 All righty, Stephanie, are we ready to go? Yes, I'm ready to go. Excellent, let's call this meeting to order. Do you want to call the roll? Council member Tibbetts, Council member Schwedhelm. Here. Council member Sawyer. Here. Council member Fleming. Here. Council member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor Rogers. Present. Mayor Rogers. Here. Council member Tibbetts, have you joined us? Okay, let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of council member Tibbetts. All right, thank you so much, Stephanie. Everybody welcome to our February 2nd city council meeting. Quick housekeeping reminder for council members to keep your audio on mute unless you are speaking. Council members can unmute themselves and mute themselves as they see fit. So let's try to do it orderly as members of the public join the meeting they will be participating as attendees. Their microphones and cameras will be muted and only today's panelists will be viewed during each of the different discussions. If you're calling in from a telephone and choose to speak during the public comments portion of today's agenda on each item for privacy concerns the host will be renaming your viewable phone number to resident with the last four digits of your phone number. That's so that the vice mayor can't call you and talk to you about your comments if she disagrees with you at 10 p.m. tonight. The city of Santa Rosa is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment free from disruption. We will not tolerate any hate speech or actions and we're well staffed to monitor that everyone is participating respectfully otherwise they will be removed from the Zoom. If we need to we also will end the meeting if there's a big enough disruption. Madam city clerk could you please explain for the public how they can participate in tonight's meeting. Yes after each agenda item is presented the mayor will ask for council members comments and then open it up for public comment. The host in 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 mayor 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 the 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 email 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. Item 13 and 17. This is the 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. Thank you so much Stephanie. So we did not have any closed session items today. We will start our meeting at item number three that's our study session. Mr. City Manager, do you want to introduce the item? Certainly 3.1, Bennett Valley golf course complex study session. I believe we have Jill Scott, the real estate manager for the city of Santa Rosa leading us off or maybe Jen Santos, the deputy director of parks. Take it away. Good afternoon, mayor and council members. I'm Jill Scott, the city's real estate manager. And with me today as well is Jen Santos, deputy director of parks as well as Brian Hutchison and Doug Maine from our real estate consulting team, CBRD. Next slide please. We're here with council today to discuss and receive feedback and direction from council on the future of the Bennett Valley golf course. The golf course complex itself is 175 acre city asset. It's really one of the largest assets the city has within the city limits. It currently has an 18 hole golf complex as well as a restaurant club and Galvin Park with all of its amenities. Back in December of 2020, legends who was the restaurant operator for a long time at the complex itself requested a early lease termination leaving the restaurant vacant. Currently the golf operating contract has about two years left on it. The city owes approximately 4.5 million in bond debt and there is considerable deferred maintenance and upgrades needed to the restaurant as well as the golf course itself. This has left the complex itself out a bit of a crossroads. So staff as staff would with any city assets in this condition, took a moment to analyze the programs and the asset itself. We looked at if reimagining or modernization of the complex would benefit the city and the community. Does it meet council goals and objectives? Is it fiscally sustainable? And what we concluded from that is that there was room for improvement. So staff brought on CBRE real estate expert, Brian Hutchinson, as well as national golf expert, Doug Maine to really do a high level analysis for council. And today they're gonna present to council a few options for what could potentially be possible at this complex, at this large city asset. I want to highly express to council and the community that these are not all of the options by any means. These are just a few we are bringing forward for consideration and for purposes of discussion. If council does decide at the end of the presentation to direct staff to move forward with a feasibility analysis, that analysis would really give council and staff much more information on what is realistically the highest and best use of that area. Alternatively, if council decides to move forward and tell staff to stick with the status quo, staff is prepared to go over some options later in the presentation for that as well. So with that, I'd like to turn over the next slide to Jen Santos, deputy director of parks who manages the golf course complex and the enterprise fund. Thanks, Jill. Good afternoon council members. I'm Jen Santos, deputy director for parks. And before we look ahead, we wanted to take a look back and a look at what we're doing currently to kind of give you a framework to start with of the golf enterprise. For the last couple of years, I've been the liaison to the golf enterprise operators and have learned a lot in the last two years about this enterprise by taking a look back at our financials and just the overall operations of the golf enterprise. We did manage to recognize that we have records going back to 1984 of some sort of city enterprise with the golf to 1984, knowing that the golf course itself was there before 1984, but we have records back that far. And the golf enterprise was working well and in 2005, council approved funds to be borrowed from to be used to update the existing pro shop on site as well as install a brand new restaurant building and below the restaurant building, if any of you have been there is a golf garage underneath that restaurant. And so the city borrowed a little over $6 million to upgrade the construction there and add that asset to the city. We refund, we return, we repay that debt at around $460,000 a year. And in 2008 or prior to 2008, we recognized that the golf course was, the enterprise itself was working as planned. There were some ups and downs in there, but generally it's doing well. And like a lot of stories after 2008, we start to see a decline. And what we start to see is funds being taken from the reserve account that came with the borrowing of the funds. And that reserve account requires us to keep $200,000 as well as a certain percentage of income in that reserve fund to keep that operating at a good level. And so we start to recognize that the enterprise is not bringing in enough funds to cover the entire debt that the city has to pay each year. And so we start dipping into our reserves. And by 2014 and 15, there are general funds being moved over to the enterprise once in 2014. And again, in 2015, a little under a million dollars is moved over to the enterprise to pay the bond debt and to keep things rolling, so to speak. And from there, we're still seeing, it's still an up and down, but generally we're seeing that we are still needing to dip into reserves, especially as we get closer to 2016-17. And then I'll best describe the next bullet points as a series of climatic issues that have impacted the golf course from fires and flooding and lately, of course, the global pandemic. And ultimately the pandemic closed the golf course and the restaurant for 48 days in 2020. And as you all are aware, the restaurant permanently closed in winter 2020 and we allowed them to end their lease at their request. And so we're at this point where, as Jill mentioned earlier, we recognize that this is a good point to stop for a minute and take a look at what our options are. Do we continue as we have been with this model, which isn't entirely sustainable as it is right now, that could change if we wanna look at that. But we also wanted to look at what else could we do with that 175 acres that is on site out there? As Jill mentioned, we do have some deferred maintenance out there and you're gonna hear about that in the next slides, but it's a pretty big need out there, especially on the golf course itself. And just as a matter of point, we have about four and a half million dollars left in bond debt if we looked at paying that off as of January, 2031, it'll be paid off. And so I'm gonna turn it over to our consultants who are our amazing team that have looked at what our options are in addition to keeping things as they are, they've looked at what other options we could think of out there as a re-imagining of that 175 and five acres. So I'm gonna turn it over to our consultants. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for allowing us to be here today, myself and Doug. My name's Brian Hutcherson. I work with CVE and I work in a specialty practice within our organization called PYS, Public Institutions and Education Solution. And our sole focus is servicing state local governments with the real estate assets. So although I'm not necessarily in government anymore, I'm very familiar with government, it's been 21 years in the federal government. And our sole purpose in life is helping, like I said, state local governments figuring out how to best use their real estate assets. With me today is Doug Main and he's a golf expert within CVE and I'll pass it over to Doug at this point. Thank you very much, Hutch, I appreciate it. Good evening and good afternoon, council members. I appreciate the time. I would like, I think it's appropriate that I just take a few minutes to give you some background about myself. Well, I love the game of golf. I'm basically trained as an economist, got a master's degree in applied economics and investment analysis. I've been involved with about 2,500 golf courses, several hundred about 500 in California and I've done about four or 500 municipal golf course related engagements. I've been engaged by obviously the owners, memberships, as well as municipalities. Some of them you would recognize the city of Los Angeles, Nassau County, city of San Diego, Ventura, and a variety of others. And part of our program is to look at what potentially could happen, what potentially is available. And because the industry has changed a lot, we wanna just highlight some of the opportunities. We talked about re-imagining that's going on. What you're looking at, what you're doing today is no different. So we're looking to just share with you at a little bit of this preliminary level of revenue opportunities, revenue generating opportunities that we see. Next slide. And what the industry is doing is that it's changing, and partly because golf is changing. And so what we're looking at is just potential re-uses that other municipalities and actually other private owners of golf courses are looking at, and that is a partial redesign by downsizing the golf course or repurposing the entire facility, given market conditions. Now we realize, and this is just preliminary, that there are gonna be traffic impacts through our surrounding land use considerations. And we have to look at the overall viability and feasibility of what the, if they're in line with what the city's objectives are. So in this preliminary analysis, this preliminary discussion today, we're not saying there is a right or wrong way, we're just offering some opportunities to you. You might have heard us think both Jen and Joe mentioned that the golf course has a number of deferred maintenance items. And again, in the industry, that's not uncommon. It's just a capital independence. And unless you're able to raise revenue significantly, these are always a challenge and how you're gonna capitalize and how you're gonna fund those. As you heard before, the clubhouse has a fair amount of deferred maintenance, could exceed over 200,000. And the irrigation system, while it works, it is rather old. And for example, the golf course has coverage that are older heads that are not efficient. And so it uses more water than it should. And it doesn't cover certain areas the way it should. And the golf course irrigation will leak at times and they have to repair it. Eventually, golf course irrigation systems to be replaced probably every 20 to 30 years. And I think this one is probably approaching that situation. Next slide. It's important that we recognize that this golf course is in a great location and it offers, we're not commenting about the service or the reputation or anything. We're just indicating that its market position is more of what we call affordable and moderately priced. And as a result, there are certain limitations on capital expenditures, certain limitations on where the market will take it, so to speak. It's unlikely, and especially with most golf courses, and I've worked at Forry Pines and others, it's challenging to find a green fee in matrix. So the matrix is the number of rounds and the number of green fees at the price of it. And you wanna find that good mix. Obviously the lower the green fee, the higher the volume. However, if you have resistance in the marketplace to raise the green fees, it makes it difficult to capitalize. And we're just gonna look for opportunities that again, give that revenue, generate opportunity to both the city and the residents. Capital improvements, as I mentioned before, golf courses are very capital intense. You could continue with the existing agreements where there's two, but we have found traditionally that that's suboptimal. You're not an advantage of all the opportunities and potentially a lot of the cross marketing and what we call cross staffing. Next. Here, this slide is really just to share some ideas that we have seen directly with other municipalities and with other golf courses. So oftentimes the driving range is a very suitable candidate potentially for reuse, depending on the size of it, its location. And this slide really just kind of explores and shares with you some of the things that we see. This driving range is considered short, doesn't have a high volume. And you'll notice in the photograph there that towards the end of the driving range, it really narrows. So it's kind of problematic and that's why there's so much netting there with a driver or something of that nature. That driving range and its location could be a very suitable site for potential reuse for multifamily. Even affordable housing could be a component. So that's something you'd want to explore. Clearly you could redesign it so that it's a more full-time driving range. It's not just a compliment to the golf course, but it also brings in golfers that want to hit a ball throughout the evening even with lights. Next slide. So this is one of the great reasons why we're probably talking today. The industry has changed dramatically. The number of golfers, the participation has been declining. The golf course markets a lot of them are saturated and the cost of it continued to increase. And so it's difficult to look at golf as a growing sport, but rather a declining sport and there's an oversupply. However, I should mention that this year COVID has actually caused the number of rounds to increase, but the problem with that is it's not generally viewed as sustainable long-term. As the economies open up, it's likely that a lot of these potential players will go out and continue their activities that they were doing previously. And so golf participation, golf rounds will probably fall back in line with historical levels, as well as what we call the ancillary revenue sources have also been challenged. Food and beverage, community, meeting space and special events and venues and stuff, they've all been challenged. Tournaments. So those have affected the various food and beverage and the various golf departments outside of the growth in what's called COVID. It's estimated that over the next 10 years, another 1,500 to 2,000 golf course will close. A vast majority of those plan to be redeveloped depending on the location and the opportunities to take advantage of revenue sources. Next slide. I wanted to share with you just three examples of where re-imagining has occurred. It's going to be in California, but this is occurring across the country. Now that doesn't mean that this is a statement that this is what's going to happen at Bennett Valley, but this is just to share with you some specifics. The city of San Diego has been actively involved in reusing potentially a number of golf courses. The Victoria Municipal Golf Course, very similar to Bennett Valley in the sense the location, the demand and the characteristics as a municipal golf course is going to be redeveloped. When we look at this, we look at what the goals are for the municipality, its residents, but also financially, how can we get them opportunities to create revenue sources and revenue opportunities. Next slide. So on this preliminary analysis, both Brian and I looked at the options and you can see about line here, options one, options two and options three. Option one, I think both Jen and Jill mentioned this is basically renegotiating the existing lease maybe take it more in line. The problem is the golf industry is again, a little weak. And so it's not the best time to be looking for good management contracts and operators that are willing to pay the top dollars for a facility of this nature. Also you have to worry about the capital improvements and how is that going to impact the lease obligations for the management of opportunities. As I mentioned before, we think option two on a high level is some opportunity to bring in some real dollars up right up front. And that is an opportunity to either lease or even sell outright the driving range and make it a compliment use to the existing multifamily that's in the area and adjacent to the driving range and maybe even consider potential low-income housing. The third option would be to look at redesigning the golf course. Now we're sharing with you some ideas that the industry does do and looks at. We're not saying exactly that it should be a six-hole, a nine-hole or a 12-hole, but they can all provide an opportunity for acres to be available for redevelopment to give you real opportunities for revenue generating asset, as well as potentially reducing the cost of the operations but still providing a golf opportunity for the residents and those visitors that come into the market. Next. What's interesting too is while golf is declining, there are a number of other outdoor sports and recreation that are actually increasing. Statistics show that soccer and even baseball, at least youth baseball in particular or organized baseball is growing and growing rapidly. Those are the two largest sources of outdoor sports and recreation that have been occurring over the last 10 years. So it's a possibility that this becomes more of a sports complex with the compliments of potentially some additional housing, maybe some additional golf through a driving range, but it's a real opportunity for you to look at some specifics. And because the amount of acreage you have and the asset base that you have there, you have some opportunities to really invest in what might be a very interesting and dynamic recreational aspect that is not just outdoor, not just golf, but other aspects including potentially housing. Next slide. This one is probably the more broad-based, if I could. This one is probably more in line with some of the examples that we've provided to you before with the city of San Diego, with the city of Los Angeles. This is an opportunity to really take advantage of the location of this golf course and what we call infill development potentially. Potentially it could be commercial neighborhood uses. There could be restaurants. There could be some multifamily housing. And this also could be then complimented by a sports and recreation complex. Again, giving opportunities to provide the recreation but just allow an opportunity by reducing some of it on the golf side to take advantage of the revenue that you could generate by selling or putting on the long-term lease, the opportunity for commercial mixed use development, which would also include potentially single family, excuse me, not single family, but primarily probably multifamily, even affordable housing. Interesting too is that because of the location of the golf course, you do have surrounding land uses, including the Gavin Community Park that you could integrate into it. You could reposition some of the assets and then just take advantage again of the revenue generating opportunities that could unfold by redesigning or retaking a look at the entire acreage itself. Next slide. So we'd like to just do an overview of some of what CBRE is just presented to us. So what's available to council right now is if they decide to move forward with the feasibility study of the highest and best use analysis that we can look at is revenue generation, potential sports complex, hotel, restaurants, revenue-based areas, different configurations of the golf course as Doug just went through. Next slide, please. So at this point, staff is happy to and our consultants to answer any questions that council may have. Staff is hoping to get direction from council on either one, continuing with the status quo, which would be maybe issuing a request for reposals for a new restaurant operator and event coordinator at the site. If staff has received interest from folks in operations of the restaurant in the future, considering a single operator golf and restaurant request for reposals or hiring a consultant to perform a further analysis, a more in-depth, highest and best use feasibility study, this would take approximately 90 days and it would cost somewhere around $150,000. In the meantime, staff could coordinate food solutions such as food trucks or other scenarios during the interim and staff would need to return to council for appropriations of funds and of contract for this. And with that, we are all here and happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much, Jill. Council, do you have any questions for staff? Looking for hands, if anybody has any questions. Council member Schwedhelm. Hey, Mr. Mayor, thank you for the presentation. Yeah, I've got a couple. First of all, I know you mentioned back and I think it was in 2020, we added maintenance fee to some of that, I think it's two bucks per 18, $1 per every nine. What has been the impact of that? Cause I know that was one of the intents of addressing some of the maintenance costs that we heard in this presentation. This is Jen Santas. I can take a stab at answering that. We do have, it's a dollar for a nine hole round and $2 is added on to an 18 hole round to our regular fees. And those fees are collected annually and held looking at funding our currently unfunded maintenance responsibilities we have. And we've collected about $271,000 since inception. We haven't spent anything from it yet. We do have a pretty hefty amount of maintenance to do with that, but as far as an impact on the golfers, it's part of the fee set. It's not really impacting the operator itself. So as far as the enterprise itself, it doesn't have, it's kind of neutral, it has a neutral effect on it, but we do collect this additional fee that we could use for funding future larger maintenance issues. We are looking at funding the purchase of equipment for the golf operator with those funds, but we're going to take a look at that. So I hope that answers your question and we can go a little deeper if I didn't quite capture it there. Again, more of a general comment question because I know the intent was to help with the numbers that were shown in the beginning of this presentation. And so it sounds like we do have money there, but we just haven't spent it yet. So I guess I'd be another conversation about how we're prioritizing the use of those funds and are we saving it for a overall maintenance, whether it be the sprinkler system or whatever, but the other question kind of tied into that. And I know during the presentation, either Brian or Doug talked about some nationwide impacts of golf and it's my understanding that here locally, we've seen a significant increase in the rounds of golf being played year to year. Do you have any of that data or those numbers about what the increase has been here at Benna Valley? And so I, we don't have anything specifically today for you, but we can come back with you with more of a detailed analysis and I'll look to Doug if he has anything currently about the local areas as far as increasing round. Definitely the golf course operators are doing better this year than a lot of other previous years. As Doug mentioned, it's following the national trend in COVID and doing much better. If I could real quick, hopefully everyone can hear me. The overall trend, especially in Northern California over the last couple of years has been a slight increase. Now municipal golf courses have enjoyed it a little bit more participation in rounds, but the costs themselves are generally what's offsetting. The round count is important, but also the average green fee. And unless you can increase that dramatically, it's difficult to fund the large capital costs, which would include potentially the irrigation, golf course maintenance equipment, the cart fleet and everything else too, but it has improved. But this year is I think will somewhat unique. It's actually increased nationally about 10 to 11% round counts. The problem is the other revenue sources have declined dramatically, food and beverage, driving range and other elements. And it's not anticipated that that spike that we see now because of the lockdowns and stuff will continue and they'll probably fall back in line with the historical rate or historical levels. And what data points are you using to make that conclusion? It's almost like, are we taking a pessimistic or an optimistic view of the rounds that people are now enjoying the sport and using the facility? I get we're in this pandemic, but we also don't have youth sport, high school golf teams are not there either. With safe social distancing, the driving range, they've spaced it out. So it's kind of like, are we taking an optimistic or a pessimistic viewpoint of it? Do you have any data points or studies that would indicate one way to go? Well, on the interim basis with COVID and the lockdowns, the general sense in the industry and the data that's showing from NGF and golf tech is that that's a temporary situation in terms of the number of rounds. However, it's been at the expense also of the other revenue departments. It's likely it's anticipated over the next 12 months that while participation will go up slightly because it's been introduced, you have to understand there's also phenomenal with golf being a entertainment aspect now too. If you're familiar with facilities like Topgolf, Topgolf has actually increased participation of golf overall, but it's a different type and it competes directly in some cases with golf courses. And once the lockdowns changed there, it's anticipated that Topgolf and others like it will continue to increase. And but they have a food and beverage aspect and a social aspect. It's a little different from the traditional golf. But overall, the golf Doug really fast if I can jump in here. Can you explain what Topgolf is for those of us who don't know? I apologize. Yes, that's a problem when you end the business so much. Think of Topgolf as a David Buster's just happens to be attached to a driving range. It's an amazing facility. Most of them cost about 25 million to build and they have amazing revenue sources. Cowboy Golf actually just bought the company Topgolf and essentially they are food and beverage kind of lounge bars and stuff that provide a driving range atmosphere that's usually anywhere from one to three levels. And it's a real point of contact and a meeting place for corporations for them to have audience for families to get together as well as singles and stuff. But it's kind of like a lucky strikes for in the bowling industry or David Buster's for the food and beverage. They have just took a golf twist to it and they're actually usually located along a major interstate or highway and you can see them for miles away. They are pretty dramatic food and beverage operations. Council Member, did you set up questions? Oh, yeah, I wasn't sure if you were done. Yeah. I just, I wanted to make sure that we had that clear for folks who were watching at home. Yeah. The closest one to Santa Rosa is in Sacramento area. So there's some comments about the driving range here in Santa Rosa, Benton Valley. What are our current operator talk about with those options? And is it his belief it's too short? I don't know, Doug, if you want to try to look at it from that perspective, certainly it's a popular location but as far as our operator thinking is too short, I'm not sure if I've received that opinion from him but I'll turn to Doug as far as an expert opinion. With the existing operator, obviously who I'm familiar with, I don't know, I can't really say with the existing operator. We're just taking a perspective of it's a driving range that allows primarily a warm up before you go on the golf course. It's not a heavily used driving range and obviously it doesn't have opportunities for night driving. And it's a short one in the sense, typically there are 300 yards or longer, this one is shorter than that and it narrows down towards the end. So while many of us might be able to hit the ball nice and straight, myself I have a slice. So it really doesn't give much opportunity to showcase that. And then lastly, the t-line is that's where they actually hit the ball off of the mat or the grass. The way that it's supposed to be designed is not a straight line, but rather kind of a curve so that the outer points are pointing more towards the middle of it. It's a golf driving range that's not uncommon for a municipal golf course. It's just underutilized given your location and the opportunities there. Yeah, was our operator contacted? Because, and I'm asking from the standpoint, I would consider him a subject matter expert. I think he's been in Valley for almost 40 years to hear what his thoughts are about the transition of golf. Now, we haven't had the opportunity to sit down and have an extensive discussion about it at this point. I know that the operator is keen to keep things generally the way they are in past conversations and he feels that the driving range itself is a really key feature of the golf course. But we were hoping to have a more in-depth discussion with him after this meeting. Okay, and then the presentation showed a couple of different municipalities who've gone the direction of redevelopment. And I know locally here in the Bay Area, doing some research, both Palo Alto and Alameda repurposed their golf courses and kept them as golf courses just did some other improvements. Did you do any investigation or take a look at why Palo Alto and Alameda chose to go the route that they did versus the redevelopment like Santa Clara did? I have a great question and a fair one. I'm familiar with those projects just like in Orange County at Mile Square Park. They expanded the park and added additional amenities. Not every redevelopment or redesign or repurpose excludes golf. It can be a reinforcement of the golf. It could be maybe a right sizing it. We have not at this point in time, this is because it's preliminary, we haven't investigated but that would be part of the options that we would look at as well. Yeah, so my interest would be just saying, okay, why did they choose to go in this direction? What are their financing? And why did they think that was a viable option versus others? So again, that'll maybe be further down the road. If I could just add to that then part of it sometimes is just the goal of the Miss Palo. Quite frankly, will we work with them? And their goal maybe to specifically provide affordable golf. Regardless of the cost, it's just one of the things they wanna do. So it's really dependent upon what the Miss Cali and the city council and others would like to do. So you just wanna mess those up as well. What we wanna do is explore and share with you other revenue-generating opportunities to consider. Right, and the last question I had is when we specifically mentioned top golf or other things, I know other jurisdictions in Sonoma County have been exploring this and potentially other sites as you described closer to the freeway, namely the fairground sites potentially repurposing parts of that. Are we aware of any ongoing discussions of other municipalities or the county looking at repurposing other facilities that they're in possession of? You mean specifically for top golf? Top golf or anything else because what I heard some options about either more all-weather fields and especially if we use top golf as the example, if another, you know, let's say the county is looking to repurpose in a portion, let's say the fairgrounds bring top golf. Well, I would hate to compete against that if we potentially wanna go in that direction to Bennett Valley. So taking that regional approach, what else is out there? Did you, has anyone taken a look at any other municipalities or the county that may be having these same discussions that we are? I think Council Member Schwedhelm, that that would be the next step in this phase. This was just to see if Council and to follow the direction and that would be one of the elements that we would be adding to a deeper dive. This was just, we're at a specific point and unique point in this conversation, not something that we expected to be in and do we want, we need to make some strategic decisions including investing some dollars to get these deeper answers for you. And we wanna make sure we didn't miss the opportunity to say, is this something we want to explore? These are exactly the types of questions we would need to do a further analysis on to bring back to the Council. Great. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Those are all the questions I had. My pleasure. Thank you. Any other questions from Council? All right, I had a couple. Do we have a breakdown? One of the options that you presented here is repurposing some of the land going with potentially a nine hole course instead. Do we have a breakdown of the amount of nine hole golfers we have versus 18 hole golfers? We can get, we can look at that. We overall get a spreadsheet from the operator on how many rounds and things like that. We can see if we can dive a little deeper and look at that information to help guide us. But generally it's a pretty simple spreadsheet but we'll work with him, we'll work with the operator to see what we can dig out. Yeah, I'd appreciate that. Part of this conversation, I think is looking at what the needs of the community are for the next 15, 20, 30 years. And it's helpful for me to see how people actually utilize the asset in how we are going to have it designed. The other question that I have, and it was mentioned a little bit in the presentation that there is potentially more need for soccer fields. And in particular, all purpose, all weather fields for soccer fields. I know that there's some discussion about repurposing part of the tennis courts for Bennett Valley, as well as there's that field that's there as well. How, when we look at the youth in our community coming up over the next 15, 20 years, is there a higher demand for soccer facilities at the moment, or is there a higher demand for golf? And how do we quantify that, I guess is the second part of this. That's a fair question. So that's one of the things that we would look into in more depth, but I can tell you from experience and what we have done so far is when we look at either standalone recreation and sports venues, which would be soccer, potentially baseball or both, and then golf, there are a few that are combined, but the golf industry is trying very hard to get more participation involved. And it hasn't increased on the top golf side, for example, or what they call, you may, the simulators, right? You can go into and you pretend that you're playing a golf course at Augusta National, right? Or Pebble Beach. And those are increasing those opportunities, but the industry hasn't seen a transition from that to the actual golf course. And that's partly because the amount of time it takes typical round can be anywhere from three to five hours. And so there's still that hurdle that the industry is trying to get over. And so they're trying to work with youth on that and they are getting more involved in educated about golf, but it's more on a video screen or it's more on a top golf type of atmosphere versus the sports. They are a great funnel for recreation activity for communities for the youth. And unless that changes, there's no demographics or indicators currently that would say that that's changing. Participation by youths between seven and 13 is almost at an all-time high in baseball. And it's dropped a little in soccer, but rebounded over the last two years. So the overall trend is that unless municipalities or local agencies or just schools and whatnot, if there's a desire not to get the kids involved in outdoor activities, the view is that that will continue to move forward, whereas golf is kind of one stagnant and there's a problem of trying to figure out how to get youth actually onto the course and actually participate on a regular basis. It's one thing to play golf once a year or twice a year. What you're looking to do is get that youth to be what's called a core golfer or they're playing numerous times throughout the year. Hopefully I answered that. Specifically, those are the general friends. Yeah, no, I definitely, I appreciate that. And if you play golf with me, it will take you five hours. And I know that that's a big hanging up as well. Jen, just as a quick follow-up, and I mentioned the tennis courts, I am also a tennis player. And I know that that is one of the primary spots for folks who do not have a private membership for a tennis club as well. It's mentioned in the staff report that this would impact tennis operations there in the park. Has there been any outreach that's been done to that community as well? Or are we still not at that point? And we're really not at that point. And I've been really clear with our consultants and Jill that that is well-loved and well-used and it will need to be part of our city moving forward. So it's not, we're not quite there yet though. Okay. And Mayor, if I can chime in for just a second. Go ahead. My apologies for chiming in, but I wanted to make sure that I helped answer the question that Doug was helping respond to. Doug was talking about national and regional statistics relating to which, the fact that youth sports is growing in leaps and bounds by comparison to golf and some of the other sports that have been around. We're actually seeing similar trends here in Santa Rosa specifically, as Jen has been going out to the community members in an effort to gain feedback on how best to spend the measure in parks for all funds. The volume of individuals that are coming out speaking heavily for the need for additional ball fields, whether it's soccer or baseball, all weather, lighted is pretty astounding. We're getting a substantial amount of feedback from them. The conversations that we've had with the golf course operator who's doing a great job to try to operate this, is that rounds have gone down pretty significantly over the course of the last several years. And it's been a constant conversation with the proprietor to figure out how best to keep that facility operational floating so that he can continue to make it worthwhile for him to be the operator. This last year actually provided some level of benefit because of COVID. But when we try to balance the community groups that are coming out that are asking resoundingly for additional golf support versus the youth and adult sports, whether it's soccer, baseball, softball, pickleball, we're hearing more and more of that as the primary voice in the community. And that's really what's showing up in these Measure M community meetings. So I apologize for stepping in, but I wanted to make sure that I incorporated that information into this discussion. No, no, I really appreciate that. Last kind of question slash comment that I have is, I have played around the area and I did in preparation for this look again at the rate structure for the different courses. And so one of the things that I'll be looking for in public comment and as I get back to folks who are interested in this topic, is the question of which you would prefer if you had to choose, would you prefer that we move towards a nine-hole course that has other elements or would you want to pay a little bit more? Because Bennett Valley is substantially cheaper than many of the other courses. I'm a Windsor on a weekend is $62 to play, Bennett Valley's 45. And so that is something that I'd want to hear from the public as well. Just really thank you, Doug, Brian, Jason, for your willingness to look at this holistically. I think that that's going to be really important. Councilwoman Fleming. My pleasure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you for the presentation. I was curious to know when you talk about the demographics of who uses our golf course and also the demographics around the increasing interest in baseball and soccer. Do any of these reflect these demographics more closely reflect the residents of the city of Santa Rosa? Specifically, I'm asking like who is using the course as it stands and where is the demand for other recreational activities coming from? Well, and I'm going to attempt to jump in here and let you know from, as Jason mentioned, we're going out and getting feedback from the community citywide about soccer and all of the sports and uses of the Measure M funds. And we're doing that quadrant by quadrant. So we're going, if you took Highway 101 and Highway 12 and you kind of make an intersection there, we're looking at it quadrant by quadrant. We're also having an all Spanish meeting coming up to make sure that we're collecting a wide variety of feedback or meeting. We had a specific sports meeting specifically to ask the sports community how they would like us to spend, not just Measure M funds, but where are the interests lies? And we hope to collect a lot of feedback from those and turning back to our golf, we don't necessarily collect that from the vendor himself, but we could potentially look at folks who sign up for golf. I'm not sure how he collects that information as far as demographic, but you know, Doug might have some more larger sweeping demographics that he can point to at a larger level. And there's that data that is available on a more general or regional basis. And part of the second part of this, if we were have the opportunity to help you is we would actually look at other golf course specifically. I would interview a number of people. And one of the things that we would probably recommend as well, we've seen it before is your current operator, we would ask them to collect some of that information, the zip code, ask them where the zip code, you know, where are they coming from? And if we can get an approximate age, those kind of characteristics will tell us how they compare both nationally and regionally as well. Typically with this type of golf course in municipal, what we call a local community municipal golf course, the drive time is generally within 30 to 40 minutes max. Okay. I'm not saying that there's always exceptions, but the vast majority of rounds generally are within that 30 or 40 mile and most of them are closer, but generally three or four miles. Right. So, you know, what I'm trying to get at here is our equal amounts of men and women playing golf, playing baseball and playing soccer. And golf, there's a, there's a big, large difference. Soccer, it's actually more balanced. When we go back to what on a regional or a national level, what is the difference? Is it, you know, 60, 40, 70, 30? For golf, it's actually probably 70, almost 80 for men versus women. That's, and they've tried to work with for years and try to improve on that. But it hasn't made a lot of inroads. Soccer, it's, it's quite different. It's actually relatively balanced. Baseball though, it's probably closer. It depends on the market, actually. In the softball and the early years, it's pretty good. It's almost 50-50. But as they, as they get older, the dropout rate for girls is much higher than boys. And so it dramatically shifts. Right. Well, thank you very much. And I look forward to listening to public comment and hearing about, you know, what the highest and best use of this is, but also how we can apply our commitment to equity in our land use decisions. Thank you for your thoughtful presentation. For your time. All right, council member Alvarez. I appreciate the presentation. Doug, could you describe to me or to us what a modern golf facility would look like? That's a great question. So there's two types of golf courses really. There are what we call 18-hole regulation or championship. And then there's what we call alternative golf facilities. And they could be golf course, nine-hole, 12-hole, six-hole, they can be par threes, or they can be a driving range combination where it's high volume. The modern golf course today is generally more challenging that you would probably find at Benavalan. And it generally has more, what we call hazards. It might be a waterscape. It might be more bunkers and stuff. So those generally are cost more to operate. And they're typically longer. This course is what we refer to as a relatively playable course. It's not too long, has some challenges, but you can get around and feel comfortable even when you're a weekend hack like myself, you enjoy the opportunity. Hopefully I answered your question. Do you have any other questions, Council Member? No, sir. Great. Seeing no other hands from the council, we'll go ahead and go to public comment. All right, we'll start with Steve. And Steve will be followed by Luke. Good afternoon. My name's Steve Urbanic and I'm here to support the existing operations of the Benavalan golf course. I guess I view the golf course as a significant community asset. And back in 2005, the council and the community thought so as well, but there are significant investment in the new clubhouse and golf facilities, the banquet facilities that the community invested in and I would like to see those assets continued and supported by the city of Santa Rosa. A couple of things I would like to ask, we're comparing these amenities to other amenities within the city of Santa Rosa, Howard Park, the Finlay Park Center, are they self-supporting enterprises that the public enjoys are the baseball fields and tennis courts that the city manages and provides to the public, are they self-supporting and from this perspective? And I guess I would ask that we get a lot more information from the current operator. Sounds from the presentation that many of us or at least from the perspective of this meeting is that this is probably a liability versus an asset to the community and the perspective of this presentation has taken that tone and I would appreciate a different perspective being taken by the council that this actually is an asset to the community. Your Doug Main noted that the golf course is relatively short compared to other facilities and I think that really is something that helps the youth learn golf and as well as other folks who are just taking up the game and one thing that I was looking at on some of the stats that you're talking about and the National Golf Foundation actually says that 36% of the golfers out there are youth, they're kids who are learning the game and I think that's a great benefit to our community as well as soccer and baseball and all those things. So I wholeheartedly support the existing golf course and if anybody's been out besides in COVID during regular operating hours at the driving facility, you'll know it's sometimes hard to get out there to find a place to practice from. That facility is a moneymaker from my perspective. It's tough to get out there and hit balls when you wanna do that. So I appreciate your time. I support the existing operations and the city continuing its investment in that golf course. Thank you. Great, thank you so much, Steve. Luke followed by Dan. Good afternoon, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Rogers and Santa Rosa City Council. My name is Luke Lindenbush with Generation Housing. We support the process to identify the future of Benefali golf course. We encourage the city to continue a holistic approach that leverages public lands to achieve strategic goals, including housing affordability. This is embedded in our broader support for identifying the highest and best uses for public assets and land. Generation housing is committed to more housing, especially more affordable housing in Sonoma County and we're impressed here by the staff's efforts to maximize this site in a way that reworks but, and this is important, has the potential to maintain much of the existing use while maintaining and improving recreation options and building desperately needed housing. Housing at this site would be of benefit to the community and support a vibrant redevelopment of this community. This kind of major project will bring jobs to Santa Rosa and provide homes for the families, workers and seniors of Benefali, Santa Rosa and Sonoma County as a whole. This sounds like a sustainable, equitable win-win for the community. Please keep up the good work and let us know how Generation Housing can be of help as this work unfolds in the coming years. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Luke. Dan, and he'll be followed by Gregory. Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Dan Galvin and I live in Benefali. I'm making these comments as an individual citizen and member of the Benefali Golf Club and not as chairman of the city's board of public utilities nor as an attorney, although in the interest of full disclosure, I have represented the current golf operator in the past. When Benefali Golf Course opened in 1969, I was 15 years old and the first employee hired by the Golf Pro. I was working in the Pro Shop, collecting green fees on opening day. I spent five to six years working in the Pro Shop and running the industrial golf leads that played each weekday afternoon and that are still active today. I've been playing golf regularly there for over 50 years. When the course opened, except for a few mature oak trees, all the trees on the course were newly planted six to eight foot tall trees. Now those trees have grown to 50 feet and more. The course was wide open back then, but it is now a true test with fairways lined with large trees on both sides. The greens are some of the best greens in the county. The course is one of the most popular courses in the North Bay. It used to be that golfers were lined up at dawn waiting for the gates to be unlocked so that not only could they play, but also so they can make a tee time for the following week. Play at the course has been affected over time by recessions, fires, rains, and now the pandemic that has always bounced back and is now no different. I play on Fridays and over the past few months, the number of players has dramatically increased. It is now harder to get a tee time and the length of play has unfortunately increased, but those are good problems to have. I know that there have been a lot of discussions over the years about whether the city should have invested all the money it did to build the new pro shop and clubhouse, but that is water under the bridge. The fact remains that the city has a beautiful and functional facility. The golf and course maintenance staff do an excellent job collecting fees, selling merchandise, running the driving range and keeping the course in great shape. There's obviously been a lot of deferred maintenance on the course and the infrastructure is now 50 plus years old. The money you are talking about spending for studies could be better spent on the golf course. Raise the golf rates if you must, but the fact remains that the number of rounds played continues to increase. One positive impact of the pandemic is that it's generated a real surge in the number of people taking up the game or returning to the game and your consultants have talked about the 10 or 11% increase. Golf is one of the few outdoor sports that virtually anyone can do and do it by being socially distanced to get exercise. The number of rounds played at Bennett Valley is likely to increase and continue to do so, generating more revenue for the city. The time and expense to change or eliminate the golf course makes no sense to me. You have a viable, popular, and excellent golf course and facility. The restaurant should be a gold mine. It was supported not just by the golfers, but by the community, especially those of us who live in Bennett Valley. I see my time as a Bennett Valley golf course truly is a city treasure. So I urge you not to commission a study, but rather to devote the time, money, and attention necessary to improve the existing facilities, budget for necessary infrastructure improvements and find a competent restaurant operator. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Gregory, followed by Jim. I'm here. I just had to unmute myself. Thanks, Dan, but I've got to really remind the council as to how we got here. My name is Gregory Farron, I'm the treasurer of the Bennett Valley Golf Club. I will speak for the club. We just learned about this and I'm sure there'll be lots of others who will do with their opinions. The seeds of this fiscal dilemma were planted long ago when a city council subcommittee convinced your predecessors against the wishes and advice of the golfing community that offers in Sonoma County would continually pay that sweet spot fee level just low, not tall in order to retire city bondedness that overbuilt a golfing complex on the eastern edge of Bennett Valley. Setting up a separate enterprise fund and requiring bond principle and interest payments and maintenance costs to be paid from user fees and enterprise reserves meant that someday the general fund would be vulnerable to any errors in the subcommittee's beliefs, planning, formulas and execution. The Bennett Valley Golf Club has cautioned you every single year that continually raising fees and avoiding maintenance in the face of ever increasing barriers to our use of the course would lead us down a road to frustration and insolvency. Well, we're here, but you chose every year to believe that the golfing community was rich enough to keep the money flowing, fanatic enough about playing and that we wouldn't worry about the condition of the course. Well, we aren't and we do. The subcommittee sold you an inadequately financially planned dream that's now turned into a nightmare. And we're not at all surprised that you have to view the complex now as a resource belonging to the whole city. You have to face serious choices and must take responsibility for fixing it with all of your capabilities. What convinced you that isolating us from the same support provided to all other sports would work? It's just too bad you couldn't see this coming and had begun to see the complex sooner as more than a distant enterprise fund. Thank you, Gregory. Jim, followed by Brennan. Hello, can you hear me? Yep, go ahead, Jim. Sorry. I'm going to veer from what I was originally going to say because I'm somewhat appalled by the presentation and how focused it is on everything but trying to realize how we could make the Bennett Valley golf course and the restaurant complex be more profitable because it's already paying approximately $300,000 every year that could otherwise be considered profit towards the bond debt. The question was, ask how many golfers have been using the golf course? 60,000 rounds, a jump of well over 40% from previous years because primarily because of COVID, but also there is a trend among golfing communities, particularly the affordability aspect of it. Bennett Valley is a very affordable local golf course. It's a gem of our community. If we were to take it away and put it into housing or redevelopment or whatever, I saw it in one comment as part of the presentation that it was even suggested that they might knock down these buildings for some type of further usage, undetermined. The buildings aren't even 20 years old. A ridiculous idea. I just think that the most important thing for the council to consider is how to protect this invaluable resource and by doing so, if you're gonna use any money at all to hire a consultant, look at how you can improve the profitability of the two ventures that occupy this real estate at the moment rather than going up because you could save $150,000. Give me $50,000 and I'll tell you, sell all the land. You could find a developer who'll put a million dollar houses on it. Everybody's talking about affordable housing. What about all the parks in the city? Why don't you do an inventory of all the parks in the city and turn those into affordable housing? I mean, it's a ludicrous question. I know it's a rhetorical question. You don't because things like the golf course, things like parks, recreational facilities of any sort have intrinsic value in terms of our community and why people wanna live in Santa Rosa. And as I pointed out in my written comments, Santa Rosa was named one of the most livable cities in the country and I'm sure that the consultants that came to this conclusion weren't unaware of the fact that we have the Benedale Golf Course, Galvin Park, number of other parks and recreation outlets around the city. Why did the city commit money to have a unified town square? Because it was valuable for the intrinsic value behind having a community place to gather, whether it be the weekly market, whatever the case be. I would highly recommend that you look at option one, look at how you can improve the profitability of both the golf course and the restaurant community center that you can continue to pay off the bond debt and continue it being an 18-hole golf course. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jim. Brennan followed by President 2123. Hi, thank you guys. I'd just like to, I guess put my support for maintaining the current use of this golf course. It's one of those invaluable assets that once it's gone, I think you will completely regret getting rid of it. I hear the numbers were on the decline pre-COVID, but I would argue that after COVID, you've seen that the numbers have improved and I'd argue that they're likely to continue to improve. Throughout the future of the golf course. Anyways, I really don't think that this is a good idea to turn this into a new development. I'd argue that you should definitely try to come up with the revenue necessary or whatever needs to get done in order to make this a more usable and cost-effective thing, I guess. Anyways, maintain, I guess, the current use. Anyways, thanks for your time. Thank you so much. Resident followed by Lewis. Good evening. This is former council member, Doud, and I have to say to you, I miss you all and my biggest regret about having been on the council is that so much of it was done through Zoom meetings, I would have liked to have a lot more personal in-person meetings. At any rate, in regards to this particular item, I look at the Benne Valley Golf Course as a true community treasure and I have been for now 23-something years a member of the Fountain Grove Club and our play in this past year has increased there by about 40%. I also have to point out to the council if you're not aware of it, but that the driving range at the Fountain Grove Club kind of services about 12 stations and it's mostly a warm-up place and other than later in the afternoon when there's not so much people waiting to get out on their tea times. So I think you have to envision that as the way the Benne Valley Golf Course is designed. Yes. I'm sorry, Ms. former council member Dowd, I do want to note that actually under the Political Reform Act, you're not eligible to advocate in front of the council for a year after you have left the council. So I just wanted to alert you to that and I apologize. All right. Well, it seems like it's been a year, but I guess it's not, so... But we miss you. We miss you on council. Thank you. Okay. All right, I'll sign off. Thank you so much, Dick and thank you, Sue, for stepping in. Lewis, you're up next. Hello. Can you hear me? Yep. Hello ahead. Can you hear me? Yep. Okay. My name's Lewis Capiano. I'm the president of the Benne Valley Golf Club at Benne Valley Golf Course. We are an NCGA-recognized club with average about 300 members annually that join our club. We hold about one to two tournaments per month at Benne Valley Golf Course and average anywhere from 50 to sometimes 100 people per tournament. So our membership makes up a lot of the rounds played at Benne Valley throughout the course of a year. I grew up on this course playing since the 1980s. I've gotten to know everybody out there and the course itself. As Dan said earlier, the course has really tightened up over the years and become a quite a challenging course in the area and a difficult for those to come outside and play because of its challenge. It also prepares those that play at Benne Valley to play other courses and excel at other courses because we are used to high challenge or a high challenging course at Benne Valley. I wanna remind the committee or the council that the course is often voted in several Sonoma County publications as one of the best, if not the best golf course in the county. Even though the funds are not incredible for its maintenance and upkeep and repair, the course is in excellent condition. The groundskeepers, the superintendent, all of the staff do an excellent job at keeping this course in such a great shape. It has, as the presentation says, it has some things that need to be repaired as every course does. This is an older course and there hasn't been very major changes in the course in over 20 years, if not further than that and when they changed all the greens. So yes, there are things to be changed but you're gonna lose a lot of playing if you reduce this to a nine hole, a six hole or a 12 hole course. We'll lose accreditation with those organizations that give us our membership as a recognized club and as a recognized golf course. So I'm against turning it into anything less than what it is right now in 18 hole course. There may be some changes that could happen with a driving range improvements for golf facilities but I am against changing it. And if any of the council members would like to reach out to me as the president of Benavali Golf Club, I'd be more than happy to discuss any of these things with them. So thank you for giving me my time and I appreciate it and thank you. Thank you so much, Lewis. So seeing no other hands, Madam City Clerk, do we have any voicemail public comments? Yes, we do, Mayor. William Brooks of Santa Rosa. Closing Benavali Golf course is insanity. What is wrong with you? Just that it's impossible to even find out where your thinking is coming from. It's an icon of the city. It is the best-maintained municipal course in the state and you want to close it throughout your minds. This will never happen and believe me, there are enough of us. We will not let it happen. Thank you. This is Ed Taterian calling in regards to Agenda Number 3.1 of the meeting, the handicapped chairman of the North Bay Golf Club. We've had tournaments there for the last 25 years or so and I'm hoping you keep the course open if you're thinking about closing it, please don't. Thank you. Yes, my name is Kenneth Ford. The Agenda Number is 3.1 and my comment is I do not wish to have Benavali Golf course closed. This is the course I love to play the most and I think it's the most popular one in the county. Thank you, final. Hello, this is Paul Berdeer and I'm talking about Agenda Item Number 3.1, 3.1 and my take on that is do not do anything to the 18-hole course, but you could get rid of that restaurant. Thank you. My name is Tom Krabowski. I live in Santa Rosa and I'm commenting on the possible closure of the Benavali Golf course, which I believe is Agenda Item 3.1 for February 2nd. I strongly urge you to adopt option one, which is a status quo for many reasons, period. As a regular golfer at Benavali for 30 years, it's one of the nicest courses around. Unfortunately, the city approved the building of a restaurant and pro shop two years back that I understand costs $13 million and that is the whole problem with trying to fund the debt bond. Thank you. Mayor, that concludes the voice message, public comments received. Great, thank you so much. I'll bring it back to council for any additional questions and then we'll do comments afterwards. First, Mr. Assistant City Manager, I just wanted to make sure when I was doing my prep for this, I pulled up the general plan. I just wanted to make sure this falls within the urban growth boundary, but it's the southeastern edge, correct? That is correct. It runs along that southeastern edge and the area adjacent to the fly fishing pond, that fence line is the urban growth boundary for that area. Okay, great, thank you so much. Councilor, are there any additional questions? Madam City Attorney, did you still have a comment or a question? No, I'm sorry, I will take down my hand, thank you. All good, we'll start with Madam Vice Mayor. Okay, so I just had a quick question and maybe Jen can answer this and why weren't the fees that were collected for maintenance, why weren't they used along the way to maintain? It seems that when you defer maintenance, it only costs you more as you go further out. So I was just curious about that. I appreciate that, Council Member. I think I didn't really elaborate on the extra fee collected for capital improvements and the capital improvements are really high. We're looking at $3 million in capital improvements. So the intent was to try, if I can remember everything correctly, the intent at the time it was developed was to save money for future improvements and construction costs have grown really exponentially in the last few years. So my original cost estimate back in the day, I think 2015 or 16 to update the irrigation system was much less. And so now we're looking at close to $3 million worth of really needed repairs. The golf course is operating on an infrastructure over 50 years old and the golf course operator is strained trying to move folks from doing regular ordinary operations to fixing things that are broken or having to spend staff time of the city's park maintenance staff time to go out there and assist for larger problems that come along with that. And then on the day-to-day maintenance, we do use the funds that are collected annually for just regular day-to-day maintenance. We do use actually some of those funds. We use about 60 to $80,000 a year to maintain annually on average, just basic things that are broken and need repair. That's between the restaurant building as well as the golf course. Most of those going to the restaurant itself. I hope that helps. Thank you so much. And vice mayor, if I could just chime in, I will say that we have been working very closely with the operator there on specific projects. And over the last two years, we have done work where we resurfaced one of the golf cart bridges. We spent money to redo all of the teas throughout. We also replaced some of the signage that demonstrates what the fairway looks like. So the money has been invested. The challenge, as Jen mentioned, is that the biggest ticket item is the one that we're most concerned about. And so we've tried to be judicious in the way we use those funds, knowing that we're really struggling for that big prize. And of course, the operator really wants to see it spent and we've been trying our best to come to a mutual agreement. And I think in general, we've done a pretty good job of working with them to spend funds in wise ways. I think I just didn't hear earlier when Jen was going over. It was the lump sum that we had, but not that we weren't just courting the money that we were actually spending the money as we went. This was just what was left over for big improvements. Council Member Tibbets. Thank you, Mayor. I guess we're in the direction path forward to stage if I'm not mistaken. So I was reading the presentation and it does concern me that there's, I read 2,200,000 in the staff report. That was about 2 million for the irrigation upgrades and 200,000 for fixing the driver on the HVAC system in the legends and the pro shop. But it sounds like there's more of the needs to be done. And the fact of the matter is, is the money does have to come from somewhere. The redevelopment idea, I think it's a good last ditch effort to, I guess kind of do something with the land, but it does strike me that there, that we really do have kind of a wonderful asset there, whether it's a golf course or a park, but just right now it's space. And I saw, you know, where I'm going to be coming from is I really like to go the consultant direction and figure out the highest and best use. I think there's actually a lot of evolutions happening in golf right now, where we can create something that is actually an asset. Watch it, I shouldn't say an asset. What we have now is an asset, but create something that actually is going to have demand and bring in money. And I, this is, I'm going to say, and I mean, no disrespect to the golf club members who are here, but what we have now is not creating any demand. It is a course that if you are not a serious avid golfer, feels like any other course in the city. And I'm saying that as somebody who enjoys golf, but is not an avid golfer. And I think for golf as a sport to be successful, that sport needs a lot of people like me participating in pain. So I'm hoping that the consultant can help us figure out how to differentiate ourselves from these other courses like Oakmont, you know, Found Grove, Santa Rosa Golf and Country Club, Rooster Run and Windsor. And I remember too, thinking, you know, last year or two years ago, now we looked at the fees. I think we were even becoming more expensive than some of these other places, which a number of us made comments to the effect of, well, how's this going to help get us out of the hole when, you know, somebody, it's now cheaper to go play golf at Oakmont. So taking all those factors into consideration, I'd love to see a redesign of the course. Maybe it's something new that can get us out of there. I don't think it's going to be a situation where we're not going to have to sell some part of the course for redevelopment, whether it's the driving range and then using that money to fund the redesign. And I was going to throw out something that I'm partial to. I had the chance a while back to go play band and dunes. And I'm not saying we're going to create band and dunes here, but there are a lot of cool things about that course that made me really get interested in golf where I wasn't before. And that was the concept of some of these 13 hole part threes that Tiger Woods is now playing. And then also these punch bowl type courses that I think would really attract to a younger audience and hopefully be something fun for the more diehard golf for who's been around a long time. But whatever we come up with, I think we owe it to the community and to this asset to really figure out how we could redesign it to make it better. One last solution or possible solution I'll throw out is if we get to a point in the road where it doesn't seem that we can determine a high and best use that is golf, I think we need to work with the golf club membership to try to come up with a solution that gives them the chance to help us solve the problem. And specifically right now, I'm thinking of enhanced infrastructure finance districts. We talk about those a lot here at the council on the renewal enterprise district. And I actually don't see those as great vehicles for housing to be abundantly honest, but I do see them as great vehicles for helping some of these parks and other types of things get off the ground. And the citizenry gets to help mobilize with that effort and be the solution themselves. So I just say that out there for the golf members who are listening to this because I know it's pretty concerning. I know how passionate golfers can be about golf courses. And as one out of seven, I wanna try to see that we get the best outcome for the people who are passionate about that course. And council member just to respond, I wanna let you know that we fully intend to be reaching out to the communities who are using these spaces, the golf, all of the golf clubs, because we do wanna find out some more information that concept right now is we're bringing this to council because we have one tenant who has already left. We have another tenant who has 18 months left on his lease. And we needed to understand from council which direction we wanna go, but we needed that information before we started going and talking to the community. Cause without that, we would be all over the board. And we'd rather have some focal point to be able to have those directed discussions to try to help them, to work with them to help resolve the problem that's mutually agreeable. Sure, I appreciate that assistant city manager and I'm gonna throw it with you. Council member Alvarez. Thank you. And I do appreciate that common assistant manager. And to add to that fact, I do wanna appreciate president Lewis for having called in and make his concerns known as well. What worries me is the staying power after COVID. If our, the surge that we've seen, we'll go back to other activities or business, whatever they may be doing. When we take into account the $150,000 for the study, I would hope that it would also include how to make the uses now profitable, how to increase profit at the restaurant as well as the sports. Having said that, I think it would be a disservice to Senator Rosa if we didn't explore the different options and hire the consultant to see what it is that we're looking at, especially after hearing that we have deferred a lot of the cost to the golf center. So I am definitely leaning towards the consultant on this one. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Jen, just a quick question. The four and a half million dollars that's left on the bond debt, I know it's supposed to be done and paid off by January of 2031. Would the fiscal outlook for the golf course be substantially different if they were not paying the bond debt? The answer would be yes with the caveat that we would still also be returning to you with regard to the deferred maintenance. But for the question for just the ongoing support and care of the golf course and restaurant, whatever version that looks like, yes, it could be more sustainable but it's been a point that the golf operator has brought up many times that the debt that we have is high compared to what we can do with what we have out there right now. Okay. Council member Fleming. Thank you, mayor. I do want to acknowledge that the golf community is passionate about the sport that is enjoyed and I come from a big golfing family and I have a lot of respect for the sport. However, in this role on the council, my job is to steward public funds as effectively as possible for the highest and best use of both public funds and land for the majority of Santa Rosas. And what I'm not hearing in this presentation is that the golf course at present is accomplishing those tasks, which I'm set here to execute. And so I will be going in the direction of hiring a consultant to determine the highest and best use of this facility. I do hope that we are able to find a way to keep golf as part of our portfolio of parks but that we can also use the land to promote activities that are more equitable and inclusive as is our goal in the city we want. Something that is not just gonna serve a small portion of our community but that it's gonna be accessible and perhaps even a draw, which might be the case with top golf or a sports complex and something that might also include housing though. I'm not sure that it would be transit oriented over there and that I'm not sure that that would necessarily be the most effective use of implementing housing in the way that the council has looked for it but I'm very interested to hear the report from the consultant and to also hear solutions and have our golfing community brought into the conversation to make sure that your voices are heard and part of the execution of our next steps. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Council member Sawyer. Thank you, Mayor. Very interesting conversation. It's clear that the golf course is a major asset for the city of Santa Rosa and I think what I might be looking for and I had a meeting recently about this topic and I was convinced that what I was gonna be looking what I was looking for was highest and best use and I'm still looking for that but I'm wondering if we can expand the kind of our look into the future and our research to not only look at highest and best which we don't know which will create a list of options but also how we might take our current asset and what it would take both cost to players and cost to the city to maintain the and to do the reparations necessary to maintain the quality of the asset and what it might cost players in the long run. I've been around long enough to know that when we want to increase cost at that golf course by what many would consider a very small amount of money and we get pushback and we have an obligation to use that asset and it is indeed an enterprise fund. It is supposed to pay for itself not everyone plays golf and so my hope is that it is indeed self-sustaining. What would it take to make itself sustaining? What would it take to not only the self-sustaining nature of the golf course itself but also the infrastructure because I think that we have an opportunity and this is one of those rare opportunities to look at and I know the cost of the building was very, very high. I believe it was lead that might even have been gold and in its day, I'm not sure if it was silver or gold and I'm sure that Mr. Nutt or one of our recreation parks directors can tell us exactly how high we went with that building. It was, we were all very proud of it at the time and now it's many years later. And so I think that what I'm looking for is perhaps an expansion of the consultants work. It might not be a bad idea to have a list of their scope of service, a list of those issues that they may be looking for and kind of in essence, look at both sides of the equation and not just taking it and completely changing the nature of the site but telling us how we might improve the site as an option. And again, this is not where I was seven days ago when I was meeting with individuals talking about where we might go with this golf course but we do have an obligation. This is the people's money and if the golfers themselves are not, and we haven't asked the question, this is part of what would be done in the research done by the consultants. What is the sweet spot as far as cost? What are the most necessary improvements that have to take place to make the golf course function well? And what, and in opposite that, how might we use that site in other ways? Which is kind of a way of saying I'm looking for a hybrid. I'm looking for best in use and also the status quo in a sense. I hate to increase the cost of the consultants but one of the speakers said once it's gone, it's gone. And so I'm looking for a little, I'm looking for some compromise in broadening our options so that we do indeed make the best choice possible not only for our current users but for future users as well. And I've been very much, as I had said before, look forward to having a restaurant that the city of Santa Rosa can be proud of as opposed to when we have to make excuses for. So I will stop there and look forward to the comments of my colleagues. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Schwedhelm. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So cut to the chase, I'm supportive of option one. And what's really, I think what we have control of is going in an RFP process. So I know several of folks who've been on this call actually met with a local restaurant tour about the site and the possibilities there because I think the Bennett Valley golf course complex is a jewel of Santa Rosa, just needs some polishing, right? And as Mr. Soria was just mentioning, I didn't know anyone that would go to that former restaurant because of the, what was being served there. So I think I would love to see that be a destination and that I think is a key part of it. Now we go the route of pairing it, have the same operator run the restaurant and the golf operations, that's open for discussions. But I think in the RFP process, we can outline what we as a city would want. And also, including that being a short term, because as we've had some discussions here, people are trying to predict the future. And it's a challenging time now. The path that we saw was some of the different challenges going back to the Tubbs fire, a whole bunch of other things that weren't necessarily in our control. We can put language in there to protect our assets in that RFP process. And if there's no one willing to accept the deliverables that we as a city are asking for, bring it back to council and we'll go in a different direction. But I think it's really an opportunity to make this a destination, location, a real jewel of Santa Rosa, something that all Santa Rosas can be proud of, not just the golf course, but the entire complex. Thank you, Council Member, Vice Mayor. I wanted to thank you guys for the presentation. I don't think that I was able to see that earlier. I didn't do it earlier. So I'm looking at the highest and best use analysis. I think that is the best route to go, leaning towards option two, mostly three at this point, but I'm not opposed to two. So yeah, I'm really just wanting to look at figures to see if the golf course can be self-sustaining and we can get some revenue generated would be good for me. The sports complex doesn't sound too bad since I have eight children and most of them like sports. I do know that that is definitely a need here in Santa Rosa and Sanoma County as a whole. So if we could get that, that would be awesome. But definitely looking for options and the cost analysis to the options that are brought for. Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor. I think for me, I think we're always gonna be looking for the highest and best use. I actually come up with this, I think a little bit different than most of the council members. I don't wanna spend the $150,000 and that's because I'm looking at some of the other things that we have coming before us, including $3 million in asks for homeless services a week from now, when we have 5 million in our reserves and when we are understaffed in our parks and when we understand that we have an enterprise fund that is not keeping up with the cost that it has. So I'm open for looking for options that are different for the golf course, but I would prefer that we do it in-house and have that conversation in two weeks, three weeks when we have our goal setting and see if that is something that the staff actually wants to prioritize and if the council actually wants to prioritize. Again, I'm totally fine with if the council wants to go in a different direction. I just, I think that it's something that we can do as a community discussion as well. And clearly we, I know you wanted to have this to daylight it to get the consultant that's on board so that then you can go out and have conversations with the golf club with our youth sports teams to see what the best use is. I'd prefer that we get this ball a little bit further down the road before we actually spend that money on a consultant. I see council member Tibbetts raised his hand. Yeah, real quick, Mayor, I'd say that I actually support that idea a lot. I mean, I think that what I heard from the council there was a lot of similarities in that people wanted to see, okay, how much would the cost have to increase in order to break even? Somebody brought up the question between the difference between the debt service on legends versus the actual cost of operating the course and it'd be good to look at it from that perspective. You know, I don't know if we should entirely expect the cost of, you know, green speeds to cover the entire cost of legends because I think that was a bad decision by a prior council that we may want to discuss kind of the pros and cons of whose responsibility is that? But yeah, long and short of it is, is I think we could do some basic investigatory work into this without going to the full 150,000 just yet. It may be that what we did is insufficient but I support you. Council Member Alvarez? Pretty much echoing Councilman Tibbet's statement. My question to you, Mayor, in regards to the interim use, is there anything in mind that comes to mind including the food trucks or other scenarios? I think that's a question for Jen or for Jason. Yeah, we are looking at, we're working with planning and economic development to develop a temporary food truck option for golfers and they're pretty far along with that. So it looks like they're gonna look at next week at reaching out to the various food trucks to make that happen and permit it through our parks permit option. And so that would be no cost to the city. So we'd look at folks parking the truck out there and working with the golf cart course operator as needed. But we are looking into that as an option and plan to move forward. Hopefully we'll get some really good interest from the food truck operators. Vice Mayor? Sorry, still learning my options here. I would much rather keep the $150,000. I think we could spend that somewhere else if we could do some of the preliminary work. Also knowing that our staff are very taxed in a lot of the things and our goals already and we do have goals setting coming up. So not wanting to burden them with extras if we can, cannot. So finding a compromise on how we would do that would be great, but I would be interested in saving the $100,000. And I do see the city manager and the assistant city manager have put up their hands. So I suspect we're about to get a clarification. I'm gonna turn it over to the assistant city manager, but I will point out that one of the public comments pointed to when we tried to do this in-house last time, the solution set may have not been as fully considered as and was part of the conundrum we find ourselves in today. So I would defer to the assistant city manager, but I think we're at one of those crossroads where the council is going to have to invest to get the answers you're looking for, but I will defer to the assistant city manager. Thank you, city manager McGlynn. Yeah, mayor, council members, I like to see our staff have the skill and experience to be able to come forward and bring things to council that have really well thought out structure to them as fantastic as our staff is. The scope and scale of the study that we really think needs to be done exceeds the skill set that we have in-house. I'm happy to discuss that a little bit further, but that's exactly the reason why CVE is part of the team that brought this to and helped us develop it. That's why Doug is such a great asset to have on the team as a nationwide expert in golf and how you re-imagine golf products. It's really helped open our, it's expanded our mind even in the course of the last few weeks that we've been working on developing this presentation. So there is definitely more out there that we believe we need to bring as part of the team in an effort to really be able to properly engage the community, the stakeholders and be able to provide you the decision makers with the best possible series of options for us to consider moving forward when we get closer to the least termination of our current operator. So I'm happy to discuss this further at a later date if you would like to at goal setting, but I did wanna at least chime in. We can have some initial conversations, but we really can't dig into any of the legitimate detail without having outside expertise. Okay, thank you so much for that. Council Member Fleming and then Council Member Sawyer. Yeah, basically what Assistant City Manager Nutt said was where I was going with this, which is one of my favorite questions is always, well, what does saving money or delaying or deferring a decision cost us? And it seems to me that given that our staff, wonderful staff, it's not subject matter experts in golf economy. I mean, whose job is it to be a golf economist? It's Doug's job to be a golf economist. I mean, that's cool. That's an interesting job. I might like to do that. But I think that we owe it to our golfing community and we owe it to our taxpayers to invest in making wise decisions. And while there is a price tag associated with it, that's the cost of protecting public assets and public funds. And I'm much more comfortable not deferring decisions to goal setting where we're gonna have many, many things on our plate and inevitably our beloved city manager will tell us that we'll have to pick this or something else and that if they can, we'll get kicked. The maintenance will be deferred. The highest and best use will not be necessarily implemented unless we decide we wanna put this above things like, you know, I won't list them because it's not agenda I say, but our traditional panel of issues that really just cannot be deferred in favor of sending staff time out to assess a golf course. So that's where I stand. I'm in favor of moving forward with contract today. So I heard from the council member as our staff has not necessarily on par with Doug. All right, council member Sawyer. Thank you, mayor. And I thank you, mayor. One of the questions I wanna be able to ask and it speaks to an echo chamber concept is why is our golf course popular and is it truly popular? I mean, we don't ask a golfer whether our golf course is an asset. I think we all know that it's an asset, but if you play golf on a regular basis, it's gonna be more of an asset. So I would love to have answered the question, what is the reality of our popularity of all our golf course? Is it because it's cheap or because it's a beautiful course and challenging and exactly what we want to have in the city. So that's one of those questions. It seems obvious, but it's not an easy question to answer is why is it popular? And so I would hope that if we move forward with a status core or the blend thereof, I would wanna know why and is it as popular as those that use on a regular basis would say that it is? So I would want that question answered. Thank you, council member. So I don't wanna leave staff with any type of muddled direction as to the question about moving forward with the contract to get this ball rolling. So Sue, would it be appropriate for me to just ask for a straw poll from the council on whether or not to move forward on the contract piece? Yes, because this actually is a study session so you cannot take any official action. So what staff is looking for is direction and I think if you do that kind of a straw poll that would be fine to do it that way. Okay, I thought I heard at least four but we'll go ahead and we'll do a thumbs up from folks if they are comfortable with staff pursuing the contract aspect and bringing this back as a full discussion with a vote and more community input in the future. Can you clarify what the practical implication of the yes vote or the yes straw poll, the thumbs up means? Staff will execute, as I understand it, the contract for $150,000 and bring this back once that report is done. Thank you for the clarification. Yes, and actually the contract itself will have to come back to council for approval because it's over the 100,000. So you will have an opportunity at that time as well. Great, thank you, Sue. So we'll just go around the horn really fast. Council Member Alvarez, thumbs up, Fleming. Sawyer, that's three thumbs up. Tibbets, thumbs up, Schwedhelm. Sorry, can't support spending $150,000 at this time. Okay, Vice Mayor. Okay, so I see five thumbs up. I agree with council member Schwedhelm but we'll bring this back at a future date for the contract to be approved officially by the council. And with that, we'll end that item and we will go to our actual city council full meeting. I don't believe we have to do a roll call, Madam City Clerk, since we didn't take a break, or do we? No, you're fine without a roll call. I'll just note that all council members are present since council member Tibbets was not at the initial roll call. Okay, thank you so much. We have no report out for closed session. We just did our study session. We have no proclamations tonight. Let's go on to staff briefings, Mr. City Manager. So the sole staff briefing this evening is 7.3, glass fire recovery update and I will turn it over to Assistant Fire Marshal Paul Lowenthal for the briefing. One moment as he promotes to panelists. Thank you. Good evening Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Rogers and member of the council. My name is Paul Lowenthal, Assistant Fire Marshal with the Santa's Department on behalf of the glass fire task forces. Been a couple of weeks since we've been before you, so catching up on a couple items. The deadline for the right of entries for the debris removal for both structures and trees within the glass fire has been extended again. Cal OES indicated that it would not extend that yesterday would have been the final deadline. However, late last night we received word that it's now been extended to February 15th. So that gives us time to get more of our trees into the program. We're still juggling with less than about five or so homes in between the right of entry program and the private program. And that primarily is a result of the more than one wall appeal process that we're going through with FEMA and Cal OES. We're down to now advocating for five total APNs on three parcels. So it's the triplex and Oakmont as well as two residents up in Mountain Hawks area that we're working through the appeal process to try and get them into the state's program. PG&E notified us this week that they are now moving back forward with their phase two, their P2 tree removal process and they're 54% complete in the glass fire footprint. We are working feverishly to get PG&E in coordination with Cal Recycle and Cal OES so that we do not lose a different additional residence ability to participate in the program with PG&E's tree removal. We have also followed up on the request that you were made aware of earlier in the year regarding the meeting that they offered regarding their wood management program. We have put PG&E on notice through email that we requested dates to reconvene that group with dates requested by the end of this week. So hoping to keep that process moving forward. Shifting over to the watershed side, our watershed task force reported no significant issues within the glass fire footprint following the two inches of rain that we had from the atmospheric river obviously less rain than we anticipated. So that was a beneficial storm and hopefully we'll continue to promote growth that will stabilize our burn scar area. The three C's will likely be seen California Conservation Crew will likely be seen in Santa Rosa doing some work on behalf of Cal OES on state debris removal sites helping with the watershed, best manager practices and soil stabilization. Also the fire department and stormwater will be working with Oakmont residents regarding some of the concerns with the creeks that were affected by the glass fire and pass forward to help mitigate some of the concerns. And that should do it for our update as of right now. Let's see if there's any questions. Thank you so much, Paul. Council, do you have any questions? All right, seeing none. We'll, Mr. Chief Manager, you said this was the only update tonight, correct? Great, we'll go to the public to see if there are any public comments on the staff updates. And I am not seeing any hands jump up. Madam City Clerk, did we have any voicemail public comments for this item? Yes, we did, Mayor. We had one, I'll be right back. Perfect. Item 7.1 and two staff briefing, Dwayne Dewitt from Roseland. Regarding the COVID response as well as the community empowerment plan, these seem to be falling short at least in my area of Roseland, a neighborhood that has at least 7,000 people right around that general. Sebastopol Road, Roseland Village type of city center. Hopefully you can work with the county and begin putting notices up into the bulletin boards. And now on the windows of the Roseland Library, which the county has used for a vaccination site at times. There are many people in the community who do not have internet access and are not linked in with smartphones. So they're zoomed out, virtual exclusion. The news isn't getting to them, but those bulletin boards at Roseland Village are there. The windows of the county-owned building are available. Please share information with us so we could truly be empowered in this governmental system, which seems to be more exclusionary than inclusionary. Thank you. That concludes voice message public comment, Dan. All right, thank you so much, Dina. I'll bring it back to the council for a quick check-in. Any additional comments or questions for Paul? All right, then we'll move on to our next item, the city managers and city attorneys reports. Sue, do you wanna kick us off today? Sure, I'm happy to do that. And Mr. Mayor and council members, I do wanna give two updates, one on recent developments on eviction protections as a result of COVID. And then the second, I'll give you a brief update on our litigation concerning our all-electric reach code. So first on evictions, as you may recall, existing state law puts places a moratorium on eviction proceedings that are based on non-payment of rent due to financial hardship caused by the COVID pandemic. And that state law, which was adopted late last summer, breaks it into two phases. If the unpaid rent accrued during the first six months of the pandemic, March 1st, 2020 to August 31st, 2020, then that unpaid rent has been converted to consumer debt. And as consumer debt, that unpaid rent can never be used as a basis for eviction. The rent though is still owed in the landlord unpaid rents in a small claims court. But again, it cannot for that six month period, unpaid rents cannot be used as a basis for eviction. Phase two, this is existing state law. Phase two, if the unpaid rent accrued during the second six months of the pandemic, and I know there was a time where we didn't think there was gonna be a second six months of the pandemic, but here we are. So if the unpaid rent accrued from September 1st, 2020 through January 31st, 2021, then the unpaid rent was converted to consumer debt, but only if the tenants submitted a declaration that the failure to pay rent was due to COVID related financial stress. And second, the tenant paid at least 25% of the rent that was due by January 31st. It did require the existing law required that the landlord provide certain notices to the tenant. And it allowed the existing law allowed for eviction for causes other than non-payment of rent due to the impacts of COVID. And all those protections again, went just through January 31st. Late last week, the legislature passed and the governor signed SB 91. And that extends those protections from January 1st through June 30th, 2021. So it continues the protections against eviction for non-payment of rent due to financial hardship caused by the COVID pandemic, provided that the tenant submits the declaration that the failure to pay rent was due to impacts of COVID. And second that the tenant pays at least 25% of the rent due now by June 30th rather than January 31st. Some minor adjustments continues the requirements for notice. It provides a standard form for a declaration for the tenant to verify that the failure to pay rent was due to COVID impacts. And it continues to allow for evictions for causes other than non-payment of rent due to impacts of COVID. And those other grounds for eviction would include at fault cause under existing state law. That includes things like a tenant's breach of material provisions of the rental agreement, creating a nuisance, damaging the property, using the property for an unlawful purpose. Those are all at fault, just cause. It also allows for evictions for no fault, just cause as defined under existing state law. And that includes things like the owner wanting to move into the property or a relative moving into the property or the owner taking the unit off of the rental market entirely. And there's a whole set of state laws that govern those two provisions. So again, stands the time for payment of that 25%, extends those eviction protections through the end of June, continues to allow evictions for other purposes. The other big piece of that legislation, excuse me, was that it establishes the state rental assistance program. It takes $2.6 billion in federal assistance and federal rental assistance and it directs to these two categories. It provides aid for low income, income qualified tenants that are most at risk with unpaid back rent. Tenants qualify if their income is 80% of AMI or lower. So it's aid to income qualified tenants. And then second, it's aid to the landlords and property owners under this program, property owners who agree to accept 80% of the unpaid rent as in full satisfaction of rent owed, they will be eligible for reimbursement of that 80%. And again, for rents owed from April 1st of last year through March 31st of this year. So again, but they would have to agree to waive that other 20% in order to get the 80% through the state program. So that's the existing state law, the existing and the new state law. The current, we also have regulations at the county level. The county ordinance currently similar to state law prohibits landlords from terminating a tenancy for failure to pay rent. If the tenant demonstrates that the failure to pay rent is a result of the impacts of COVID-19. And that can be illness of the individual. It can be quarantine requirements. It can be caring for others. It could be caring for minor children in the absence of in-person school or daycare. It operates a little bit differently than the state law. It creates an affirmative defense that tenants can use, creates a private right of action against landlords for any violation of the ordinance. It provides for damages three times in that private action. Tenant can recoup three times their actual damages. They can also recoup damages for mental or emotional distress. County ordinance does not relieve tenants of the obligation to pay rent. And it does not currently address any other grounds for eviction. So as other grounds for evictions remain in place under the county's current ordinance. That ordinance was adopted under the county's emergency powers and it was directed that the ordinance would apply throughout the county in both the incorporated and the unincorporated areas. So it's consistent across the county unless a city specifically pulls itself out. The county is now looking at amending their existing ordinance. Again, their existing ordinance really kind of parallels existing state law. What they are looking to potentially consider is expansion of the limitation on evictions. Again, currently it only addresses evictions for failure to pay rent due to COVID. The proposal that the board supervisor will be considering would expand that and have broader regulations of evictions. We understand from the board's discussion last week and some other discussions with the county staff is that we're anticipating that the board of supervisors will be offered two options, two alternatives to expand eviction protections. One option would be that the county ordinance would prohibit all evictions other than those that are necessary to protect public health or safety. I'll note that that standard and that prohibition had been in a rule that had been adopted by the judicial council last spring and it was in place for several months that judicial council order has been since repealed so it's not in place. So that's one option, no evictions other than for health or safety. The other kind of at the other side would be that it would prohibit all evictions other than public health and safety or specify no fault evictions. These are the ones where the landlord wants to move into the property or have members of his family, his or her family move into the property or wish to take the unit off of the rental market entirely. We don't know the specifics of those alternatives because they have not yet been published. They have not been released publicly. They will be published this Friday and the board of supervisors will then consider those alternatives at their meeting next Tuesday on February 9th. It is our understanding that the board of supervisors does intend that these amendments as well would be issued under their emergency powers and it would be their intent that those new restrictions would apply throughout the county in both incorporated and unincorporated areas. We won't know their final decision, what action, if any, they take until next week. So we would, we are proposing that we will come back to council at your next meeting, the next following meeting, which would be on February 23rd to report back what actions the county takes again, if any, and then depending on the actions that the county takes, the county will have options to consider whether to weigh in on the matter or to leave that ordinance operable within city limits as well. I'm happy to answer any questions on that update. Thank you, Sue. Appreciate how easily you were able to break down the complex machinations that are going on there. Council Member Sawyer and then Council Member Tibbets. Thank you, Mayor and thank you, Madam City Attorney. So I'm curious, so one a mentor could decide according to what the county is looking to embrace, not to pay rent for any reason, unless it has to do with a health and safety issue. That is a very good question. And I would say at this point, it's unclear until we see what the actual draft language is and we will see that on Friday. I look forward to that. I see on the horizon, if that is the case, a large number of landlords giving notices to tenants saying that they are pulling their homes off the market and leaving them empty because due to that kind of decision by the county, it really does. The whole, that whole issue around our housing stock, I think could be drastically affected by that kind of decision. I'm very disappointed by them even considering it. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Tibbets. Yeah, let me follow up a little bit more. I will say that I did not listen to the entirety of the council meeting last week. So I don't know whether that question was raised or addressed at that council meeting, but in my discussions with staff, that question has not come up. So again, we'll know more on Friday and perhaps the answer is already embedded in their discussion from last week. But again, I have not had the chance to review that in its entirety. Thank you very much. Jack? Thanks, Mayor. Sue, following up on that, I was actually under the impression based on the supervisors meeting last week that landlords wouldn't be able to do what John is saying they might do. And that is that they would be precluded from doing any evictions. And here's what concerned me. And this was in the Tyler Sylvie article was even a landlord opting to sell their house, put their house on the market, couldn't evict somebody. And to me, my concern really came in there. I mean, I hope that I've been pretty fair to tenants in my tenure on the council. I think we definitely need to have added protections right now, but my concern there is there seems to be a logical break between, and maybe it's just because I was reading a newspaper article and I wasn't getting the full facts. That's why I'm asking you. But are these mortgage deferrals still even in effect for landlords right now? I know that a lot of landlords set this up so that their investment property is getting paid off by the rent. If the rent's not coming in or at all, they're not making their mortgage. And then it's a lost property through foreclosure or now two parties have been harmed, the tenant and the landlord. And it's probably gotten purchased by somebody who may not use it as a rental property again. So that's when we've lost through a market, but through a much more vicious way, and that's through foreclosure, where the only winner there is to got the damn bank. So, I'm just curious what your thoughts are there? Yeah, and again, having not listened to the full council meeting, I don't know the exact direction that was given to staff. And I would, and I'm not familiar enough with the mortgage regulations that have been put in place, but it was certainly when I come back on, we'll see what the Board of Supervisors does next week. And then depending on what they do, we'll come back on the 23rd as an report item for council and I will have that full background ready for you at that time. Yeah, that would be really super because I, again, I'm supportive of increasing protections for tenants temporarily during COVID, because we don't want homelessness, but I don't want a situation created where the only winner emerging is the banks. So that's my two cents. And I hope that, Mayor, if you're talking to the supervisors at all that, you can raise that point with them and try to find a worker one. Great, thanks, council member. Council member Alvarez. Yes, thank you. Sue, I have a question and I don't know if you're able to answer this one for me at this point and it's okay if you can. In a situation where a landlord hasn't provided a contract to a tenant, how would the law determine a violation of set agreement, especially during the COVID times, where it will be a violation that would merit the vision of a tenant that would violate the contract? In terms of a at fault eviction. Correct, correct. Rental agreements are supposed to be in writing and I don't know what a court, how a court responds when there is no written agreement. I'm not familiar enough with the landlord tenant law to be able to respond to that at this point. I'm happy to look at, I'll note that down as well as unwritten agreements, so. I appreciate that because the situation that we see a lot in Roseland is that sometimes the tenant is an offer to contract. Right. Thank you, sir. Yeah, so council, I'm hearing a lot of interest in some further dive into this. Let's Sue get through Friday to see what the contract actually looks like. And then I think at the next meeting, where it's possible for us to have this discussion about what the county did and what it actually means for our community, I think we can have a much deeper conversation at that point, if that works for everybody. Seeing nodding heads. So Sue, I know you had one other update that you wanted to give us as well. Yes, and thank you for that feedback on evictions as well. I appreciate that. And then the second update is a shorter and quicker one is just an update on our litigation concerning our all-electric reach code. And for the benefit of the public in particular that may not be familiar with that code, that code was adopted by the council last November, I'm sorry, November in 2019. So a year ago last November. And it requires that all new low-rise residential construction, so residential construction, three stores and lower, utilize electricity rather than fossil fuels as for all primary energy needs. And it was adopted, as I said, in November 2019 after extensive research, after a tremendous amount of public participation and very thorough environmental and cost considerations that was adopted. And then local developer William Gallagher subsequently filed suit alleging that the city council's adoption of the code violated provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act, that's CEQA, as well as alleging violations of the state reach code law. We've been engaged in that litigation. The case was very thoroughly briefed on both sides. And our oral argument was heard last Wednesday before Superior Court Judge Patrick Broderick. That was last Wednesday, the 27th, January 27th. Prior to that hearing, Judge Broderick issued a very lengthy 25-page tentative ruling. And a tentative ruling of that length and that extent is unusual. The tentative ruling walked through each of the elements of the petitioner's claims, and again, as a tentative on a tentative basis, found in the city's favor on each of those elements. The oral argument took place on Wednesday. It was almost two-hour hearing after which Judge Broderick took the matter under submission. He did not indicate when he will issue his final ruling, but we do anticipate that we will receive it before too long. And we'll certainly alert the council when that is received. We do remain optimistic. Again, the tentative ruling is just that. It's a tentative ruling, but we do remain optimistic that the city's all-electric reach code will be upheld in full, and we trust that the judge will stand by his tentative ruling. And happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Sue. Are there any questions? Council Member Sawyer? Go ahead, unmute Council Member, and then you'll be able to speak. You can hear me then. Sorry about that. So is there a... When the judge is finished with his ruling, is this a final ruling, or is there a secondary hanging out there that could be before us? Yes, the Judge Broderick's decision will be the final decision in the Superior Court. There will be no further proceedings after he issues his final order. There is, of course, always a potential for an appeal. And in fact, Mr. Gallagher's attorneys did take some procedural steps that would indicate that they are at least considering appeal. There's been, we've heard no communications as to whether they would intend to appeal or not, but that is a possibility. And obviously I would alert the council if an appeal is filed. Thank you very much. Sure. Any other questions, Council? Great. Mr. City Manager, your report. Nothing to report. Okay. We will go ahead and go to public comment. We have one hand up. That's Gregory. Yeah, I just want to report that the Board of Supervisors today announced something that may help you on the first item of the city attorney's report. For the first time, the county administrator announced that they had achieved their goal of publishing the staff reports to their agenda eight days before the meeting. So right now you can see the full agenda with all of the staff reports of the county Board of Supervisors on their website. And I just looked and there's nothing of what she's talking about on their agenda. As you know, we've been trying to get both you guys and them to publish it as early as possible. And this is actually the first time where you'll know what the staff reports are for the Board of Supervisors at this meeting. So unless I've missed it, there's nothing on the Board of Supervisors agenda on the ninth that has anything to do with the ordinance or the changes she's suggesting they're gonna take. All right, thank you, Gregory. We'll keep an eye on that one. We are of course very supportive of the county continuing to move in the direction that Santa Rosa went with the advance noticing. So we'll keep working on that one. Councilor, are there any final questions or comments before we move on to our next item? And just so you all know, we'll get through item 10. That's the council member reports. And then we're gonna take a quick break so that folks can use the restroom, grab water, do whatever you need to do since we've been going at this for a couple of hours. First, item nine, do we have any statements of abstentia from the council? All right, saying none. We'll go on to item 10, mayors and council members reports. Let's start with our specific reports and then we'll go on to item 10.2 which we sort of alluded to a little bit last time. So first, council members, is there anybody who has a report for item 10? Council members, what on? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, there's two things I want to report out on. First, yesterday we had our water advisory committee meeting and several water related items that I want to share with the council. So we received an update on water supply conditions due to the dry conditions. Sonoma water filed a temporary urgency change petition with the state of California in January. If granted, Sonoma water would be able to temporarily reduce flows to better managed storage in Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma and preserve critical water supply. To assist in reducing water use, the Sonoma Marin Water Saving Partnership launched a region wide dry year outreach campaign. The tagline, it's a dry year, save water with us. Messaging is going out on various digital and social media platforms in Spanish and in English. We also received a brief update on the Sonoma water budget, the technical advisory committee finance subcommittee is working with Sonoma water on their preparation of the Sonoma water fiscal year 21-22 budget and rates. This will be presented to this city council on March 23rd prior to the WAC considering this at their April meeting. I'll be receiving direction from this body for that. Potter Valley Project, something that people are getting more and more educated on Sonoma water and the partner agencies working on the re-licensing of Potter Valley Project submitted their plan to FERC for completing the required financial, technical, environmental studies required to re-license the project. The next step is for FERC to make a formal determination of the sufficiency of that plan. And I don't have a timeline as to when FERC will be doing that. And then we had emergency training in coordination subcommittee, which is comprised of representatives from Sonoma water and the water contractors was created in response to the 2019 Sonoma County civil grand jury report. The committee is working on a coordinated emergency alert notification system to establish rapid communication between Sonoma water and the contractors and a mutual aid assistance program model for emergency response and recovery. And finally, the WAC also elected Mike Healy from Petaluma to be the WAC vice chair for the remainder of this session. And on the second note, I might have made a mention to this last week, but on the 27th of violence prevention partnership hosted a presentation by Dr. Sharon Washington titled Tipping the Scale, Deconstructing Race and Racism. We had over 360 people signed up for that. And I'd really encourage anyone to find some time to view it. The video is now on the Violence Prevention Partnership website. And if you are going to watch the video, I'd encourage you to download a single sheet of paper that's also on the website because a lot of it is on the self reflection and how you identify. And Dr. Washington does a superb job and it's about I think a two and a half hour presentation, but I think everyone would get something out of it. So I strongly encourage everyone if you have the time to look at the video. It was a wonderful presentation. I appreciate the voters who supported Measure O which made this presentation possible at no cost to the attendees. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. And I'll probably follow up with you offline with a couple of additional questions that I have about the WAC. Madam Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I would like to take this time to appoint, make some appointments. Sure, the staff are excited about that. I would like to appoint Jeffrey Holton to the Planning Commission. Michael Birch to the Design Review Board and Alvin Hamilton to the Cultural Heritage Board. I would like to thank all of my appointees thus far for their willingness to serve our community. And I would also like to encourage others who may want to learn more or may want to also serve to go to the city website and check out the different board and commissions we have and the vacancies we have. A goal of mine when I was running for council was to diversify not only our leadership on the council but also our boards and commissions. But we need residents to get out there and learn a little bit more, call us if you have any questions and we'll be happy to assist you and support you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor. And thanks for setting a great example for the council. With that, I'll go on to council member Tibbetts. Thanks, Mayor. I'd just like to appoint Kristen Kiefer to the Art and Public Places Committee. That's all. Thank you. See Vice Mayor, you're already setting a trend. Councilwoman Fleming. Thank you. I don't have any appointments to make today but I'm doing pretty good on keeping my board staffed and diverse. So I wanted to report out on last week's public safety subcommittee. We had a long and engaging meeting of four and a half hours and we covered an update from the school resource officer program as well as the Kahootz program which was featured in the press democrat and more unanimously looking forward to that being an additional service that the city offers. I speak on, I believe I speak on behalf of all three of us from the subcommittee that we think that this is gonna be a fantastic addition to our city. And then because of the robust community engagement we were unable to finish our meeting. So we will be continuing at 1 p.m. on February 8th and the most notable item that we'll be taking up there will be the police auditor position. So we look forward to public comment. Hopefully we can get the business of that item taken care of. Thank you so much. Thank you. Council Member, Council Member Sawyer. Thank you, Mayor. And this question is for Council Member Schwedermann and if you need to get back to be offline, that's fine. And curious about the Ponter Valley project and the licensing thereof. Is this with PGD wanting to get out of that game? Is the licensing, who would be looking for a license or am I misunderstanding the concept? It'd be a better offline conversation because there are some confidential communications involving that project. And also there's still some challenges with Lake County not being represented there and there's a congressman representing that area that's of interest. So we can further dialogue and quite frankly, Sarah's water might be the better person to answer that question because nothing is easy involving the federal government or the Ponter Valley project. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. And thank you for your service and water. Well, thank you so much. I am also gonna follow the Vice Mayor's lead. I will be appointing Anna Stevens to the General Planned Community Advisory Committee. For those of you who've been tracking council members each get to appoint one individual, typically from their district who is interested in serving on that committee. And it kicks off I believe tomorrow night. So I am just in time with that one. The other appointment that I have is a correction from staff. I originally appointed two individuals to our BPU liaison committee and missed that we actually had a third vacant position but I get to fill as well. So council member Sawyer has agreed to fill in on that and continue the work both working with the BPU as well as the critical work around the compost facility which he's been integral in. So thank you so much for that council member. The last comment that I'll make for council is I did have a chance last Thursday to represent on the MTC blue ribbon commission for small transit operators as well as Rachel E from Santa Rosa. It was an interesting conversation if for no other reason that MTC was very complimentary of the work that we're doing in Sonoma County to focus on better coordination and communication between our transit agencies. And in fact, announced to the group that we are a little bit further along than we actually are or were supportive of us going further than we actually have gone so far. And so I just want to let you all know I took that as an opportunity to ask them for more money to continue to do that work. And we'll be continuing to report out to this group periodically as that ball moves down the path. We have our next task force meeting on coordination and consolidation coming up later this week. I think it's on Thursday and we'll have more conversations to go at that point. But where we sit right now was asking the three primary transit operators, Sonoma County, Sonoma County Transit, Santa Rosa City bus and Petaluma Transit to come up with a punch list on how to better coordinate and communicate and what they would need to have in place coming out of COVID to have the appearance of a more seamless system from a writer's perspective. Whether it was shared marketing, whether it was a shared app that they were able to utilize and push out together or even better, more coordinated routes going forward. So hopefully I'll be able to report back to you all next week on what that punch list looks like and an expected timeline for some of these conversations. With that, we'll move on to item 10.2. Madam city attorney, do you want to introduce this? I am happy to introduce it. This is for the mayors and council members of the associations, the selection committee. And this had to do with two, this was a, we need to correct some things that we did at our last meeting, our meeting previously. And so this is to give guidance to the mayor, direction to the mayor as to appointments to association of the area government's executive board. Yeah, I appreciate that. Is that suffice or? And I'll just remind the council, when we voted on this, it had been put out there that there were two seats without a delineation between primary and alternate. So this council supported, as I have in my notes, we supported both Susan Adams from runner park as well as Arielle Kelly from Healdsburg. And what I'm looking for from council is now corrected direction from when we have our mayors meeting to vote on these appointments on who the council intends to be our first in line for that primary seat and who should be second in line for the alternate seat. And so I'll entertain a motion from the council. I'd like to move that our primary be Arielle Kelly and our second be Ms. Adams. I'll second that. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Council Member Timbets, do you have your hand up? Yeah, I'd just like to do an alternate motion, Susan Adams for our primary and Arielle Kelly for our. Okay. Okay, motion and a second. I'll take the first vote first, which is Arielle Kelly as our primary with Susan Adams as our alternate. And Madam City Attorney, can you please, or excuse me, City Clerk, would you please call the roll? Can I ask a clarifying question, Mr. Mayor, before we vote? Yes, absolutely. On the agenda, it shows that only Arielle was seeking a member alternate. Could we vote for someone who did not apply for an alternate position? Neither Susan Adams only was seeking the member position, not the alternate. Do we have the option? Madam City Attorney, that's a question for you, I think. Yes, I would say you'd have the option to to appoint either one as primary and either one as alternate, although I do recognize that Susan Adams lists only seeking member position. Great, thank you. She would then have the option to say, no, I don't want to be alternate, which will then kick it back, so. Okay, so everybody's clear on the motion. It is to instruct me to fight for Arielle Kelly as the primary, and then Susan Adams as the alternate, or if, I just want to make sure I'm clear with the council, or if Dennis Poseke ends up being the clear favorite from cities as the member that Arielle Kelly would then become our option for the alternate. So put it another way, our priority is first Arielle Kelly and second is Susan Adams in this motion. Does that make sense? Okay, let's call the roll. Council Member Kibbitz? No. Council Member Schwedhelm? No. Council Member Sawyer? No. Council Member Fleming? Aye. Council Member Alvarez? Aye. Vice Mayor Rogers? Aye. Mayor Rogers? No. So. That motion fails. So we'll take up the second motion, which is for Susan Adams to be the primary and Arielle Kelly to be the alternate. So let's call the roll. Council Member Kibbitz? Yes. Council Member Schwedhelm? Aye. Council Member Sawyer? Aye. Council Member Fleming? No. Council Member Alvarez? Council Member Alvarez? Vice Mayor Rogers? Aye. Mayor Rogers? Aye. That motion passes with six ayes. Excellent. So that's up to you, Council. With that, as I mentioned, we'll take a 10-minute break so that Council Members can recharge a little bit before we go on to our next one. We'll be back. All right, Stephanie, it looks like we've got our quorum back. Can we go ahead and call the roll and resume the Council Meeting? Yes. Council Member Kibbitz? Here. Council Member Schwedhelm? Here. Council Member Sawyer. Here. Council Member Fleming. Here. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor Rogers. Present. Mayor Rogers. Here. At the record show that all council members are present. Excellent, thank you so much. So we are on item 11, approval of the minutes. Council members, did anybody have any amendments that they'd like to make to the July 7th, 2020, excuse me, minutes? All right, seeing none, we'll show those as adopted and we'll move on to our consent items. Mr. City Manager. Item 12.1, Resolution City of Santa Rosa and Oak Mach Village Association Agreement for City Bus Route 16. Short and sweet, I like it. Are there any questions from the council on item 12.1? Seeing none, we'll see if there's any public comment on item 12.1 for folks joining our meeting. If you'd like to participate, go ahead and hit the raise and feature on Zoom. And I am not seeing any interest in discussing this item. Madam City Clerk, do we have any voicemail public comments? No, we do not. Perfect, I'll bring it back. This item is yours, Madam Vice Mayor. I press the wrong button. I move items 12.1 away for the reading of the text. Second. All right, motion by the vice mayor, second from Council Member Sawyer. Let's go ahead call the roll. Council Member Tibbetts. Council Member Tibbetts. Aye. Council Member Shwedhoun. Aye. Council Member Sawyer. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Aye. Council Member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with seven ayes. Great, thank you. So we'll move on to item 13. That is our public comment period for items that are not on the agenda. As a reminder for folks, due to the Brown Act, we cannot get in the back and forth and discuss issues without noticing it. But this is an opportunity for you to have your voice heard and potentially for Council Members to add things to the agenda for future discussion as well. If you're interested, hit the raise hand feature on Zoom. I see we have at least one hand up. We'll start with Ken. When you are unmuted, feel free to start talking. You'll have three minutes to address the Council. Good evening. During housekeeping at the beginning of each meeting, it stated that you will not tolerate speech that is anything but respectful. And folks who violate this will be removed from the meeting or the meeting may end as well. I think that's fair enough. During last week's meeting, after hearing public comment regarding San Rosa Police Department, Council Member Fleming said this. I think there are people in our community who feel genuinely more protected when there are more police. And by listening to that show, which I believe was largely egged on by the Police Officers Association, that two-hour show we all listen to, what you hear people say, I am a landowner. I am a taxpayer. I live in Bennett Valley. I live in Rincon Valley. Those are dog whistles. That's a way of saying I'm white. I have privilege and I want police to protect me from the other elements. And we know what they mean when they say the other elements. And to me, that's not cool. That's racism. End of quote. Those comments are hurtful, hostile, and abusive. I live on the west side of Santa Rosa. Based on Council Member Fleming's assertions, I'm not sure if that means I'm white or non-white. If that means I'm privileged or underprivileged. I thought it just meant I lived on the west side. I didn't know where you live determined if you were a racist. Maybe I need to move to District 4 to prove I'm not a racist. In any case, since words are supposed to matter and silence now means acceptance, I'd like to know if the city and council is going to be silent and accept Council Member Fleming's statement. In closing, I'd like to thank the Santa Rosa Police Department for protecting and serving all districts and all neighborhoods. Thank you, and I hope to hear more on the subject. All right, thank you so much, Ken. As I mentioned, because they're non-agenda items, we can't get into it back and forth, but I do know there's an ability for council members to get back to you via email and other things as well. And I also know that the Public Safety Subcommittee is also taking up some of these conversations. So thank you for participating. I'm looking to see if there are any other hands for non-agenda items to discuss. I'm not seeing any. So, Madam Clerk, are there any voicemail comments? Yes, Mayor, coming up. Number of 2019 in which the city hired an RF engineer who has made his entire career from Verizon and AT&T come in and tell you guys that placing a cell phone tower in front of someone's home was safe based on a study that was 80 years old in which monkeys were exposed to increasing levels of RF radiation until they had an acute aversion to food. He stood there straight faced and told you guys this. I really hope I don't have to explain why this is a ridiculous and quite offensive argument to make. Another thing you often hear is that RF radiation can be compared to the sun, the sun has a lot more energy in frequency than RF radiation, so RF radiation can't quite possibly be harmful. All is true that the sun has a lot more energy than our typical cell phone. Item 13, public comment on non-agenda items. Dwayne DeWitt from Roseland. Please, beware, bamboozling boondoglers. Boondoglers. Old words best described Sonoma County politicians and billionaire bureaucrats proposing new burdens on taxpayers for new building projects in downtown. Only approximately 60 years ago, government officials wanted new buildings for both Sonoma County and Santa Rosa bureaucrats. A large portion of downtown was ruined as developers and speculators profited for Santa Rosa's urban renewal. Land sharking emptied a good number of residential units downtown resumed commercial. Aspirations of planners and politicians actually failed to revitalize downtown. Seven years ago, the council approved plans for a museum on the square, which has not come forward at the AT&T building. That building was once owned by taxpayers and was sold at a loss supposedly for housing. City and county bureaucrats have operated well for a year as remote workers. Please continue the trend while also working to use the AT&T building as the site for government offices to save taxpayers money. The city admits it has close to half of the parking downtown not used regularly. This after spending tens of millions of dollars on putting in parking around the site of the old courthouse foolishly torn down instead of renovated about 55 years ago. Please elected officials, save us taxpayers from the money-grubbing greed mongers and bureaucrats behind these latest new schemes. Planners are the problem in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. So we need our representatives to protect us from them. Please open up the general plan process to the public. And this time, let the rest of the city residents have an empowered voice in planning our future downtown. Not just the political power brokers and profiteers should control the decision-making process. Instead, we, the people who own the city should be allowed to democratically decide how to benefit us, not just a developer or two. Please open up our government again to the people and truly empower us now. You're spending half a million dollars for another aspirational study to revitalize downtown with government facilities. We have enough space there already. Just work with us to make it work. Hello, my name is Joanna Mika and I'm calling regarding agenda item number 13. I really just want this to be on the forefront of the city council's mind when you guys are going to be taking a look at this policy that the city staff is now drafting. It's so important to see Santa Rosa be a leader and to obtain as much local control as possible. There's been so many study sessions to educate the council and the staff members as to how they can gain control. And it would just be great to see the city council and city staff taking care of their constituents. Thank you. Mayor, that concludes public comment received via voice message. Great, thank you so much, Dina. Mr. City Manager, obviously not right now because it's not an agenda item, but perhaps in goal setting, can we get an update to the council so that we can get back to Alex and Joanna about where things sit with the small sales? I know last we had talked, Gabe Osborn was working on something to bring to council. I'd just like to give them the timeline. We'll get an update to council. Great, thank you so much. With that, we'll move on to item 14.1. Go ahead, Mr. City Manager. Item 14.1, report 2021, federal legislative platform, Adrienne Merton's chief communications and intergovernmental relations officer, leading us off. Good evening, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Rogers and members of the council. I'm Adrienne Merton's the city's chief communications and intergovernmental relations officer. And I'm also pleased to introduce this evening, John O'Donnell and Kiriakas Paganis of MMO partners, our federal lobbyist team who are joining us virtually from their home base in Washington, DC for this agenda item. MMO partners first began their work with the city in early 2018 to assist us in navigating at the federal level, some of the most challenging aspects of our city and communities recovery from the 2017 wildfires. Since then they've helped us with our federal advocacy for additional disasters we've experienced here locally as well as for our work on resiliency measures and over the last year for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. MMO partners works closely with city staff and keeps our congressional representatives informed of our local recovery issues and our progress so that our federal representatives can best assist us. And MMO partners also guides us in our work with those federal agencies involved in disaster recovery such as FEMA and HUD. While we are continuing our work on many of these recovery and resiliency needs we're also looking at expanding our federal advocacy efforts to also focus on other pressing needs across our city. So tonight with MMO's assistance we're bringing forward a proposed federal legislative platform for the city for the 2021 year. This is the first time the city's established a legislative platform and we hope to continue this practice annually moving forward. I should also note this is really phase one of our legislative prioritizing work as tonight we are focused only on federal priorities that we do plan to do the same for our state priorities in the future but given a number of factors including the new federal administration and the timing of another potential and critical federal COVID relief package we're starting the city's legislative platform work first with the federal focus. So to prepare for our proposed federal priorities that we'll be sharing with you this evening myself and MMO partners held meetings with our key city staff and several departments and program areas and staff's thoughtful input and expertise is what has helped to put this list together. So I do wanna acknowledge and thank all of our staff members that have been involved in that process. And now I'm pleased to turn the presentation over to John and Kiriakis to give a little background on MMO's work and to provide some insights on the 117 congressional session that is well underway and to walk us through the city's proposed federal legislative platform for 2021 and city clerk, you may advance to the next slide. Adrian, thank you for that introduction. Mayor and council members, thank you for giving us this opportunity to meet with you tonight and talk about a little bit about our firm and about the federal program for the city of Santa Rosa. Let me start by just saying that as reflected here on the slide we have over 35 years of Washington DC experience working with local governments and public agencies. We're proud of the fact that we still represent our original four city clients and those include Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, Oxnard, California and Phoenix, Arizona. And it's because of the experience that we had and the success we had with those clients initially that we really built our practice around local governments and public agencies and that's all we represent. Our work for those four cities led us to doing special projects with a number of cities. And I'll give you an example of three. One was the city of San Diego where we're responsible for working with the International Boundary and Water Commission, the international section of EPA and FEMA to resolve a problem along the border where Tijuana sewage was flowing into San Diego and emptying into the Pacific Ocean. And the work that we did with those federal agencies, we were able to build the facilities that returned those flows to Mexico and clean up the beaches for the cities that were south of San Diego. It also led us to doing the ocean outfall of project for Point Loma, the city's largest wastewater treatment plant. In San Jose, we were hired to work on redevelopment projects in downtown and also find additional funding for the expansion of the airport in San Jose. And in El Paso, this was another water related project. We were hired by the city and the El Paso Water Utility to come up with federal funding to help them realize a 40 year sustainable water project for the city. And the importance of this was that Fort Bliss, which is one of the largest military installations in the United States during the BRAC process back in the 90s, had there had been a determination there might not be enough sustainable water for the El Paso area. So the water utility engaged us to work with them and find federal funding. And over the period of time, we, through the Corps of Engineers, through EPA, we were able to fund about $100 million worth of improvements for that project. That success and our work in continuing work in local government and public agencies led us to do more work with water utilities, flood control districts, ports, and metropolitan planning agencies. And I think that what I was advised early on in my work in this area was by two people that first, I first encountered when I represented the city of Albuquerque, it was Senator Pete Domenici, who was a senior member of the Appropriations Committee and a former city commissioner. And the mayor of Albuquerque, who was David Rusk, his father was Secretary Rusk during the Kennedy administration. And both of them told me in a meeting in Senator Domenici's office to approach this work representing public institutions, public sector clients in a bipartisan and nonpartisan manner because both of them with their experience said the shortest way out of this business was to get too political. And we tried to adhere to that in the firm and operate in a way that we build trust with the work that we do with the client and the work that we do in federal agencies and on the Hill. And I think the work that the firm has done with Santa Rosa thus far is an indicator of that kind of approach and its success. We don't do this work alone. We rely on the work that we can establish the connections we established with the US Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the Government Finance Officers Association. And more recently, we developed a working relationship with the Yale School of Management. And through that partnership developed a program that we're proud of, which is called the Yale Mayors College. And what that does is bring together anywhere between 25 and 40 mayors from all-size cities in the United States to meet for a day amongst themselves and to hear from some national and regional folks who talk to them about some of the problems that we put on the agenda that they would like addressed. And then the next day, those mayors meet with the CEOs of major corporations in what is called the Yale CEO Summit. And that's an opportunity for mayors to have a conversation with business leaders about how the effects of business impact the local government and how local government looks to partnerships with the large corporations. The bottom line for all of the work that we do is really how much good work are we doing for you and the priorities you have? And the way we measure that is the return on investment. And we're very proud of the fact, going back to the four cities that I mentioned originally, we've represented them for more than 45 years. And they retain us because we have proven that we do provide a return on their investment. And with that, I would like to have Kariakas continue the presentation. Next slide, please. Thanks, John. Mayors, Mayor and Council, it's nice to see those of you who we've met. Nice to see you again. Those of you who we haven't met, it's nice to meet virtually. Hopefully we can have these conversations in person soon. What I wanna do now is take a little bit of time and go over some of the issues and project areas that we've been working on since we were retained back in the middle of 2018. And I think as Adrian alluded to, and as John mentioned, this work is a team sport. And in no way are these accomplishments, MMOs accomplishments, these are the City of Santa Rosa's accomplishments. We're fortunate to be part of the team. And the Mayor and Council's direct involvement over the past two and a half years and the direction by the City Council has certainly made these accomplishments possible. The City staff who not only have their regular jobs to do and have had their hands full with three wildfires and now a national pandemic have really stood up and have helped us immensely by providing data information, helping us develop talking points and briefing materials to make the best possible case to federal decision makers. And so I just, we would not be where we are without your great staff and the expertise that they bring to bear. Last and certainly not least, your congressional delegation led by the City's representative in Washington, Congressman Mike Thompson, along with Representative Huffman and Senator Feinstein, Senator Harris now Vice President, Harris have been real champions for the City of Santa Rosa and continue to fight every day to make sure that you get a fair share of not only federal recovery funding, but other funding that is on the plate for future action in Washington. And their staff can't say enough about the hard work that they do to help bring these issues to bear and fruit. The first issue that really we kind of dug into was the Fountain Grove Water System contamination issue. And this issue really highlighted some of the gaps between federal recovery programs and the unique needs of the City of Santa Rosa urban areas that had been impacted by a wildfire were not prevalent natural disasters. And I think it was reflected in federal program guidance and eligibility. And I think the Fountain Grove Water System issue was really something that I think FEMA had to learn about and get educated on. And again, your water services staff did a phenomenal job of providing the data and really the information necessary to make the case to FEMA and other decision makers about reimbursing for this project. We met with EPA staff and it was probably the first week we were retained. The following week we had folks coming to town and set up meetings with EPA and FEMA and other agencies as well as members of delegation in Congress to talk about this issue. Congressman Thompson, we worked with him and his staff and the city also developed language that he was able to introduce and get into law into the Disaster Recovery Reform Act, which expanded the eligibility's FEMA funding to include the reimbursement for underground infrastructure including like the Fountain Grove Water System. He also was able to include language that expanded eligibility to include a removal of standing burn trees. Those two items were included and passed into law. We worked with Senator Harris at the time and she was able to also include language that required FEMA to do a report on how their public assistance programs aligned with issues like the Fountain Grove Water System. All of these efforts, I think, really helped educate federal policy makers and FEMA around this specific issue and we're proud to say that the issue is moving on. I think this council had made that a top priority. I know Councilwoman Fleming and this has been a priority of hers as well. The next issue really came to us in the early part of April, 2019. FEMA had provided an extension to pre-disaster renters and an extension to pre-disaster homeowners. What happened, however, was that the pre-disaster renters were provided an extension through May of 2019, whereas the homeowners were provided an extension through July of 2019. So there was a little bit of a discrepancy between the two groups and the city manager along with the Sonoma County Administrator wrote to Cal OES back in April, 2019, requesting that they provide parity for benefits. It also took an effort by the city council then Mayor Schwedhelm and Councilwoman Fleming came to Washington in May of that year to specifically advocate on behalf of those renters to get this done. And what usually, coming to Washington is key. It's important. However, you have representatives closer to home and you can certainly talk to them. But in this particular case, when the council members showed up and the mayor showed up, it really moved this issue along. In fact, the same afternoon after we had done our meetings, we'd got a call and FEMA decided at the end of that day to provide the two month extension. And I think had it not been for this council's direct involvement, those renters might have had to vacate before they were ready. Sticking to the housing issue, the city and I applaud your efforts for recently awarding funding on this multifamily project. And that's a very timely allocation of funds. We worked closely with the city housing staff back in 2018. Congress provided funding to HUD through the CDBGDR. That's Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program to the 2017 disasters. What they did though, is they did not provide funding directly to communities. They pushed the money out to the states. The states were provided pretty wide latitudes about how the funding was to be spent. They were required to spend some of the money in most impacted areas like Santa Rosa. But there was nothing in the guidance that dictated how that funding would really get down to you. And so the city recognized the issue and really made it a priority to seek a direct allocation of funding from the state via HUD. There was some, I think, some confusion about how much flexibility the state had. Our meeting at headquarters with city staff and the mayor and mayor at the time, I think clarified this for the state. And subsequently, the state made the decision to allocate funding directly to the city for this project. In addition, we work closely with Congressman Mike Thompson, the city staff and elected officials to request additional assistance for unmet infrastructure needs. In the previous allocation, the state of California received 124 million of which you got at 38.5, about 31%. That 124 million barely touched all the areas of need. So Congressman Thompson and other members of the delegation went to bat to include additional funding in the 2019 appropriations bill for additional 2017 disaster assistance. That bill included an extra $100 million for disasters in 2017, of which California received 38 million, 38% of that funding. The city staff, I know, is working hard with HCD to ensure that when that funding does get allocated, that the city will get its fair share of that funding as well. The last project that I wanna talk about, it's not an accomplishment yet. It's something we've been working on. The city has requested and has filed a second appeal to FEMA for the relocation of Fire Station 5. The delegation has supported this request. We have had meetings in Washington, DC with FEMA. I know the city has been working closely with their FEMA representatives in California to really present the information necessary to get that project funded. I think it is a second appeal. So I think the level of effort, I think is yet to be determined whether or not we'll see that to fruition, but we're working other ideas as well should the appeal not happen. Next slide please. I wanna take a moment now to focus on some of the policy and legislative accomplishments. I think the first section was really focused on project-based and program outcomes. This, I think this slide will focus a little bit more on some of the legislative action that we've taken on behalf of the city. And the first bullet under infrastructure, when we, I think it was back in 2019, met with the delegation. I think city staff, I think Jason Nutt was in the meeting and we were talking about the need for new infrastructure assistance for those communities that have been devastated by natural disasters, including wildfires. And at the time, Congressman Huffman said to us, give me something that I can take back and see if we can move on. I'm happy to report when HR2, which was the house infrastructure proposal that passed last session, it's a $1.5 trillion proposal, a third of which is surface transportation oriented, includes language provided by the city that would expand eligibility for using surface transportation block grant program funding as well as transportation alternatives funding to do vegetative management along city roads. And also includes a new pre-disaster mitigation title which will send new funding to the state for use, specifically for pre-disaster mitigation work, like evacuation routes and other work that the city is doing to make sure that its transportation infrastructure is resilient. The same goes for Senate Bill 2302, American Transportation Infrastructure Act. That too includes a new title on climate change in it. It does provide money for evacuation route improvements. Both of these bills will have to be reintroduced this next session and on the Senate side, it's likely to change because of the change in leadership of the Environment and Public Works Committee now being headed by a Democrat. So we expect that that title will likely change. I don't see the climate title being eliminated in fact it probably will see extra attention this year. On the wildfire resiliency and mitigation bucket, the first, sorry for the acronyms, but it's the Disaster Recovering Reform Act, which was, as I alluded to it previously, the legislation that we were able to include money for expanding FEMA programs and funding for underground water infrastructure. That program also created a new pre-disaster mitigation program called, again, sorry for the acronym BRIC, it's Building Resilient Infrastructure Communities. That program provides competitive funding on an annual basis to communities to invest in mitigation projects on a large scale. And so I know city staff is looking at that and we'll be working with you all on developing potential projects to submit this next year. The FEMA Assistance and Relief Act is a piece of legislation that Congressman Mike Thompson along with Chairman DeFazio introduced last year to really help local governments during this time when revenues have been certainly compromised because of COVID and impacts there. It would increase the FEMA share for reimbursement of eligible COVID related expenses to 100%. I know the city has submitted expenses, at least I believe the city has submitted expenses to FEMA to get reimbursed for eligible category B expenses. And I'm happy to report a couple of weeks ago Congressman Thompson along with five other house leaders sent a letter to President Biden asking that the administration take action to provide 100% reimbursement for eligible expenses. Today we learned that this administration made such a declaration and we will be working closely with the city as it seeks to recoup some of the funding that it might otherwise have had to expend. So typically there's a 25% local cost share. In this case, assuming the expenses are eligible, we expect FEMA to cover those COVID related expenses at 100% and certainly would not have happened without Congressman Thompson's leadership on that issue. The Wildfire Defense Act was introduced last session by Congressman Huffman and Senator Harris. This establishes a new federal grant program under FEMA to invest in mitigation projects. And I know that the city has developed a community wide protection plan. A number of the projects listed in there would be eligible and that's because city staff provided us with excellent information that we were able to share with the delegation, especially Congressman Huffman and the senator to include in the bill. We expect the bill to be reintroduced in the house and certainly working on the Senate side as well. The phone act was sponsored by Congressman Thompson. I think we're just reintroduced today if I'm not mistaken or we'll be reintroduced soon to really help survivors, fire survivors and natural disaster survivors keep their phone numbers as they relocate and find housing. That piece of legislation, I know at the time it was Mayor Schwedhelm came back and really spoken in support of that with stakeholders. The next item under this heading is, and I've written it out here. So Papa G is the public assistance policy program and policy guide, which is really the sort of manual for how FEMA reimburses projects and which projects are eligible for reimbursement under the public assistance program. And the city weighed in when FEMA asked for feedback about how to improve and update their policy guide. The city's recommendations to include relocation assistance for areas in the wooey was included. It made it really clear that just by virtue of being in the wooey, you were not precluded from getting relocation assistance. And that was adopted last year. On emergency communications, we worked closely with the city. We had several meetings in Washington with the FCC to talk about the hardening of wireless telecommunications infrastructure. In fact, we had a meeting with the Energy and Commerce Committee. Subsequently, after the meeting, Chief Cosner was invited to testify before the subcommittee last year. We wrote the testimony with city staff's assistance and he spoke on the real life implications of making sure that those towers are hardened and that there's communication, I hate to use the word communication between providers and local officials during the time of the disaster. I think there's been ongoing discussions around that, but that issue has been brought to bear. There's a piece of legislation introduced by Anna Eshoo and it's called the Wired Act, which would allow states to have the authority to require hardening of telecommunications infrastructure. The chief spoke on that legislation during his hearing. We expect that that legislation will also be reintroduced this session. The last policy item that is ongoing is around COVID relief. So during the CARES Act, the city and throughout this process has been providing updated information to the delegation around the impact, the fiscal impact and public health impacts of COVID-19, especially your short and long-term forecasts. We've been pushing and the delegation has certainly supported state and local assistance. We feel optimistic that the next COVID relief package will include a form of state and local assistance. The president's plan includes 350 billion for that and the reconciliation proposals released by the House and Senate indicate that there is support for state and local assistance in the next package. But we still need to keep pushing on this. I know Mayor Rogers had several discussions with the delegation at the end of last year and has since also been writing to them about the impact of COVID-19 to revenues and additional impacts. Next slide, please. So why now, why do this platform now and sort of what's the timing for it? So the purpose in establishing the platform I think is pretty self-explanatory, but it communicates the city's federal policy and project priorities to the public, to the congressional, to your congressional delegation and to Congress and federal agencies. It provides guidance and direction to city staff and to us in terms of the areas we should be focusing on throughout the 117th session of Congress this year. And as Adrian said, we'll probably look at revisiting this next year in terms of updating it. The congressional schedule, as you know, Congress started on January 3rd, 117th session. The first order of business, as you all know and have probably been reading about is a COVID relief package. There's also discussions about future infrastructure proposal and package. At the same time, Congress has to pass a FY22 budget, along with a number of other high priority issues like immigration reform. So there are a number of issues that are on the plate. This platform allows and provides the delegation with this community's priorities and it helps them advocate on your behalf. I want to say that, you know, I don't, assuming that this platform is adopted tonight, our plan is to use the platform and subsequent meetings with the delegation, federal agencies to really advocate for outcomes that would advance the platform. So we see over the next several months, we typically would probably recommend that, you know, the mayor and vice mayor as has done in the past come to Washington and advocate on these issues with COVID, we'll probably have to do virtual sessions. But, you know, I think in some ways, I think that actually provides us some advantages that traveling to DC may not otherwise provide. So we're going to be looking at the schedule over the next month and a half. Congress will have to, as I said, they're going to bring up appropriations bills and that's an opportunity for the city to weigh in to support programs of importance to this community. Next slide, please. So the federal priorities, I know you have this in front of you, I don't want to go through it line by line by line, but the way this is broken out at the first piece is really around the immediate COVID response and economic resiliency priorities. I know when you all did your goal session, you set fiscal sustainability as the top priority. And, you know, this particular area certainly aligns with that. So what we're, this is asking for support for federal legislation that provides immediate fiscal relief to help communities recover and respond to the devastating and public health economic impacts of COVID-19, including direct and flexible funding to those local governments that did not receive a direct allocation in the CARES Act. Assistance with vaccine distribution, assistance for homelessness and housing affordability. As I mentioned earlier, the city has been working with FEMA to seek reimbursement for non-congrued housing, which was an allowable expense. And I think the recent news making it 100% local or federal share will certainly help the city address those issues going forward. But subsequently, if there's another COVID relief, you know, we're certainly gonna be looking for additional assistance in that area, as well as emergency medical and family leave. As you all know, that provision was not included in the most recent COVID relief package, the extension of tax credits was, extension for small business programs like the Paycheck Protection Program, financial assistance to expand childcare services, additional rental and water utility assistance to help low income residents and assistance for public transit. I will say on the rental and water utility assistance, there was advocacy by the city to ask for specific funding to help recoup costs associated with water utility payments. Congress provided $638 million for that program. That program is being stood up at the Department of Health and Human Services. And I know city staff is working with local partners to talk with the state because the state will ultimately run the program to ensure that the city of Santa Rosa and your partners are part of that program when it comes out. Next slide, please. So this section brings us to the policy and infrastructure priorities for the city. And these are not listed in any priority order. The first one listed here is under wildfire resiliency and recovery. So the first bullet really talks about supporting federal agencies and federal funding for programs like the BRIC program, which is a pre-disaster mitigation program we alluded to earlier and to really express the city's support for maximum funding for that program. The next bullet really talks about supporting infrastructure related projects around damage caused by wildfires and other natural disasters. So supporting federal legislation like the wildfire defense act to really provide targeted assistance to communities in the Louis to implement mitigation projects like those on your CWPP. Next slide, please. We talked about the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program earlier. There was legislation introduced last session to codify the program and provides the secretary with the authority to make direct allocations to local governments, those that are pre-certified. As I mentioned in the previous allocations, HUD provided that funding directly to the state. The city worked very hard to ensure that it got a direct allocation, but the legislation would provide HUD the pathway to do that directly. Under the next area, community and environmental infrastructure, this really is focused on infrastructure projects. This first area is primarily surface transportation related. So the council would be asking for Congress to support legislation, surface transportation reauthorization bills that would get introduced this year to support evacuation route, funding, vegetative management, an increase in the sub-allocation for the surface transportation block grant program supporting bicycle and pet projects, including rehab, roadways, investing in public transit like fleet electrification, the bus and bus facilities program and the low-no emissions program zero emission vehicles and passenger rail service. Next slide, please. In addition, the next area is under your water infrastructure needs supporting programs like the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Funds, the recycled water projects, the Water Smart Program, which is a Bureau of Reclamation competitive grant program that provides funding if appropriated by Congress to invest in water efficiency measures, smart meters, et cetera, storm water projects, local flood protection and supporting Sonoma water projects. The next area is around supporting a legislation that invests in infrastructure that reduces greenhouse gas emissions. During the Obama administration in the American Recovery and Reform Act, Congress provided over $3 billion for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program, which is similar to the CDBG program and provides direct funding to communities above, I think it's a 30,000 population. The city received about $1.5 million in that program when it was funded in 2009. We expect Congress will attempt to include reauthorization and funding for this program and an upcoming infrastructure proposal, HR2, did include additional funding for this program. And we've been talking to staff about some of the eligible uses of that funding. The next slide, please. Under Housing and Community Development, the proposed federal priority in this area is to continue to support affordable housing and homelessness programs, including the Continuum of Care, the emergency food and shelter program, the CDBG program home, and other federal programs that invest in housing for some of your most vulnerable residents. The next area is supporting economic development policies for example, private activity bonds, preserving the tax exemption on municipal bonds, eliminating the $10,000 cap on state and local deduction, restoring tax exemption for advanced refunding of bonds, extending the alternative fuels tax credits and extending business development tax credits like opportunity zones. And I know the city has four or five zones, I believe, that I think could be helped by this program being extended. Next slide, please. Under Public Safety, advocating for support for assistance to firefighter grant programs like AFG for training and equipment, the Fire Safety and Prevention program provides funding for community engagement and education. Safer program provides funding for hiring firefighters and fire station construction. The last area under Public Safety is supporting federal initiatives that will invest in community policing and rebuilding community trust through officer training and mental health first response crises, involving mental illness, homelessness and addiction. That really speaks to the city's focus on programs like CAHOOTS and working with the delegation to include funding in FY22 appropriations bills to invest in programs like this is certainly an opportunity that's ahead of us. There's also existing grant programs that I know the city is currently looking at last, I guess it was last year, I think it was Mayor Schwedhelm at the time and Councilwoman Fleming and city staff, the police chief met with Department of Justice officials to talk about CAHOOTS before it was CAHOOTS at the city. We spent a significant amount of time talking to them about ways in which the city could partner and the city is currently looking at upcoming grant opportunities to see if they might align with that program. One thing I'll say about the grant cycle, however, I know that the city is really interested in moving along some of these projects like CAHOOTS and in some cases, they align pretty well with the grant cycle, in some cases, they don't. I know that in this particular area, we expect those programs to come available sometime in the third quarter, and then, depending on how quickly federal agencies review and process grants, we would expect grant awards to happen at the end of the year. I say that not only just for public safety, but for all of these programs, there are potential grant funding opportunities, but in some cases, the timing just may not align with where the city is in terms of the need to act quickly to address some of your immediate concerns. Next slide, please. I will turn it back over to Adrienne at this point. Thanks. Thank you, John and Kiriakis. And so this does bring us to our recommendation. It is recommended by the Communications and Intergovernmental Relations Office that the council by resolution adopt the city's 2021 federal legislative platform. And at this time, we are happy to take questions. I did mention a number of staff from various departments were involved in putting this priority list together, and we do have them available as well for specific questions related to program or project areas. All right, well, thank you so much. And first, it's a huge thank you to both John and Kiriakis. I know the two of you have been working really hard on the city's behalf. And I think that the overview of some of those partnerships and efforts was really helpful for the community to see. And with that, I will see if there are any questions from council members. Council members, what up? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, let me first offer my appreciation and thanks to John and Kiriakis. I like the way you talked about this being a team sport because led by Adrian and Sean and the other department heads who have gone to DC working with Kiriakis and John, it's been phenomenal. And there's so many other cities that don't have the benefit of the deep bench that we have when we go there, but it makes a huge difference for bringing those dollars that rightfully, in my opinion, should be coming back to Santa Rosa. So a question I had about the housing and homelessness, I'd heard the Biden administration may be supportive of universal housing vouchers, which is a little bit more specific, but how would we support specifically universal housing vouchers to help us with homelessness and housing? Adrian, do you want staff to address that? And yeah, we might wanna bring Megan Bassenger. Oh, there she is, she's on. Good evening, I'm Megan Bassenger, Interim Director of Housing and Community Services. And I apologize, my Zoom kicked me off right when you were asking your question. So could you repeat it? No way. My question regarding universal housing vouchers, I think it's a concept that would be greatly helped all communities across the nation. And it's my understanding that the Biden administration is supportive of universal housing vouchers. I'm not sure how we would advocate for that or I'm a big supporter of it. It's certainly something that we can continue to look into. We are looking into all programs that we are eligible for and advocating for those as we come along them. Council Member Schwedhelm, we recently had a conversation with the National League of Cities in DC. I know they've put together and are putting together some priorities around this very issue. They're presenting testimony on Thursday before the House Financial Services Committee. I don't know that they'll get into this issue per se, but we certainly can follow up with them about this and get more specifics for you. Thank you. Go ahead. Go ahead, John. I was gonna say that I think also we might be of some assistance in that area because one of the persons that works with us used to be the Chief Clerk of the Housing Financial Services Committee and actually specializes in housing issues. I know that he has had some conversations with the Chair of the Financial Services Committee staff about ideas that they're looking to move during this session. So we could probably carry out because then I can talk with Scott Olson about this area. Great. Thank you so much. I really think it'd be a great way of helping move the needle with some of the challenges specifically we have in California. Thank you. Council, any other questions? Okay, I'll see if there are any comments from the public. If you're interested in leaving a comment go ahead and click the raise hand feature. All right, Dina. I'm not seeing any. Do we have any voicemail public comments? I see you coming right up. Team point one cities 2021 federal legislation platform Dwayne Dewitt from Roseland. Please put a copy of the legislative platform in the bulletin board at city hall. It's open government to let us know what the legislative platform is going to be. Many folks aren't on the internet. They're not on your smartphones. They don't get the chance to see what you're doing with taxpayers money unless you inform them the old fashioned way with a written example of what's going on down in that bulletin board city hall. There's plenty of space for you to put a one to two page summary of what the legislative priorities are going to be and the legislative platform that you're going to decide upon tonight. This is something that's really important when you think about it. You claim that you're interested in open government that you want empowerment of the people in the democratic process, but actions speak louder than words. And to a lot of folks in my neighborhoods especially those who have been tried and true taxpayers for many decades, you folks seem to be blowing smoke up people's tailpipes instead of actually telling us what's going on. It's more like smoking mirrors. That's not a good thing. Please help the public to be fully empowered and involved in the deciding of what the legislative platform will be. Thank you. Mayor, that concludes voice message public comment received for 14.1. Great, thank you so much. So I'll bring it back to the council. Before we have a motion, let's see if there are any other questions or comments from council members. Council member Fleming. Yeah, but I mostly just wanted to say a special thank you to John and Kariakis for all of the work that you do on our behalf. I think that many times lobbyists get a bad rap and that my work with the two of you has not only made me think really highly of your craft but think really highly of the two of you and I also have the wisdom of our city management and Adrian in working so closely with you and retaining you and you have my whole heart and thanks and gratitude for everything you're doing for the city of Santa Rosa and especially in the fire affected district four. So that's my thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Madam vice mayor. Similar to what Victoria said, I have not had the pleasure of working with you but after this presentation, I am excited to work with you, be a part of the team and also to learn from you because there is definitely an abundance of expertise there. So thank you so much for the presentation. Thank you. Thank you vice mayor. Council member Sawyer. Thank you mayor and thank you John and Kariakis. We haven't met but I really very much appreciate your work in Washington. Government is run by those who show up and we can't be in Washington all the time and it's so we need those that are working on our behalf and when we win our other, our entire region wins, I believe. So thank you for your hard work and for coming up with a really impressive platform and thanks to our council members who have taken the time and energy to go to Washington. It is an exciting adventure and it's also a lot of work. So thank you to Tom and to Victoria for your work very recently in Washington and it's much appreciated. I've had the opportunity to go with Sean at one point during the winter. It was, we were lucky to get out of Washington actually. It was exciting on several levels and it is a, it's really an important connection that we make to our legislators and I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you both so much. I really appreciate it. One question that I have for you and it's sort of just as a wrap up is in my experience where Santa Rosa has lost opportunities for lack of a better way to put it is when the federal government puts population thresholds usually just outside of what's attainable for Santa Rosa it seems implied in the platform to me but anytime that there's funding that's available my hope is that we would shoot to have the minimum threshold at least 175,000 people. And so to me that's implied and I read that in the platform but I just wanted to make sure I made the comment very clear that any source of funding we want to be eligible for. Mayor, if I might respond to that I would say one of the things that has definitely been learned and it's learned, it occurs all the time people who write the legislation here work on Capitol Hill, they don't live in Santa Rosa or any other local government setting. And so sometimes they get in a hurry to write this legislation because there's pressure to have goods and money get out the door. So they miss this, the connection that you're talking about and as has been mentioned by several other members of the council, that's why this voice in Washington is so important and not just what we do but as Kariak has said earlier what you folks do because you actually they have to listen to you, you may think they don't but they have to listen to you. And this COVID legislation that has gone forward previously is a good indication because local governments that were under the population numbers that they had, the 500,000 their reaction is what about us? And that's been a loud reaction which I think has moved this COVID package and the state and local assistance forward in the way that it's gone and hopefully will come out. So just want to say it's important again that your voices are heard. Yeah, I really appreciate that John and I think one thing that we've learned is though we may be small as a city by DC standards the issues that we're facing are not small town issues. They're big impactful things where you mentioned the chief going to DC to be able to advocate as well. We certainly have had an outside influence in terms of our expertise and what we bring to the table and that typically means we need to be able to also receive some of that funding. So I appreciate that. Now council, I'll entertain a motion. Council member Tibbets was supposed to have this item but I think he's having internet issues. So I'll see if council member Schwethelm if you'd be interested in making a motion on this. Sure, I would make the move motion that we accept the platform as presented during today's council meeting. Second. I've got a motion from council member Schwethelm a second from council member Fleming and let's go ahead and call the roll. Okay, council member Tibbets. Council member Schwethelm. Aye. Council member Sawyer. Aye. Council member Fleming. Aye. Council member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with six ayes. Great, thank you so much. Thank you again, John and Kerry Ocas. I know we'll be hearing from you guys. And just again, thank you for all of your efforts on behalf of the people of Santa Rosa, particularly at such an important time for us. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Have a good night. Now council members, I'm looking for a show of thumbs thumbs up if we want a five minute break here or if folks want to just roll into the next item. All right, I've seen some thumbs up. So we'll take a five minute break and then we'll come back for item 14.2. All right, Stephanie, let's see if we start to call the roll if a fourth council member materializes. Magic. Would you like me to do roll call? Yes, please. Council member Tibbets. Council member Schwethelm. Aye. Council member Sawyer. Aye. Council member Fleming. Aye. Council member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Here. Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of council member Tibbets. Thank you so much, Stephanie. Mr. City Manager, item 14.2. And I'm 14.2 report urgency ordinance adding chapter 10-47 to the Santa Rosa city code to enact employer requirement to provide COVID related paid sick leave benefits through March 31st, 2021, replacing expired city ordinance O-R-D-2020-006, Ryusadela Rosa, Economic Development Division Director, leading us off. Good evening, Mayor Rogers and members of the council. As we had the study session for this item only three weeks ago, I'll try to be very quick in my recap of the issues that bring us this ordinance to you today. So next slide, please. The Federal Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act that expired at the end of 2020 applied to businesses that employed less than 500 employees, requiring them to provide up to 80 hours of paid sick leave for COVID related purposes. The most notable exception to this requirement were employers of healthcare providers, I should say, and emergency responders. Those businesses could voluntarily participate in the program, but it was not a requirement of healthcare provider and emergency responder employers. The compensation rate for this benefit and the tax credit businesses received for providing it had a tiered cap depending on whether the employee was taking the leave for the self-care reasons shown here or for the reasons of caring for someone else. And while the act providing these benefits expired, the tax credit is still available for the same purposes through the end of March of this year. Next slide, please. To address the benefit gap for those employed by businesses with 500 or more employees, the city passed an ordinance that included these large employers as well as requiring the participation of healthcare and emergency responder businesses. It should be noted that the large businesses that were included in our ordinance were not eligible to receive the federal tax credit. Also, the city instituted only one benefit cap removing the lower cap for caring for someone else. And like the federal act, this ordinance inspired at the end of last year. And next slide, please. At the January 12th study session, the clear direction from council was to bring you a new ordinance that takes into account who will be covered for how long and at what benefit cap. While the discussion was robust to say the least, at the study session, it was informative and it provided staff with a good direction. But despite that, we still had a special meeting of the Economic Development Subcommittee to finesse the ordinance points into what you see before you today. And I think it would be helpful to note that the Economic Development Subcommittee is a public meeting held at 10 a.m. on the second Tuesday of each month. And it's shared by council member Sawyer and includes council members Fleming and Alvarez. Next slide, please. The new proposed ordinance would replace the expired city code chapter 10-47. And essentially it replicates the combined coverage of the federal act and our local ordinance and that all businesses, regardless of size, are included as our healthcare and emergency responders. There is no new leave bank applied and it reverts back to the two tiered benefit caps that were outlined in the federal act in order to allow businesses to fully capitalize on the tax credits. And like the tax credits, the ordinance is set to expire at the end of March of this year. We did talk about this at the last study session. It's good to note that only businesses with fewer than 500 employees can get the tax credit. But again, the vast majority of the businesses here in Santa Rosa are small businesses that would be eligible for the credit. Next slide, please. So to be clear, if an employee has already used this COVID related sick leave benefit, there is no new bank of leave. Otherwise the leave reasons replicate what was previously allowable. You are either caring for yourself or you're caring for someone else for COVID related reasons. The first three reasons shown on this slide have the higher compensation rate cap of $511 per day and reasons four and five cap at two thirds of the rates as shown on the bottom right of the slide. To my knowledge, we've only received three letters in advance of today's meeting that talk about the desires for this ordinance. One is from a better balance. And they are working closely with or have been working closely with the North Bay Labor Council. And their letter outlines four main requests. The first is that the ordinance applied to all employers which this proposed ordinance does. The second is that they'd like it to extend to June 30th though the clear direction from council was to not align the sunset with that of the federal tax credits on March 31st. Third, they'd like the ordinance applied retroactively back to January 1st of this year. And if you recall, this was briefly discussed at the study session and was rejected for legal concerns. Though I will add that there would likely be some administrative issues with that as well. And then lastly, they'd like us to consider employer posting a notification requirement language with the city creating and mailing a posting notice as well as having one available for download for teleworking individuals similar to what the state requires for a minimum wage. And I recommend against this as by the time we put that together and get it made to mail to all of our businesses in addition to the strain and resources to accomplish this those notices would only be up for about four to six weeks before they'd either be moved or we'd have to do them again. The second letter we received is from the hospital council of Northern and Central California writing on behalf of our local hospitals. Their letter reiterates and bolsters their strong concern that they expressed in July when our first ordinance was passed and their concerns were really twofold. One that the requirement is duplicative of the additional COVID leave and care benefits that the hospitals have already extended to employees and they did so in order to maintain the safety of their own staff as well as the community. And then the second deals with their struggle with extreme healthcare staffing shortages at the time when the current surge dwarfs that of this past summers. The point being that they are asking council to consider the burden this would place on hospitals especially while they're also dealing with an unprecedented level of regulatory changes. I'll remind you that the that offsets are allowed so their first point is at least partially covered if not fully addressed. And then second per the federal act the definition of healthcare workers and emergency responders is somewhat broad including licensed doctors and nurses but also other healthcare providers and patient care services. But a person is not a healthcare provider merely because their employer provides healthcare services or because they provide a service that affects the provision of healthcare services. So for example, IT professionals, building maintenance staff, food service workers, consultants even if they work in a hospital they are not considered a healthcare provider. The last correspondence I'm aware of is from Comcast which asks for clarifying language on the leave entitlement and that it not be limited to those employees who are required to leave their home to perform work but also for those who telecommute. And we believe that taken as a whole the ordinance is clear it would apply to all employees regardless of where they work but that said, we're not opposed to their proposed language if council feels it's necessary. Next slide. The study session and in the subcommittee meeting we heard clearly council's request that we track paid sick leave at the state and federal levels so that if no action is taken at those levels to extend the benefits the city can act quickly to modify the ordinance to minimize any lapse in coverage. At present, the only proposal I'm aware of is President Biden's American Rescue Plan. In that plan the paid sick and family leave benefits would be reinstated through September 30th of this year. And it would reinstate the requirements to provide sick leave and but would also eliminate the exemptions that were in the original act for employers with more than 500 and less than 50 employees. It also includes coverage for healthcare workers and first responders. And so with all of that it closes the FFCRA loop holes that were part of the first act. I put this last bullet in on this slide just as a side note of interest since our local ordinance doesn't deal with the benefits associated with the family leave elements of the act but I think it's associated so I thought it might be of interest. And that if the American Rescue Plan is passed as proposed this element would provide for 14 weeks of paid family leave reimbursed by the federal government for employers with fewer than 500 employees. So it's additional leave that would be added. Next slide. We did find this ordinance to meet the criteria of an urgency ordinance which requires five votes to pass and would take effect immediately upon passage. Next slide. So it is recommended by the Economic Development Subcommittee that council adopt an urgency ordinance to require employers to provide COVID related paid sick leave benefits through March 31st, 2021 to replace the expired O-R-D-2020-006 previously adopted by council. And Jeff Burke and I are available for questions. Great, thank you so much, Raissa. Council Member Sluyer, we'll start with you. Once you hit the unmute button. I hate technology. Oh, then that's why, cause it picks up everything. I just wanted to make sure that the council, and it's clear, thank you, Raissa, we have very well done presentation, that those employers with less than 500 will be getting tax credits. That's an important distinction. I wasn't sure if that was a question, but that is correct. So in- Yes, I'm sorry. I didn't state it as a question. Yes, but you were correct. I'm sorry. Businesses with less than 500 employees would receive the tax credit. And the way this has been set up is that it would be a one-to-one tax credit at the, that's why we reinstated the tiered caps for the benefit. It was really an important part of what we were discussing because we understand the pressures that come to bear on our smaller employers. And without them getting some sense of relief in the way of tax credits was a tough discussion to have. So I appreciate that. Thank you very much. So council member Sawyer, we definitely fail on jeopardy is what I just saw. Before we go too much further, Madam city clerk, I do believe that council member Tibbets' cell phone is on as an attendee. If we could promote him so that he can participate, that would be great. Again, I know he's having some internet issues. Council member Fleming. I do hear they're looking for a new host over at Jeopardy, though. At any rate, where I was going with this is I have a question as to the legality of or the difficulty of extending this ordinance to run with the tax credits. I know we're gonna be hopefully looking at what the Biden administration does. We're in a very volatile time politically, and not volatile, but I mean this is unpredictable in that we don't know how things are gonna shake out and that we've talked about previously tracking what happens and being ready so that we don't have an expired ordinance like we're dealing with now. But I'm wondering if we could just add a line in that says like if the same tax credits whilst the same tax credits remain in place that this ordinance remains the loss so that we could just sort of save ourselves some trouble and add business and workers some amount of certainty going forward. I mean that it may not happen that way. It may happen that way, but it could be helpful. Mayor, this is City Clerk Williams. We cannot promote council member Tibbets because he's calling and we cannot promote a telephone number. We have enabled his speaking permissions. Yes. So sorry, can you hear me? Yes, so Jack, we're gonna leave you in a quasi-state at the moment. I'll come to you after I come back from Council Member Schwedhelm next. That's fine. Thank you, Chris and Stephanie and sorry to the council for the rigmarole. Okay, so the question is can we add language extending this or not tying it to the tax credit so that if the federal government does not act on something in advance, the ordinance does not expire, correct? So actually, I think maybe we're saying the same thing backwards, perhaps essentially tying it to the tax credits, which is what we've done saying that we know the tax credits are for sure gonna expire on March 31 but it's possible that they may be extended given the new administration. So what I'm suggesting is that we tie it to the tax credits with the option that they may be extended. So if they extend the tax credits longer that our ordinance stays in place. That's clear. I would look to the city attorney's office to see if they have any recommendations on that. Sure, good evening everybody. Jeff Burke, city attorney's office. So I hear what you're saying, council member Fleming and of course we don't know what the legislation is gonna be if in fact it does get enacted but it appears that it's gonna be certainly more robust than mere tax credits, which is what is in effect now. We can certainly add some language just to that narrow piece but I'm hopeful that something is gonna pass. I mean, the Republicans have already said that a smaller version of the bill would pass. So I think it's gonna be more robust than that but you're right, we don't have a crystal ball. So if it's council's direction, I mean right now it says the ordinance sunsets on March 31, 2021 we could add a phrase, something like unless the tax credits are extended beyond that date or something we can- Right. And I would recommend unless the tax credits are extended beyond that date or the American recovery plan is enacted. Something that- I was wondering if we could put something like unless like tax credits at the current levels or tax credits and benefits that exceed current levels are instated that would supersede our ordinance. Something that might, all I'm doing is looking down a couple months and trying to save us some time and effort and also it provides uncertainty to business and workers as we go along. This may be all for naught but it's only gonna take a little bit of time on the front end to potentially buy us some insurance against problems down the road. Anticipating that you might have wanted some language that addresses the potential for new legislation. I do have some language it's broader than just the tax credit piece though but maybe it gets to the point that you're making. I don't know if council wants me to read it. I mean, at this point like, the suspense is a lot. So I think we're gonna need you to read it. Okay, here I go. To the extent that federal or state law requires employers to provide paid leave or paid sick time related to COVID-19 employers may substitute leave under the federal or state law for its obligations under this ordinance to the extent they coincide and the relevant federal or state law permits such concurrent use of paid leave provided however that employers shall be required to provide additional paid leave under this chapter to the extent that the requirements of this chapter exceed the requirements of those laws. So what this is saying is this sets the floor. If Congress passes something more robust then the employees get what is more robust. Thank you, that's very helpful, appreciated. Council Member Spudhelm. Thank you for that. Thank you, Jeff. Memories of our city attorneys comments about the rent reimbursement earlier in this meeting. So thank you for that. I had a question too about the tax credit. On slide six, we talked about all private employers in city Santa Rosa whose employee and bullet point four, number four is caring for someone who's quarantined or isolated which is consistent with the federal age with the last part of that sentence or otherwise unable to receive care due to COVID-19. For an employee who was gonna be taking the leave for that last part of the sentence would the employer be eligible for the tax credit? So I appreciate your super fine reading of this and really getting into the details. And I did pose that question to tax council. I did have it vetted and they have a pine that our language is consistent and the employer would be entitled to a tax credit. Great, thank you. Yeah, and just to piggyback on that, Jeff to be extremely clear because this is one of the questions that I've gotten most consistently from the public was when the council back in June somewhat comically came up with on the fly a definition for someone. My understanding is that that expanded definition at least what we were hearing that expanded definition did not qualify for the tax credits, but you're saying that it's been vetted that this language does in fact even with that expanded definition of someone does qualify. So I'm not sure if you're referring to subsection A2 and I started to get into the weeds, but we did make a change from the ordinance that expired in December 31st to modify the scope of the benefit in one area that I believe may be the area that you're referring to. And we were, we did restore that language back to the language that's consistent with the federal law that also expired at the end of last year. And that was at the recommendation of the tax lawyer. So we aligned it so that we would be so that the businesses would be best be eligible or would receive the credit. Mr. Mayor, just so we're, so on the emergency ordinance page five of seven, that's the language where it says otherwise unable to receive care due to COVID-19, so in fits within that category the employer is eligible for the tax credit is what we've been advised, correct? That's correct. Great, thank you. Okay, Council Member Timmits. Thank you, Mayor. Jeff and right, so thank you both so much. You know, coming from the meeting two weeks ago, I feel a heck of a lot more secure in moving forward in this direction, you know, and also my apologies to the council. I felt somewhat responsible for the delay two weeks ago, but you know, speaking for myself, I just do so unclear I was reluctant to move forward, but having the advice to the tax attorney makes me feel a heck of a lot better. So thanks for doing that due diligence. It's been a very taxing process. All right, Jeff, I can appreciate that. So I do wanna, you had raised the language that you said staff was comfortable with that had been submitted from Comcast, specifically from Brian Batari. I did wanna just read it so that the public, before they have public comment, has an opportunity to hear that in case they have any concerns or comments. And it's for section 10.47.05 and it's subsection A. It says an employee can use paid sick leave if he or she is unable to work due to any of the following reasons. And so I did wanna introduce that. The other, and this is a question for you, Raissa, we have heard from a number of folks a desire to have that posting requirement consistent with Oakland and other jurisdictions. I hear from you that it would potentially be extremely onerous for staff and businesses given the short window. Is there a way that we can accomplish the same level of outreach? Is there a way for us to accomplish that in a less onerous manner? Well, yeah, I mean, it's not gonna be the same, but we do work closely and communicating with our business community through the Adrian's shop, through the PIO section. And so we could make something available online for download and then just through the means that we have, make sure that it's put out there, social media, website, working with the press Democrat, for example. And then also we would ask the labor organizations to help us spread the word as well. It does take us quite a bit to do something akin to what we do for minimum wage. We have to write it clearly, vet it, mail it, and there's an expense at print it. And then also have it online. If we could just not do the printing part, yes, we can do some concerted outreach efforts. Okay, I appreciate that. And I'll be looking for a public comment on that as well, ways that we might be able to strike that balance. Council, are there any other questions before we go to the public? Okay, let's go ahead and go to public comment. Folks interested in speaking should hit the raise hand feature. And you'll have three minutes to address the council. I know lots of folks wanna wait until they're last. So let's go ahead and get those hands up now and see what we can do. First, I have Peter Rumble. Thank you, council. Peter Rumble from the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber, just on that last point first, so I don't forget it. The chamber is also happy to help distribute information that the city produces. So granted, we don't cover every business in Santa Rosa, but we do have a large chunk of them happy to deliver it. I'm not sure if a mandatory posting would be best since many employees still aren't coming into the office. So I wanna see it, although if they were encouraged to make it available to employees or inform employees in some way, that might get to it. I do wanna just keep my comments beyond that limited to my appreciation for hearing our input, taking time to consider our input and going out and getting that additional advice from PAX Council based on our concerns. So I really just wanna express my appreciation for taking a look at that and taking it seriously and adjusting the ordinance based on that input and feedback. So thank you, and on behalf of our hospital members, I definitely wanna echo the points that came in from the hospital association. I think those are critical as well, but again, thank you very much for hearing our input. Thank you, Peter. We'll go to Ananda, followed by Jack. Good evening, Mayor Rogers and members of the council. Ananda Sweet, Santa Rosa Metro Chamber. It's important to continue to emphasize that we completely agree that employees shouldn't be put in a position to have no option but to go to work while sick. And I do echo Peter's comments thanking you for your thoughtful conversation through this process and your January study session on the item in consideration of the position of local employers who've worked extremely hard to make their employees are safe and healthy while figuring out how to stay in business and maintain staff positions while under the government mandate that shutdowns. Well, any form of additional ordinance is a burden, particularly in serious financial strain on small businesses at an incredibly challenging time. The alignment of Santa Rosa's new ordinance with access to the federal tax credit is much more manageable. The ordinance being started this evening, I do still have concerns that goes beyond those tax credits. If you look at the expanded definition of someone needing care or under qualifying reason for creating coverage that wouldn't be eligible for a tax credit, meaning that if an employee uses it for someone for reasons beyond a reasons one or two who is not a minor child, there is no option for a tax credit and everything you can read about FSCRA. So again, just urging you to just align the language of those reasons one through five to align with FSCRA just for crystal clarity for employees, employers who are trying to implement this as well as access to the tax credit being critical and ensuring employers have access to the tax credit and a better chance to stay in business long enough to claim them. It's really important to adhere to that specific coverage definition that's spelled out in FSCRA. Finally here again, it's important to continue to emphasize that we agree with the need to identify these holes in the social safety net. And as this discussion arise that focus around social safety net programs that are needed as a result of the COVID-19 health crisis, it's critical that they come with an identified public funding source. Continuing to add financial burden on the shoulders of employers now while businesses are closing or struggling to remain open and maintain local jobs will magnify the impact of COVID-19. Thank you. Thank you, Ananda. Jack, followed by Marty. Yeah, good evening, honorable mayor, Rogers City Council and city staff. My name is Jack Buckhorn. I'm the executive director of the North Bay Labor Council. And I do wanna thank you and just appreciate the work that you've done on the emergency paid sick leave ordinance. You really have led the way here in the North Bay and done your best to make sure that workers are not forced to go to work while they're ill with COVID-19. As we know, we're starting to get a handle on it but it's still rampant. And we also know that essential low wage workers have to go to work. They do go to work. They're not working from home. That's just the reality we're facing right now. I would like to thank you also for the language that is setting a floor for the Santa Rosa Urgency Ordinance yet opening the door to extend this ordinance should the Biden plan get approval. I think we all believe that that will happen. It's the top priority of the administration and you can look on the news every day and hear just how important this is to our nation and to workers. We also see that there is a substantial amount of money for our business community. We appreciate the Metro Chamber and their work with us and not opposing this. We also wanna make sure that our employers come out the other end of this pandemic and can continue to be successful in the future. There are no jobs without employers. We all recognize that and we appreciate the Metro Chamber. I would ask that we also come up with some posting language. I do believe that this ordinance has the opportunity to run through the end of September like the recovery plan is I guess predicting or maybe trying to achieve. So it's critically important that workers understand that they have this benefit and we hear too many workers who have been sick and did not receive the benefit. They just did not know that it was available to them. We absolutely will help with the distribution of any notice that is produced. So thank you for considering extending this to match and coincide with new benefits or tax credits. We will help with the notice. And again, thank you for leading the way and have a great evening. Thank you so much, Jeff, Marty, followed by Maddie. Hi, I'm Alan. Go for it, Marty. Thanks, Chris. Yeah, I wanna talk about the noticing requirements and I do hear the concerns of staff. But here's the challenge. If we look at all California jurisdictions with labor standard laws such as emergency paid sick or living wage or minimum wage, they all have a noticing requirement and staff indicated that we do have a noticing requirement in section 1045.080 of the city's minimum wage law. And we think it's also important for the city to develop a model poster that's translated and that indeed does take a significant amount of staff time. But it's important in order that something can be posted online and at the workplace. And of course, the city has such a model poster online now for the minimum wage law. And looking at what other cities and counties have done, any number have renewed their emergency paid sick leave laws and some expire relatively soon like San Jose, which is on June 31st. Nonetheless, San Jose mandates a model poster and distribution and posting by employers. The other issue, it may be a poster is important insofar as there may be some need to clarify for residents the applicability in terms of the different paid sick leave benefits, local, state and federal. And I guess we kind of see noticing as the first step for both enforcement and public education and creation of a webpage as the city has done for minimum wage would be an important second step. But we just have gotten this anecdotal evidence that some city residents and even workers who are members of unions affiliated with the labor council do not know about the benefit. So we would urge some kind of noticing requirement even if you have a shorter timeline on expiration of the ordinance. And just to reiterate what Jack said, we really wanna work jointly with you and staff with the chamber and other organizations to make sure that city residents know about the paid sick benefits. All right, thank you, Marty. Maddie. Hi, good evening, honorable mayor, Chris Rogers and council members, I just want, I'm just gonna be brief and reiterate what you heard, how grateful we are, the thought, obvious thought and time that you've all put into this and appreciate your willingness to look at extending this ordinance because March 31st is like a minute away. It's just not gonna be that long. And when we originally came up with the first expiration date of December 31st, we all knew that we weren't gonna be out of this by December 31st. So I think it's prudent to plan ahead. As for the noticing, I just think it's really, really important that people know their rights if we noticed for minimum wage, which is important, but this is a global pandemic. People need to know that they can take time off and not lose pay because of it. And I wanna thank Peter Rumble for offering to help with that. Really, really appreciate that. I think if we all work together, we can get this out and people will know the rights that they have and use them appropriately and accordingly. So thanks to the city council and to staff and to everybody who've put time into this, really, really do appreciate your effort. Thank you. Thank you, Maddie. So that's the last hand that I have on Zoom. So I'll bring it back and see if we have any voicemail public comments. You cannot receive any voice message public comments there. Okay, great. Let's bring it back to the council and see if there are any last minute questions before we put a motion on the table. Madam vice mayor. So it's not a question. It is a comment being in the pandemic. I think this is gonna go farther in March 31st. I think that's our realization. So although it may take time to get the noticing, the posting, you know, the wording quite right. I understand it's gonna take time and energy and money, but we do need to notify people in the community. And there are some people that are currently working on site and not just just remotely. And even I've had a ton of emails and phone calls requesting clarification of what actually the paid sick leave is and what people's rights are. So I would like to echo that. I think that it's important that we do some sort of posting. Not sure about what date we would put on it or if we could leave people somewhere else to reference a date or if it's extended. All right, thank you, vice mayor. Council member Sawyer, you have this item. Let's put a motion on the table and then we can all sort of discuss if there's elements of it that we need to change. Sure, thank you, mayor. I'll introduce an ordinance, an urgency ordinance of the council, the city of Santa Rosa adding chapter 10-47 to the Santa Rosa city code to extend city requirements and employers provide COVID related paid sick leave benefits through March 31st, 2021 replacing expired city ordinance ordinance dash two zero two zero dash zero zero six and the way for the reading. Second. Second. And council member, if I could ask a couple of clarifying points and for the for the minutes I have the second down as council member Fleming. So in your motion, do you include the amendment sent in from Comcast for section 10.47.050? Checking. That's the an employee can use paid sick leave if he or she is unable to work due to any of the following reasons. And I repeat the repeat the number again of the addition. 10.47.050 subsection A. This is a nuance, but if I may, it might be more inclusive if we say instead of he or she, if we just say they. Okay. Because I'm not, I'm not seeing it. Am I missing it? Right? No, it's not in the ordinance. It was an amendment to the ordinance. Okay. Requested by the public. Yeah. And what I heard was that amendment from Raisa to change he or she today, but I didn't hear concerns from staff. So I was wondering if that was in your motion. So I can, I can just add it by, by including staff's recommendation. Correct. And then city attorney or Jeff. Yeah. So I was going to say, if, if the mayor would simply read that again, you can reference that, that language. Okay. To include the following language. Yeah. The language reads an employee can use page sick leave if they are unable to work due to any of the following reasons. And we'll just do a second to that. Yeah. Council member Flaminger, are you good with that in the motion? I can, yes. And then I have a couple more questions for you. Council member Sawyer on other things that are included in your motion. Does it include the language around noticing requirements? You know, with a, this is seven pages long. Jeff, would you, would you know? I doubt that the noticing requirements are any different than what they normally are. It is. And I apologize, council member Sawyer. I'm putting you on the spot a little bit just to gain clarity for the council and some of the comments we heard from the public. And so that the conversation around the noticing requirements, do we, do we want to make that a requirement in the motion or do we want to have a separate conversation about that? Through the mayor, I was hoping to make some friendly amendments, which might streamline this and not have it be so challenging for one council member to know the details of a seven page ordinance. I can appreciate that. If council member Sawyer is comfortable with that, I'll have council member Fleming offer some amendments. I am absolutely comfortable with that. Thank you. So council member Sawyer, would you consider amending this a friendly amendment, which would have this run as assistant city manager Burke suggested that with his language previously that this run concurrent with the tax credits as they may be extended in the future past March 31? Yes. Thank you. And I'll second that obviously since I suggested it. And then council member Sawyer, would you entertain a friendly amendment that would require noticing for employees who have to go into physical workplaces that would be done through some sort of digital and some sort of, I guess, is not really technical ordinance language. So I'll let our attorney step in here, but that we could email and require the posting of these rights and of these ordinances to individuals or to employers who have individuals working on site and sent to employers who have individual telecommuting and request that they email a copy of this to their employees who are not on site. So let me just get some clarification from Jeff or from Sue. Is there any issue with the language that council member Fleming just suggested? Is there as far as us requiring what she just suggested? So that's something that the council certainly can do to require it and to recognize staff's concerns. I think what council member Fleming is suggesting is kind of a middle ground. And I do have some language that I could read where it requires the employers to provide written notice but doesn't necessarily put any obligation on city staff. That would be preferable to me, Ms. Fleming. Indeed, that's where I'm going with this. So I'll read some language. Employers shall give written notice to each employee of employees rights pursuant to this chapter. Each employer shall give the same notice to each new employee within one week of the start of each new employee's employment. Sounds good to me. I can. Okay. And then my last question and I guess I can make it as a friendly amendment request as well is we heard from Jeff that everybody who is included in the subsection is eligible for the tax credit. So there was a request to align the language which I think was the intent anyway. Which language? So this goes back to the question about the expanded definition of someone. So if our expanded definition of someone is already in the FFCRA, why do we have different language in our ordinance? I guess is the question. So if I may try to answer that question. So there are two subsections that have the word someone in it. A2 originally had someone and we've deleted that. A4 does still have the word someone and the words in the FFCRA are an individual instead of someone. I'm happy to make that change. I don't think it changes anything and tax council has already vetted the language but I'm happy to change in sub four. The employee is caring for an individual instead of someone if that's what the council prefers. Does that satisfy the mayor? Yeah, I just wanna make sure if there's no substantive reason for us to have differing language on who is eligible for this from the FFCRA, that for simplicity's sake, for our employers that we keep that language consistent. Does that cover us, Jeff? I believe it does. Do you need any time to confirm that or are we good to go? I think what I would like to do, I have four amendments and I would like to just confirm those and I do wanna clarify because one of them, I think has two parts to it and I wanna make sure that's what council's direction is. So for the first change I have as the change to section 10-47.050A, scope of benefit will now read an employee can use paid sick leave if they are unable to work due to any of the following reasons. That's the first change. The second change is to address the issue of the continuing tax credits and to try to harmonize what may happen with federal law. So at the end of the ordinance in section seven, it says this ordinance sunsets on March 31st, 2021. And then I would add consistent with I think council's direction or upon expiration of the applicable tax credits, whichever is later. But in addition, I also read you some other language that if the federal legislation passes that federal legislation or the city ordinance will apply whichever provides the greater benefit to employees. So that had two parts to it. So that's two A and two B. For number three, we have the notice requirement and we'll add a new section 10-47.090 for a notice requirement and I'll reread those two sentences. Employer shall give written notice to each employee of employees' rights pursuant to this chapter. Each employer shall give the same notice to each employee within one week of the start of each new employee's employment. And for the fourth and last edit, it's to section 10-47.050A4 and it will read the employee is caring for an individual instead of someone who is quarantined, et cetera. So Jeff, just as a point of clarification too on the posting requirement, are businesses that are currently not allowed to operate or that are restricted going to be required to post this or is there a way that we can put in the language that it's for businesses that are actually open? So let me look at the definition of employer. Well, also if you consider this, Jeff, because looking at the Comcast language to their point, not everybody is leaving the home to work. So again, it has to be aligned with that, which my understanding of the third change, the posting requirement, it would require employers to let their employees know of this requirement and that we, the city can commit to putting something online that would allow them to do whatever they need to do to notify their employees. Jeff, just a question. Do we, is this gonna have to come back for a second reading? No, this is an urgency ordinance and we'll take it in today. Okay, I was just trying to give you some, if there was some time to clarify or to confirm the clarifications that that was something that might be helpful, but it sounds like that's not an option. If the employer's not, to answer the mayor's question, if I may, if the employer's not operating, then there won't be any obligations under the ordinance. If there's no employee, there's nobody working, but to the extent that they're open, they're gonna have to provide written notice. Right, and I guess it's just as you question, what does open mean? If it's a physical plan, some people are not at the physical plan, but the business itself is operating. Then they have to provide written notice. I think I mean operational more than I mean open. Right, and I think Jeff's language speaks to that in that an employer, if you keep it broad, the employer is required to notify their employee and it doesn't get specific on whatever they are, but we do get specific on that under 10-47, that 050 for the Comcast language. That was the intent of what they wanted to add. And this covers that. Right. Accepted by me and Ms. Fleming just gave us a second. Yeah. Council member Schwedhelm, do you have a comment question? Just more of a question and since this new ordinance has applied to the city of Santa Rosa, is the city of Santa Rosa as an employer prepared to meet the notification requirements? So yes, and I have been texting with, and I apologize because I always forget her appropriate title, but with Adrienne Mertens. And she's confirmed to me that we have multiple ways in which to address this, including recognizing that we can put something up online and then promoting what is online. Great, thank you. Council member Alvarez. Yes, when you say, Raissa, when you say putting something online, is it a downloadable PDF file for proposals as well? Yes, yes, that is exactly. Thank you. Great, thank you. And then I'll ask the council, because I brought this up when we were having our discussion a couple of weeks ago, the request from the hospitals, I understand that the group vetted it and chose not to put language in to exempt medical workers. Did the group want to consider or have a conversation around tying that possible exemption to thresholds, that if the ICU capacity dropped below a certain point that we got out of the way of any regulations of what the hospitals and our healthcare workers needed to do? I would be concerned with getting involved in their, again, how can we, how can we get that done without involving ourselves in their decision-making? To, that they're the subject matter experts, how do we deal with telling them what to do? Well, and that's the question that I'm asking council member Sawyer is currently we would not be exempting healthcare workers from it, the suggestion that was made, and I'm going through my list to make sure that we touch on all of them before we leave the meeting, is that if ICU capacity, which is more tied to staffing than it is to the actual beds, if it dropped below a threshold, that they would then have an exemption to be able to do what they need to do with their staffing levels. Do we know what that threshold would be? Nope. So might I interject here? Absolutely, council member. Suggest that, you know, so I'm a healthcare worker and I work with janitors and nursing assistants and admin people and we're all healthcare workers regardless of whether you're a doctor or a maintenance worker. All that the category of healthcare workers is far too broad to exempt this entire group of people. If we were looking if the request came in very specifically talking about ICU beds and staff that is assigned to those units, I could see having a conversation about it, but this in my mind was a way to originally take out, you know, one of the broadest sectors in the American economy. And already there are fewer protections like OSHA exempts anybody with an aerosol transmissible disease protocol from some of their job protections. And I'm just not comfortable going there. What I will say is that during the original passage of our now expired ordinance, what we committed to and what we stayed on top of was that if at any point our ordinance endangering the health or welfare of the people who need to access our hospital or the employees who serve on the COVID units that we would quickly and expeditiously address that. And I believe that we're well poised to change course and to address it if something comes up like that. I do remember that nuance and it was an important one. And I believe that we would be able to be nimble enough to be able to make that kind of change with that be accurate, Jeff. I think so. And remember if a worker has already availed themselves of the 80 hours, they don't get a fresh leave bank. So I throw that out there. And as well as the fact that I think those folks may have received vaccinations, but maybe I'm stepping into policy and I don't want to do that. Appreciate that. Also, I'm just trying to look really quickly if the explanation of the health care provider or the definition of a health care provider in the FSCRA if it was updated. Because the last thing that I had read was that just because you work within a hospital setting, for example, you would not be considered a health care provider. So there was an exclusion of like IT professionals, janitors, it's the licensed thing. So I'm just looking that up very quickly. Okay, I appreciate that. And I noticed that Council Member Tibbetts has unmuted on the phone. So I'll go to him and then the vice mayor and then we'll come back to you, Raeza. Thanks, Chris. My attitude towards this whole thing, I actually do like your idea of tying it towards ICU capacity, but I think the more kind of complicated and nuanced we make it, I think the greater disservice we end up doing. So I lean towards saying either exempt them or don't, but you know what, Jeff brought up a good point about the vaccines. I would say exempt them because most health care workers are about to get their second dose in the coming weeks. And this is probably going to get enacted what next week. So it might be a move point at this point. Madam Vice Mayor, go ahead, Raeza. Well, I was going to say, yeah, I'm confirming I'm on the government site and it says a person is not a healthcare provider merely because his or her employer provides healthcare services or because he or she provides a service that affects the provision of healthcare services. For example, and these are the ones that I had read, IT professionals, building maintenance staff, human resources personnel, cooks, food service worker, food service workers, records management consultants and billers are not healthcare providers. Even if they work in a hospital or similar healthcare facilities. So it, I think from the very first time we looked at this back in July, there was a very broad definition and I believe that they narrowed it from that definition. Okay, thank you. Madam Vice Mayor. I hope I'm not speaking out as heard, but I really would just like to say that our healthcare providers, they are not exempt from having family members that they may need to care for or other people. I know that I am in the stages of being vaccinated but that clearly does not protect my children nor my husband that I may have to care for at any time. I would also like to point out that I think we have very fine healthcare providers and being one, I know that we go to work because that is what we want to do is to serve and help provide care. So when the need arises, I have all the confidence in our healthcare providers that if they can make it to work and if they do not need to stay home and take care of a family member or themselves that they will do so. So I am not in favor of exempting them. Thank you. Okay, then council, I think we have our motion with a second and with those four amendments that Jeff had read through, does anybody need any points of clarification or to go through those amendments one more time with Jeff or should we call the vote? I do have one last question, Chris, sorry. Go ahead. I apologize also if it was already stated but is this going to be retroactive, Jeff? No, it is not for the- Did we come to that determination because we felt that we legally could not or be illegally precarious to do so. I remember that was a concern at the last meeting. I would still like to see it be retroactive if we could but what are your thoughts? That is the concern. As I mentioned in the last meeting subject to legal challenge and I do have some concerns about that. And I would not accept that as a friendly amendment. I appreciate the thought. Any additional comments, questions or amendments? All right, I'm seeing that council member Alvarez and then I'll come to council member Fleming. Point of clarification, please, on the amendment. I believe, did you see me first? I'm sorry. Yeah, go ahead council member. Point of clarification. In regards to the comment that vice mayor Nali Vargas made, on that amendment are we saying that we will protect the healthcare workers, especially after she's making a great point that a healthcare worker might be the person that's caretaking opposed to being the second individual. Yeah, so what I heard from the vice mayor and from the motion and the second is that there will be no exemption for folks who work in healthcare. Council member Fleming. Yeah, one other thing is, is it possible to have this translated, the PDFs that will be online translated into Spanish? Yes, for any public notices, we translate those same things minimum wage. We have it both in English and in Spanish. Thank you. Sorry for the extra work. Yeah, I appreciate that question. That's my expectation that we always do that, but I appreciate when we can clarify that for the public as well. Council, any other comments? All right, Adam City Clerk, let's call the roll. Okay, council member Tibbetts. Aye. Council member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council member Sawyer. Aye. Council member Fleming. Aye. Council member Alvarez. Aye. Vice mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with seven ayes. Truly sausage in the making, but well done. All right, thank you so much council members. So we do not have any public hearings tonight. We will go on to our second public, we will go on to our second public comment for non-agenda items period. If there are folks who would like to make a comment, go ahead and raise your hand on Zoom. Okay, saying done. We already played our voicemail public comments for the evening. We have no additional items and so we will adjourn. Thank you council so much. We'll see you soon.