doesn't come forward in this sort of like muddle process where we're very open and transparent with the public here's what you know staff can do with what they've got here's what they need and then we fund and tweak at July one and then you have six months in there to figure out and you know how it's going to all go and then January one the following year you have been had the opportunity to step up and you know what your budget is going to be and then at that point it's actually enforceable is that what we're going with because what i want to make sure is that we're very clear on the expectation we're very clear that you won't be asked to anything that you're not funded in it so that we can get results for what the direction is i would turn that back to to to to councilmember rogers vice mayor just that seems imminently reasonable to me i just don't know if that was what i want to make sure that that's what that we're on the same page okay so i know that was the complete opposite of where mr tidbits is going with this but what i want is i want something that's um very clearly signaling to the public that we intend to do this but that resources are limited and then we're going to go forward with transparency as we um as staff does you does your best to make this happen okay thank you okay um mr olivares thank you mary um i want to talk about implementation and uh evaluation progress between now and your budget session next uh spring uh i'm making an assumption that the that the uh committee is going to continue to meet between now and then and that you would be uh evaluating or getting feedback from staff along the way during these meetings on things that they're being cried out uh not uh in that perhaps this be a standing agenda item as well from the council so that you keep your nose in this thing between now and the time your budget session uh i think it needs to be kept alive but i think it's there's several ways of making that happen is by the committee continuing to meet to hear uh and or uh having this as a regular agenda item just like others where you're getting feedback uh and and asking questions about the progress of this implementation between now and budget time would uh i'll offer that as a suggestion to the council as well to see if that helped particularly for you councilmember tidbits uh would this be a good compromise that the open government implementation committee will continue to meet monthly to receive updates from staff on the implementation i mean my my preference is that we come to the full council and the full public because i think i think there's a lot of sensitivity around this issue the public hears transparency and they expect it of us and they're probably listening to some of us tonight be included going this guy's crazy but what they also need to be abreast of and very informed of is that this has the potential to slow down our ability to respond to their needs um or their projects and so i want to and i'm suggesting that that councilmember roger bring this to council is report item from this committee to report out of what transpired so how how about how about then to again try to thread the needle here how about a study session in march to monitor progress and to hear initial thoughts from staff that would be good that would be good okay so that'll that'll be uh a commitment that will make in this in this motion then if that works because i think that then that does exactly what you're hoping for councilmember which is keep feet to the fire a little bit about keeping the priority there and actually getting the information the data that we need to make an informed decision in the budget while also then providing the level of flexibility that the city manager is asking for in the implementation to be able to make those mistakes and and learn from it but does that thank you that's my work that's my whole thing is i just feel like dates keep us accountable staff the council and that's all i want to see is because if we're going to do this let's actually do it let's not just kind of say well we'll implement it eventually depending on what you guys want six months from now that's my only thing okay councilmember oliveris are you comfortable with that yes i am okay i'll definitely i'll include that in the uh in the motion and in the recommendation then if i could just offer mr rogers i'd be hesitant to do a concrete date or do a date dependent upon confirmation of the next mayor and the agenda because i know we have a council goal setting tentatively scheduled for february and just i hate to just pull out i don't know how you came up with march because that does seem reasonable but i know council does have council goal setting will have a new mayor and just get feedback at least from he or she on that march study session if that's which direction to go on yeah the reason i chose march was halfway point gives us time to course correct if if that's what we need to do i get it i get the intent sometimes though i don't want to get locked into something i'm glad you didn't go the route of one month every or have a monthly open government task force meeting because that's a brown act committee i i'm making the assumption that again requires staff to staff the brown act um okay uh mr all ears did you get your questions and okay uh mr sorry did you have your hand up again i do just just one uh yeah just one quick quick question and i appreciate the the check and i think it'll be really important to kind of monitor our status and our successes and what's not what is not succeeding can i assume that that that if we moving forward with this that all of the exceptions that were recommended are will be in place we didn't talk about the exceptions and they seem um as far i don't know i'm not sure if they were part of the recommendation that came from the original um uh committee or the task force or or staff but i'm um if they're going to be working with uh kind of models are are we accepting all of these exceptions i mean i i would recommend that we accept all the exceptions it kind of gives them a little bit of a uh with some breathing room um but can i assume that that is within the order within your motion uh yeah it's correct okay thank you okay with that i think we're back to you mr rogers for potential motion all right uh so i i hope staff has been taking notes and i apologize uh creating more work already uh so with that i will move the uh the ordinance of the city of santa rosa with the following modifications uh to it uh we will the implementation date will be july 1st 2021 uh there will be a six month and one year review for the council and for the public uh the budget recommendation or excuse me the budget and recommendation language on the agenda uh preliminary agenda uh will be uh more permissive as was previously discussed um we will have a check-in study session in march of 2021 to evaluate progress uh the project uh the preliminary agenda will list potential projects that have to come before the city council already uh pending the outcome from the lower bodies and exempt and we will add an exemption in the exemption section for appeals that come to the city council second were you done with that mr rogers yeah i think i captured everything the one ahead the is council involved in the appeals uh thank you uh and we will remove council's involvement in the appeal process okay and is um the it's implemented on july 1 but it becomes enforceable six months after that no the enforceability starts in july 1st uh and that's why that's why staff have the time up until the budget is adopted to hit those pitfalls and then it becomes enforceable at that point in effect so just to to put this out there i know it's really late in the game here but we have a six month period for discussing and what the staff needs but they won't actually have the money until six months after that to get what they need so i was under the impression i apologize if i got this wrong that you know we we start we implement but we we refrain from enforceability for six months so that they can get and secure the resources and we don't leave them stuck in that that period and i and i hate i would love to make this happen tomorrow i'm with councilmember kibbutz on that but what i really don't want is us to have a reason to not deliver on the goods here yeah and i appreciate that vice mayor because that's the that was the understanding that i heard um because again hiring processes in in of itself um can take three to six months to get staff in place if there's a staffing requirement here so what while while i don't know that that's the answer it just does take some time to spin up operations from the beginning of a budget year and the the answer was was no this is why we discussed that any potential changes including the implementation date uh would be done in conjunction with the budget so that that way we have an opportunity to evaluate uh the staffing needs and the different things that the city manager has suggested that have been hit and if it comes back that we are not able to in what we are funding in some of these positions we have already started to fund if it turns out that for the enforceability we need to give an extra couple of months to staff up and that's what we've learned that we can have that discussion in the discussion about the budget and that's why i asked particularly about the process for amending the ordinance and the way that it aligned properly with the budget okay uh hold on we have a motion so we're going to sit down process here um are you with my question that's all right right but let's just get the process down so mr rogers this is your motion are you comfortable with your motion yes and i thought i heard a second but i didn't see who seconded did i i was the second but i now i need to be clear the reason why i'm seconding chris's motion is because i shawn what i'm hoping to see is a time where you implement this ordinance without the resources you need because to me when i step up a program or a department i run it lean to understand what the needs are so i can empirically quantify what those needs are and i just want to make sure that that's what we're doing so we won't penalize you or the staff for not doing it i just want to make sure that when it comes to us in the budget you can clearly say to us ped have issues issued this person had this issue this is the cost of doing all these things are we all on the same page with that so we will do our best job to do that i can't you know six months goes very very quickly we're going to start into implementation right away and we will work with the open government to task force to tell them where we are in relationship to that process thank you okay we're good okay we have a motion by mr rogers the second by mr tibbetz city attorney are you clear on what that motion is or do we need clarification i would ask for clarification on a couple of points and a couple are a little more into the into the details but as to and this is in the order that you've presented them but as to the budget um the contents of the agenda having the budget uh impacts and the recommendation language we're going to make that more permissive in the preliminary agenda so those things need not be in the preliminary agenda but they still need to be in the final agenda just to confirm okay i i apologize i had it wrong in my head i think we're good there then but i wanted to make sure that in the final agenda if it's required to have those that that we have some form of language that says uh to the best of the staff's knowledge or whatever have you because i wanted to be permissive okay and then um let me just keep my notes correct um you mentioned uh removing the council from the public records appeal process um currently the way the ordinance is drafted is that there it's a two step process that's the first goes to the city clerk and the second goes to the council subcommittee are you suggesting instead simply substituting the city manager for the subcommittee and still having a two step process or are you suggesting a one step process and whether that appeal is to the city clerk or to the city manager i'm gonna i'm gonna say something almost laughable i'm gonna go with simplicity here and i'm gonna say let's make it the the city clerk and then if that is not an appropriate remedy for the person they still have their avenue through the courts that they can pursue very good thank you and then if i may just confirm just because of earlier conversations i want to confirm that your motion is to retain the 12 business day requirement for the prelim correct correct and then uh to keep the um the uh open data portal uh still in the ordinance as it's written now yes correct and now those were the clarifications that i was seeking okay um so i have a motion to second any final comments from council uh mr. dowd um it would seem to me that having listened to this discussion now and certainly transparency is something that the council should support and we should have worked forward but what i think has been put forward by this uh motion and second is is the entire system will be looked at and possibly modifications will be made for various reasons whether that's expense or that that doesn't seem to be necessary or whatever but there's there's flexibility built into this so that the council and staff has the opportunity to make this system as good as possible okay uh mr. Oliver's is your hand still up or is that an old hand it's an old hand okay uh see no other hands real or virtual uh madam city clerk could we do a roll call vote please yes thank you mayor council member dowd i i didn't get a response from either the either council member rogers or council member tibis that this flexibility is in fact what you're intending to include in it yeah i apologize dick i i took it as a statement not a question because that is correct because that we're trying to thread the needle to get something meaningful passed while also still giving us an opportunity to uh be responsive under that circumstance and clarification then i would vote uh in favor thank you council member tibbetz hi council member soyer hi council member rogers hi council member oliveris hi vice mayor phleming hi mayor schwaitham hi that motion passes with seven i's all right thank you all for your work on that one okay we have no public hearings um we do have one written communications that everyone should have received here we're now taking public comment on item 17 non-agenda matters if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're calling in via phone please dial star nine madam host would you facilitate public comment for item 17 thank you mayor we'll do a countdown timer will appear before you for the convenience of the speaker and the viewers participating in today's meeting the first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak when the countdown begins please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so your microphone will be muted at the end oops sorry about that and let's see your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown or at the conclusion of your comment again this is for public comment on item 17 non-agenda matters raise your hand via zoom dial star nine of participating via telephone there i don't see any hands being raised and we already heard the voice message public comment on non-agenda matters all right thank you for that so before we adjourn the meeting um as i'm sure everyone is aware um sonoma county lost a king of sonoma county on tuesday artabletto passed away at age 94 who had a significant impact on adding value and bringing the community together to so many different venues i can remember some of the first times i met art were um while i was on the chaplaincy board and we have our big fundraisers and what do you think we went across the king's lasagna and although those are very successful um events and fundraisers for the non-profit i know a lot of people i think came just for the lasagna so it was incredible but having gone to a number of different events throughout the community uh you know he was going to be there and how he was willing to do anything and everything and there's something that uh in christmas article in the press democrat that you mentioned that were some of the values of art and there's just three that i really liked what he had to say um art declared that many of the ills plague in america could vanish were three basic values practiced more widely and those three values were common sense and again that's classic artabletto gratitude for the abundant opportunities that come with living in a free country and a willingness to work so i i know many of you also had different experiences with art if you wanted to share any comments before i adjourn the meeting i i invite you to make any of those comments now thank you mayor if i may uh i was first introduced to art i could have been back around to 1980 79 who knows what i got here started working the fair he was i think the fair revolved around art uh that was the go to place uh my my introduction to pesto and i think you probably introduced him accounting to pesto he's been i mean he had been around with that rested for a long time uh but a man with a big heart warm heart uh who always had something to say and i don't think he had any enemies in this in this community either he just is a friendly guy uh but that's one of the things i always look forward to was was the fair and and laboring the long lines at the fair uh to be able to get some pasta from from the pasta king uh but he was an amazing man who is going to leave a big mark in some county and he will be greatly missed thank you mr alla there's anyone else like to make any comments before we adjourn uh mr timmits thank you mayor yeah i just want to say i don't think a year has gone by since i was in kindergarten till now when i didn't have either the green sauce or the red sauce from art did any number of events for me it was st. Eugene's kindergarten through eight then it was Montgomery high political fundraisers the fair and i think that just showed the breadth and diversity that that art kind of you know he supported everything and everyone and that was such a special thing about him so thanks for the opportunity to share absolutely mr sire thank you mayor you know art was one of those that comes around oftentimes once in one person's lifetime and i i hope that there will be others in our community that as it's growing that will have that kind of reputation and i um i'm not gonna i wouldn't i wouldn't bet the farm on it right but you know someone like him that gave so much that so many people were aware of um and selflessly um i hope that he is that his example is followed by others in our community as time goes on because he will be greatly missed um and he had he's left an amazing legacy thank you art all right thank you all for your participation so in honor and memory of mr art ibleto i will hereby adjourn this city council meeting thank you all